Guest commentary

I was deeply disappointed in the recent "Endangered Forests" report published by Green Peace and the National Forest Protection Alliance because it focuses on the same old conflicts that the Forest Service, as well as a lot of informed and committed environmentalists are trying to move beyond. It ignores the current and very real threats to our national forests, which are unnaturally severe wildland fires, invasive species, unmanaged recreation, and the fragmentation of wildlands adjacent to national forests.

The article reports that commercial logging on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (CNNF) is unsustainable, has little economic value and is destroying threatened and endangered plants and animals. Nothing could be further from the truth. While 116 million board feet of timber is thinned annually from the forest, that amounts to less than 70 percent of the annual harvest volume prescribed in the forest plan based on scientific inventory and ecological factors. Forest products cut annually from the CNNF and processed in Wisconsin's forest industry creates over 4,000 direct and indirect jobs and provides over $2 million in direct federal payments to local counties and towns. Pine marten, fisher and grey wolf all listed as threatened or endangered at one time thrive on our national forest and are more abundant today than at any time in the history of the CNNF. There is no documented case of commercial logging causing the extinction of any plant or animal. On the contrary, commercial logging is an efficient cost effective way to thin overcrowded trees from the forest and maintain the habitats necessary for sensitive plant and animal species to exist. Modern high tech logging equipment exerts less ground pressure than horse logging and can thin trees with surgical precision.

The Forest Service, which has done more than any agency in this country to bring back many American forests from near extinction, is working with its partners to protect the national forest system and state and private forests from these four threats. This report would have you believe otherwise. It serves up a flawed product in an alarmist fashion, with dated arguments and no scientific basis for its conclusions. The photos are not dated, nor are their locations identified. This report is one more distraction in a long list of distractions and diversions that in the end harms all of us.

EARTH FIRST

We'll log the other planets later !!!!!

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God and the Soldier we all adore,
In times of trouble and then no more
when war is over and all things righted
God is forgotten, the old soldier Slighted.

Gene Francisco is the writer of the opinion placed here by the webmaster. He is the excecutive director of the WI Professional Loggers Association. And he was educated at a time when knowledge of the relationship between forests and other life was little known and foresters were taught that forests should be managed to produce the most aspen or whatever the prevailing corporate culture asks for.

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If all the atheists left the United States it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than 1% of the prison population.

Webmaster: The link on the frontpage to get to the opinion piece does not work.

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If all the atheists left the United States it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than 1% of the prison population.

Another interesting yet typical Dagger response. Gene Francisco was for many years the Chief Forester for the State of Wisconsin. As such and as a result of his groundbreaking work in the field of forestry and conservation, Mr. Francisco has an outstanding reputation throughout the world. I always find it interesting when someone without credentials of any kind dismisses a man of eminent qualification for little more than being old. I can tell you without a doubt that this state was lucky to have a man like Mr. Francisco on the payroll. What he says in his editorial is the truth and he should be listened to.

Yes, typical in that he/she is correct. Francisco's tale appeared in many papers in a variety of versions. It is wrong on percentage of world population that U.S. constitutes, wrong on consumption thereof and wrong on virtually all its other claims.

For example, it ignores the destruction of species of plants and animals that depend on canopy forest that occurrs when sunlight is brought in by "thinning" and so forth.

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"Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other." -Baha'u'llah

I’m confused? Just what is Dagger right about?
> And he was educated at a time when… <

What the heck does this mean? Just how old does one’s education have to be before it is considered worthless? And at what level of education is that you give up or lose the ability to continue learning? High school? College? ****, I’ve had people with master’s degrees that were not as “educated” in the job I hired them for as some high school kid working right next to them?

As for survival of species, it is amazing how quick most tree-higgin’ wackos are to forget that man too, is a species. The fact is, there has been a few million species that have come and gone long before man ever set foot on this planet. Probably going to continue that way long after we are gone too.

No doubt this Gene Francisco is on “some sort of quasi right-wing religious mission” too.

