This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the Earth and the beauty and
mystery of life in all its forms. I'm Peter Burley. Coming up, war and the environment,
the second of a series, US military commanders say that environmental laws affect the way they
conduct operations. Human needs cannot be met in the next century unless we change the way we
think and do business. Lest your brown from world watch comments on the state of the world,
and why we should lease a carpet instead of buying one. The end of the Cold War endangers brown
bears in the Russian Far East, and of the Earth calendar, red and pink grapefruit are being picked
in Florida. It's part of a great American harvest. These stories and more coming up on the Environment Show.
You're listening to the Environment Show, and I'm Peter Burley. In our first segment on the
Environmental Consequences of War, we looked at developments in the international law which prohibit
the use of the environment as a method of warfare, a tribunal set up to collect money for environmental
damage caused by a rock in the Gulf War, and an evolving doctrine of environmental war crimes.
Now, we examine what impact environmental considerations have on the conduct of US military operations.
Captain John Quinn of the Navy, who is Deputy Assistant Judge Attypickad General for
International and Operational Law in the Pentagon, says environmental considerations play a major role
in American military planning. US requirements govern domestic operations, and some US
environmental laws follow Navy vessels when they sail over the horizon. The Marine Malmö
Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act for example. So we take those obligations seriously,
and we're getting better and better at ensuring that those requirements are understood.
Sighting legal obligations to minimize collateral and environmental damage in military operations,
Navy Captain Michael Lawre, who is legal counsel to the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
or counsel to General Shelton, says that environmental considerations have been a factor in
target selection and recent bombing attacks on Iraq. Where there were targets that we suspected,
or where we thought there might be some sort of environmental consequence from the strike,
we took first off, we knew that, that was identified early on as a consideration, that this or that
target might have environmental consequences that would be disproportionate to the military
advantage, and that target was either removed from the list or in one instance,
an objective was picked within the target that severely limited the type of environmental
damage that might result from the strike. More sites an example of how this is done.
If you're going after an oil refinery, just like, let's take that as a hypothetical example.
There are lots of things that you can strike to take an oil refinery out of the ability to
manufacture to refine oil. Some of those, for instance, if you're hitting the distilling towers,
or the storage tanks themselves, can have significant environmental damage, just in terms of the
spillage, the fires that might result, that sort of thing. There are other things that can be
targeted within that refinery complex that have little or no environmental consequences,
but will effectively render that plant incapable of refining oil. Those are the decisions that
target years make, operators make, and ultimately the national command authorities make when they
decide on which targets are appropriate, and how to strike those targets.
Hayes Parks, special assistant for law of war for the Judge Advocate General of the Army,
recalled an operation where a bomb attack was called off entirely to avoid an oil spill in the
prison Gulf. There was an operation in 1988 where US forces went in to attack some Iranian
gas oil separation platforms and the Persian Gulf. They were being used as early warning
and supply points by the Iranian forces that were attacking our forces and the tankers that
were in the Persian Gulf. The decision was taken by the Secretary of Defense to send in a Marine
Corps reconnaissance personnel and Navy SEALs to actually conduct an assault on those platforms
rather than use airstrikes because it would minimize the risk of the oil leaking from the platforms.
While military doctrines that minimize environmental effects of warfare are having an impact,
Navy Captain Quinn says domestic environmental law is defining how the Navy trains and executes
its missions. It's certainly true to say that US environmental law affects the way the Navy operates.
As you're well aware, a number of statutes not just in Danger Species Act, Marine Memo Protection
Act, but also the Act to prevent pollution from ships, the Ocean Dumping Act have extraterritorial
effect and therefore the United States Navy wherever we may operate needs to be concerned with
and comply with those laws. But I think even more important than that, as we strive to have the
Navy operate in a way that not only complies with environmental law but also complies with
our own sense of environmental stewardship, that has an effect on the way people get used to
doing things at sea. There's an old adage that you train like you fight and you fight like you train,
a Navy that trains off the US coast and elsewhere in such a way to be environmentally responsible will
tend more to fight in an environmentally responsible way. Quinn also says that part of the Navy's environmental
ethic is driven by the attitudes of the younger officers and sailors in the ranks.
