The Case Against Pine Plantations

Deforestation, an important word in Brazil where it refers to destruction of the Amazon rain forest, is not confined to the rain forest. In the United States, deforestation is simply called clear-cutting and it is gobbling up forests faster than you can imagine. Timber companies that once logged the south and later moved on to the mid-west and then far west, have returned to the south to repeat the process and as elsewhere, there is little to stand in their way.

The way the process works is this. One of the many forest products companies buys or leases land, cuts and bulldozes all the trees on a site, burns off the debris and plants pines. Fifteen to 20 years later the company cuts the pines and then replants another crop. The trouble is, according to many writers, including Ted Williams in Mother Jones, May/June 2000, pine plantations aren't good for anything but pine trees. Once the natural forest has been cut and burned, there is no biodiversity left.

If you drive along a highway in an area of clear-cutting, and you look at a pine plantation, don't be fooled into thinking you're looking at a viable forest. The truth is, the plantation may have trees on it but it doesn't have much else. "Countless species of insects, arachnids, mollusks, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals--each as much a part of a forest as a tree--are gone because the diverse vegetation on which they depend is gone," according to Williams. He writes: "E.O. Wilson, a Harvard biologist and Pulitzer Prize winner, estimates that a pine plantation contains 90 to 95 percent fewer species than the forest that preceded it. He compares the effects of tree farms on biological diversity to 'building a line of Wal-Marts.'"

According to the authors of Science Condemns Clear Cutting, "The impacts of clear-cutting on the local flora and fauna are well documented. Mammal and bird species that require large tracts of continuous forest are quickly lost." The need for large tracts of land has to do with the way wildlife uses its habitat. Many species can only live in specific habitats. A pure forest dweller such as a bird or mammal, for example, may not be behaviorally able to cross an open space to get to another section of forest. Other forest dwellers, such as amphibians that require moisture may not be able to cross an artificial desert in the hot sun. Others can't make the journey without food. Others become prey to larger and stronger predators.

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