Owls, Loggers, and Old Growth

Owls, Loggers, And Old Growth Forests

Even though there are a lot of concerns with using the national forests in the Pacific Northwest as a preserve for the Northern Spotted Owl, I am still in favor of it. People have been moving into other creatures' habitats and destroying them for a very long time, and until that is stopped, more and more species will become endangered. The Northern Spotted Owl certainly did not ask for people to come in and start tearing down the forests. These owls were certainly living their lives and just doing what they do, and people came into the picture and started tearing up their habitat so that they could get the timber and build things, including places for more people to live.

There is a downside, though, when it comes to this idea of preserving the habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl because it will cause a reduction in the timber industry. There will be job losses, there will be mill closures, and there will be decreased tax revenues. That could cause some services to be underfunded, like schools, and it could also cause the United States to need imported lumber, which would mean that it would cost a lot more to build things. With the problems that are already seen in the economy, this could make things worse in the short-term. There are more plans for 'green' jobs, though, and ways to do things that do not harm the planet so much. Protecting the animals and plants that live here is one of the ways people can move toward being more ecologically friendly. Those who work in lumber can be retrained to do something else, and there are other ways to get tax revenues. A balance between protecting life on the planet and making money on which to live can be found.

If a government is not going to permit logging near the nests of the Northern Spotted Owl, the people who own that land are protected through the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. That means that owners of private timberland want compensation for the losses that they would suffer if there was no logging allowed there. Many believe that would then shift the burden of protecting a species to the taxpayers, which a lot of them would think of as extremely unfair. When it comes to this, it does seem wrong to shift that burden. The Northern Spotted Owl should be protected, but the government (as the entity that requires the owl to be protected) should be the one to pay for that to take place.

People who have private timberland really should be able to do what they want with their land, and if they are not allowed to make money off of the land like they planned because the government has other ideas then they should be able to be compensated for that. This is especially true if the person bought the land with the express idea of selling the timber and then was told that he or she could not, because a change was made by the government after the land was purchased. How people feel about this issue, though, will not stop the government from doing what it thinks would be the correct thing. On the other side of the coin from the loggers and people who own the land with the timber on it are the environmental activists, who feel it is their duty to protect the planet.

Many environmental activists find that they struggle to be heard over other interests and that they are not popular people because they are seen as 'tree huggers' and stop people from undertaking activities that would allow them to make money. Lawyers who are interested in and focused on environmental litigation seem to be abusing what they are supposed to do in the sense that they will sue just about anyone for anything at this point. Of course, not all lawyers who are concerned about the environment do these kinds of things. The ones who do are often consumed with protecting everything from everything else, which is completely impossible to do. Many of the environmental activists do the same type of thing, and there has to be a balance between what people need to do to survive and protecting the environment from human interaction and activity that are not necessary and that could be very harmful.

With all of the land clearing that is taking place and the rapid expansion that seems to be increasing where human growth and building are concerned, the Endangered Species Act is more important than ever. The restrictions on it should be tightened, not loosened up to allow other species to die out just because they are not 'as important' as humans. There are no serious changes that should be made in the Act, but it really does need to be enforced. This enforcement is vital, since there are a lot of places where people are getting away with the killing of all kinds of species because they are taking away the habitats in which these species live. Human beings are capable of moving somewhere else and are also capable of finding other careers, but animals cannot do that.