Owning Up to a Failure

Re “California Says It Failed in Its Logging Rules” (Nov. 24): Although I deplore the fact that the past management of the California Board of Forestry failed so in its protection of our state resources, I must simultaneously applaud the current board for taking the politically treacherous step of acknowledging the failings. This admission is an important step toward at least considering a remedy to our state forest crisis.

One fact in particular startled me: The article stated that “. . . privately owned ancient forests, which covered 51,000 acres in 1984 . . . now cover about 5,000 acres.” I hope readers understand that this rate of destruction far exceeds anything happening in the rain forests of the world. To visualize 5,000 acres, we need to visualize a square of land with sides of only 2.8 miles. On a freeway, you would drive past that in only 2.8 minutes.

CHAUNCEY WENNER, Costa Mesa