I'm not sure I buy the statistics tossed out w/o source, such as "we have less than 4% of our original forests remaining(in the usa)".

I live in a suburban area, formerly used as farmland, and even here, where they slash/burn to build subdivisions and malls, you'd be hard pressed to say that only 4% of the original "forest" is gone.

Even accounting for replanting, I suspect far more than that has never been touched. Mountains, even just rural areas near cities. Nobody's cleared my lot before I moved here. It's all woods still.

I'm assuming this is based on some bizarre definition of what an original forest is. If they mean vast areas untouched by man at all, perhaps. But I think it's misleading, and this kind of propagandized presentation makes me suspicious of any other conclusions they come to.

Whatever happened to unbiased research? (people don't travel the world for 10 years without a pre-determined agenda, btw)