You're reading too much into #4. The forest is a place that we go to examine, learn from, and care for. If you take your time selecting an understory tree that is contributing to excessive fire danger or is shading scarce habitat for threatened wildflowers, you can do some real good. The important thing is that you take the time to learn before you take the tree. The forest is not adapted to a complete absence of human intervention; rather it has suffered in recent times from a lack of thoughtful intervention. Frequent fire-setting used to maintain an open understory and meadows where wildflowers and berry bushes could grow. More recent fire suppression activities, the loss of the carrier pigeon as a spreader of seeds and the chestnut as the dominant canopy tree have radically changed the landscape. What is there today is neither "natural" nor "correct," it is carelessly artificial and can benefit from the return of mindfulness to forestry.
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