National park visitors cut down protected Joshua trees during partial government
22 replies, posted
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/11/us/california-joshua-trees-cut-down-during-shutdown-trnd/index.html
"There are about a dozen instances of extensive vehicle traffic off roads and in some cases into wilderness. We had destruction of government property with the cutting of chains and locks for people to access campgrounds," park Superintendent David Smith told National Parks Traveler.
"We've never seen this level of out-of-bounds camping. Every day-use area was occupied every evening. Joshua trees were actually cut down in order to make new roads."
"Law enforcement rangers will continue to patrol the park and enforce the closure until park staff complete the necessary cleanup and park protection measures."
These trees are already on the verge of a decline due to climate change. I guess that wasn't fast enough for some assholes.
The founding fathers didn't give us this land to neglect it into total decline, and that's what we intend to do.
were people just standing by waiting for this shutdown to happen?
Given how long this shutdown has gone on for it's no surprise people are beginning to seek ways to take advantage of the situation.
technically the founding fathers didn't tell us to protect any land
And they weren't exactly the best examples either, but we take things to such an extreme with pollution and destruction that it's crazy
While not a founding fathers, Teddy Roosevelt would certainly be pissed off about it.
Er, not the best reference to use. The founding fathers didn't "give" us anything; we as a country kind of took it. Especially anything west of the colonies, where we at least had the excuse "well we were born and raised here."
The least we could do, though, is treat the land with the respect the indigenous people have (and have been trying to give) for centuries.
Unsurprising that a collection of monkeys who only respect law when backed up by force decided to do this.
Honestly, if I was down that way, I'd probably volunteer to patrol the areas and keep a watch on things. In speaking of people chopping down trees, I have a memory from Arizona when I was on Mount Lemmon and we were going up there to get free firewood from a ranger station that had been offering in the newspapers. Get up there, and this one asshole in a UHaul is blocking everyone because they wanted to chop down trees, not just pickup from the firewood pits that were predesignated by the national park service.
I don't really think early US history is what you want to draw on for nature-protection messages, mate. Or the thought that the founding fathers 'gave' land to anyone.
John Muir is rolling in his grave.
These aren't your average trees, Joshua trees only grow up to 1cm per year, a 2-3 meter tree is 200-300 years old. Many of the trees are older than the declaration of independence.
I know everyone else has piled on about this
But historically the era the founding fathers lived in had no concept of "environmentalism". For them, they truly believed the world was a more or less eternal, and unchanging place where no human action would really matter. Chop down an entire forest? Move a few miles down stream and there's another forest, stay away for long enough, and the old forest will have grown back. Environmentalism just wasn't even a "thought" at the time because of the manner in which they viewed the lands and resources they had access to.
I simply don't understand people who camp out to "enjoy nature" while simultaneously destroying it.
But why? Why do this for any reason?
This is incredibly enraging to me.. I can't tell you how many places I've been to with hard to reach day hikes to secret native american ruins where people have just gone all that way to smash the walls, destroy the property or spray-paint the N-word on the walls.
My time living in Arizona which is about four hours from Joshua Tree NP has been incredibly eye-opening as well. Since there is a huge amount of individuals with firearms there are countless places where you find burned sections of the desert from explosive targets (which are illegal) with old trees such as these types and cactus's blown apart. Similar to these trees, the saguaros take up to TEN years to grow a single inch and 70 years before it might start to grow another arm. All of it to be gone in just a second. When new roads are paved out here the workers actually up-root these plants and just simply move them out of the way since they are so rare in the world.
I will never understand why someone would bring so much destruction into the only places you can escape society through history and tranquility.
the idea of conserving something as it is for future generations is lost on the conservatives in this country. The ANWR being opened up for oil and mineral exploitation for the first time ever and it being something to cheer about proves they do not care, they will make excuses as to how we can keep these areas pristine and exploit them, but that still misses the point that these areas are more valuable to us undeveloped with as minimal human interaction as possible
Joshua Trees are protected, the last of their kind.
I hope you are caught and properly fined.
But remember the damage you did money can never undo.
and just think
if the Feds can find you, I bet the Lorax can too
Militant Lorax (@lorax@mastodon.social)
I'm fairly confident that trump either doesn't care or believes wiping out national parks is a good thing
Why? Why be a piece of shit? Why are people like this???
I'd be taking a DMT trip naked not cutting down trees.
Big business kind of wants National Parks to fail, since it means cheap ground for new business
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