PAPER FROM HEMP A GOOD IDEA

Editor:

(Re: Road Warrior: Paper here to stay so let's make it with hemp by Tim Wees.)

I heartily concur with Mr. Wees that it is time we quit liquidating
our forest ecosystems to make something as disposable as paper. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in 1916 in Bulletin No. 404
that one acre of cannabis hemp, in annual rotation over a 20-year
period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres of trees
being cut down over the same 20-year period.

The existing forest can be seen as capital and the rate at which the
forest grows is the interest. In order to protect forests and their
ecosystems we should live off the interest and not spend our capital.
One only has to look at Google Earth to see that we have basically no
forest capital left.

Try scanning the Canadian countryside for any contiguous forest. You
won't find it. What you will see is a patchwork quilt of clearcuts
everywhere except in the most inaccessible areas and the odd park. It
makes me literally sick to my stomach and instills fear for the
future of our planet.

It seems we're proving that we are no different from the Easter
Island inhabitants who cut every last tree even though they could see
that they had denuded their whole island, driving plants and animals
to extintion and driving themselves into chaos and cannibalism.

Paul DeFelice

Nelson, B.C.