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Wings for the Planet
| Article
# : |
11722 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1994 |
2,637 Words |
| Author
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Stephen Gorman
Stephen Gorman is an award-winning writer and photographer
based in Norwich, Vermont. His latest book is Northeastern
Wilds: Journeys of Discovery in the Northern Forest. |
The fresh morning light slants into the cockpit from beyond the right wingtip, illuminating a complex panel of dials, gauges, and flashing lights. Three of us are in a small airplane a thousand feet above the ground, occasionally buffeted by the turbulent flow of air pouring off the steep mountain slopes to the west. As we fly north, we look down over large sections of Maine and New Hampshire forest that resemble cornfields after harvest. Instead of woods, there is only bare ground beneath the wings, and it looks like giant shears have clipped the trees to the horizon.
'This area certainly has been skinned," says a voice through the intercom headsets we wear to communicate over the engines roar. The voice belongs to Jamie Sayen, conservationist and founding editor of the Northern Forest Forum, a publication dedicated to raising awareness about large-scale deforestation in northern New England.
A youthful man in his mid-forties, dressed in field boots, jeans, and a lumberjacks checkered shift, Sayen resembles the loggers working below Like them, he lives here in these rugged hills and forests; and like them, he cuts wood to keep his cabin heated when the temperature dips to thirty below zero. But in recent years, the forests around his home have been disappearing at an alarming rate--clear-cuts now virtually encircle his mountain cabin.
Sayen believes, rightly or wrongly, that paper companies that own millions of acres across northern New England are cutting the forests at an unsustainable rate, liquidating the woods prior to abandoning the region. He.worries that his neighbors working in the woods and mills will soon be out of work and that the forest generations of New Englanders have depended on for clean water, fisheries, wildlife, recreation, open space, and wood products will soon be gone. From his perch in the back seat of the Cessna 185 float plane. Sayen gazes out the window, shakes his head, then updates his chart by removing large blocks of forest with his pen. I can see the word he scribbles on his map: whacked.
For years, Sayen has written about the disappearing forest. He publishes the Forum on a tiny budget, sacrificing what others consider necessities--heat, running water, a reliable car--to get the word out. But in the last two years, Sayen has found a powerful ally in the Environmental Air Force (EAF), a nonprofit organization of volunteer pilots who donate their time and aircraft to helping chronically underfunded and understaffed conservation groups like Forum achieve their goals. With the EAFs help, Sayen
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