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5EQUOIA WaTCH: Challacombe: THC GREAT MIRROR 



But now these wonders are mortally threat- 

 ened. 



The institutions bom of poHtical expediency 

 in the 1890's serve us poorly. Both the Park 

 Service and the Forest Service are proven anach- 

 ronisms, relics of 19th-century closed-system 

 thinking. Today, each bureaucracy functions 

 primarily to perpetuate itself The Big Trees 

 suffer — in the National Parks, and most espe- 

 cially in the National Forests. 



Should we not — indeed, must we not gather 

 the few precious forests which remain to us, 

 draw a line of defense around them, and reserve 

 them as one ecological whole? We would cer- 

 tainly do as much for a great battlefield on 

 which the course of man's history was forever 

 changed. Indeed, who among us would think of 

 constructing a shopping mall at Gettysburg? 



Further, we need to redefine how our for- 

 ests — Sequoia, mixed conifer and hardwood — 

 are cared for The narrowly-focused specialists 

 must be supervised by minds with broad land- 

 scape concerns, a grasp of nonindustrial, non- 

 invasive forestry and a willingness to 

 incorporate public review and participation. The 

 ancients deserve better We need them as com- 

 plete forests. Certainly not to satisfy the 19th- 

 century ambitions of a few. 



The Sequoias long ago did us a great service. 

 Dare we look again into the great mirror? 



Friends, what shall it be? 



Are we locked into a status quo? Oi; can we 

 boldly reinvent our relationship with the natural 

 world? 



01994, J. R. Challacombe 



