A Forest Park Without Trees??
When I realized that much of the Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park was going to be harvested over the next 25 years, I was very disappointed. And when I saw that harvesting meant clearcut right down to the dirt, I was appalled. It is incredibly jarring to be walking along in the woods of a county park and to suddenly come upon acres of devastation. It hurts my soul every time I see it.
In this time of global warming, when we need every tree to help clean the air and cool the planet, we must prevent clearcutting wherever we can. That is why I want to save the trees we still have and plant more. It is the only enduring thing I can do. Humans may die out, but the trees we save, the trees we plant, will live on.
“I believe that planting trees is the longest lasting, unequivocal good most of us will ever do with our very own hands. However much we recycle or bicycle, weigh the carbon footprints of paper or plastic, whatever food choices or travel choices we make — all of these decisions and actions only hope to mitigate our personal drop in the ocean of environmental responsibility.
Planting trees actively makes the climate better, and long after you and I are gone, the trees we plant will be cooling and filtering the atmosphere, holding water in the soil and the topsoil to the earth, providing habitat and food to wildlife, and sequestering carbon.” [From “Sunset Over the Apocalypse” at www.alia.link]
After seeing the before and after pictures one cannot ignore the devastation caused. All that’s left are pictures and memories of forrests that perished. Our Forest Fund does a great job of explaining and visually presenting what is at stake motivating me to support their efforts while there is still time to make a difference! We can never put a price on something so precious as our forests, but we can try to balance out the scales with those who think they are able to quantify the value to only quench their short term visions and objectives.