"A Forest Returns"

I found the movie that we viewed in class, A Forest Returns, to be very informative and also intreging. I had no previous knowledge of anything involving the Wayne National Forest, and to be honest, probably never would if I hadn't watched this movie. The narrator of the movie had a passion for this issue that held your attention and his first hand account made it memorable. The fact that he had seen the forest in it's various stages and had pictures from each stage made it that much more interesting. I found it shocking that the Forest had once been clear cut for farm land and that the government had bought the land back from those farmers to return it to its natural state of forest. I found it very interesting that people were getting paid to not maintain their land and to let mother nature take over. I also found it interesting that when they were clear cutting the land, they would stack the wood into large piles and burn it and use the charcoal remains in the industrial industry. The fact that the government also employed many men during this time to help replant the trees in order to provide them with jobs during the great depression was very touching. Now that I have seen this movie, and have learned about the forests history, I would like to go visit the Wayne and see what it looks like now. I have driven though the Wayne to get here to school, but never really took the time to truly look at it.