Chain Saw Madness

Giving a man a chain saw is a bit like giving him a powerful motor car. Instead of just using it to get from A to B the car becomes an end in itself, a toy to be played with. Cars may have been invented to make it more convenient to do all those things you need transport for but once you've got one you look round for reasons to drive. Power tools are similar. Things you wouldn't have done before now suddenly become necessary. It's to do with the sense of power you get and it gives instant gratification. I don't usually go round saying things should be banned. But in this case I think it shouldn't have been invented in the first place. There's some virtue in having to think hard before you do something. And if you have to expend a great deal of time and energy in cutting a tree down by hand, you think twice or thrice before doing it.

So I groaned when a friend told me he had come across people being trained to use chain saws in Lady Canning's Plantation not far away. What do you do once you've been trained? You look round for ways of using your new skill - not good news for trees. Incidentally Lady Canning's Plantation would seem to need thinning because of the trees being so close together, but once you do that the trees collapse when gales get in - they will never be as strong as trees which have grown well spaced out. Has that been considered?
And there's a mad chain saw man loose on Blacka these days.















It's a fair bet that no proper strategy has been worked out - he's just been sent up there to cut some birch. And what happens to the cut trees and branches? Are they left in pile, drawing attention to itself? Whatever happened to the idea that the place should look natural?

















A few years ago SWT promised that trees along this path would not be cut. But, as we now know, what they say and what they do are two different things.