The Unkindest Cut : Hands Off Boy Scout Forest Land

Graphic by Larry Ray / The Rag Blog.

I hit the damned ceiling when I learned that 'the Boy Scouts have sold at least 34,000 acres of land to logging corporations, allowing big business to level forests that were supposed to have been preserved for children to learn about and enjoy nature.'

By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / February 7, 2009

In the early 1950's the camaraderie of Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Explorer Scouts was the glue that held together small communities like the one in which I grew up in South Texas. In 1953, I got to see America on an old troop train car used to transport Boy Scouts from South Texas via rail from Corpus Christi, Texas to Irvine, California for the World Scout Jamboree, and back. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns, The Grand Canyon, The Great Salt Lake and other such national landmarks en route. None of us would have ever been able to visit these places otherwise.

No drugs or gangs back then. Young parents were just starting to grab hold of the new, exciting 50's, raising their kids in a new era of hope and prosperity following WWII. Scouting was good, down to earth, and no tort lawyers were involved in limiting how kids went out played under the guise of "protection." We were rough and tumble. Camping trips resulted in bee stings, minor burns and scrapes and one buddy even survived using a big poison ivy leaf to do his toilet business in the bushes. Someone suggested paying a nickle each to get to see the huge water-balloon sized blisters that erupted from his buttocks. But we all survived, learning to be decent kids, to respect nature, and to be polite to elders among some other good early life lessons.

So understanding all that, you will not be surprised that I hit the damned ceiling when I learned that a recent Hearst Newspaper investigation has revealed that " . . . the Boy Scouts have sold at least 34,000 acres of land to logging corporations, allowing big business to level forests that were supposed to have been preserved for children to learn about and enjoy nature."

Credo Mobile, a 24 year old respected civic advocacy group, has gone to bat to stop the land sale for clear cutting. Credo has the established and respected clout to take on madness like mindless trustees blithely selling off land dedicated to Boy Scouts and intended to instill a respect for nature and the environment.

You can add your voice as well. This kind of Bush-era total disregard has to stop . . . particularly when it is wholesale rape of the environment at the level of the Boy Scouts of America.

Here's the petition and link so you can let your voice be heard. Hope you will take two minutes and join in.

When you think of the Boy Scouts, the first thing that comes to mind is not clearcutting. It may surprise you to learn, then, that a recent investigation by Hearst Newspapers showed that the Boy Scouts have sold at least 34,000 acres of land to logging corporations, allowing big business to level forests that were supposed to have been preserved for children to learn about and enjoy nature. Additionally, some of the logging in question may have violated state rules. According to the Hearst investigation, one council in Washington state allowed an area to be logged without leaving trees to protect a stream which is home to endangered salmon. I just took action to tell the Boy Scouts of America National Council to end its practice of allowing forests to be logged and endangered species to be put at greater risk. I hope you will, too. Please have a look and take action. Click here.

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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