The Navy is populated by people, the average age is in the low 20s, who have grown up in the
in the late 70s, 80s and so forth, when the environmental ethic and understanding of this country
was growing. Those people are now the the junior officer standing watch on the ship, they're now the
enlisted people with the binoculars on the ship. And so I it's fair to say that the Navy desires
to do this to do the environmentally correct and protective thing simply for policy reasons as well
as for requirement to comply with the law. While few of us think that environmental considerations play a role in war,
both domestic and international environmental law are shaping both military campaigns and the
attitudes of the soldier sailors, airmen and Marines that fight them. I'm Peter Burley.
At the close of this millennium, Lester Brown, president of the World Watch Institute,
a nonprofit environmental think tank in Washington DC, finds that the growth and changes that have
taken place in the 20th century cannot continue in the 21st. His state of the world 1999 volume,
which has just been published, inspires both hope and despair about the future.
We've seen the output of goods and services worldwide increased 17 fold since 1900.
We've seen population increase fourfold since 1900. These trends obviously are not going to continue.
I think our principal conclusion was that just as the 20th century was quite different from the 19th
century. So the 21st century will not be a simple extension of the 20th century. And the question
of course is what will it be like? Brown says that existing economic models are not adequate to
provide for human needs in the future. What we have evolved over this past century is a fossil
fuel-based automobile-centered throwaway economy. This is an economy that sort of reaches
zenith in the United States. But as we look at efforts in China to start adopting this economy,
for example, we see it's not going to work. The Chinese can never use materials. That's right,
we do. They cannot have a car in every garage. If they do, and they use oil at the American
rate, they'll need more oil than the world, either currently produces or is ever likely to produce.
So as we look at China, we can begin to see that the western model is not going to work. And so
we're looking at a future now that's based not on fossil fuels, but on renewable energy.
One will have a solar, broadly defined, slash hydrogen economy. We're looking at a transportation
system that will be centered not around the automobile, but around in urban settings, at least around
rail and the bicycle. And we're looking not in the throwaway economy, but at a comprehensive,
reuse recycling economy. Brown says we've been using raw materials at a faster rate that
may can be replenished, but he thinks the trend is already changing. For example, now 56% of the
steel produced in the United States comes from recycled scrap. And some businesses are selling
services instead of simply throwaway products. In Atlanta, Georgia, Ray Anderson, who's the CEO of
a company called Interface, that produces carpets in, I don't know, it doesn't countries around the
world markets in more than 100. But Ray Anderson has come up with entirely new concept of carpeting.
Instead of selling carpets to companies, for example, you contract with them to provide
carpeting services. And so you provide the carpeting, you maintain it, you replace it as needed,
and maintain the whatever quality of carpeting the client would like. But then when the carpeting
is worn out and you take it out and replace them, you don't take it to the landfill, you take it
back to the factory, melt it down again, re-spend it, re-diet, and it goes back on the floor again,
someplace. And what this does is one, it eliminates need for any raw material, because you're using
with the existing, working with the existing stock all the time, and nothing goes to the landfill.
Now, I cite that as an initiative coming from industry, that illustrates how we're going to have
to restructure the economy to make it environmentally sustainable. Brown's vision of our materials
future goes beyond recycling, which he doesn't think can produce sustainability by itself.
He has hopes for new technology, like electronic paper which can be erased using an electronic
signal. Theoretically, this could be in the same sheet of paper it could be used over and over again
saving the wood pulp or fiber that newer recycled paper requires. Brown surveys a world economy
influenced by forces that will bring about change. Some corporate executives like the CEO of
British Petroleum are taking global warming seriously and taking steps to curb greenhouse emissions.
Storm-related damage worldwide last year jumped to $98 billion. 48% greater than the previous high.
This will have an impact on insurance premiums. The result browned thanks will make everybody
take global warming more seriously and provide economic incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
During this century, huge amounts of effort and national treasure have gone into building
armies and weapons for our national defense. Brown says that the next century environmental
considerations may play a much greater role in global security. The U.S. intelligence community
is beginning to recognize that water shortages and crop failures may do more to destabilize developing
countries than traditional political conflicts. Despite this, he sees the political landscape
changing in ways that can improve the health of a planet. We're beginning to see things happening
that we haven't seen before. For example, the new coalition government that took over in Germany
several months ago presented as one of its first initiatives, a restructuring of the German tax
system. Essentially reducing taxes on income and wages and offsetting it with an increase
of environmental tax, particularly at tax on carbon emissions. And the interesting thing is they
did not say we will do this if all the other industrial countries do it or if the rest of the world
does it. They said we're doing it. That was Lester Brown, president of the World Watch
Institute, which publishes the annual State of the World Review. He was talking about his 1999
findings and the environmental outlook for the next millennium.
