Paul Vincent talks environmental movement at Growers banquet

The line between environmental sensitivity and environmental sanity is a thin one, and it’s one often crossed, Bruce Vincent said at the McLeod County Corn and Soybean Growers Banquet.
Vincent, a third-generation logger and motivational speaker, spoke to the association during its annual meeting and dinner Saturday night.
The environmental movement, Vincent explained, started in the 1960s with good and well-intending groups who realized that humans only had one planet and people needed to take care of it. The movement, however, has not matured with time and the laws no longer resemble what they’re supposed to be.
“The movement and laws are showing their age,” Vincent said.
A new collision of visions is occurring, with urban residents discovering the rural areas that represent what they thought were gone. In an effort to save these environments, Vincent said the urban people are imprinting their vision on the rural area, and it’s wrong.
“They don’t know what makes this work,” he said. “They’re saving rural America to death.”
Vincent has experienced this first hand, when a court case on behalf of grizzly bears, and threatened court cases on several other endangered species, shut down logging in his area and closed his business.
“We think there’s got to be a better way,” Vincent said.
For many organizations, Vincent said the environmental movement and corresponding laws have become more about money than environmental stewardship thanks to the Equal Access to Justice Act, which will pay the legal fees of a party in action against the United States.
Vincent said these organizations provide misinformation through the media that is consumed by an ignorant and misunderstanding public.
“They have 50 years of Bambi under their belt,” he said.

For more from the banquet, see the Feb. 3 print edition of The Chronicle.