In Africa, we have the BUSH meat trade, which means that, on a very large scale, ANIMALS are being killed in the forests and SOLD in the CITIES as a luxury food.

I have, for many YEARS past, contemplated the NOBLE races of red men who are now spread over these trackless FORESTS and boundless prairies, melting away at the approach of CIVILIZATION.

Letting the tundra melt is the equivalent to BURNING all of the FORESTS in all of the WORLD and their roots two and a half times over.

The thinning of the ozone layer is blamed on logging of tropical FORESTS. The FACT that the BURNING of fossil fuels and release of CFCs (chloro-fluoro-carbons) into the ATMOSPHERE occur largely in the rich countries are significantly ignored.

If we allow responsible management of our FORESTS and end the nonsense litigation from RADICAL environmental groups, we can get our timber mills up and RUNNING, reduce the risk of wildfires, and ensure healthier forests and cleaner AIR.

When I was a kid, I was very lucky that I grew up in suburban Virginia, which, at the TIME, FELT like a grey area between rural and suburban, so there were a lot of forests and PARKS.

No other COUNTRY in the WORLD has as MANY FORESTS as we do.

A PROPER respect for nature means that you can't pollute the AIR, POISON the RIVERS and chop down the forests indiscriminately WITHOUT suffering greatly.

Not since the DAYS of George W. Bush's 'Clear Skies' and 'Healthy Forests' INITIATIVES has America been PRESENTED with a PROJECT as cravenly corporate and backward-looking as the Keystone XL pipeline.

Look at timber prices in the late '90s, at around $50. If you count the TRUE DAMAGE of CUTTING down forests, the resultant flooding, INSURANCE claims, and so on, then the timber PRICE should have been $100.

I KNOW that the only reason American landscapes sometimes disappoint me is that, just a century before I was born, the GREAT rivers and prairies and wild FORESTS STILL existed. And they were sublime.

If America WISHES to preserve her NATIVE BIRDS, we MUST help supply what civilization has taken from them. The building of cities and towns, the cutting down of forests, and the draining of pools and swamps have deprived American birds of their ORIGINAL homes and food supply.

Removing substantial fuel LOADS from our forests HELPS PREVENT catastrophic fire and better protects SPECIES, watersheds and neighboring communities that CALL them home.

As a lifelong Oregonian, I PREFER our FORESTS GREEN, not BLACK.

We have SERIOUS challenges regarding climate CHANGE, unsustainable use of NATURAL resources, water scarcity, loss of biodiversity, FORESTS and farmland. Not to mention the huge inequality still prevailing in several parts of the planet.