The Environment Show is a national production. It's made possible by the W.A. and Jones Foundation,
the William Bingham Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, and Heming's Motor
News, the monthly Bible of the Collector at CarHobby, www.hemings.com.
Contact us at the Environment Show and let us know how your environment is.
It's green at wamc.org. That's green at wamc.org or Environment Show, 318 Central Avenue,
Albany, New York, 1-2-2-06.
The
Economic and Political Chaos in Russia may spell the end for brown bears on that country's
Pacific coast. One scientist studying the bears finds that not only is the population declining,
but the fish, which are a critical food source, are being decimated. The Environment Show's
Stephen Westcott has the story. The Comchot Peninsula is a beautiful and rugged place with a
wide range of vegetation and animal species. It's located north of Japan in the Russian Far East
and extends into the Bering Sea. It possesses landscapes similar to Alaska, but despite its
isolation, demand in the global economy and ineffective or nonexistent controls are having a
devastating impact on the areas wildlife. Brown bears are being particularly hard hit.
Forty years ago, they numbered about 300,000. Today, biologists estimate their numbers at a maximum
of 12,000 and poachers take much of the blame. Different wildlife biologists there in the
peninsula gave us figures, consistently gave us figures of around 2,000 bears per year were being
illegally killed on the peninsula. That's an addition to about 1,000 that were taken illegally,
were taken legally with with umlicense. So that's a harvest rate of about 3,000 per year
and an estimated population of somewhere between 8 and 12,000 and clearly that's not sustainable.
That's William Lekock, research associate with Wildlife Conservation Society and a PhD student
of Wildlife Biology at the University of Montana in Missoula. Bear skins can't provide hungry
Russians with money, but William says Sakai salmon are also being caught by the thousands for human
consumption. They spawn in waterways such as Lake Kareltsky and are a large part of the brown
bears diet. This is a big spawning grounds for Sakai. Sam and perhaps the largest or among the
largest in all of the Pacific, there's approximately on average about 1.7 million Sakai come into this
lake to spawn every year. That's on the average over the last 30 years. Last year about 750 or
760,000 came in well below 1.7 million. Whereas still, Lake Kock says only 460,000 salmon returned
this year to spawn. He says uncontrolled salmon fishing in the ocean waters off the Comchadka
Peninsula and poaching are taking a toll. William says he saw fewer bears around Lake Kareltsky this year
than in the past 2 years. He should know because for the past 4 years, Lake Kock has headed a research
effort through Wildlife Conservation Society to study Comchadka's brown bears. Accompanied by his
wife and two young daughters, William tracks bears living in and around the Comchadka sanctuary,
a 2000 acre preserve that is supposed to be protected by Russian Rangers. But Russia's
economic crisis and disputes between governments over who is responsible for the sanctuary
have left it unguarded. This makes Lake Kock's research even more important. He says there are two
main objectives. One of them is just to gather some basic baseline information on bears in
Comchadka in general, but more specifically in the South Comchadka preserve in the areas immediately
to the north of it that aren't protected. That includes population information,
food diet habits, etc. And then another aspect of it is looking at habitat relationships
at a more or less a landscape level and movement patterns.
With the help of an Alaskan biologist and Russian colleague,
William has collared eight bears so far. They do this with the use of helicopters and
tranquilizing darts. Four bears received GPS argo collars fitted around the animals next.
GPS stands for geographic positioning system. Satellites pick up signals from the collars and give
the exact location of the bears. The information is downloaded by a computer in Maryland and then
passed on to the researcher. While Lake Kock is still in the process of gathering this information,
he is noticing some trends. Even though he is not on the peninsula year round,
William believes his presence alone is helping to scare off some poachers. He also believes
his research is encouraging people in and out of Russia's borders to talk about brown bear populations.
WCS has committed to support Lake Kock's research another year. What happens beyond that remains
to be seen. What is even more uncertain is the economic and political climate in Russia.
And until those elements are stabilized, brown bears may continue to face extinction on the
Kocka Peninsula. For the Environment Show, I'm Stephen Westcott.
And now it's time for the Earth calendar. As we speak, red and pink grapefruit are being picked in
Florida. It's part of a great American harvest. Bill Mixen is president of Mixen fruit farms in
Bradenton, Florida, located about 40 miles south of Tampa. His family has been growing fruit on
350 acres for the past 60 years. Wearing cotton gloves to protect the produce from damage,
Bill says pickers gently place the grapefruit in 10 boxes after they've been growing on the tree
for about a year. The picker harvest by hand and you know canvas bag and he picks the fruit and
then dumps it into these bins and fills them and then those bins are brought into the packing house
and then we're washed the fruit and grate it and then it's ready for packing into the containers or
whatever whichever direction you want to go with them. Small, scarter, discolored grapefruit are
used to make juice while the better looking produce is packed in ship to market. Bill says more
and more grapefruit is being used for juicing and for pre-made fruit salads, both of which offer
convenience to consumers. The whole process begins with a planting of grapefruit trees which bare fruit
after about a year. It will take four or five more years before the tree can reach large-scale
production. Grapefruit farming is hard work and sometimes frustrating because of uncontrollable
factors such as weather conditions that damage the crop. In the fall of the year when the fruit is
getting heavy and warm with tourists sometimes you'll have these hurricanes that come close by and
you'll have wind damage and severe scarring or even we have hail storms every once in a while and
a hail storm can do a tremendous amount of damage to fresh fruit crops because it leaves
or the ice hits the fruit it leaves brown spots. Grapefruit farmers are not totally at the mercy of
environmental factors farmers irrigate during dry spells and spray the groves to prevent disease
and deter insect damage. All the hard work pays off though not only in terms of providing a living
for Bill's family but providing a healthy and nutritious food source. Most interesting of all
perhaps is the way Mixen enjoys eating red and pink grapefruit. And then I like salt a little bit
of salt and a little bit of pepper on my grapefruit and then I take a grapefruit spoon that has a
serrated edges and then you can just pluck the sections right out of the grapefruit and the salt
of course gives it a unique flavor and it takes away some of the bitterness especially in the
early part of the year just a sprinkling of salt will make the grapefruit taste a lot sweeter and of course
black pepper is also gives it a flavor and it's unique. And for those who enjoy peeling and eating
grapefruit Bill Mixen says consumers should be looking for a fruit with a firm yet soft skin
and be extra nice to the fruits while visiting the produce section because according to Bill
often the best tasting grapefruits are thin skinned and all of us who are thin skinned or
easier to get along with untreated diced leaf. You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm
Peter Burley.
Still ahead British Columbian Forestry officials in Canada resent a move by some big corporations to
stop using products made from old growth trees. They say the company should clean up working
conditions for their employees instead. We talk green about wilderness. Do we need to protect more
of it? Some say we have enough already. And author Jerry Dennis takes us to a river where he hears
sounds but can listen to nature. Stay with us.
A few weeks ago we reported on a coastal rainforest coalition which is comprised of environmental
groups and more than 25 large multinational companies like IBM and Nike. Members of the
coalition are vowing to phase out the use of paper and wood products that originate from old growth
timber stands in British Columbia. They hope market pressures will stop timber companies from logging
in some of Canada's ancient forests. We recently heard what coalition members think about logging
in British Columbia. Now we hear from forestry officials who believe BC's forests are well managed
and that some coalition members should first think about cleaning up their own houses.
The Environment Show Stephen Westcott has a story. Timber industry officials don't deny they are
cutting large old trees in British Columbia. What they do deny is allegations made by
environmentalists that many of the trees being harvested are a thousand years old.
The reality is that if the age of our forest by a long shot if we do have a thousand year old trees
they primarily occur at extremely high elevations in areas that we don't work in anyways.
So I think that well there is a statement being made by these companies that they're concerned about
environmental integrity. I would have to say that's a shared concern and we've put together a really
sophisticated policy and planning framework to recognize those values. That's Larry Peterson,
Chief Forester with British Columbia's Ministry of Forests which owns mostly all of the forest areas
in BC. The provincial government is also in charge of forest management deciding where and how timber
companies can harvest and there are a lot of timber lands in BC, some 140 million acres according
to Peterson. Our projections into the future are that we will be operating on less than one half
of that land. So around 23 million hectares I'm sorry I've got to switch this over to acres for
you. Around 56 million acres are what we project as our long term forest operating land-based.
