Clearcut Cause

June M. Blurton is a retired speech/language pathologist.

Clearcut Cause is set in the Kootenay region of British Columbia in the
recent past. On one side is a group of loggers headed by Bob. He has a
legal permit to cut trees that are located outside a small park,
starting on Monday. On the other side is Kelley. He has pulled together
an experienced group of protesters who are determined to blockade the
loggers. Ignoring the permit’s start date, Bob sends his team in the
day before, and by setting up a counter-blockade fools the
environmentalists until it is too late for them to save the trees. But
the blockade produces an unexpected complication when one of the
environmentalist’s children becomes ill and Bob has to allow their
passage to a doctor.

This good, well-thought-out story features clearly defined characters
and plenty of action. The writing, however, is sometimes problematic.
Too frequently the sentences are clumsy, and there are grammatical
errors and typos.

No one can read this book, though, without realizing that both the
loggers and the environmentalists have valid arguments on the subject of
cutting old-growth forests, and that confrontation is not the answer.