MAINE ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS • March 8, 2022
The word’s forests are under attack. More than 75% of the Amazon rainforest, the “lungs of the planet,” is losing resilience and is nearing a “tipping point.” In Canada’s boreal forest, the “Serengeti of the North,” logging, oil, gas, and mining corporations are clearing more than a million acres on average each year. Shouldn't we be finding ways to protect, rather than exploit, the planet’s fragile forestlands? Yet, on Monday, it was announced that more than 200 forest companies in Maine will receive $6 million in grants with an additional $20 million expected soon. The compulsion to rescue jobs in traditional industries that are disappearing due to economic shifts and pandemic impacts is understandable, but is giving millions of dollars to private companies to prop up logging jobs the best use of public funds? A stack of recent forest and climate studies have documented the benefits of letting more forests grow old (for biodiversity and carbon sequestration) rather than accelerating logging. How will we achieve the goal of protecting 30% of our lands and waters by year 2030 if we incentivize cutting down more trees faster? Could these public funds be better spent on conservation and logger retraining?