Logging Slash Burnpile, A Painting

         For Earth Day our local museum had a show of art relevant to that theme.  I contributed an older painting I had done entitled “Slash Burnpile”.   Below is what I wrote about the painting:

    I worked for the BC Forest Service for 23 years.  I was always appalled by the incredible amount of waste generated by industrial logging.  This is an image of the burning inferno of one of the “slash” piles of wood that was left behind after logging. 

    The slash is burned just to get rid of it.  We heat our house with a wood stove, and every time I see all of the smoke from a  “slash burn” or a burn pile, I can't help but shake my head in dismay at the waste of wood that could otherwise be used for something of benefit.

    All of the burning of unused trees is not only prevents the organic nutrients in the trees from returning to the forest soil, but it also puts the large amount of carbon which was locked inside the trees, up into the atmosphere.  It is that ever-increasing carbon in the atmosphere, that is changing our climate and causing the destructive droughts, ever-increasing heat, and massive floods that we now see almost daily on the news.

View my other paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca