To the Editor:
Professor Suzanne Simard, a member of the faculty of forestry at the University of British
Columbia, makes very good points regarding the complexity and connectedness of the below-ground community of organisms in a forest.
When I was working for Manny Correllus, I learned so much from him — valuable knowledge that was not taught at the Thompson School of Forestry at the University of New Hampshire. It was a great school, but its focus was on timber production. One of the reasons I left U.N.H. was because I felt a lack in its understanding of the total ecology of a forest.
After working alongside Manny for 12 years, and then working for Tom Robinson, I had to do a clear-cut across from the runway on what was then the Nature Trail. Manny was heartbroken that it had to happen, and I was as well, because those were the biggest pines in the forest at that time. Some were close to two feet in diameter at breast height, and 100 feet tall. According to Manny, they were some of the first white pines that had been planted. What was left was a wasteland of stumps and slash. Skidding tore up the mycelium and left a horrible scar, and this is what the state is planning to do now on an area of what, in most of that area, is mature and beautiful pines.
It makes me ill, thinking about the destruction.
Chas. de Geofroy
Chilmark
