We are dismayed about what is happening in Wendell State Forest. Isn’t this a repeat of the 2010 clear cutting of public lands in Western Massachusetts, which the state Department of Conservation and Recreation later admitted was a mistake? Chris Egan’s My Turn column [‘It’s time to set the record straight’] claims clear cutting is not happening, but we need to see what the state is actually doing, not what they are saying. See photo at bottom of page: www.SaveMassForests.com.
We are facing a climate emergency that will require us all to change habits. We have little time left “to set the record straight.” We are beyond hearing about people “just doing their jobs.”
Climate scientists say that halting deforestation is just as urgent for controlling CO2 as eliminating fossil fuels. To pass an inhabitable Earth to our grandchildren, we must stop cutting forests on public lands, state and national. We must protect undisturbed preserves for future generations, hopefully, to enjoy. We must all reduce drastically our use of paper and wood products!
Most of Massachusetts forests, if logged, are considered suitable only for burning as bio-mass, which releases the largest amount of CO2 of any method of generating electricity, and releases it now, just when we should be allowing the forests to sequester the maximum amount of carbon possible.
Bigger picture: the Amazon burning, European forests mostly gone, our country’s forests in the Northwest and the Southeast devastated, and now our Northeast forests under fire, including Gov. Baker’s support for biomass as “renewable” energy. It would take over 100 years to replace the trees being cut in Wendell — how renewable is that?
Please sign a petition for a moratorium on logging Massachusetts public lands, and urge legislators to pass H.897 and H.853, described at www.SaveMassForests.com.
John Anderson and Joy Kaubin
Lake Pleasant