0.5% of Forest Remains After Logging

In the Native Forest Council’s video, Exposing the Truth- Part 1 of 3, they show through Google Earth what forty years of logging has done to national forests. Logging areas are 80 to 90 acres in size and there are hundreds spread throughout almost all of America’s national parks. The clear cut logging removes all of the trees and leaves the land bare. The government does not seem to care about the land because they sell it for a loss and do not do anything to protect landmarks such as 500 year old trees. The video states, “The national forests provide a small fraction of our wood fiber consumption as a nation.” This shows that we could live without the logging or reduced logging of national forests. Only 2 million acres remain of the once 950 million original acres which is 0.5 percent.

The images in this video show the devastating impacts of logging. It is amazing to see the land 40 years ago before major logging started. What little land we have left should be conserved because the land that had already been logged will take hundreds of years to return to its previous state. If something is not done, we will continue wasting our nation’s history through this unnecessary business. I think that the government should reevaluate their priorities and see that our environment should be very close to the top of that list.

Exposing the Truth - Part 1 of 3. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Native Forest Council, 19 Aug. 2009. Web. 15 Apr. 2010. YouTube - Exposing the Truth - Part 1 of 3.