In a recent guest column, forester Michael Mauri notes that there are two camps of people arguing for more or less forest management [“Wild and managed forests: 2 suggestions for new policy,” Recorder, Aug. 22]. Overwhelmingly, “management” involves logging as the primary tool to change anything in the forested landscape, so of course the logging industry wants to keep it that way.

Those arguing for less management generally have humility in the face of Mother Nature. Specifically they believe that the less than 20% of our forests that are owned in common by the people of Massachusetts should be preserved in their natural state with a minimum of human intervention.

One reason for this is that our common land should be used for the greatest public good, not for private profit, especially in the face of an all-too-real climate emergency. Another reason is that the large tracts of public forest can be saved from degradation by logging much more easily than can the crazy quilt of jigsaw pieces that make up the forestlands in private hands. These public lands will also provide much larger and better connected corridors for wildlife to move through safely.

This view that much more wildlands are needed is supported by a new report “Wildlands in New England,” coauthored by scientists from Harvard Forest, Highstead Foundation, and Northeast Wilderness Trust. In this report they note that “Wildlands are ‘forever-wild’” and “have an unmatched capacity to store carbon, protect biodiversity, and sustain the lives of plants, animals, and humans.”

Many interior forest bird species such as the wood thrush and cerulean warbler are declining due to the lack of large areas of contiguous older forests that are not fragmented into smaller managed parcels. Moreover, it is increasingly clear that a huge fraction of forest diversity is below ground in the soil. Management using gigantic logging machinery to harvest the trees crushes roots, mycorrhizal fungal networks and a myriad of other species, including many vertebrates, that retreat beneath the surface to escape the ground-shaking equipment.

Mauri does note that “ever heavier machinery is not designed with soil protection as a foremost concern.” There are several other problems with logging equipment such as the feller buncher, which may weigh over 70,000 lbs. These gigantic machines make it necessary to destroy many other trees in order to provide access to harvest the more economically valuable timber; these casualties of logging are lost simply because they are in the way. I would also note that in the last few decades most of the jobs in the logging industry have been displaced by this massive equipment.

Charles Canham, a forest ecologist at the Carey Institute of Ecosystem Studies, who is concerned about increased logging in New England, points out in his recent book “Forests Adrift,” how ecologists differ from foresters: “The vast majority of ecological research on logging has focused on detrimental environmental impacts. In contrast, I think it is fair to say that both academic and practicing foresters are motivated by a conviction that their actions improve forest health. I’ve long felt that these very different perspectives reflect diametrically opposed but very deep-seated beliefs about the proper role of humans in nature.”

When looking through a lens that sees forest health only in terms of producing economically valuable trees for harvest, it is difficult to imagine that an ecosystem, or Mother Nature, if you will, might use natural selection of trees and all the other species of beings that make up a forest ecosystem, as opposed to logging equipment, to ultimately produce a healthier better adapted forest for the future of our planet.

Forests repeatedly evolved and successfully managed themselves for over 390 million years of Earth history. Somehow they have survived meteor strikes, massive volcanic events, and dramatic changes in climate. I suspect that this, and their dramatic recovery from centuries of abuse here in New England are what convinces Canham that our existing natural forests are already more resilient than any human-designed forest based on repeated logging.

We should have greater respect for the process of natural selection in nature, which incorporates many thousands of factors, some of which we can not even imagine. It is in fact this process, that has maintained life on our planet for more than 3.5 billion years.

The idea that we should manage and have dominion over nature is a fundamental aspect of why we are suffering rampant pollution, mass extinction and climate change that together threaten our future as a species.

Bart Bouricius of Montague is a member of the Wendell State Forest Alliance. He served on the faculty at State University of New York at Buffalo and is a former research associate at Selby Botanical Garden. He recently retired as adjunct professor from Hampshire College and has conducted research in boreal, temperate and tropical forests since 1972.