Florida has a fire ecology, and because of the high incidence of thunderstorms, a lot of natural wildfires kept vast areas of the state as semi-permanent scrubland or pinelands. The upland oak stands that survived cast so much shade that these ancient climax forests were pretty immune to fire, once they finally became established. The sad thing is that this marvelous wood was burned off to clear the land for real estate speculators, not to be used as timber, and even the bug-resistant Florida pine which naturally replaced it was substituted with quick-growing slash pine for cheap commercial timber. Not only was the land raped for dubious development schemes, but even its magnificent hard wood and conifer timber resources were never properly exploited in an economically rational manner.

The same thing happened to the immensely valuable cypress lowlands (not to mention their value as water conservation impoundments). Carefully managed, these woodlands could have provided high quality renewable forest resources forever, an endless economic bonanza. This is what really infuriates me about corporate greed: not only does it steal from everyone to benefit the few, but even from their own purely selfish point of view it is short-sighted and stupid.

Perhaps a century or two ago we really didn't understand the relationship of the environment to the economy as well as we do now, and this idiocy could be forgiven. But today, there is no excuse. These people know exactly what they are doing, they just don't give a damn.