To the Journal editor:

(I) would like to comment on state Rep. Scott Dianda’s comments in the (Houghton Daily Mining) Gazette concerning conservation of biological diversity.

I was surprised and disappointed because they appear to be disjointed and ill-informed, almost as bad as the destructive state Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, specializing in undermining democracy by finding or creating loopholes in the law.

I have already written to Scott, hoping that he will bone up on conservation of biological diversity, to see how much better we understand the world beneath our feet, and the need to protect it, than we did a few years ago. Does he understand how much compaction of forest soils affects the microscopic life forms in it? Does he know, for instance, how earthworms are affecting the forests?

Does he admire the “sustainable forestry practices” the loggers acclaim? As he looks around the Upper Peninsula and its vast expanses of “pristine and untouched land” does he ever wonder what happened to the four-foot pines?

Have the hemlocks come back? The cedars? The hard maples? Does he see the aspen and the red pine plantations as an improvement or as cash crops?

Doesn’t his protest that we have a surplus of “pristine” (untouched) acreage indicate that our conservation department,although not yet perfect, could set some aside aside for preservation specifically to protect the diversity of species necessary for the welfare of all species?

We need somebody like Scott to counteract Mr. C’s activities, not enable them.

Jack Parker

Baltic