Forestry for Dummies

CFP ^ | January 12, 2004 | Alan Caruba

[MikeEdwards]

Recently, managers of the nation’s 155 national forests were granted more discretion to approve logging and other commercial projects without the lengthy environmental reviews previously required by the 1976 National Forest Management Act. To most people that might not qualify as front page news, but it should be.

The nation was saddled with all manner of environmental legislation during the 1970s and part of the payback has been literally catastrophic for many of the nation’s forests. There has also been a hidden cost for anyone using any kind of product involving or derived from wood.

The new rules brought the usual Greens screaming to anyone who would listen that, "the president’s forest regulations are an early Christmas gift to the timber industry masquerading as a streamlining measure. So said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society lamented that "wildlife safeguards" would suffer. They are both not only wrong, but betray (1) the Green’s opposition to any kind of industry that serves public needs and (2) an indifference to the truth about what will really serve wildlife in those forests. The goal of environmental organizations is to insure that no humans ever use our forests for any reason.

George E. Gruell is a wildlife biologist and the author of "Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests." In July, in a commentary published in the Reno Gazette-Journal, Gruel wrote, "With embers smoldering around Carson City, it’s a good time to look at what fuels today’s devastating fires and perhaps learn from history how to make our forests and communities safer."

"Historically," wrote Gruell, "Sierra Nevada forests were less dense and more resistant to catastrophic fire," noting the difference of just a hundred years. "What we have today is an unnatural accumulation of forest fuels." . . . .

[Little Pig]

Cool, maybe the price of log house kits will drop some, now that it will be easier to get the raw material.

[satchmodog9]

wood is good

[The Great RJ]

Several years ago a particularly violent wind storm swept through the Boundry Waters Wilderness area in northern Minnesota taking down literally millions of trees. Loggers wanted to go in and harvest these downed trees and thus aleviate a huge fire hazard as this downed timber when dried would be a tinder box. The tree huggers prevailed and millions of trees rotted, creating not only a fire hazard but an insect problem. While the fire hazard has somewhat dissapated by the trees rotting, large areas of this wilderness have become an impassable morass of downed trees and rotting vegetation unusable to anyone.

[waiyu]

Speaking as someone who works in the forest industry, I am glad they are thinning the forests. If properly done, a managed forest is healthier than a non-managed forest. Prescribed fire can be the most useful of all management tools. However, if a forest is denied fire for too many years, when it does re-enter the system it will be many times more damaging to the forest and wildlife than even clear cutting the forest.

[KC Burke]

fyi

[Carry_Okie]

I have Gruell's book. I recommend it.

[colorcountry]

a Dixie National Forest ping

[shubi]

Don't worry, in a few million years we will have more coal.

[moondoggie]

The southern end of our property borders a National Forest and we've been on pins and needles for years waiting for a fire due to all the overgrowth.

This is good news, indeed.

Aren't we currently buying most of our wood from Canada? Hmmmmmm........

[shubi]

The environutcases don't care if your house burns or if they destroy the forests. They only care about destroying capitalism. Environmental actions are their cover.

[Da Bilge Troll]

Good news! I have never understood the moral difference between cutting down a tree and cutting down a cornstalk. One crop just takes longer to grow than the other.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[kanawa]

What's your view on clear-cutting?

[Brian328i]

Sounds only too common, in 1998 (somewhere in that period) there was a fire here in NW Montana called the Challenge Creek Fire, I can't remeber the actual acreage that was burned, but if you take an old logging road into the area all you see is dead trees, now this would have been easily logged without having to create alot of logging roads but the tree huggers prevailed and logging never was allowed, now its just a mess with rotting barren trees standing everywhere. I can only imagine what it would be like if it got nice and hot and dried up the left over trees some summer...

[waiyu]

From a timber market point of view: clear cutting is the final stage of a current management plan.
My opinion: I have walked through some of the roughest clear cuts you can imagine. If there is enough seed source around the cut to maintain natural reseeding I can understand that. However, I like to see the tract replanted within 2 years of harvest. I don't like to see people clearcut land and then just leave it alone. I see that as an opportunity to begin fresh with a manageable plan of action. Clearcutting is not the environmental catastrophe that environmentalists claim it to be. It does allow the timber slash to release nutrients back into the soil that will be used for the next generation of plant life. I will agree that clear cuts do "look" horrible. But I also see it as a fresh beginning for new forests.

[AppyPappy]

We have clear cutting here all the time. In two years, you can barely tell it happened. Mother Nature just plants new trees herself.

[kanawa]

Thanks for the reply

I've got to admit when I saw my first clear cut I was a wee bit taken aback.
It was an emotional response but the wind through the few trees standing
seemed mournfully appropriate to the appearance of desolation.
I think I understand the economic reasons for it but I'm unsure of the management aspect.
When you talk of replanting the tract what does that mean?
Does it end up looking like a tree farm rather than a forest?
I have no problem with that but I'm concerned if that type of renewal is used to justify unlimited access to new tracts wilderness or old growth forest.
What's the length of time until a regenerated forest becomes ready to harvest?
I'd like to see a plan that would give security to people now working in the industry.
Difficult question but how much land is needed to be set aside to achieve this?
Does the industry think this way or with increasing world demand will there be increased pressure to open new areas to logging?

You state that clear cutting is the final stage of a current management plan.
Can you expand on that? What are the other stages?
What is a 'manageable plan of action'?

You mention, "If there is enough seed source around the cut to maintain natural reseeding...".
Is that the reason why there are a few remaining trees in that picture?
I wondered at the time why they were left.

What little perspective I have on this comes from Northern Ontario and a selfish love of trekking the backwoods.