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Sunday, January 24, 2010

The emblem of the now vanished American wilderness

Jonathan Rosen puts it very feel what the Ivorybill woodpecker represent, “The Ivorybill has become an emblem of the now vanished American wilderness.” Once the human species came to the North American contentment nature was doomed to never be the same. We as humans have left an ugly footprint on nature. Only in the last fifty-year have we tried to undo some of the thing we have destroyed. The good thing about nature is that it can rebound quickly. Like letting the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge re-grow the Ivorybill can come maybe come back. This draws me to another question; how should we feel about the woodpecker and humans cutting down it forest? Without cutting down the forest in the beginning how would we begin to grow crops and start to set up housing. How would we begin to progress to what we have we become? Do we not enjoy the lab-tops, t.v.’s and ipod we use. We needed to progress to enjoy the many thing we have today. This has come with a cost, the extinction of the Ivorybill and its forest it once lived in.

3 comments:

  1. I agreed completely with the first half of your post. but then it seems like you contradict yourself. I don't know if you would rather want to continue misusing the land for profit, or to use it responsibly and save the wilderness. Our country is based on greed. "What can I do to get more money". the Growth of our economy and infrastructure isn't bad, but once it is used with out thinking and responsibility, then its bad. Honestly, we would be right where we are and in a much better place if we were more aware of our environment in the past. I would trade anything I have to be able to see this woodpecker, and other extinct species, in person and not in some book.

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  2. Dear Sunflower, how did the Native Americans set up housing when they inhabited the land of the ivory-billed woodpecker? They were aware of their surroundings, of what they needed to sustain them selves while sustaining nature at the same time. When our ancestors came over seas to North America they were a bunch of useless unconscious fools as we still are today. We were unconscious to the needs of anyone or anything else except to what we wanted. From the social constructs that were brought over with us came overpopulation and the want of cozy homes made of forests. The only way to make up for the loss of nature and life is to learn the lessons that are trying to be taught by nature such as the loss of the great ivory-billed woodpecker and become aware once again.

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  3. the scary thought is that, ive always loved the singer sewing machine company, ive used one all my life and i try to buy singer products whenever possible, but inherent in our understanding of the woodpeckers dilemma was that our success was its demise, that logging allowed us to build and plant crops, and that this human need to modify and take from our surroundings has not changed in the last 50 years, even if the forests are allowed to from back, we still get our palm oil from java at the expense of their forests, or our soy from brasil, endangering the amazon, human attitudes much change if we are to honor the lesson of the woodpecker, and save the other lord god birds of our planet

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