The reductionism of scientific forestry

'Scientific forestry' was the false universalization of a local tradition of forestry which emerged from the narrow commercial interests whcih viewed the forest only in terms of commercially valuable wood. It first reduced the value of diversity of life in the forest to the value of a few commercially valuable species, and further reduced the value of these species to the value of their dead product – wood. The reductionism of the scientific forestry paradigm created by commercial industrial interests violates both the integrity of the forests and the integrity of forest cultures who need the forests in its diversity to satisfy their needs for food, fibre and shelter.

Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind (Zed Books Ltd., 1993) p. 18