The New Forest; J. Chodes

This comes to mind because of a recent decision by the U.S. Forest Service to end logging in many federal woodlands, which provided 7.3 billion board feet of timber last year, roughly 12 percent of all timber used in the United States. This reduced supply means wood prices may climb further and create profound changes in communities where lumber-related jobs will be lost. These new logging decrees add another layer of codes which protect wildlife from being hunted or fished, and in some cases prevent human beings from ever entering the woodlands where these beasties live. This leads back to the Robin Hood con nection. He was born Robert Hood, in 1290, during the reign of Edward II. Like today, Sherwood Forest and many of the vast royal wildlife refuges in England had once been productive, food-producing farmland. Like today's "wetlands" and "environmentally fragile" zones, where citizens are ejected from their property, supposedly to save nature's eco-systems, the medieval kings John Chodes is the Communications Director for the Libertarian Party of New York City.

expropriated huge tracts of agricultural country in Hampshire to create what they called "The New Forest." It was allowed to deteriorate to its original uncultivated state and no one was allowed to pursue the game inside without the king's permission. To maintain that wilderness, an army of royal rangers, foresters, and keepers (in cluding the Sheriff of Nottingham) made sure that the laws to keep out humans were administered swiftly and severely. Of course, with the loss of their life supporting farms, the commoners were de nied the means to survive. While the royal forests were filled with game, hanging was the penalty for any person who killed a doe or boar to eat. Everything in the forest was sacred. To cut a single tree branch was a major crime. Ironically, the only place that a common man could escape the brutal arm of the royal law was in the same place that caused the infraction: Sherwood or Barns date forests. They were so inaccessible that even the army of bureaucrats could not find the culprits in there.

Robin Hood's life as an outlaw began, not from killing a protected species, but from being on the wrong political side. He joined the Earl of Lancaster in a rebellion against Edward II. At the battle of Boroughbridge, Lancaster's army was crushed. Robin Hood was officially proclaimed a traitor and his property was confiscated. He fled into Sher wood Forest to avoid the hangman's rope. As in Robin Hood's time, today's answer to such authoritarianism is: Return the con fiscated lands back to their rightful owners. 166 167 Robin Hood. Expand, not reduce, the ability of private companies to create jobs and produce prod ucts from the forest. Private control does not mean havoc. As has been repeatedly shown, the paradox is that the profit-motive guarantees a more rational and environmen tally sound use of the land. Private control demands prudent management of the for ests, precluding wholesale exploitation now. This means simultaneous cutting and growing so there will be trees for lumber next year and for the next generation.

This can be verified even in Robin Hood's day. Dr. Robert Laxton, of the University of Nottingham, in a detailed study, found that in the fourteenth century, the cash-strapped English monarchy allowed private loggingin certain portions of Sherwood Forest. The evidence shows that prior to this, the royal woodland management was poor but that private ownership encouraged far better conservation. Today's federal government also is the cause of havoc, often shocking environmen talists by the betrayal of their vision. Uncle Sam has often high-handedly deforested huge areas by letting forest fires rage out of control as a matter of policy. Uncle Sam has exterminated both peaceful and predatory beasts, often more than hunters or fur trap pers, in the name of "maintaining an eco logical balance." Neither man nor forest has benefited. If the process continues, as it did in Sherwood Forest, the "protected" species such as the spotted owl won't be safe and private property and other human civil rights will continue to slip away. 0 THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY GOVERNMENT , 'INVESTMENT' , by John Semmens T he idea that the government should spend money as a means of stimulating the economy and boosting employment has been a formal part of U.S. ·policy since the Employment Act of 1946. This law was clearly rooted in Keynesian economics. The idea was that government spending would make a splash in the economic pond that would send out ripples that would impact the rest of the economy in a positive way.