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The landscape has been so transformed by ignorance, arrogance and greed that those who must prove their case are not those who call for forest protection, but those who call for business as usual," says Richard Brown of the National Wildlife Federation. Less than 10% of the ancient forest that once covered the Northwest remains. From Alaska to British Columbia to Oregon, forests that predate the 13 Colonies are being sacrificed for plywood, planks and pulp. The rapidity with which these primeval stands are being cut down has driven a handful of environmental extremists to sabotage timber-industry equipment, tie themselves to trees slated for harvesting and booby-trap trees with buried spikes that can mangle saws or injure unwary cutters.
All this bewilders timber-industry leaders, who say there are plenty of owls, plus abundant old-growth stands set aside in wilderness areas, that are safe from the saw. In Oregon about half the state's estimated 3 million acres of old growth cannot be logged because it is unsuitable or designated as wilderness. But that leaves 1.5 million acres of old growth that can be cut. Some of these areas contain no owls and are not likely to be protected.
How much ancient forest is enough? The question is not just one of aesthetics or recreational adequacy. No one knows how much forest is needed to sustain an intricate and little understood ecosystem upon which animals and plants, and, yes, man too, depend. What is known is that the old growth plays an integral role in regulating water levels and quality, cleaning the air, enhancing the productivity of fisheries and enriching the stability and character of the soil. "We're probably just on the edge in terms of our understanding," says Eric Forsman, a biologist with the Forest Service. "If we continue pell-mell down the path of eliminating these old forests, we'll never have the opportunity to learn because they won't be there to study." He and others have come to believe that where science ends, the mystery that is the ancient forest begins.
To understand what is at stake in human terms, it helps to visit a community that depends on timber for its existence. Take Oregon's Douglas County, which, like the fir, is named for the Scottish botanist David Douglas. Oregon produces more lumber than any other state, and Douglas County boasts that it is the timber capital of the world. It stretches from the Cascades in the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. There one can tune in to Timber Radio KTBR, feel the roads tremble beneath logging trucks and watch children use Lego sets to haul sticks out of imaginary forests. In the current struggle, Douglas County is ground zero, likely to take as direct an economic hit as any site in the region. "Something is going to happen in the next few months that will rip the rug right out from under us," says Lonnie Burson, who works in a sawmill and presides over the union, Local 2949, that represents 3,400 lumber- and millworkers.