I was glad to see the staff opinion column discussing the northern goshawk Thurs., June 25. I want to point out that the conflict surrounding this species should not necessarily be between loggers and environmentalists. Loggers are not the true danger to goshawks in this situation.

Attention should be focused on the responsibility of trans- and multinational lumber and paper corporations. When the spotted owl was in the limelight several years back, corporations crafted the notion that protecting owls meant losing jobs, and loggers were drawn to the corporations’ side of the conflict.

However, mechanized logging practices and overcutting are responsible for the job losses which have been occurring since long before environmental protections were even implemented. I suspect that the upper management decision-makers of lumber and paper companies usually aren’t the same people who live near and depend on the forests. If that is the case, why should they be so concerned about protecting the forest for the future?

It is possible to have sustainable logging and habitat for these birds without conflict. This way, the well-being of both humans and nonhumans can be simultaneously ensured. In order to achieve such balance, control must be put into the hands of people whose lives most directly interdepend and interact with the forests. Logging communities must have the ability to make ecologically-informed, democratic decisions about how they cut the forests in their region. This grassroots form of decision and action may help to stem the harm that has ensued from conventional top-down control.

What resources are to be used to implement such a plan? What about all that corporate welfare doled out to the loggers’ bosses? There’s a place to start.

Michael Pitula

Senior

Environmental science and Spanish