Clear-Cut Forests

In response to “Forest Photos Belie Growth,” June 17:

In disputing the significance of satellite photos of forest destruction, Forest Service chief Dale Robertson ignores some crucial points, and we need not go to the Pacific Northwest to find examples.

Four hours’ drive from Los Angeles, in Sequoia National Forest, there are clear-cuts which the Forest Service has planted time and again without success. Acres of forest are now brushland or desert. Robbed of organic nutrients, exposed to excessive heat in the stark, open ground of clear-cuts, many seedlings die.

Even when Forest Service plantings “succeed,” the true forest may be destroyed, the complex ecosystem often being replaced by one of its parts, pines planted in a rigid grid. These publicly financed tree farms offer subsidized profits to logging companies, and they take natural habitat from many species, including asphalt-weary people, deprived of recreational refuge.

NED BOYER, California Ancient Forest Alliance, Pasadena