Forestry, resource defense, and Black-back Gulls

The NRDC published in their "Nature's Voice" this month that a federal appeals court blocked logging in the Tongass Rainforest in Alaska (wait - rainforest in Alaska?!). The decision struck down a plan from the Bush Administration that would have allowed logging and roadbuilding over 2.4 million acres in the Tongrass National Forest that spans more than 500 miles of the Alaskan coast. For now.

In related New England news, Earthwatch had a team in Maine at the Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore Island to study the effect of black-back gulls and their impact on the food chain. The article referenced the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that gave these gulls federal protection. Needless to say, their near-extinction in the 1900s was averted thanks to the treaty and to the chagrin of beach-goers and picnickers everywhere.

I also read recently an editorial opinion by Dina Brick, "Growing Forests One Village at a Time". The much-needed income available from timber in developing countries was pertinent to her research. She wrote that: "[w]hen push comes to shove, it's a luxury to protect forestland..." and that "[i]t's time to bridge the ideological divide between forest protection and forest production...".

On the same token, environmental law often addresses resource defense - whether it's conservation or depletion of our resources. Is there a happy medium? A balance than can be struck between the idealism of "no-use" conservation and the sustainability factor?