Imagine you care about the conditions of your town and are an active resident of your community. Real estate developers are proposing to build a shopping mall and condominium complex in your town. This real estate development would eliminate a 100-acre stand of forest, the last large forest tract in your town.
The real estate developers say cutting down the single 100-acre forest does not matter. Their reason? They say many 1-acre plots of forest still exist scattered throughout the area. If you add them up, they say, these 1-acre forests provide the same benefits to humans and biodiversity as does the single 100-acre forest.
Please answer the following: Are the developers correct? Do many fragments of forest provide the same benefits as a single large stand of forest?
Please comment on the following: Would you vote for the new shopping mall and condominium complex? Or would you vote to leave the 100-acre forest in place? Why?
As you answer why you will vote one way or the other, consider the real estate development's possible impacts on the community's:
- biodiversity
- children
- general quality of life in your town. What will you choose to tell your fellow citizens and the town's decision-makers at this meeting, and why?