Three days ago I heard heavy equipment in the forest next to my house and saw loggers clearing a road to get in and clearcut the woods. Several months ago I called Mrs. Mathis, the owner of the 90 acres and pleaded with her to spare a small piece of land as a nature preserve/wildlife refuge, but my pleas fell on deaf ears.

I could hear small children in the background--doesn't this woman care about saving SOMETHING for their future??

Deer, turkey, songbirds, squirrels, owls, woodpeckers--all kinds of creatures have inhabited this forest I have been surrounded by for 30 years. What a pleasure it's been! A small brook down from my house used to be home to turtles and frogs before the drought of the past several years decimated it to a muddy trickle.

I phoned the land broker and challenged his surveyor's stakes--they had the audacity to have some of them on MY land. But he said the deed holders, the Mathis family had every right to cut all they wanted on the surveyed land. Bub, you got a fight on your hands if you cut one leaf off a tree I feel belongs to me! I'm gonna be right there watching with a phone in my hands, and I'll call the sheriff if nothing else.

I confronted the logger, who moved the surveyor stakes further back toward the brook and saved some trees I consider mine. Now I know how those indigenous Indians in Brazil feel when they hear chain saws and see that logging equipment closing in and plundering their forest; they know there's nothing they can do--and no one gives a damn about what's happening.

I wrote a letter to the editor about this situation. It tears me up that more and more wildlife is being displaced and forests destroyed. What audacity and stupidity and carelessness human beings have toward the Earth, ripping and tearing it up with utter abandon. Some day soon we're all gonna have to pay a heavy price for that attitude.
I know what you're thinking--take a chill pill and go with the flow. I just can't.

Susil

Comments:

You got my thumbs up too dear Sue. It is, however, frustrating
that you have little you can do to stop the tide.

Why is she clearing the land. Is a Walmart's going in or what??

If I lived nearby, I'd be right next to you holding up a banner and chaining myself to the tree if that's what it took to wake people up! All the building, building, building is destroying so much habitat that it's no wonder more people are being attacked by alligators and so on. Joni Mitchell had it right: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," and that was 30+ years ago.

Heck no don't take a chill pill, stand up for what you believe in!