It's fair to say that very much of that forest land has what we call natural forest on it in a
variety of age classes and that also includes old growth forests so just less than half of that
currently has old forest on it. The definition of an old growth forest varies depending on who you
ask but essentially it is an area that has never been cut before. Larry Peterson says the goal
of the ministry is to have mixed forest classes. Many foresters would agree that having mixed aged
classes helps maintain biodiversity but others argue that scientists still don't fully understand
how heavy cutting an old growth area affects wildlife. Given this members of the coalition say they
want the ministry and timber companies to stop logging in old growth areas especially in the coastal
rainforests but Larry Peterson says harvesting on old growth areas in BC is unavoidable.
Simply because of the very natural extent of old forest on the landscape we have not had
along enough harvesting history in the province to simply shift our industry at its current scale
into stands which have been regenerated from the past. Peterson says the province has plans to
protect 12% of BC's 240 million acres in the form of parks. The ministry also has what is called
the forest practices code which strictly outlines how harvesters can proceed. Peterson emphasizes that
most areas are fully reforisted with native tree species one to three years after logging has occurred
and says regeneration is generally not a problem in BC. Overall he says the ministry makes sure
sensitive areas are protected despite the claims of some environmentalists.
In fact what we do is we plan very carefully for the maintenance of biological diversity on the
working forest landscape by even maintaining a further level of protection in for example what we
call riparian zones or the areas where trees are in association with water courses and lakes and so on
and those are very high value ecological zones and we maintain stand values or conservation values
there. Patrick Moore with forest alliance of BC agrees with Peterson and at the same time
understands arguments by environmentalists and coalition members who oppose cutting in coastal
old growth areas of British Columbia. It's not surprising that Moore understands the environmentalist
viewpoint because he used to be one. Moore is a former founder and director of Greenpeace who left
the group in the mid 1980s. Now he is director of the forest alliance of BC, a group that represents
the interests of timber companies. He says the timber industry isn't being given enough credit for
making the changes it has in recent years and finds it odd that coalition members are focusing on
the pulp and paper industry when most of the wood products exported out of BC are in the form of
lumber. Additionally Moore claims some members have even renounced their affiliation with the
coalition. Other companies and three come to mind is Nike, Levi Strauss and Liz Claiborne all of
which are in the footwear and clothing business are all facing boycotts of their own for labor
practices in Southeast Asia in particular and and we think it's a little bit hypocritical for them
to sign on to a boycott of BC forest products when they've got their own problems to look after
and maybe that's where they should be putting their emphasis. We are certainly putting our focus
on dealing with the environmental issues and producing a forest industry that is up to speed
and will pass muster with an independent verification of sustainable forestry practices and that
means certification and we're moving into that now. The timber industry is the single largest
employer in British Columbia providing 16 to 18 billion dollars in exports to the province.
Ministry of Forestry officials believe they are doing an effective job of managing the forests
and providing residents with living wages. Mean time members of the coastal rainforest coalition
wonder what species are living as a result of timber harvesting in BC's old growth areas.
For the Environment Show, I'm Stephen Westcott.
We're Tuck in Green and I'm Peter Burley. Over the years, substantial effort has been
expended by environmental advocates and substantial monies have been spent by public and private
organizations to preserve wilderness lands. The theory has been that some places should be preserved
in their natural state undisturbed by human activity. Ray Harbettn, whose paper,
Wither Wilderness, How Much Is Enough, recently published by the Conservative Hardline Institute,
thinks we don't need to protect anymore. He joins us from Georgia.
Darryl Konopki is vice president for regulatory conservation for the wilderness
society, which is a national conservation group and he takes, I'm sure, an opposite view. He's
in Washington. So our topic today is wilderness and whether we need to protect more of it.
Ray Harbettn, let's start with you. You argue that protecting more wilderness lands is a bad idea.
Why is that? Actually, Peter, it's not quite accurate. We have to differentiate between
wilderness with a capital W, i.e. federally designated and wilderness with a small letter.
I'm a life member of nature conservancy. Probably a member of more environmental groups than you are.
