Clear-cutting

An area of forest was clear-cut to supply mantelpiece beams for a building company in China. Forest management? Rampant, careless capitalism? After the cutting, most of the wood was burned as brush. Hundreds of very large tree trunks were abandoned as trash.

Walking through the clear-cut area was like walking through a war zone. It was impossible not to feel sad about the loss of hundred-year-old spruce and fir trees. Some say clear-cutting makes way for greater diversity of plant life. Some say that's just lip-service for those who don't care at all about sustainability and forest management; it's all "spin." I don't know.

It reminded me of this passage from Trip to Bountiful, by Horton Foote: "Do you remember how my papa always had that field over there planted in cotton? See, it’s all woods now. But I expect some day people will come again and cut down the trees and plant the cotton and maybe even wear out the land again and then their children will sell it and go to the cities and then the trees will come up again. We’re part of all this. We left it, but we can never lose what it has given us."