The judge frowns. “What grows back after a clear-cut isn’t a forest?”

Frustration boils over in her. “You can replace forests with plantations. You can also arrange Beethoven’s Ninth for solo kazoo.” Everyone laughs but the judge. “A suburban backyard has more diversity than a tree farm!”

“How much untouched forest is left?”

“Not much.”

“Less than a quarter of what we started with?”

“Oh, heavens! Much less. Probably no more than two or three percent. Maybe a square, fifty miles on each side.” What’s left of her vow of circumspection blows away. “There were four great forests on this continent. Each was supposed to last forever. Each went down in decades. We barely had time to romanticize! These trees out here are our last stands, and they’re disappearing—a hundred football fields a day. This state has seen rivers of logjam six miles long.

“If you want to maximize the net present value of a forest for its current owners and deliver the most wood in the shortest time, then yes: cut the old growth and plant straight-rowed replacement plantations, which you’ll be able to harvest a few more times. But if you want next century’s soil, if you want pure water, if you want variety and health, if you want stabilizers and services we can’t even measure, then be patient and let the forest give slowly.”