Ahhh...wonderful. Now we have brother Abraham logging in on yet another issue that he/she knows little or nothing about. Mr. Franciso has a lifetime of education, training, and service upon which to base his premises. Brother Abraham has....well, perhaps he will tell us what magazine article he gleaned his vast knowledge from. If he lived up here he would at least have some first hand appreciation for the role of the lumber industry in preserving and continuing our forests. But this is going to be difficult from his/her chair in Chicago or whatever big city he/she calls home.

Actually I have first hand experience with forests in a wide variety of areas, for one I have owned over 100 acres for over 30 years and can tell you exactly what happens in the cause and effect realm. The timber industry has done as much damage in destroying and discontinuing our public forests as they have for the private forest producer. Every one of the giveaways on public forests directly drives down what the private producer gets.

The time factor of education is relevant in that a certain generation of foresters were taught that forests exist only for human consumption and materialistic use instead of for their inherent value. This still occurs depending on where they are "educated".

<small>[ July 15, 2003, 10:54 PM: Message edited by: Abraham ]</small>

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"Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other." -Baha'u'llah

"...whatever big city he/she calls home." My township is now pushing 800 residents. For those who don't know a standard township is 6 square miles.

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"Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other." -Baha'u'llah

>The time factor of education is relevant<

This is ridicules coming from someone who seems to be a well-educated person.

The time frame of one’s education is birth to death. Anyone that refuses to learn about their chosen career field and stay current is more then likely just plain lazy or ignorant if not both.

To suggest that a person is no longer credible on current issues simply because he didn’t graduate yesterday [and you don’t agree with him] is about as arrogant and ignorant as it gets.

How about it Abraham, did you graduate yesterday or is your education out dated to and therefore we can write you off as outdated and irrelevant also?

<small>[ July 16, 2003, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: JFlosum ]</small>

Why would a forest NEED some outside management? Is there something wrong with the way God manages them?

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When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

And maybe Gods plan was for us to be able to use these great forests and slowly learn to use them wisely?

Perhaps God in all his wisdom knew we would make mistakes and learn from them?

Who are we to even guess what God (or any other supreme or divine being) may think, want or have planned?

<small>[ July 16, 2003, 10:12 PM: Message edited by: Kerry Tobin ]</small>

Says who?

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When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

So you believe in Manifest Destiny? Hmmm... what happens when the directives you receive from your God clash with those of your neighbor who may have a different God or belief system?

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When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

Brian, I think they have a word for that. It's Israel.

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Yes, Flosum I would argue that "education" can be outdated. When I went to grade school Columbus was a hero. Now he is a morally bankrupt, greed driven destroyer of the Taino natives. My whole life I have heard that at least the speed of light was constant in the universe. The other day I read an article the thesis of which claimed that this may not be so.

You comment on keeping current in your profession. I would argue with Plato that there is distinction between skills and knowledge. Knowledge is universal and eternal while skills are transient or endemic to a particular time and place. You may hone the best computer skills in the world, but 20 years from now they are obsolete, thus not knowledge.

This coming fall's group of college freshmen will have all for the most part been born in 1985. Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Yes, all my Nixon jokes have become obsolete.

Foresters educated in the fifties and sixties didn't know that if you let light into the understory of a forest, the wild ginseng and other shade grow plans would die. Now they know, but don't care.

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"Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other." -Baha'u'llah

>No nation ever existed without some sense of national destiny or purpose.<
Can you give some examples? Start with Iceland. And what is the national destiny or purpose of our country?

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When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

Come off it Abraham, all that bs rhetoric is nothing but just that, bs for the sake of obfuscating the fact that you didn’t agree with the guy so you had to try to discredit him. I never said one’s education could not be outdated. But I doubt you know or even give two hoots if Gene Francisco had stayed current with modern forest management policy. You just merely want to tarnish the guy because you don’t agree with him.

For the most part formal education is not what it is all hyped up to be. The first thing me and my “just barely squeaked through high school” education had to do with nearly every college grad I ever hired was uneducate him from the bs he learned in some liberal college and teach him how it was done in the real world. My guess is Francisco learned more form “doing” over the many years then he ever learned form is college or formal education days.

Formal education some times is a nothing but a nuisance. It’s how well that formal education prepared you to keep learning every single day of your life that is much more important then the current crap they dish out in most of these schools these days.