I spent a week hiking and camping in Yosemite with two friends when I was in college. I gotta admit that's one of the high points of my 50+ years.

Before WW2 we were a nation of about 100 million people. There are roughly 310 million in the same space today.

For better or worse we are a different nation. To the good this means we have manpower to do a lot of stuff. Not so good more people means our desires to do as we damn well please are going to conflict with other people's desires.

But more people doesn't necessarily mean a loss of wilderness. Japan has a lot of people in a very small nation but they work very hard at maintaining forests, parks, remote areas. There are very tight restrictions on what you can do in them but wild areas are there and the Japanese have made sure they will be there in the future.

The simple fact is that lot of people living in a small area makes most of their activities more efficient. NYC is one of the most efficient places on earth in terms of energy use and productivity.

Don't be too despondent. I have spent a career in the National Park Service and I guarantee you there are lots of wild places out there. Some of the best are not run by the NPS, but are administered by the Forest Service.

In some cases, "wilderness" is spreading. My last posting, Channel Islands National Park' is five islands offshore from Santa Barbara. All five at one time were ranches and at least three were heavily overgrazed, by any definition. Just in the time I worked there, I have seen remarkable changes as nature has healed some pretty serious wounds. Many other parks are going through similar processes, so I don't believe that all is lost, which is not to say that complacency is in order.

I too have benefited from my time in the wilderness and the outdoors has shaped, inspired,and improved me in ways that I don't even realize. We do need to keep and cherish our wild places.

Art: While it's true that the Japanese live in the most densely forested first world country on earth, they have managed that not only through forestry science that predates anything from the west, but also because they now import practically all of their timber.

They are the largest importer in the world, and for all the wisdom they've shown in managing their own forests, Japanese logging companies don't have a very good reputation abroad.

Much of their timber comes from the US and for economic reasons we are pretty happy to sell it to them. To the extent that US forests are well managed the trade benefits both countries.

But you are right that the Japanese logging, mill, and lumber brokerage concerns are destructive. Their activities in SE Asia, Madagascar, and South America are often little more than the rudest sort of plunder with no concessions made to preserve the environment in a sustainable manner.

Harvest timber conscientiously and you can pull limited quantities of top quality wood from a forest indefinitely. Do it poorly and you get one harvest of wood, a few years as marginal cropland, and the rest of eternity as wasted moonscape.

i read over at J List that when they reforested 200 or more years ago they planted all the same kind of pine tree the result is that in the spring huge amount of pollen are released all at one much to the dismay of people with respiratory problems.

"...they planted all the same kind of pine tree..."

That's what the big timber industries do here in the U.S., creating just another type of monoculture. What they can make the most money on is what they plant. They are fertilized, sprayed and are totally non-sustainable. Since they have no regard for biological diversity, when something like the Southern pine beetle, or a borer or a disease hits it, it goes through the miles of plantings like a forest fire in a high wind. And just because the timber companies brag that they replant doesn't mean the trees survive. The devil is in the details, they say.

People keep saying that trees are a renewable resource, but not when they're clear-cut by the mile, replanted to just what types are economically valuable, and shipped out of the country by the boatload. Here in the NW, it's hard to believe all the lumber that is being delivered to the cargo ships.

That's not sustainable, and just because we've always had a lot of trees doesn't mean we always will. We will probably be like Japan, eventually.

Sue

In the SE the wood/paper/lumber companies have converted mile after mile of territory into 'tree farms'.

These have no relationship to the living forests they replaced. As Susan points out they are monocultures. With every tree being genetically identical to its neighbor. Most of the seedlings planted are cloned. Clones are good for business because all the seedlings have the same requirements and timing. When one needs fertilizer they all need fertilizer. When one is mature enough for thinning or harvest it cane safely be safely assumed the vast majority will be ready.

And because the same stock is used year after year for cloning it is safe to assume that last years management schedule can be repeated and they will get relatively the same results. It greatly improves the predictability of the production process so that it ties in with corporate investment goals and the loan issuance and repayment cycles of the financial world.

The down side is that a tree farm, particularly a pulpwood farm, is a dismal place. I have walked for miles and failed to see even any sign of an animal. Just endless row after row of nearly identical trees, all the same height and diameter, all the same species. No squirrels, no deer, no snakes. Even the birds and insects don't go there. It was very quiet. Just a slight breeze rustling the pine tops. But even that was stifled as the trees were so close together that the wind didn't quite get to the ground. It was a depressing walk.

It was also quite disorienting. It was one of the few places I've needed to use a compass. I stopped for a mid-day snack and when I looked up I wasn't sure which way was north. It was overcast and I couldn't see enough of the sky to use other clues. It reminded me of a Sci-Fi movie where the jail was a vast plane of white nothingness. This was a seemingly endless plane of identical trees. A cynical parody of forest.

I keep this in mind when I read the tracts from the forestry people that tel me 'there are more trees planted now than some earlier time'. The number of trees doesn't count for much if the majority are planted in genetically identical rows, managed and mowed like grass.

Returning to the protected forest was a revelation. A half dozen different types of trees immediately apparent. Several types of grasses, bushy shrubs, weeds, animals and insects. The noises, smells, textures of life.

Clearly not all woods are created equal.

Couldn't most of the problem be solved by switching to hemp as a paper source?

Art, thanks. You provide a very eloquent statement for the preservation of natural wildlands. But one question - At least at a distance, don't these tree farms look fairly nice?