What, pray tell, are we to do with this 2 million acres now? Sit and look at it? Ain't it puuuuuuuurdy? Of what use is it now? Except to the animals, which wouldn't have been bothered by a few roads, oil rigs or whatever, anyhoo?
I like to hike through it without hearing trucks rambling down the road. I like to camp out in it without having hunters walk up on my campsite in the early morning hours.
It's also a great place to practice primitive skills such as fire making, shelter and trapping. With the amount of time I've spent in the woods lately, they're handy skills to have should I really need them.
But I'm also perfectly happy with the land I've already made use of.
Do any of you libs know where the lumber to build the house you live in came from? Or the lumber to fabricate your $10,000 dollar kitchen? Or the lumber to build your second house?
I do. Around here it comes from the private land owned by tree farmers as well as the managed land (that isn't any part of the land that was just set aside in this bill) that is maintained by the state/federal forestry commission. Once every now and again, they go in and cut down some trees. It's a year-round business in these parts. I'm almost run over by a logging truck or 12 every day.
If you have a love of the land, you take care of it. Well-managed logging practices are a good example, just as you said.
Is clear-cutting an entire section of forest "well-managed logging practices"?
Shit. Slap me silly. Around here, they cut a fire break every so often, then set fires and burn off a lot of the underbrush and fallen leaf litter.
