Hundreds of archival photos chronicle pioneers' early encounters
with the giant sequoias of California's Sierra Nevada in this remarkable short
documentary. The film captures not only the awe the trees inspired but the struggle over
their fate: "Where [John] Muir beheld mystery," the narrator tells us, lumber
tycoon Hiram C. Smith "saw an incredible million board-feet an acre."
Muir first studied the "irrepressibly exuberant" leviathans in 1875. By then,
he wrote, "the mill was busy forming a sore, sad center of destruction." The
only hope of saving the forest, he felt, was to encourage tourism. As news of the trees
spread, sightseers flocked to the Sierra; a telling sequence of stills shows tourists
riding a horse-drawn carriage through "tunnel" trees and striking poses before
fallen giants. One tree, felled for the 1893 World's Fair, is "improved" with a
faux roof and windows atop its stump. The idea of protecting wilderness for its intrinsic
value had yet to pierce the frontier mentality. People came, but not to protect, and
logging increased.
In the mid-1880s the Sierra was opened to homesteading, and new paths were cut through
the rugged terrain. Though commercial interests were excluded from these parcels, many
lumber mills hired men to file claims and later deed them to the company. An orgy of
timber-cutting ensued, spurring a national campaign to preserve the groves, which led to
the creation of Sequoia National Park in 1890. But many stands were left unprotected and
many had already fallen to the ax. As the loss is described, we see lumbermen beam with
pride upon bringing down a 2,000-year-old tree.
Though such misguided conceit is largely a thing of the past, threats to the ancient
trees are not. Challacombe not only reminds us how close we were to losing these
magnificent forests but inspires us to fight to save what remains. (For information on
Club efforts to safeguard unprotected sequoias, see "Among the Ancients" in the
July/August 1997 issue.)—Liza Gross
That national forests are not protected from logging is still news
to many Americans, and even fewer realize their taxes underwrite the destruction of some
of their favorite places. But watching shot after shot of stump-strewn wasteland—the
aftermath of U.S. Forest Service-sanctioned clearcutting-in the film's first minutes
leaves no doubt that something is terribly wrong in our forests.
This in-depth primer on Forest Service policy interviews loggers, activists,
scientists, whistle-blowers, and former chiefs to examine the agency's shift from steward
to supplier for Big Timber. While Paul Bunyan (a lumber-company creation) purveyed the
myth that virgin forests were inexhaustible and Smokey Bear sold the Forest Service as
good guys fighting forest fires, events were encouraging the agency to view forests as
timber repositories. Demand for wood skyrocketed during the postwar building boom,
prompting the government to open public lands to private logging companies, which were
subsidized by tax dollars.
As congressional incentives tying the agency's budget to the
amount of timber it offered for sale grew, "Get the cut out" became the order of
the day. Former timber manager Jeff DeBonis tells us that when he warned his supervisors
about the devastation he saw from clearcutting, he was assured that any damage was
"within tolerable limits." Shots of debris slides, soil erosion, and lifeless
streams suggest otherwise.
The film covers a vast amount of material yet is neither dry nor detached: aerial
footage of lush forestland is juxtaposed with images of eroded hillsides harboring only
strewn logs, rocks, stumps, and shrubs, looking more like the set of an apocalyptic sci-fi
flick than a national forest. "It takes just a few hours," narrator Susan
Sarandon tells us, "to wipe out millions of years of evolution."
With 95 percent of U.S. virgin forests already cut and the remnants lying almost
entirely within national-forest lands, the direction the agency follows is critical. Half
the battle of saving threatened wilderness is making people aware of its peril. This film
will not only educate but incite. —L.G.
Ancient Sea Turtles Stranded in a Modern World
Earth Island Institute, $35; (415) 488-0370
A giant sea turtle paddles among tropical fish, navigates a coral
reef, and then turns gracefully, perhaps searching for food. Instead, it finds a
shrimper's trawling net. The water forces the turtle deep into the trap, where it will
drown unless the fisherman pulls in his net within 45 minutes. This scene, we're told in
this compelling documentary, is repeated more than 400 times a day worldwide.
Six out of seven sea-turtle species are either endangered or threatened. While faced
with many perils—we see turtles mistaking congealed oil and plastic debris for food
and their eggs being sold commercially—turtles' biggest enemy is the shrimping
industry. "We don't run across no turtles," one shrimper says. Images of drowned
and mutilated turtles washing ashore along the Gulf Coast dispute his claim. Yet this
carnage is preventable. Turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, direct turtles and other large
creatures out of the net through an escape hatch. But many shrimpers refuse to use the
devices, required by U.S. law since 1991. Thailand's ambassador to the World Trade
Organization complains that the regulations interfere with commerce. "Let the
consumer decide," he tells us. After watching this video, you'll probably decide that
saving the sea turtle requires action by consumers and governments. For more information
on this issue, contact the Sea Turtle Restoration Project at (415) 488-0370. —Alie Watson
