Self-Preservation of the Park

In class today we discussed Amy Godine's essays in the Adirondack Park magazine, but we didn't have time to get around to what I thought was one of her major points. The last line in her "Peopling of the Park" essay makes a poignant statement that I took away as the main point of the piece, "In the end, the park's most renewable and enduring resource turns out to be the park itself." (59) While all the other resources in the park - soil, timber, bark, garnet, iron - wasted away and left the workers wanting, the park itself still stood tall. Even after farmers, loggers, tanners, hunters, and miners declared the land worthless and depleted of resources, the land continued to be incredible. Mere decades after being hunted out, clear-cut, and strip-mined, the land has reverted to wilderness as though it never bore those scars. This is a fact that can not be forgotten in the continuing battle surrounding the forest's resources - our efforts to be sustainable in resource acquisition, combined with the forest's own ability to renew its landscape, result in a beautiful expanse of land that can be carefully and happily utilized without lasting damage to the land or the creatures in it. Yes, logging tends to be an ugly practice, but it is a necessary one. I would rather see pricier lumber come out of sustainable practices in our beloved forest than from clear-cut, lumber-ravaged South America.