I guess I’m really naive: I thought the only way environmentalists had ever gained any substantial ground in protecting places or species was by starting at the far-left extreme (HCN, 5/30/11).
Unfortunately, if it wasn’t for “dickybird fellows” — as Professor Emeritus Valerius Geist from the University of Calgary called environmentalists in Hal Herring’s story — places like the Opal Creek Watershed in Oregon would have been logged a long time ago, while the best U.S. Forest Service scientists watched.
If scientists could manage resources unobstructed by special interests like ranchers or logging companies, the best results for the entire ecosystem might occur. Science is not about assumption or outside influence. How refreshing that, in the same issue of HCN, the article “Find a bird” explains that whole forests are being managed for the health of a top predator. Thank God goshawks can’t kill elk or cattle!
David Poling
Grand Junction, Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline God bless the “dickybird fellows”.
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