Logging does not cleanse like fire, invigorate like wind, or gradually recycle wealth, like rot or bug. Logging by any name, gradually, if not quickly, destroys a natural forest ecosystem. By contrast, in National Parks maintaining the forest for the owner's enjoyment is deemed more important than supplying private mills with cheap public wood. The Park Service, unlike the Forest Service, manages our park forests without logging, and at less expense to the taxpayer. There is an unmistakable aura of respect and dignity in well-kept National Park forests.
Visitors have the sense that their forests are being cared for instead of stripped of value.
Viewed side by side, there can be no doubt which management paradigm is saving America's forest. More Logging, Less Function Forty million acres of our most valuable forests have already been logged. Regardless of political rhetoric regarding corporate subsidies and balanced budgets, the public is still paying for the logging. The longer national forests are logged, the less functional, diverse and valuable they become. The Save America's Forest Bill appears as another short sighted compromise that condones further private exploitation of public forests.