Wilderness: the Last Stand

"What took nature millions of years to evolve can be destroyed in a few hours" says the narrator, actress Susan Sarandon early on. Fortunately, in Miranda Smith's contemporary state of the wilderness address, this kind of shopworn eco-speak is kept to a minimum. Looking at the ugly clearcuts around Bitteroot National Forest in Montana and Olympic National Forest in Washington, it's easy to see why more and more people are becoming emotionally involved in an issue that has far greater consequences than mere landscaping cosmetics. As Wilderness: The Last Stand points out, American taxpayers are subsidizing the failing timber industry, they don't understand the difference between natural growth forest and "tree farms," and they don't know how government has changed the language of logging while doing little to alter the process. Mixing extensive interview footage of environmentalists and forestry officials with old Smoky the Bear newsreels and current shots of heavily logged areas, the film provides a good overview of the issue. Our only real quibble is the repeated device of setting up a straw man (i.e. anyone not fully sympathetic to the environmental cause) just to let the next interviewee take a free potshot with no chance for the former to respond. Regardless of who's right or wrong, the methodology is cheap and easy. Listening to America: The Politics of Trees (reviewed in our February 1993 issue), Our Vanishing Forests (reviewed in our October 1992 issue), and The Forest Through the Trees (reviewed in our May 1991 issue) are better choices, though those with extensive environmental collections will want to add this too. (R. Pitman)