EDITORIAL

The Shrill ond Frightened Cry of lhe Conservolionist Bird

It has been with little sympathy that we have listened to the increasingly shrill cries of the so-called conservationists to have the government take by condemnation private lands belonging to the redwood companies in northern California.

We read that they are concerned with preserving the redwoods. That other groups, namely the lumbermen, do not want the great stands of trees preserved.

The irony in this is that all the groups in tllis controversy are equally concerned with perpetuating the redwood.

While the methods and exact trees to be left uncut sometimes, though not always, differ there can be little doubt that the overall objectives of the opposing groups are in many ways very similar.

Then why the almost hysterieal call by the Save the Redwood League and the Sierra Club to have either or both State and Federal Government use the club of condemnation to take away the private redwood reserves? People pressuring for conservation above all should know that the best way to preserve a specie is intelligent forest management. And intelligent forest management is literally the stock-in-trade of the firms they have attacked so vehemently.

They shouldn't have to be reminded that the redwood is one of the fastest growing of the commercial species; that one large company boasts an annual growth considerably in excess of what it cttts; tha.t well oaer 200,000 acres ol redwood, lorests are alread,y uniler State and Fed,eral control; that most, if not all, of the privately owned forests are being managed on the standard of one new board foot of lumber grown for each one that is cut; that the redwood industry has already spent millions of dollars to preserve what they seek to preserve; that it is the general policy of these firms to open their forests to recreational uses.

Who are these self-appointed savers of the redwood who loudly proclaim a cause that they themselves must know is neither actual nor factual? That what they propose would be a far less efiective way of preserving the redwoods. For their ideas of great areas that would be accessible only by foothpath would inevitably leave the stands open to the very real threat of fire. And as any forester will tell you, fire control and forest management is the ,best way to take care of a forest.

Before it's too late, and it almost is, let's get some real answers. Find out the real story.

W'ho are these people and what are they trying to do ?