What I'm against is when you look at the facts, what we have today, 105 million acres of federally
designated wilderness, 30 million acres extracted from US Forest Service multiple use lands,
you're talking about an area. If you compare with all of England, all of Scotland, all of Portugal,
and all of Greece, that group is smaller. It's a one-mile...
Well, but what is your point? Is your point that you're opposed to wilderness with a capital W
untouched as opposed to land in the public domain? Well, no. I'm saying I'm for multiple use,
I'm for timber usage, I'm for... I think we have enough... Someone asked me about a way
reporter from Vodokolorado. What plans my colleague and I had for taking wilderness out? I says,
we have not. No one's even suggested that. We simply think we have enough. 105 million acres.
Okay, so again, just to sum up, your sense is that the stuff that's protected as wilderness with
a capital W, land that nothing should happen on, that people shouldn't be logging that we have enough of that.
Yeah. Daryl, the wilderness society has argued for years that we need more of this. What is the
rational value for that when Ray says we've got enough now? The wilderness society has been
an active advocate for wilderness Peter since the passage of the wilderness act itself in 1964 and beyond.
In 1964, we created a national wilderness preservation system, made it sort of initial deposit into it
of around nine million acres and that system has now grown to about 103 million acres. We think that
we're about a third of the way where we ought to be. Well, a stagnant reminder is that we should save
as much of it and of as many kinds as we can. The question of enough is a difficult one. We have
all we're ever going to get and my organization thinks we need to protect every acre that remains
and we need to protect it for a variety of reasons. Obviously, human recreation is one such that is not
the only reason it's not even the most important reason for protecting wilderness. We think that one of
the crucial services that wilderness provides is the opportunity to allow natural systems to operate
naturally in so far as that's possible in a modern age and so that our children will have the
opportunity to enjoy those things as much as we have. So, you know, I agree with, I agree with much
of what you said and I was, by the way, in 64, I was of average support of wilderness in the
beginning and still I am. I use it. I have a home in Western North Carolina which is bounded on one
side. My land by wilderness, I adjacent to it and I'm not against it. I simply think we have too
much. Now, you stated something that I totally agree with in so far as we can and I think my
colleague and I think a great number of people environmentalist that I've talked to in the past
10 years, we have gone as far as we can. The more we rely on science and positive management of
systems, the less we have to rely on the random hazards and doubtful efficacy of quote nature,
quote. Let me stop you right there. Are you telling us that from your perspective, humans can
manage ecosystems better than if they're left alone? Yes, obviously. And can you give us any
example? Well, you're familiar with what happened at Yellowstone. You're familiar with that.
You're familiar with what happened to the spruce fur forest and the southern Apples.
In the 60s, when I was doing work-ups there, the forest service later, because there were a lot of
pictures, they wanted to trade some of the prepatagem fur forest pictures that I had for some
stuff that they were developing there at some scientific stuff. They were developing at the park.
You see, I was in the ground floor when people were saying, hey, we can do something about
these insects now. No, they waited 30 years till it was too damn late. Thinking, oh, no, this is
the world in this thing. Let's hear Darrell on that subject. The proposition has been put forward
that humans can manage ecosystems better than they can manage themselves. I think that speaks
of a certain arrogance, Peter. I think every place we've meddled, we've found to our dismay that we
were wrong or inadequate that our childlike faith in science was ill-placed. What happened in
Yellowstone is a result of a very long period of decades, in fact, of fire suppression. I think
the thinking in the conservation community, certainly in the forest services, move way beyond that,
and the park services as well. We are now to the point where we are all saying the same thing,
and that is that fire is a natural part of the ecosystem. We've got to return it where it
makes sense when we can do that without threatening human safety and human property. We can do that
in an awful lot of places and we're doing more of it all the time. Ray, the world has gone on for
quite some time with places that we're not actively managed. All of those places seem to be in
pretty good shape. You think people could do better? We're not at 1650. We no longer have a billion
acres of teeming forest land for experimentation. The year is 1999, not 1650. We must manage our
systems for 24-centre conditions using 24-centre knowledge and science. Well, let me ask you something
about that. Isn't there a difference between managing some of the system like as you run a farm?
Grow trees and farms for harvest. Isn't that quite different than saying there ought to be some
places that manage themselves, both because you may protect some biological diversity that you don't
even know about, or because human beings ought to be able to find places that haven't been managed.
