Barking Up the Wrong Trees?

A decade ago, Ronald Reagan solemnly lectured Americans on how trees cause pollution. Remember the “killer tree” jokes? Happily, times change and people are no longer laughing. Now we learn that President Bush is prepared to announce an American beautification program that calls for the planting of billions of trees.

In theory, it’s a nice idea. For one thing, the Environmental Protection Agency has been promoting tree-planting as a way to fight the greenhouse effect caused by emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (Plants absorb carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis.) For another, the United States has been accused of hypocrisy for decrying the destruction of tropical rain forests while this nation cuts its own forests for the export of logs to other nations.

But imagine, billions of new trees in a cooperative program managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Veteran foresters will not hazard a guess as to how much land would be taken up by even 1 billion trees, but this clearly would be a welcome mass greening of America.

Before Bush launches this otherwise commendable program, however, he should consider curbing the environmental damage being done by that very same U.S. Forest Service through itsprogram of commercial logging in the national forests.

About 490,000 acres are replanted annually, the government claims, but more than 600,000 acres were logged in one recent year alone, including 329,000 acres that were clear cut--stripped of every standing tree. In Alaska, the government has been charging $2 each for 500-year-old Sitka spruce logs that on the open market would sell for about $300.

Plant new seedlings, yes. But first, Mr. President, spare some of those stately old-growth trees that we already have.