When I got into the forest protection business about 10 years ago, I had no idea of how to proceed. I didn’t know what a forest plan was or any idea of what to do. All I knew was I was an inholder in a National Forest that was being cut down all around me. Then a cultural heritage area called Indian Tomb Hollow was clearcut, and I suddenly had a dozen folks, including Indian descendants, siding with me. This assault on culture and tradition launched a successful movement that has protected more public lands in Alabama than any other strategy.
I got a letter from the Forest Service that said,
“Dear Mr. Marshall, we invite you to participate in the decision-making process that manages your National Forests.”
With all due respect to the progressive rangers we have now in our forests in Alabama, at that time we had a ranger from the old school who didn’t understand why anyone could love wilderness or why people hated tree farms and clearcutting on their public property.
When approached by the Echota Cherokees over the clearcutting of Indian Tomb Hollow, he said nobody told him it was historically or culturally significant. Furthermore, we had toilet paper and a good road into the canyon now.
This attitude didn’t go over well with the public and the Indians went on the War Path against the man they called “Forked Tongue.” It wasn’t to be a biological war, it became an emotional media war for the hills of the ancestors—the land where the blood and bones of grandparents nourished the old hardwoods of Warrior Mountains.
I couldn’t type, but it didn’t take long for us to cut and paste together what the timber industry would denounce as the “slickest piece of propaganda” they had ever seen.
The timber industry called us radical environmentalists and denounced us as more dangerous than the 1950s communist threat.
We published regular magazine features like our Guide to Scenic Clearcuts. Folks actually spent Sunday afternoons using our maps to see for themselves what lay behind those beauty strips. The public was appalled.
Then there was Forest Speak—a guide to understanding the bureaucratic, alien-like language spoken by foresters. “This is not a clearcut, this is a regeneration.” “That’s not a logging road, it’s a linear wildlife opening.”
In Forest Speak, trees are stems. There are 200 stems per acre. Have you ever seen a six-foot diameter stem? Everybody knows that stems are what apples hang on.
We must do a treatment. Sounds surgical, doesn’t it?
Then there’s the infamous Site Preparation.
First, we’ll harvest the trees, then we’ll burn the area, herbicide it and roller-drum-chop it.
And there’s the endless flow of acronyms. “Our ID Team is working on new S&Gs for SMZs that will modify the BMPs, all of which will change the NPB and the DFC.”
We coined our own big words. When we toured big ugly, eroded clearcuts, we’d say in a professional voice: “Ecologically speaking, this land has been thrown into Biological Coma.”
Next, I became a Registered Forrester. I first made the mistake of referring to myself in our publication as Consulting Forester Lamar Marshall. Immediately the Attorney General’s office accused me of violating the State Code. I published a retraction with a picture of me in stocks with a statement hoping that my “professional reputation had not been damaged by associating myself with Trained Environmental Assassins.”
When I found out that my great-great grandmother was Nancy Elizabeth Forrester, I registered with the Scottish Clan Forrester Society and became a Registered Forrester.
Working for wilderness can be fun. Never lose your sense of humor.
Lamar Marshall, Executive Director of Wild Alabama (www.wildalabama.org), delivered the keynote speech from which this article was taken at The Wilderness Society’s conference in Denver in September, 2000.
Lamar also spoke at REP annual meeting in October 2001. We are proud to count this respected forest activist as a REP member and grateful for his participation in our meeting and for the opportunity to adapt his speech for The Green Elephant.
Read more of Lamar’s wit and wisdom on our site at...
* By Their Words Shall Ye Know Them
* Wilderness in the Deep South: Alabama Theology and Political Incorrectness
