Forests in the American East, Part 1: A Pandemic of Shifting Baseline Syndrome

This is the first of a three-post examination of forests in the American East. Part 1 diagnoses an “environmental generational amnesia” that makes people think it is okay to not have real (old-growth) forests and to tolerate, if not facilitate, massive and repeated clear-cutting and/or deforestation in the name of creating “early successional habitat” for species of wildlife that we need not be concerned about. Part 2 will shed light on a conspiracy of self-interested timber companies, misguided public land foresters, misinformed wildlife biologists, and Kool-Aid-drinking conservationists. Part 3 will suggest ways to partially—but significantly—bring back the magnificent old-growth forests that have long been lost.