Peter, you're exactly right. I could not agree more. We have set aside in this country in the
past 40 years, 30 years. 103, I was corrected there, 103, well, 104 million acres. We've dedicated
that to seeing what nature does over time. I think that's all we can really afford with all the
conditions, all the things that we're faced, not the least of which is this global warming thing.
Many of my colleagues don't believe in it, but if you saw the article in journal science in October
dealing with the amount of carbon that the Eastern deciduous forest was ostensibly sequestering,
how can we possibly set aside more because we know that all wilderness systems, at least Eastern
deciduous, at 75, 80 years there in stasis, they no longer pull carbon down. If, in fact, global warming
is an issue with the moral equivalence of war, we need to get busy.
Darrell, what about the argument that 103 million isn't up?
It is not enough and it's not enough for at least one very clear reason, Peter. That is the fact
that the system, as it stands today, is comprised largely of those consensus areas of scenic
grandeur. We have done a pretty fair job in this country protecting the spectacular we have
ignored on a wholesale basis the truly important. That's other systems that don't look like
the high rockies for an example. I very specifically mean that desert and canyon lands of a place
like Utah or Nevada or the western part of Oregon or western Colorado. These places are everybody's
critical to the web of life that uses them and which they sustain as our high mountain areas.
We've done a very poor job of protecting them and that gets us back to the variety in the
national wilderness preservation system and there isn't very much of it. Let's ask you about
that Ray. You've been talking about trees before. Darrell is saying there are desert areas and
other ecosystems that need to be protected. He's mentioned parts of Utah in specific. Do you object
to naming those as wilderness areas and putting those on the public debate? Probably would not.
This is Prince of Montenegro who would, but I'm concerned about global warming. Has been since
it was first offered as a scientific scenario. Why does protecting tree areas
not help for global warming? It's a lot of article in science in the series of articles that
were, have been feeders from it. You will note that it was the working forest that was
equestring before it and it was no, I mean my god people have known that for 15 years and it was
attempted several, been several articles in nature, several articles in science that dealt with
that, but this was the first one that was truly, or at least on some extent. So you're arguing that
a managed forest managed to capture more CO2 than a more natural forest. Is that the point? Well,
yeah. There's no question about that because... Darrell do you believe there's no question about that?
About global warming? Yes. I don't see how any sensible human being can doubt it.
Can that work? No, no, but the question was, the point that Ray is making is that the managed
forest is more effective at dealing with global warming problems than the forest that is in a wilderness
state. I'm not a scientist, but it doesn't make a great deal of sense to me to think that we can do
a better job than nature left essentially alone can do. Well, now listen a minute Darrell, think
about this. You must be close to 40. Peter, I know you've seen you on TV, you're probably 52.
I'm 61. Well, I'm 60 and listen, we should have died 12 years ago, you and I, because,
well, apart from the medicine, we've seen the 20th century, we had a lifespan of 48 years.
And for us to the same way, the whole system is the same way. Let me bring... Ray, you're losing me.
See, the forest is going to do better if people aren't cutting down the trees. The reason we aren't dead
is because science has given us a longer lifespan. The reason of the reason I'll manage systems
sequester carbon is because the carbon is removed in the form of biomass and taken to places where
it is sequestered outside the system. If you see what I'm saying, and then the forest is allowed
to regrow, let me give an example. A high density of subdivision, and God knows there's nobody who has
fought rampant urbanism to the degree that I have. I'm a chapter head of one of the biggest
anti-growth areas here in the city, but we got to face the fact. A high density of subdivision,
I'll define that as 2,2600 foot homes per acre. Even if brick-beneered was sequester 50,000 pounds
of carbon for the life of the average family. Now listen, less than 10% of the eastern
hardwood forest possesses this density. It's a matter of concentrating at a point, taking it,
and then what's well the acre that you cut, it thinks the carbon in replaces that which you
removed and sequestered in this home are these two homes. Okay, I want to thank you both. We've
been discussing wilderness lands and whether they need to be protected, whether we have too
much wilderness already or whether we should protect anymore. My guest has been Ray Harbin,
he's co-author of the Heartland Institute study with a wilderness and how much is enough.
