Logging on Public Land Must be Restricted

Walking on a small trail through a canopy of white oak and other mixed hardwoods I soon came to an overlook, a small rock overhang from which I could see the gently rolling canvas of green for miles. The Mark Twain National Forest. As I turned my head however, the canvas of green became more like a patchwork quilt. One square mile of forest, another square mile of nothing except stumps and slash, the waste products of a logging clear-cut. The loggers had taken what they needed and left, allowing nature to take over where they left off, to start again from nothing.

As I walked down the hill from my perch I noticed the roads which were made of dirt and were marked with deep ruts from the heavy machinery that was necessary to harvest the forest of it’s lumber. Quickly put together with little or no regard to the problems of erosion or ground water runoff, these roads would be a permanent addition to the forest. Many of the trails I used to travel through the forest were once logging roads, over one hundred years ago. I arrived at the sight of the clear-cut. What awaited me I will never forget. A desert of stumps and waste wood, the ugliest sight I have ever seen.

This was one of my experiences with the use of clear cutting as a tool to extract the wood of the forests of southern Missouri. This region is not alone in its plight. The United States National Forest system is made up of more than 191 million acres, or more than one quarter of forest land in the U.S. (Internet 5.1.95). An extremely large portion of this land is deemed as public, which means it belongs to United States taxpayers. In the period before World War II most of the demands for lumber were fulfilled through the use of private land, which …

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…s intact ecosystems that is indefinitely greater than their value as timber producers.” (Drabelle) I think perhaps he is right. It is up to us to realize, and then act upon the problem in our own, forested, backyard.

Works Cited

“Below-Cost Timber Sales Fact Sheet.” Wilderness Society. 5.1.95 (retrieved) Internet. URL:http://town.hall.org/environment/wild_soc/ wilderness.html

Booth, Douglas E. Valuing Nature. Lanham: Rowman

Internet Censorship Essay – Internet AccessShould be Restricted to Protect Children

Access to the Internet Should be Restricted to Protect Children

We are now entering an age of computers where people have almost unlimited access to information. There are entire books and encyclopedias that can be purchased for use on personal computers. Information such as stock prices to computer-aided design programs to entire business operations is being used and accessed through the power of the computer. This information is obtained through the thousands of computer programs out on the market, but most importantly, it is obtained by access to what is called the “Internet.” The Internet is the term for the ten thousand plus interconnected computer networks throughout the world that enable us to gather and dispense any type of information almost instantly. For the 1.5 million computers and the 10 million plus users, the Internet gathers information easily and quickly by means of messages, newsgroups, discussion groups, and conferences (rmuir, ’94). Anyone who owns a computer and has the necessary software and hardware can have access to this infinite amount of information.

This, of course, can include children. Right now children at the age of seven are speeeding down the “information superhighway,” accessing an almost unlimited amount of information. In fact, there are schools on the Internet with their own World Wide Web homepages already. Unfortunately, some of this information isn’t geared for children and can even be strictly for adults. Just as inappropriate material in books and magazines is regulated, there too should be some form of Internet regulation and ethics because children of secondary schools have access to any and all information including that information which is objectionable and ev…

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…p://www.eff.org:80/CAF/cafuiuc.html

[email protected] FYI, RFC#1578 -Schools and Internet, February 22,1994, http://chs.cusd.claremont.edu:80/www/people/rmuir/rfc1578.html

Abrahams, Janice. Janice’s k12 Cyberspace OUTPOST. October 1,1994. http://k12.cnidr.org/janice_k12/schools.html, http://k12.cnidr.org/janice_k12/menu.html

The Family Resource Center in Santa Clara, California, Parents Helping Parents. October 25, 1994, http://www.portal.com:80/~cbntmkr/php.html

Gore, Albert. Speech at Royce Hall, UCLA Los Angeles, CA. January 11, 1994. http://sunsite.unc.edu:80/icky/speech2.html

Morrison, Michael. Computer Writing and Research Center. University of Texas at Austin. Personal Interview. December 3,1994.

Hoker, Delia. Computer Writing and Research Center. University of Texas at Austin. Personal Interview. December 3,1994.