USA: Gay & atheist hate makes Boy Scouts clearcut forests to make up for lost funds

“The Boy Scouts were green before it was cool to be green,” said the
organization’s national spokesman, Deron Smith. But for decades, local
Boy Scouts of America administrations across the country have clearcut
or otherwise conducted high-impact logging on tens of thousands of
acres of forestland, often for the love of a different kind of green:
cash.

The investigation — a nationwide review by five Hearst
newspapers of more than 400 timber harvests, court papers, property
records, tax filings and other documents since 1990 — also found: 1)
Scouting councils have logged across at least 34,000 acres — a figure
that vastly undercounts the actual number of harvests conducted and
acreage cut, as forestry records nationwide are incomplete or
nonexistent. 2) More than 100 Scouting councils have conducted timber
harvests — one-third of all Boy Scout councils nationwide. 3) At
least 26 councils have logged in areas with or near protected wildlife
habitat at least 53 times, a number also underrepresented. 4) Councils
have conducted at least 60 clearcuts and 35 salvage harvests —
logging that some scholars and ecologists say can hurt the environment
and primarily aims to make money.

“In public, they say they want to
teach kids about saving the environment,” said Jane Childers, a
longtime Scouting volunteer in Washington who has fought against
Scouts’ logging. “But in reality, it’s all about the money.” Scouting
councils nationwide have carried out clearcuts, salvage harvests and
other commercial logging in and around sensitive forests, streams and
ecosystems that provide habitat for a host of protected species,
including salmon, timber wolves, bald eagles and spotted owls.

Boy Scout councils have logged and sold for development properties
bequeathed to them by donors who gave the lands with intentions they
be used for camping and other outdoor recreation. In some cases,
councils have sought to use revenues from logging or land sales to
make up for funding lost because of the organization’s controversial
bans on gays and atheists from membership and employment rolls. “The
Boy Scouts had to suffer the consequences for sticking by their moral
values,” said Eugene Grant, president of the Portland-based Cascade
Pacific Council’s board of directors.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/scoutslogging/397864_loggingmain29.html

To keep this blog going it has to keep growing!

What’s most essential is you click below to: comment, email, repost,
share this…