I am not sure what you mean by 'mis-conceptions' about clearcutting. In an article on visual affects of clearcutting in a recent issue of Journal of Forestry I interviewed about 50 hikers from a view point overlooking small clearcutts in the White Mountain National Forest. They came from very diverse background and ages. Almost to a person they knew they were looking at clearcuts. They gave reasonable definitions (e.g. 'remove all the trees from an area) and they had a reasonable conception of the size of clearcuts (to an open ended question, almost everyone responsed between 20 and 100 acres). When asked about benefits, everyone gave some and often there were some in addition to economic related benefits (e.g. creates browse). Everyone also named possible negitive benefits (e.g. potential erosion). It is important to note that these open ended questions were all oriented to an area that is part of the White Mountain National Forest. While it is difficult for anyone to tell around the boundaries whether an area is private or federal, everyone understood that these questions did not refer to another area of the state. This was a pilot to several sample surveys that have not been written up and to which I do not have access (I am on sabbatical in The Netheralnds). I have no reason to expect seriously different results. This is not what we (myself and USFS employees) expected. I thought that people would not recognize small (i.e. 15-20 acre) clearcuts as clearcuts from a distance. I also expected that the image of clearcuts would be 100's of acres--like the Sierra Club showed us during the 1960's and in the recent book Clearcut. I should add that there are extensive clearcuts in northern New Hampshire (to support power generation). Though I have not personnally seen them, they have been in the papers. Jim Palmer
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