Customer Reviews

Clearcut: The Tragedy of Industrial Forestry

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Just so you aren't lead astray by the last review....
The paper used is indeed of an uncoated variety. However the photos are NOT of newspaper quality. They are similar to Iris Ink Jet prints. They don't have ben-day dots at all... at least not that you can see with the naked eye (I haven't louped the photos). The darks tend to block up at times. On the other hand there is incredible sharpness and detail in other areas of the images.

True they aren't glossy images, but like most things in life it's a trade off. They're far above 'newspaper quality' that's for sure.

This book is a shocking revelation of the extent of clearcutting in our national forests (public lands owned by you and me and given over to companies like Weyerhauser under massive government subsidy contracts). Despite what public relations materials from Forest Products companies will have you believe, clearcutting (removing all the trees from a vast area) does not replicate natural processes (such as fire or windthrow), is not sustainable and has devastating ecological consequences for the watershed and forest community. This book provides many photos (most of them aerial) of huge swaths of forest that have been harvested in this way. The author's aim is to motivate - through outrage - the average citizen so he can take action to curtail clear-cutting in our national forests (especially old growth stands).

An imoportant note about the quality of photos: While the photos in this book are large and from great vantage points, the entire book is printed on post-consumer recycled paper. This means that the photos have a similar quality to the color photos in a newspaper such as USAToday or the New York Times. In short, if you are expecting the glossy, highly-defined photos that you may be accustomed to in nature photography books, you may be dissappointed.

Still, this book is worth the money. It will definitely increase your awareness of the wholesale looting and destruction of our national heritage.

This is an incredible, epic book that every person should have.

I read through this book when it first came out and found it misleading. Many of the photos that profess to show clearcuts were actually the sites of catastrophic wildfires. So take them with a grain of salt. Bad examples of logging operations are unfortunately a reality. Clearcuts are not meant to destroy but to regenerate shade intolerant species that can't grow in selective harvesting systems.

check it out