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 The head of the U.S.
Forestry Service told environmental journalists Saturday that a
collaborative stewardship of the land improves the quality of life,
reduces crime, increases energy efficiency and saves tax dollars.
"We simply cannot meet
the needs of present or future generations without first sustaining the
health of the land," Mike Dombeck told about 350 people at a luncheon at
the seventh annual conference of the Society of Professional Journalists.
He noted that the 80
percent of the American people who live in towns and cities are becoming
increasingly disconnected from the land.
"This trend has profound
social and ecological ramifications," he said.
He listed three
examples:
- Crime is higher in urban areas without urban forest, parks and
riverside greenways.
- Drinking water and storm-water treatment costs increase
exponentially when forest, floodplains, wetlands and streamside corridors
are overdeveloped.
- Air quality in urban areas is significantly diminished when urban
forests are lost.
Dombeck said trees are a
vital factor in healthy land and people.
"Trees intrinsically
improve society and secure tranquility," he said.
He noted that a single
mature tree catches and stores up to 26 pounds of carbon dioxide from the
air and releases enough oxygen for a family of four to breathe for a
year.
He said that heavily
forest areas can reduce storm-water runoff by more than 25 percent and
increase low flow runoff by up to 13 percent over areas that lack trees.
He said the federal and
state governments need to work together with local communities, private
enterprise and people from varied backgrounds to restore the nation's
forest, rangelands and watersheds.
"Like the barn raisings
of old, community-based restorations are reconnecting people of the land
that sustains them," Dombeck sid.
He said the
community-based programs must include three principles:
- Collaborative groups must take advantage of a full array of
users and a diversity of interests.
- The groups need to identity a shared vision of a collective goal
for conserving or restoring healthy ecosystems.
- Collaboration is a process not an outcome.
"(Process) should never
be used to abrogate decisionmaking responsibilities -- whether they rest
with federal, state or even private landowners," he said.
SEJ met on the
University of Arizona campus Oct. 2-5.
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