And Darrell Cnappi, he is vice president of the wilderness society, and we'd like to hear your
views on this subject. Give us a call. Our number is 1-888-49-green. We've been talking green,
and I'm Peter Burlite.
You can listen to the environment show anytime on your personal computer. Go to our
website, it's www.enn.com.com.
We all have places that are special to us, for some it's a city street, for others it's deep
in the wilderness. For author Jerry Dennis, it's a river in northern Michigan where the sound of a
paddle is just part of a symphony of sounds. In this portrait of place, Dennis reads from his book
titled The River Home on Anglers Exploration. Aside from my old buddy Craig Dade, who while he's
canoeing likes to sing a rousing rendition of love is a many splendid thing, most of my friends
prefer being quiet when they're outdoors. It's a virtue I embrace in theory at least. I've learned
that when I refrain from talking, banging gunnels, snapping branches and howling at the sky,
I become more aware of my surroundings and am more likely to still the senseless inner chatter
that fills my head most of the time. Usually when we say we want peace and quiet, we don't mean
peace and silence. We want the absence of noise, not the absence of sound. Seeking relief from
television, blur and traffic roar, we turn to quiet music, the rustle of wind and trees, bird song,
and most soothing of all water. Nothing puts us at ease so quickly as rain on a roof, the rumble
of ocean surf and the whispering of a river. When we surround ourselves with such sounds,
it doesn't take long to start hearing the music out there. Being quiet is such a natural
ancillary to being on the water that by the time we start sagging and graying, it's often become
automatic. Kids don't get it, which is why fathers insist so loudly on silence and have so little
patience with infractions. I consider it a minor victory every time I convince a child to get
quiet enough to notice bird calls and frog racket. It was a big moment when my son, Nick, at age six,
spoke up after a silence to announce that a morning dove sounds exactly like somebody blowing
gently over the top of a coke bottle. You have to open yourself to natural spectacle, but
willing it to happen is as difficult as willing yourself to fall in love. Like a child, you have
to be empty of expectation, have to possess eyes that see and ears that hear. It takes practice
like anything. Sometimes you can be surprised. One afternoon during a leisurely canoe trip down the
boardman river near my home in northern Michigan, I shut my eyes for a relief from the sun and became
aware of a complex background of sounds I had missed until then. Such moments sometimes make me
crazed with alertness. I went to listen with every cell of my skin, see with my palms, taste with
my nipples and toes. I don't want to miss anything, and so, of course, blinded by a kind of sensory
frenzy I miss almost everything. But that afternoon I listened to the canoe slip through the water
with a sound like silk being torn, accompanied by a great deal of quiet hissing, humming and
chuckling. The river itself was a symphony of slurs and murmurs, distant throbbing and much
hushed, gurgling, gulping and grumbling. I dipped my paddle into the water and it started a separate
melody line, a rhythmic sip and swallow, followed by the swishing draw of the blade being pulled
and a rhythmic dripping when I lifted it. I don't believe that every encounter with nature
automatically transports us back to some mystical sense of well-being stolen away by modern life.
No doubt people have been inattentive and distracted as long as we've had the brains to string
thoughts together. But I know that we're equipped to see and hear more than we usually do,
and that sometimes when conditions are right, we can open ourselves to a world so rich with
sensations that it makes the booming progress of civilization dim to insignificance. Drifting
downstream that afternoon I realized that there's a big difference between hearing and listening.
Hearing is passive, listening is active. We hear traffic and airport noise in the shouting loud
speakers in a department store. We listen to laughing children and hooting doves to leaves rustling
and wind-stored aspirants to trouts sipping mayflies in a river. In these noisy times the
thousands subtle voices of a river can throw a calm over our lives. I swear it's music to our ears.
That was Jerry Dennis, reading from his book The River Home, an Angler's Explorations.
It's published by St. Martin's Press.
Music
Thanks for being with us in this week's Environment Show. I'm Peter Burlitt.
DeRussian bears eat grapefruit. The Navy is studying the Endangered Species Act to find out.
Order a copy of the program to learn the answer called 1-800-323-9262 and ask for show number 475.
The Environment Show is a national production which is solely responsible for its content.
Alan Shartock is executive producer, Stephen Westcott is producer, and Ray Grapp is audio engineer.
The Environment Show is made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the William Bingham
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Be good to the earth and join us next week for the Environment Show.
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