Introduction xxxi
single tree species intended to be harvested all at once. This type of tree farming and harvesting, known
as monoculture and clear-cutting, generates a forest that lacks the diversity of forests native to the area.
The complete removal of the forest during clear-cutting not only leaves those few animals that were
able to adapt to the monoculture without shelter, but it also leaves the former forest floor vulnerable to
erosion and degradation. If all the trees are removed from an area, the land is exposed to direct sunlight,
and the heat from the sun is absorbed by the soil. When rain falls on the exposed land, the rainwater is
heated by the warm soil and, because there are no tree roots to hold the soil, the warm runoff from the
rain carries the topsoil into adjacent rivers and streams. Where forest runoff once provided clear, cool
water for the river or stream, the clear-cut area now supplies warm water with suspended soil parti-
cles. Since warm water holds less oxygen than cool water, the amount of oxygen available to the aquatic
creatures in the stream is reduced and, as a result, much of the aquatic life of that region will die.
Opposition to corporate clear-cutting of federal forests has come from people who are concerned
about disappearing wilderness. They cite the giveaway of valuable timber, the loss of habitat for resident
species, and the impact of clear-cutting not only on the forests themselves but also on the streams that
run through them. Along the Pacific Coast, conservationists, fishermen, and lumbermen have quarreled
over the effects of disturbing mature forests where the spotted owl nests in ancient trees and in whose
neighborhood salmon are dependent on clear, cool streams for spawning. But there are signs of change,
with conservationists and their opponents coming together to try to find workable solutions and corpo-
rations evidencing increased interest in sustainable forest management.
FISHERIES, OCEANS, AND AQUATIC LIFE
This nation, with a heritage of rich fishery resources, has wideranging problems in all of its aquatic
quarters. Shellfish habitats have been damaged by sewage and other pollutants so that vast beds of
oysters and clams have been ruined or are off limits to harvesters because of the potential presence of
pathogens. Krill, an important shrimp-like marine crustacean that is near the bottom of the food chain,
is being over-fished to provide food for aquaculture.
The great runs of spawning fish, which return from the ocean along both coasts of the United States,
have been reduced, and in some places eliminated, by pollution and the damming of rivers. In the North-
east and the Northwest, few rivers where salmon breed remain unimpeded by dams, although several of
these dams have been removed in recent years or are in the process of being removed.9 The largest dam
removal project in the world, the dismantling of the Glines Canyon Dam and the downstream Elwha
Dam, was completed in 2014, allowing the Elwha River in Washington State to run free once again.
Many eastern rivers are only now beginning to recover from the severe industrial pollution that
lasted for nearly a century, from the 1880s to the 1980s. In other places, residual toxic waste in river bot-
toms continue to circulate in the water column and render the fish inedible. The Hudson River, which
serves as a major spawning ground and nursery for a huge population of striped bass, was a thriving
fishing base until documentation of PCB carcinogens in the tissues of fish caught in the river ended com-
mercial fishing there.
In the oceans, long viewed as inexhaustible sources of fish and other seafood, the problem seems even
worse. As fishing technology has “improved”, the fish supply has come under tremendous pressure. New
fish-finding techniques and harvesting methods have interrupted the life cycles of fish and pushed popu-
lations below the level of sustainability in ocean areas where generations of fishermen once supported
themselves and their families by fishing from small boats using unsophisticated techniques. In the global
marketplace, astronomical prices are bid for large predatory fish, such as blue fin tuna and swordfish,