[Carry_Okie]

If they would remove diseased and dying trees and take out the excessive downed trees, and do so without digging a bunch of logging roads all over the place, I'd be glad to welcome them into the forests. But they're not going to do that, and I don't blame them. What the forests need is conservation, not logging, unless the loggers can and will incorporate conservation practices into their harvesting techniques.

The price of logs won't pay for your preferences. Until you confront that fact you won't realize that removing some larger trees (note I didn't say all) will be necessary to pay for the rest of the cleanup.

[RonF]

The price of logs won't pay for your preferences.

I thought that it was pretty obvious from my posting that I was aware of that.

Until you confront that fact you won't realize that removing some larger trees (note I didn't say all) will be necessary to pay for the rest of the cleanup.

That's if you believe that they only way to deal with the cleanup job is to have the logging companies do it and let them do what they otherwise need to do in order to make a profit at it. However, if you decide that the public good of performing the cleanup without the ancillary effects of having the lumber companies do it as a byproduct of logging the forests is worth public expense, then there's no need to involve the logging companies and suffer the bad consequences thereof.

Would you rather not pay anything for the cleanup, and suffer logging roads, erosion, destruction of certain kinds of habitat, logging waste, etc., etc., or would you rather pay for the cleanup with public funds and conserve the forests? In the BWCAW/Superior National Forest, the decision was made in favor of the latter. It gets back to, "What are the purposes of State and National Forests, and how much is it worth to meet those purposes?"