On average I have walked down my road twice a week for the past 16 years. That's roughly 1600 trips back and forth. Part of the walk takes me past some tribal land, about 200 wooded acres. These woods create a wall to the south, blocking the light and making that stretch of my walk cooler and dim. I have sometimes ventured in to them as there is a well worn path leading south used by deer and sadly, 4-wheelers. For some reason a few residents of the road feel it is okay to ride on private lands. The woods are the home to deer, heron, eagles and beavers, there is a salmon stream that runs through them. There have been rumors of logging and development for years and I ignored all of them. Yesterday the logging rumor came true. There is little romance to this logging, there are no old growth trees there, they were probably logged in the twenties but there are mature alders which have value currently. It was sad to see the gash in the forest wall but I am also dispassionate about it. Change is inevitable in our lives, it is doubtful a Casino will suddenly appear. I worry about the creatures who call the wood home but for me it signals a new era, the landscape will be altered, it is too soon to tell how much. An 18 foot buffer has been proposed but we'll see. A perfect pristine wilderness is an illusion, the change is upon us and what can we do but adapt.
1 comment:
Sad but we have to remember that all our houses once were wild homes to other beings, from big animals down to microbes but now we call it our own. Across the street on an undeveloped single plot, a lovely little forest copse stood until a couple of years ago, a new neighbor built her own new home. What are our options? High rise? As you say, it probably won't be a casino, thankfully, but even they do create employment. The wild spots are kind of like our children. We don't own them, we just get to share them for a period of time and enjoy them and then they become something else. We should cherish them but we can' t hold them all forever.
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