We commend a recent community opinion columnist for taking note of Earth Day (AC-T, May 20), although he seemed to be saying Earth Day is not for everyone — lawyers need not apply.

He talked about forest management and how two ‘‘locally grown environmental organizations’’ were, in his opinion, obstacles to forest management.

His article, headlined ‘‘Forest management should be left in the hands of foresters,’’ suggested that environmental groups like these, with lawyers on their staffs, could only inhibit foresters managing our forests. If he had cited an instance where good forest management was hobbled by the courts, we might agree with him.

He was saying that the forester should be left to ‘‘manage’’ the forests without outside interference, particularly from lawyers. Foresters aren’t infallible. The public interest may not always come first in foresters’ plans; disagreements and conflicts about use of the land can arise. Sometimes court action is needed to catch the foresters’ attention.

Specifically, he said he was referring to management of the national forests. What the writer plainly fails to understand is that the national forests, some of which surround us, belong to all of us — ‘‘We the People.’’ Using local forest service operations (Region 8) as an example, the columnist claims that the public is not properly served by dedicated and trained forest professionals when lawyers get in the way of their trying to do their job. What he overlooks is that the forest service is a top-down organization similar to the military, and the chief of the forest service in Washington, D.C., serves at the pleasure of the president. If the president should decide on a plan contradictory to the principles of good forest management, the chief must do what is ordered, but if the order is contrary to the wishes of the owners of the forests, (that’s us) his administration will find itself in court.

In forestry, cutting timber is known as ‘‘removals.’’ This is so that we will be reminded of a bad tooth, not of cutting healthy trees. But as the writer notes, good forestry does include cutting. In the Southeast however, much of the standing timber is in the hands of private owners, so the demonstrated need in our region is to use the forests mainly for recreation. We aren’t running out of timber so there’s no need to ‘‘harvest’’ the National Forests.

The writer believes some of us may be anxious because we ‘‘envision a phalanx of loggers with chain saws cutting everything in sight and tearing up the environment getting wood to market.’’ No, actually, on commercial land, chain saws are not used much any more. Instead large rubber-tired machines plow through the site, shearing off and bundling whole trees off to the chipper.

Nothing is left standing. When he travels through the Coastal Plain, he will probably pass clear-cut private (company) land, looking like a WWI battlefield. My guess would be that environmental groups fear this happening on publicly owned land. On commercially-owned land, this form of forest management is recognized and accepted.

In the USDA Forest Service, an environmental impact statement (EIS) is required by law before forest management begins.

An EIS is an outline of a plan intended to ensure the work meets specified guidelines and, because the forester is usually swamped with work, he/she does not always regard the need for an EIS with enthusiasm. We should note the document includes the word ‘‘environment.’’

Sometimes, the work mentioned in the EIS doesn’t follow the plan, its content is questionable, or people disagree with what is to be done. This may call for legal action

In regard to the headline, I always found foresters to be highly trained professionals, usually graduates of the well-known forestry schools.

But, after all, this is public property they are charged with caring for, and oversight is the way we do things. There is no shortage of trespass cases or illegal cutting on public land, so legal action must always be available, to serve the public as well as the forester.

Allen Thomas is a retired entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service. He lives in Haw Creek.