LETTERS: LETTER'S ENVIRONMENTAL 'FACTS' REFUTED

To the editor:

I have just returned from Costa Rica, a developing Latin American country where the prevailing public and political climates are light years ahead of the depressingly anti-conservationist, neo-conservative views that are argued by some in the United States. It is regrettable that many of these voices come from the current Republican Congress, which remains bent on surging towards environmental destruction. I was further depressed by a July 3 letter to the editor from William Jud representing that far-right-wing lunatic fringe where delusions of United Nations conspiracies are born. In his desire to promote the voice of environmental pillage and plunder, Mr. Jud resorts to making up evidence in an attempt to support his position. I am never quite sure whether Mr. Juds misinformation and absurd ramblings are best left alone to deny his position for themselves, or whether they need to be countered lest the audience not recognize their absurdityMr. Jud argued that early Missouri surveyors found a dense forest which was devoid of wildlife. It is hard to know from where Mr. Jud generated this idea, but it was clearly not from reports written by those early surveyors. Rather, they generally reported a Missouri landscape that was largely open, with densely forested river banks but frequent upland savannas and grasslands supporting abundant deer, elk and bison. It is thought that this landscape was the result of the management activities of the indigenous peoples (American Indians) who frequently employed fire to modify the landscape in order to burn out tree seedlings and maintain grassland areas. It does seem true, as Mr. Jud suggests, that many of the current forests of Missouri are far different from those that greeted European settlers. This difference, it seems, is a result of the management of the landscape by the settlers and their descendants. Firstly they suppressed the fires, and then they decimated most of the subsequently grown forest as they undertook a turn-of-the-century harvesting spree that destructively logged the state to near forest oblivion. Not surprisingly, the dependent wildlife (comprising both the consumable animals to which Mr. Jud seems only to refer as well as many other species of both plants and animals of less directly discernable benefit to humans but essential to the health of these communities) suffered similarly. In his defense of mining and logging forested lands, Mr. Jud correctly argues that forested and mined land can be restored. Wood is certainly a renewable resource if managed appropriately, and healthy forests can be maintained while being harvested cautiously. But turning a forest into a tree farm is not forest management. One wonders why taxpayer dollars are spent promoting the destruction of forest ecosystems, some of which are many centuries old, in order to supply a one-way pallet market that could be served with recycled and reusable plastic pallets, and a paper market that could use better fiber sources such as kenaf and hemp, some of which might be grown as agricultural crops on lands currently planted to that lethal drug, tobacco. It is quite reasonable to use timber for construction so long as it is grown in a renewable manner. The destruction of forests for pallets and paper, however, is inexcusable. Meanwhile, our Missouri mining industry is a national leader when it comes to violations of environmental laws, since all too often it leaves its toxic tailings to pollute groundwater and waterways in many cases, the source of our own drinking water. Though wise management and environmental restoration could and should be the case with natural resource use, we have far too much evidence that forestry and mining industries neither maintain healthy ecosystems nor undertake adequate restoration unless required by law to do so. When children make a mess, we usually insist that they clean it up. If time and again they refuse to clean up, we are inclined to withdraw from them the privilege of playing in our bedroom and our living room. We confine them to their own rooms so that they have to live with their own mess. Unfortunately for us, when the mining industry plays in its own room, it allows the mess to spill into our living area. Now, it wants to return to our living room. Given its record, the only sensible recourse for us is to deny this privilege.

As we learn more about conditions at the time of European settlement, and the management activities of the residents of that time, we could become better able to manage our forests and promote the wealth of species that occupied Missouri at that time. Alternatively, we could turn southern Missouri into a landscape of mine tailings, toxic rivers and tree farms.

Throughout his letter, Mr. Jud refers, sarcastically I presume, to an 'environmental industry.' Maybe he is attempting to lump forest levellers and toxic lead miners with those wishing to protect local and global environments, those who defend human health and the long-term human economy, both of which depend on maintaining and conserving natural resources and a viable planet. The question of future judgment to which Mr. Jud finally turns as he appeals to us to ignore environmental concerns, would be better phrased as follows:* Will our descendants chide us more if we fail to pillage and plunder our environment to the maximum extent possible, thus forgoing some short-term economic benefit, when we could have chosen caution?* Or will our descendants chide us more for excessively exploiting our natural resources for short-term gain, thus leaving them a planet that cannot offer the quality of life that we currently enjoy, and doing this when we could have practiced conservation management.

If our decisions today are to be based on seeking a favorable judgment from future generations, there seems little doubt that the William Juds of our time are urging us in entirely the wrong direction. ALAN R.P. JOURNETDepartment of BiologySoutheast Missouri State University

Cape Girardeau