It's hard to visit the photocopy machine or buy disposable diapers without hearing laments over killing trees.  This worry is just a symptom of the general ignorance surrounding environmental issues.  Such ignorance invites interventionists to use our valid concerns about the environment as an excuse to expand government's role in our lives.  It is one reason that private property rights and economic development are losing ground to bureaucratic regulation.

           An example of this ignorance is the common, but fallacious, assertion that  using paper depletes the earth's supply of trees.  This fallacy is not newly invented:  Henry George recognized it and disposed of it a century ago when he pointed out, "Both hawks and men eat chickens.  The more hawks, the less chickens but the more men, the more chickens."  His simple but profound use of basic supply and demand concepts continues to be ignored. 

           To see clearly the absurdity of slogans like "Save Trees: Don't Use Paper" conduct this thought experiment:  Replace the photocopy machine with a vending machine and try to imagine standing around and fretting about all the cornstalks that must be cut down so we can munch corn chips.  The error is immediately obvious.  Indeed, comedian Jay Leno updates Henry George in his corn chip commercials:  "You keep eatin' 'em; we'll keep makin' 'em."  Allusion to "the George-Leno principle" counters the save-the-earth urgency that so many attach to reducing paper use.

           Does this principle really apply to trees as well as corn?  It does, because commercial forests are renewable farms, not exhaustible mines.  This is especially true for private commercial forest land, where trees are grown for the express purpose of being cut at regular cycles just as farm crops are.  Most of any increase in the demand for wood products such as paper or building materials would be satisfied by the products of tree-farming.

           The George-Leno principle finds support in the history of American forests.  Use of wood products has increased dramatically since 1900.  We buy more paper products than ever.  Further, we build more houses, and larger ones at that.  Yet, despite repeated warnings of "timber famines" over the last hundred years, the amount of wood in American forests is increasing.  (At least since 1868, the federal government has warned of imminent depletion of forest resources.  Meanwhile, the inventory of trees grew from 610 billion cubic feet in 1952 to 752 billion in 1987.)

           The principle is not limited to forestry or to the United States.  In East Africa, wildlife is being depleted in a misguided effort to save it.  Hunting restrictions take away the incentive for Kenyans and other East Africans to conserve their wildlife.   According to conservationist Raymond Bonner (writing in the Wall Street Journal, March 14, 1994), "Keyna's conservationists realize that the landowners are not going to tolerate wildlife's presence without an incentive. . ., [but they] fear the international community won't approve of the return to hunting.  . . . The result is that Kenya -- and many other parts of Africa -- cannot follow the most efficient path to conservation." This, despite one Tanzanian official's estimate that "one hunter is worth a hundred nonhunting tourists to his country."  In contrast, Zimbabwe has created property rights in elephants, allowing local councils to gain from the husbanding of this species. Once property rights are defined, Henry George's prediction holds:  The population of elephants (as well as those of cape buffalo, lions, impalas, and warthogs) are thriving in Zimbabwe even as they dwindle in other parts of East Africa.  As free-market environmentalist Terry Anderson says, "If it pays, it stays."

           Not recognizing Henry George's wisdom contributes to the prevailing policy view.  This view holds that markets are responsible for environmental degradation and that only centralized, political processes can improve the situation.  Recognizing that, given the sanctity of property, "the more men, the more chickens" would take us far toward recognizing that "free market environmentalism" is anything but an oxymoron.