Reader demands action to stop logging
Letter to the Editor:
Did you know the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry wants to log 50 percent of the Mohican Forest? How do you feel about your public land being logged as a commodity and not protected for you and your children? What would Mohican look and sound like if half of all the trees went missing?
There comes a time in every individual’s life when a stand must be taken, not for the betterment of just myself, but also to improve the lives of all those who enjoy nature’s many gifts.
People deserve the right to be able to walk into a forest and enjoy its natural untouched beauty. Close your eyes and picture yourself with the majestic towering giants enveloping you in a canopy of darkened green leaves glistening in the filtered sunlight faintly shimmering down around you.
Hear the sounds of a pileated woodpecker create a new home for his soon-to-come brood as it acts as a conductor leading his orchestra of woodland inhabitants on an infinite grand finale of harmonious sounds.
Envision the forest floor with its abundance of wildflowers blanketing the ground on which you walk, welcoming you to the start of spring. You have just returned to your rightful place within nature. As a part of something much greater than yourself, you have returned to the natural ebb and flow.
Now imagine you just cut down half of all the trees. What then? What sounds do you hear? What sights do you see? How do you feel?
An undisturbed woodland understory gives life to a multitude of different species of flora and fauna. Without such a habitat these species become threatened, endangered or even extinct. So why then do we list species as such if we don’t bother to protect their very basic need, their “natural” habitat?
When you cut down the trees (no matter how careful you think you are), you destroy their natural habitat, you compact the soil and you allow non-native invasive species to grab an insurmountable foothold, making it virtually impossible for many native woodland species to survive.
Many non-native invasive species are now thriving in those very places you have already clear-cut or selectively harvested. Bush honeysuckle, Japanese knotweed, autumn olive, multi-flora rosebush, barberry and the list of things that have all but taken over these areas in the Mohican Forest goes on and on.
If the forest is to be managed, why not manage what has already been destroyed by removing these invasive species? How does a forest regenerate if the invasive growth is so thick it cannot even gain a foothold?
As a taxpayer you also are a shareholder of the Mohican Forest with a right to stand up and speak out against the logging of your land.
As a taxpayer I’m demanding that ODNR stop logging the Mohican Forest.
Richard Weaver II
Ashland