Letters and comments for July 7, 2011

How audacious

To the Editor:

Over my four-decade forestry career, I never thought I would hear Andy Kerr suggest a tree should be cut down on the national forest. After reading the commentary a couple more times to be sure he really said it could be OK to cut a tree, my second thought was, how audacious of him to suddenly support active forest management.

He was a huge player in convincing our judges to make decisions that all but shut down logging activities on national forests of Eastern Oregon. This, as we all know, devastated the economy of small towns and rural areas of Eastern Oregon, and certainly helped to create situations where wildfire damaged many acres of our productive national forest.

I am personally offended when he blames forest management and loggers for the sad condition of our forests. These are the very people who if they were allowed to perform their jobs over the last couple of decades would have made this conversation moot.

Thank you, Andy Kerr, and others (such as Rick Bailey) for your great wisdom four decades ago and for continuing to tell us what we know the forests need.

Roy Garten

Enterprise