At the Cutting Edge: The Crisis in Canada's Forests

Rating:
Summary: Muddling through the double-speak
Review: Elizabeth May has done a much needed job of making sense of all the double-speak that surrounds the forest industry in Canada. When all is said and done, the facts that she uncovers stand as damning evidence regarding the unsustainability of logging in all of Canada's provinces. As such, this book will no doubt be unpopular with the Canadian timber industry and its spin doctors.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent critique of forestry mismanagement in Canada.
Review: Elizabeth May has written a who-dunit for Canada's forest industry -- a book filled with intrigue and suspense, villains and backroom deals, shady characters and conspiracy. "At the Cutting Edge" is a fierce critique of forestry management in Canada, of both the industry and government.

If you aren't an environmentalist already, "At the Cutting Edge" will certainly convert you. Written in a straight-to-the-heart style, this book is a page-turner, with an incredulous tale of industry greed and government duplicity.

But the book is also an unparalleled piece of journalism. May is an unrelenting journalist, dissecting forestry management across Canada and province-by-province with a surgeon's skill and attention to detail. Yet she always manages to keep readers focused on "the big picture" -- the upcoming shortage of Canadian wood.

She does this by focusing on how each province calculates its Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) and showing how governments include essentially unusable land to inflate the AAC for industry's benefit. May also makes sound economic arguments against the technique of clear-cutting, and shows how governments subsidize industry and undervalue forests through low stumpage rates.

"At the Cutting Edge" is essential reading for politicians, journalists, investors, environmentalists -- and every citizen who has ever thought that perhaps we may be cutting down too many trees.

Rating:
Summary: How to scare the public into funding your cause.
Review: When will the 'environmental movement' start to put energy into the real battle we have but do not want to fight? Chemicals in our food. The forest industry of Canada is working very hard to meet the publics insatiable demand for forest products. This same public wants 97 cent toilet paper but they don't want to cut a tree to get. The time to take responsibility for our actions is now. As long as we are able to blame an industry for our own greed we can sit back and feel good about ourselves as if we are not the problem. Wake up folks. If we were willing to pay the real value of forest products we would not have to cut as many trees. The 'save the forest battle' is not to be fought with the industry but with the real culprit, the public! One more thing. Canada's forest are growing. We have more forest today than we did one hundred years ago. Hats off to an industry doing it's best to meet public demand AND manage our forests.