As presented by Langston (Environmental Studies/Univ. of Wisconsin), it is no idle metaphor to state that federal forest managers could not see the forest for the trees in pursuit of an efficient means of harvesting timber in Oregon's Blue Mountains. Langston's thoroughly researched and balanced study traces the tragic but well-intentioned policies practiced in the early 20th century by foresters seeking to maintain a sustained-yield economy but lacking cognizance of the ecology of old-growth forests. Adopting an ethic that the forest in its natural condition was ``decadent, wasteful, and inefficient,'' and spurred to action by the rapacious logging activities of corporate timber interests, the early Forest Service sought to regulate forest growth so that a continual harvest of desirable ponderosa pine would be available to logging companies. In return, the loggers had to observe the scientific guidelines set forth by early reformers such as George Perkins Marsh and Gifford Pinchot. But the science was flawed. Not only did the ponderosa vanish, but Douglas firs fell victim to insects and disease related to intensive clear-cutting of old growth trees. Fire suppression similarly had unintended negative effects, as did the Forest Service's grazing leases. And during the Depression even more cutting was encouraged to maintain profits. But it is the paradox of the title that lies at the heart of the problem: ``The more managers alter a forest, the less they can predict the paths that [tree] succession will take.'' While noting that there can be no return to the original forest in the Blues, Langston counsels that we can restore it to biological health if we substitute ideals of ``commodity production'' with ``ideals which allow for complexity, diversity, and uncertainty.'' This is an important and accessible contribution to recent forest-ecology literature, and required reading for all federal and state officials. (25 illustrations, 3 figures, 4 maps)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-295-97456-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Univ. of Washington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!
It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.
Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962
ISBN: 061825305X
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962
APPRECIATIONS
This is our life, these are our lighted seasons, and then we die. . . . In the meantime, in between time, we can see. . . we can work at making sense of (what) we see. . . to discover where we so incontrovertibly are. It's common sense; when you-move in, you try to learn the neighborhood." Dillard's "neighborhood" is hilly Virginia country where she lived alone, but essentially it is all those "shreds of creation" with which every human is surrounded, which she is trying to learn, to know — from finite variations to infinite possibilities of being and meaning. A tall order and Dillard doesn't quite fill it. She is too impatient to get about the soul's adventures to stay long with an egg-laying grasshopper, or other bits of flora and fauna, and her snatches from physics and biological/metaphysical studies are this side of frivolous. However, Ms. Dillard has a great deal going for her — in spite of some repetition of words and concepts, her prose is bright, fresh and occasionally emulates (not imitates) the Walden Master in a contemporary context: "Trees. . . extend impressively in both directions, . . . shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach." She has set herself no less a task than understanding emotionally, spiritually and intellectually the force of the creative extravagance of the universe in all its beauty and horhor ("There is a terrible innocence in the benumbed world of the lower animals, reducing life to a universal chomp.") Experience can be focused, and awareness sharpened, by a kind of meditative high. Thus this becomes somewhat exhausting reading, if taken in toto, but even if Dillard's reach exceeds her grasp, her sights are leagues higher than that of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, regretfully (re her sex), the inevitable comparison.
Pub Date: March 13, 1974
ISBN: 0061233323
Page Count: -
Publisher: Harper's Magazine Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1974
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