Chris Perley wrote: > The bigger problem is agriculture - especially where intensive practices and > a financial or production focus have stripped the land of the smallest > variation in ecotype - not even a bit of rank grass and the odd hedgerow. > Foresters have a far closer regard to the social and environmental > relationships to forests. A generalisation, and a forester's generalisation at that! I rather think that we need to look at each case at its merits, and examine the realities. What has disturbed me about the forest environment "debate" in New Zealand is that it has been based heavily on the ideological doctrine that exotic plantation forests will provide for the economic needs of the country, allowing natural forests to be preserved in perpetuity. The reality is that New Zealand has a very successful exotic plantation forestry programme, and a shocking record of species extinctions, still ongoing. The "doctrine" isn't working. And when the most influential people in the New Zealand forest industry argue that "It is tantamount to treason to criticise the New Zealand forest plantation model.." then things do not augur well for either the kiwi in forest or the Kiwi forester!
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