Dear HCN,
In your article in the
June 9 Western Roundup section, Randal O’Toole stated that he
“would have each national forest operate autonomously, allowing
each to sell its trees at fair-market value. Forests would not be
subsidized by tax dollars but funded by their own profits. Ideally,
Congress would have little to do with forest management.”
Ideally, it would also be great if pigs could
fly. But we all know that pigs can’t fly and that management of the
national forests is inherently political.
While I
agree that free-market approaches to many aspects of public forest
management would be beneficial, too much local “autonomy” of what
are national resources can lead to the type of one-sided forest
management that we have seen for far too long in areas dominated by
single-resource
industries.
Mike
Benefield
Prineville,
Oregon
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Pigs can’t fly.
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