Heppner Garden Club grows essay contest finalists

Published 12:31 pm Wednesday, February 7, 2007

The Heppner Garden Club, under the leadership of JoAnne Burleson, asked freshmen at Heppner High School to write essays for the National Garden Club’s essay contest. The topic was “Preserve the World’s Delicate Tapestry,” and 18 students from Jean Collins’ English class entered.

When the results were in, the contest was won by an 11th grader from Portland. However, the younger students from Heppner placed second, third and fourth. The winners will be recognized at the state garden club convention in June. Over the next three weeks, the EO will run these essays.

Lacie Wagoner

Second place

Our earth is a marvelous thing, it is diverse and delicate. We need the earth for the survival of our people. For the earth to produce and provide for the population it must be in good condition. One area of the world that is in need of our help is the rain forest. We tend to forget what goes on every day in our world and it is not always good. We need to do our best to protect it; the easiest and most sensible way to do this is to harness all available resources, not only the lumber value.

Let’s take a moment to look at the facts of what actually happens to our rain forest. Rain forests are being destroyed every day because it is thought that the timber is the only resource of value on rain forest land. It is estimated that for every second that passes, on and one-half acres is demolished. This accumulates up to 30 to 50 thousand acres per year. With the loss of this forest, we also lose up to 137 plant, insect and animal species a day. The truth is that if the rate of deforestation does not slow down significantly, the rain forests will be consumed within the next 50 years.

The rain forest is one of the earth’s most valuable and necessary features. It provides us with tropical wood, many medicinal plants, tropical-grown foods, a variety of animals and insects, and, more importantly, a major source of oxygen. The rain forest once covered 14 percent of the planet Earth. It has been reduced to six percent. The rain forest is home to nearly half of the earth’s plants, bird and animals, but with the depletion of their home, they are in real danger. But it is not only the animals that have cause to worry. We too should have major concerns. More than 20 percent of the earth’s oxygen comes from the Amazon Rain Forest, as well as 121 prescription medicines on today’s market are derived from the rain forest. The Amazon is the largest rain forest on Earth, but it is only one forest. There are just as valuable forests in Indonesia, Zaire, Malaysia and Burma.

You may be wondering what can be done to help the forests. I believe that by leaving more of the forest intact and harvesting all the resources would be the best way to go about saving the forest. Experts say that by harvesting the plants and fruits on the land, the value of timber and cattle grazing could be surpassed. And we would keep gaining revenue from these renewable resources. The slash-and-burn method destroys the land fertility and it will only be used for cattle grazing, which only makes about $60 per acre. There are many resources like nuts, fruits, oil-producing plants and medical plants in addition to timber. The rain forest also provides more than half of the food in the developed world’s diet. Like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos, and tomatoes and many more produce items.

Everyone has heard about the problems in the rain forest, but after you finish this essay, I hope you have a new understanding for a major world crisis.

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Erin Price’s essay will be published Feb. 14, and Lane Wright’s will be published Feb. 21.We have to be the ones to protect the fate of our world. … We must protect the people, animals and plants of the rain forest or our future generations will pay dearly for the mistake.