Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist

by Patrick Moore

  Forests, and the trees that define them, are the most complex systems we know of in the universe. To a computer scientist or a molecular biologist, this statement may at first seem exaggerated, but it is a fact. To begin with, we don’t know of any other planet that harbors life. On Earth it is undeniable that forested ecosystems are home to the vast majority of living species. Every needle and leaf on every tree is a factory more complex than the most sophisticated chemical plant or nuclear reactor. We may be capable of genetic modification and producing atomic energy but we can’t imitate photosynthesis, never mind the infinitely more intricate systems that make up the entirety of a forest. There is every reason, despite our considerable talents, to live in wonder of the natural world and, I would argue, of forests in particular. As far as we are concerned, photosynthesis might just as well be magic.

  Me posing in front of a 100-year-old second-growth Sitka spruce tree on our land in Winter Harbour. You have to live in the rain forest for half a lifetime to appreciate the cycles of disturbance and growth.

  Our species was born of the forest, descended from primates that came down from trees to the savannah, got this two-legged habit of mobility and made history. The males among us excelled at running across the open plains, spears and clubs in hand, replacing even the lion as “king of the beasts.” But in our new posture the forest was no longer our primary home. The forest was more dangerous than the savannah because predators could find cover there and make a surprise attack. We evolved from a forest-dependent species to a species that distrusted and disliked the forest. Then we learned to use fire. The forest provided the firewood and when we used fire to clear the forest we made more productive grazing land for the animals we hunted for food, bone, sinew, and hide. Then we invented the axe.

  If you observe the dwellings of people who live in Africa and other tropical regions today, you will see they keep vegetation away from their huts. A couple of million years of experience with snakes, scorpions, and lions has resulted in a scorched earth approach to yard maintenance. As humans spread out across the other continents, they took with them the habit of making large clearings around their homes. In colder climates this has the added benefit of letting the sunshine in. Trees provided the building materials for shelter and the fuel to keep the homes warm. When we began the transformation from hunting and gathering to agriculture, the axes really came in handy. The forest was an obstacle to be overcome. Over the past 10,000 years we have converted nearly one-third of the world’s forests into cities, farms, and pastures, the best one-third in terms of fertility and productivity. Thus our species became a dominant force in shaping landscapes to our own design. No wonder we became too sure of our ability to overcome all natural obstacles as we transformed the earth to serve our growing needs for food, energy, and materials.

  As long as the human population was reasonably small compared with the vastness of global forests, deforestation remained a very local issue. But as numbers grew and more land was cleared for crops and grazing animals, we began to take our toll on the natural world. It went reasonably well, other than the frequent wars and short lifespan, until the Industrial Revolution and the exponential increase in the use of wood for fuel, fuel for heating, fuel for smelting iron and copper, fuel for glassworks, and eventually fuel for steam engines to run the factories, ships, and trains. During the 18th and 19th centuries forests of the industrialized European countries were rapidly decimated and wood soon came into short supply.[1]

  We began to learn how to farm trees in the same way we had learned to farm food 10,000 years earlier. The art and science of silviculture, more commonly known as forestry, emerged in central Europe as a way to increase the wood supply to feed the growing demands of industry. Up until about 250 years ago forests had merely been exploited and the land was either converted to farm land or left to grow back on its own, often with trees not as stately or useful as the ones that preceded them. Now people began to replant harvested areas with new trees of desirable species for timber production. Over the past 200 years the forested area of Europe has tripled from about 10 percent to about 30 percent, due almost entirely to the transition from pure exploitation to forest management.

  Similar patterns have occurred more recently in China and India, where the demand for wood products from an emerging middle class has resulted in a doubling of forest area in recent decades. During the past 20 years, China has added more new forest than any other country and has adopted an aggressive reforestation program that will continue into the foreseeable future. The forests of Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Chile, South Africa, and Japan are all stable or growing in area due to the application of sustainable forestry management. And even though there is a net loss of forests in Brazil and Indonesia due to clearing for farming, there is also a major effort afoot to establish sustainable plantation forestry over large areas.[2] In general it is the industrialized countries that have avoided further deforestation while it is the tropical developing countries that continue to experience loss of forests.

  It may seem ironic that with few exceptions the countries that use the most wood have a stable or growing area of forest whereas the countries that use the least wood are losing forest as more land is cleared for agriculture. There are two reasons for this apparent contradiction. First, the adoption of intensive agricultural practices in the industrialized countries makes it possible to grow much more food on the same amount of land. Advances in technology, chemistry, and genetics have brought about a five-fold increase in productivity over the past 100 years. This has resulted in a vast increase in food production without the need to clear any more forested land. Second, it is precisely because we use so much wood that the area of forest is maintained. We may think that when we buy wood from a lumberyard we are causing a bit of forest to be lost somewhere. But what we are really doing is sending a signal into the marketplace to plant more trees to produce more wood to supply the demand in the lumberyard. It is no different from any other renewable crop, it’s just that trees take longer to mature than annual farm crops. Forestry is more comparable to tree-fruits like apples and oranges where it takes some years before there is a harvest. But trees are no different from farm crops; as long as the demand for wood is steady and strong, landowners, both private and public, will plant trees to supply that demand. Take note this is the polar opposite to the contention that the way to save forests is to stop cutting trees.

  We learned to farm trees nearly 300 years ago, so you would expect people might be familiar with the concept by now. There is an interesting comparison here with the debate over salmon farming. Activists are clearly against cutting trees that grow in the wilderness, yet they insist it is better to eat wild salmon and to boycott farmed salmon. This kind of logical inconsistency creates confusion and fails to recognize that farming trees and farming salmon both contribute to the sustainability of the resource. That’s why we evolved from simply exploiting wild species of plants and animals to farming them.

  Imagine a scenario in which our morning newspapers carry headlines warning that new research shows tomatoes cause cancer. Tomatoes would rot on the grocers’ shelves and no farmer would be foolish enough to plant them the next season. But imagine if the headlines announced that tomatoes cured cancer. They would all be sold as fast as stores could stock them and farmers would line up to buy seed, purchase more land, and take out bank loans to increase tomato production. Trees and wood are no different. Take North America as a perfect example. There is the same area of forest in both the U.S. and Canada today as there was 100 years ago; in fact the area of forest has been growing in recent years. This is despite a tripling of population and an even larger increase in the consumption of food and wood products. About 85 percent of timber production in the U.S. is from private lands. Those millions of individual landowners could easily remove the forest from the land and grow crops like corn or cotton or raise cows for beef. But they choose to grow trees because they know they will get a good price for them
to pay their taxes, send their children to college, and live a good life. Because landowners choose to grow trees the land remains forested, providing habitat for other plants and wildlife, pulling carbon from the air, protecting soil from erosion, and making the landscape beautiful. Rather than illustrating the common belief that forestry destroys the forest it is truly a win-win solution for the environment and the economy, maintaining the land in a forested state while providing an income for the owners.

  A great disservice to public understanding of forests is the allegation that the forest industry is the main cause of deforestation. Of course when you think about it, forest companies are in the business of growing trees, not removing them permanently. Reforestation, that is, the practice of replanting trees after they are harvested, is the opposite of deforestation. Once we realize deforestation is caused primarily by clearing forests to make way for farms and cities it becomes obvious that deforestation is not an evil plot by multinational forestry corporations. It is something we do on purpose in order to grow our food and house our population. The more intensively we grow our food, the less forest must be cleared. And the more wood we use sustainably, the more incentive there is to keep the land forested to provide that wood. Next time you fly over a country landscape of farms and forests, note the patterns of land use that are caused largely by the relative demands for food and timber products.

  Deforestation isn’t something that happens and then is done forever. Deforestation is a continuing process of purposeful human activity aimed at preventing the forest from growing back. Farmers plow their fields regularly and encourage the growth of crops, working hard to keep other plants, insects, and animals off their land. Cattle farmers do the same. Roads are continually repaired (so we hope). If roads were left disused for a few years, grasses and other plants would take root and within a few decades those roads would have all but disappeared with a profusion of new growth, including trees, rapidly taking over.

  Of course it is important to maintain large areas of land as parks and wilderness, and make them off limits to industrial development for factories, managed forests, or farms. The World Wildlife Fund, one of the largest nature protection groups, states that 10 percent of the world’s forests should be protected from development. I would have no problem with 15 percent or even more in some cases. In California about 25 percent of the natural range of the coastal redwood forest is completely protected. The redwood is a unique tree, the tallest in the world, and creates such a beautiful ecosystem, that it is reasonable to protect a significant percentage as natural forest. But some anti-forestry activists are never satisfied. They would fight until every tree was protected as if using trees for wood products was unnecessary. Redwoods produce a unique wood that is both durable for outdoor use as well as beautiful in color and texture. Therefore it is also reasonable that large areas of the redwood forest be sustainably managed for timber. The most important thing is to make sure that as much of the forest as possible is retained either for protection or forest management, and as little as possible is deforested and converted to non-forest uses.

  The Aesthetics of Landscapes

  We have all been told since childhood that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Yet we are easily inclined to think that if we like what we see it is good and if we don’t like the looks of what we see it is bad. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but beauty is often only skin deep. This tendency to judge things by their appearance is one of the greatest obstacles to public understanding of land use in general and forestry in particular.

