CHANGING OUR OLD WAYS IS DIFFICULT!

I continue to follow several worldwide forestry issues on linkedin and it becomes evident that changing the course of management on our remaining forested lands will take considerable time and effort. Recently there has been much discussion on sustainable forestry. Many suggest that replanting our abandoned agricultural lands with single age, single non-indigenous species can offer a short cut to sustainability. History provides numerous examples of devastating negative results when we attempt to manipulate mother nature with non-indigenous plants and animals. This type of management invariably results in upsetting the natural balance of the environment involved and produces long range problems which a difficult, if possible, to resolve. Another unacceptable effect is the destruction of natural diversity that occurs with in the particular eco-system. Some how we have got to quite this quest to force mother nature to produce more products and services, and assist nature to provide healthy diverse forest communities that will provide for our own species survival in the future. With proper management, healthy diverse forest communities will continue to produce the produces and services we consider necessary to support our thurst for an affluent life style.
     On a happier note, Iris and I meet with the Montcalm Community College and they are excited to work together to develop environmental education materials for use in the public schools. Our goal is to help younger students begin to appreciate the connection we share with our natural surroundings and how important it is to connect this wisdom the the science of natural resource management. If you have any thoughts or ideas please feel free to share them with us, as we move forward. This website has an email connection where you can reach us.