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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Hike through Devastation

Hike through Devastation - 2014 - our first hike of the year was an upsetting walk through the devastation being perpetrated on the once cool, quiet and comforting kingdom teeming with forest life that was the Hemlock forest of Kenoza Lake.

Came around the bend along the shore of the Lake and were startled by this scene of devastation.


We are told all these trees were "buggy". I believe the name of the "bug" is $$$perboardfoot.


It's hard to imagine that this kind of devastation was allowed in the name of "timber management"



Judy expressed it much more eloquently in her facebook post than I can ever hope to:
"Let me tell you...I grew up on a federally registered tree farm, doing forestry improvement. I was wielding my first saw at the age of 5. I worked for the United States Forest Service in the White Mountains of NH, doing timber management and forestry improvement on the federal level."

"I can honestly say, without hesitation or reservation that what they have done at the Winnekenni Park, and what they are doing is a travesty, and obscene. There is no way that they were interested in forestry improvement in any way shape or form. There has been NO respect shown for the forest or the land. The forest is gone, utterly denuded save the dripping, bleeding stumps that are trying to nourish trees that no longer exists. The sap, the life's blood dripping down and running into the dirt. The trees don;t even know they're dead yet. I felt like throwing up. I wept for them, and there are so many blue stripes painted on many more trees...this is the mark of death, the paint marks the next victims to fall. It was said that the trees were all buggy...what I sense is the $$ signs the powers that be saw in the board feet of lumber now coming out of that once magical place."
There are several acres so stripped, and many more slated for the same treatment. We both left that "once magical place" grieving today.

Please visit our Hike Through Devastation Gallery for more photos and comments.