What are we hiding behind the visual buffer strip? Forest aesthetics reconsidered

Forest aesthetics provide the public facade for forestry ethics. Current po licies send a hypocritical message to citizens about the practice, intent, and ethics of forestry by suggesting that foresters need to disguise the pr actice of forestry. Such policies imply, to an increasingly wary public, th at forestry is bad for the land and that foresters cannot be trusted. We ho pe that the profession will discuss and negotiate an aesthetics policy that is consonant with-or part of-its Code of Ethics. We review the implication s for forestry of competing aesthetic policies, and conclude that forestry should embrace an aesthetic ideal that is analogous to a gardener's work of tending a garden.