August 1992

Letter From the Lumberjack's Friend

Hi,

Well, by now we've all heard about the ongoing destruction of the rain
forest in South America. Borneo and other parts of the world. If it
continues unabated, life as we know it will never be the same.

But image you live in one of those countries. It would be pretty irritating to have a bunch of rick celebrities from wealthy nations telling you to stop, especially when their country got rich partly by cutting down its own forests.

We should manage our own forests better before we tell everyone else what to do. We squandered our resources to become one of the richest nations on Earth. We must learn to manage what we have left. Now.

A few years ago, I was hoping to make a movie in Europe called "The Forest". I needed to find an untouched, wild, old forest. The new replanted forests, among other things, don't look the same. They're boring. Like Muzak as opposed to Music. I looked all over. There are none left ! None ! (Well, I found a 100 square kilometer patch preserved in Germany. That's it.)

Much of the same thing has happened in this country. There's only a little bit left of the original ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest. 10%. Ninety percent has been destroyed. Most of it in the last 40 years. Forty years is nothing. It takes hundreds of years to restore the diversity of the ancient forests.

We are told the issue is jobs versus owls. This is not true. Most timber
jobs have been lost to automation, log exports and relocation of mills to other regions. More jobs will be lost if the clear cutting continues.
Tourism, salmon fishing, etc. These forests are not a renewable
resource: at least, not for hundreds of years, no matter what the
timber industry and Secretary of the Interior Manual Human say.
There will be no more jobs, no owls, no medicines and no ancient
forests unless we stop the clear cutting now.

Interior Secretary Lujan is willing to sacrifice out remaining forests
so that the timber industries can continue to make huge profits.
Legislation being debated in Congress this fall could stop the
clear cutting. Please act now. This is out LAST chance. Once
destroyed, these few remaining forests will be gone forever.


The lumberjack's friend,


David Byrne