  We like the looks of things that are neat and tidy. We don’t like things that look messy or out of place. We prefer order to disorder. Perhaps there are good reasons for this instinct, but it does not serve us well when judging the merits of various landscapes and land uses. Neat and tidy are not virtues in ecology, messy and jumbled often indicate a healthy ecosystem. Let’s consider some examples.

  No one thinks a wheat field shimmering in the sunlight is ugly. Yet from an environmental point of view, a wheat field represents the total destruction of a diverse native ecosystem, replacing it with a monoculture crop. If the wheat is grown in North America, South America, or Australia it is further an exotic species since wheat is only native to Europe and Asia. But most people think a recently harvested forest, with stumps and jumbled-up limbs and debris, is unsightly, even ugly. Such a scene is often judged as the complete and permanent destruction of the forest ecosystem. Despite the fact that a new forest of native trees will soon be planted on the site we judge it to represent the destruction of the environment. So we think a monoculture of exotic wheat in nice neat rows looks good, but we judge a recent clearcut in the forest to be unacceptable.

  All manner of agricultural crops planted in rows look pretty, even though the original ecosystem has been completely destroyed and replaced with species not native to the region. We even think recently plowed fields, with nothing growing on them, look better than the mess of a recently harvested forest. Yet there is more biodiversity in an area of recently harvested forest than there will ever be on an area of farmland. We actually prefer the sight of an asphalt parking lot marked with fresh yellow lines to a recently logged landscape. We like the looks of a fancy new car parked in front of an upscale hotel, but we do not like the clutter that results from harvesting trees. We judge the book by its cover and we reach a fundamentally incorrect verdict on the health of ecosystems as a result.

  Imagine you are sitting at a high spot looking down at sheep grazing peacefully in a grassy meadow on a warm summer day. It is a scene of tranquility and peace; all is well with the world. Yet in truth you are looking at the deforestation of a landscape where there were once majestic oaks, beeches, and pines. The sheep are an exotic, domesticated species originating in Mesopotamia. You are looking at the permanent removal of the forest and the destruction of the native ecosystem.

  Now imagine you have stopped beside an area of recently harvested native forest. You may be shocked by the fresh carnage of sawed-off stumps and jagged limbs. You may believe that an ecosystem has been destroyed for profit and forever ruined. But in all likelihood it will not be long before tree seedlings, of the same native species that were cut, grow back from native seeds or are planted here. And within a few years a thriving new forest will emerge, complete with native animals, birds, shrubs, and wildflowers. And don’t forget, the farmer grazing his sheep in the meadow is also trying to make a living.

  We tend to judge landscapes by how pretty a postcard they would make; that’s art, not science. I dwell on this because I believe we need to get a new pair of eyes to view the landscapes around us; to get beyond the immediate impression of ugly versus beauty and to understand a little more about science, ecology, and biodiversity. Otherwise we will never get beyond an emotional rather than a logical approach to understanding the look of the land around us. It is not a difficult concept but unfortunately it is not instinctual, it must be explained with clear examples showing the difference between a parking lot and a recently harvested forest, between deforestation and reforestation. And we must realize that a snapshot in time is not the whole story. A landscape that looks ugly today may be beautiful in a few years as the ecosystem recovers from disturbance.

  As if the hurdle of getting over our aesthetic intuition were not a large enough barrier to understanding the ecology of landscapes there is another confusing factor. This is the fact that in order to prepare a plot of land for farming it must first be logged. It is likely that any usable timber cleared from the land will be used to make lumber or that it will be burned as firewood. Therefore it is easy to get the impression that the deforestation is caused by loggers rather than farmers even though the reason for clearing the land had nothing to do with forestry. Anti-forestry groups work hard to reinforce this false impression

  Disturbance versus Destruction

  The anti-forestry folks have become very good at using strong language to reinforce the impression that forestry destroys the
environment. Forest companies are accused of “rape,” “desecration,” “pillage,” and “plunder” when they harvest trees for lumber to build our homes, furniture, and other wood products. Propaganda is largely about associating words and ideas with positive or negative descriptors, loading them down with verbal baggage that triggers an emotional reaction. A critical part of critical thinking is the ability to recognize when you are being misled by loaded language.

  Take the word clearcut, for example. Many people associate this word with forest destruction as for them it implies the forest has been wiped out, eliminated, and otherwise lost forever. And yet the word clearing, as in the phrase a clearing in the forest, has no such negative connotation. In fact a clearing is a nice place where the sun can get in and one can build a home and plant a garden. Clearings are pleasant whereas clearcuts are nasty.

  In truth clearcut is a forestry term that means to cut all the trees in a given area, large or small. But the clearcut will be reforested, as that is what forestry requires. A clearing, on the other hand, is usually a permanent feature, making way for a new farm or urban development. Clearcuts are reforested while clearings usually equal deforestation.