I will not try to justify my anger or anyone elses at the way we are treated by the Forest Service Personel, but I tried to talk to Tom Niel and Stan Curtis before any of this began. I implored them to wait until this was settled in the courts. They mocked me with their silence.

I have written appeals and tried to show the tremendous loss of habitat, soil, and species, but the F.S. rejects the words of Dr. Partidge, Dr. Minkler, Drs. Richard and Jean Graber, Dr. Scott Robinson and many others. Accepting these words would mean a halt to logging our public lands. This is an alternative that industry will not allow.

I have tried to show people that the F.S. records demonstrate the more trees they cut in the Shawnee, the more it costs the taxpayer, but the press wants to know, What will you do when the skidders come?

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If you want to understand the importance of biological reserves and the role of large tracts of unbroken forest in maintaining overall diversity, I will be glad to talk to you or anyone else, and show you documents to demonstrate that the Forest Service repeadly sends unqualified personel to determine whether or not a certain tract of forest is needed to maintain this diversity. More importantly, I will introduce you to leaders in the fields of Orinthology, Forest Pathology, and Stream Ecology.

But I am a tree-hunger and you can call me a hippie or whatever else you like. I hope I can shatter that steroetype. I believe we are born of the Earth and the Sun. I believe that without the myriad of creatures on our planet, time will blow us away like so much dust. The scientific community concurs.

I have been told that we have survived the erradication of the prairies, so maybe we can survive the erradication of the forests as well. I thought of the straw that broke the camels back. But the reality is that we don’t even know if we’ve survived the erradication of the praries. Historical evidence as to the decline in soil depth and fertility shows otherwise. We don’t know the effects it has already had on global atmospheric conditions.

Science moves slowly when there are no more control groups left. We want to restore praries, but we can’t restore species extinguished before they were recognized.

The white oak forests of the Cripps Bend Timber sale, with solid pawpaw understory and moist soil underfoot, right next to a forty acre clear cut that has retuned in thickets of maple, beech and elm on the ridges and salt brier, honeysuckle and poison ivy in the valley, give us the opportunity to see which method would supply us with rich diversity and endangered species habitat, if the proponents of cutting our public lands cared to look. But they don’t.

They just want to get the cut out at whatever the cost to the environment, the community or the taxpayer. And it is frustrating beyond expression to try to convince people whose only response is Just doing my job and Just following orders. History has heard those words spoken far too often.

So, yes you can call me a tree-hugger because I thank my Mother Earth every day that she has blessed me with so much, but don’t ask me to view the wanton destruction of these rare and fragil communities as anything but a personal insult. Maybe I do lose my temper at times, but then I’m not being paid to stand there and take it. Any of these people who are being insulted for partaking in the theft of public forests are free to leave.

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Jim Reh, Cobden, IL.