Anyone in Oregon who has driven to the beach before knows that stretch of highway where the forest has been chopped down in particular patches. However, if you have not been out that way for a couple of months you may not be aware of the intense transformation that area has undergone. Now, when you drive out that way, there are practically no trees alongside the road and the hills have these terrible bald patches. These bald patches looked as though they were formed by a very angry someone who reached right down to pull a fistful of trees out of the ground. The entire forest has been hacked away in patches to the extent that it is unbearable to look at it.
My lovely trip to the back two weekends ago could not have been less lovely. The
scene that was laid before my eyes through the car window was
completely horrifying. I was horror- struck by the vast area of
forest absent from the side of the road and from atop the many
hills along the coastal range! It was shocking to me that such an
immense amount of deforestation could have taken in place in only a
few short months! I couldn't understand how so much forest could just disappear- I mean, where did it go?
The answer is probably my own city, Beaverton.
Well, probably not just Beaverton, but all of the suburbs surrounding Portland. All of these suburbs are growing more quickly than there are space and resources. Not to mention, the structures being built in suburbs are made from wood; this wood comes from those forests on the coastal range. The evidence of this stands close to my home. There is this lot of new homes near me that sits upon the bed of a forgotten forest. These homes, I suspect, were made from the lives of those who were toppled along the Oregon Coastal Range.
We must end deforestation and stop the growth of suburbs. We do not need more wooden homes, we need to build up towards the sky, not out across the land.
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