We need to continually re-evaluate our forest plan in the state of Oregon. Cutting old growth is a huge mistake for many reasons. First and foremost, these forest areas represent vital ecosystems. But secondly, there really is no need for it if the bulk of the forests are managed properly and if wisdom is applied.

Oftentimes greed stands in the way of wisdom being applied in our management of natural resources. Clearcutting large sections of forest is pure folly as well. I think we need to look for leaders who will make a priority of protection of forests, wildlife, and all the environment which we will leave to future generations.

re: However, logging reduced the regeneration by 71 percent, and would necessitate manual planting to restore seedling levels that otherwise would have occurred naturally.

JK: So, lets require "manual planting to restore seedling levels that otherwise would have occurred naturally." Isn't that what they did after the Tillamook burn?

Do whatever works to both provide a sustainable, living wage to people outside the urban containment walls while preserving and improving the forests. Surely we can do both.

Thanks JK

"So, lets require "manual planting to restore seedling levels that otherwise would have occurred naturally."

So lets go spend tax dollars preparing timber sales (that generally lose money for tax payers because they cost more to put together than the logging companies pay for the wood), log the land and do serious harm to the forest, rivers, fish, and wildlife, then spend the money to re-plant the forest... and then spend the money to try and mitigate for the harm done to fish and wildlife (ie - salmon)?

Why not leave it alone and let nature take its course? We get regeneration of the forest faster, cheaper, and with vastly less harm to the environment.

I'd rather not see our National Forests turned into industrial tree farms.

Original post says: "Their two central findings were surprising (and probably controversial): salvage logging slows forest regeneration and makes future fires more likely."

What is surprising about this? That nature knows how to grow a forest better than people do? I would have been surprised to learn otherwise.

Careful Brad,

If you take your comment to its logical conclusion, then there's no reason to require commercial loggers of national forests to replant. Is that what you are suggesting?

No, Bill, I'm not suggesting that. Logging on national forests, clearcutting, etc., are different issues. I'm saying that areas which are burned - a natural part of the forest life-cycle - should not be logged and "managed" based on some myth that we can do it "better" than nature can.

As to requiring commercial foresters of national forests to replant... logging and especially clearcutting on national forests should not be allowed, period.

Hi Jeff,

Point taken. I wasn't so much aiming at you as at the notion that the "current policy" makes so little sense - the fact that forestry people quoted in the articles seemed surprised by the suggestion that their attempts to grow a new crop of trees weren't really an improvement over the natural process.

That said, I think there may be a place for human intervention in rare cases where planting native trees and shrubs along vulnerable streambanks can stabilize the soil there more rapidly and prevent silting of spawning areas, etc. More humans chasing our collective tails, I'm afraid, but still...

Clack | Jan 6, 2006 10:01:50 AM So lets go spend tax dollars preparing timber sales (that generally lose money for tax payers because they cost more to put together than the logging companies pay for the wood),

JK: NO LET THE LOGGERS PAY THE TRUE COST.

Clack: log the land and do serious harm to the forest, rivers, fish, and wildlife, then spend the money to re-plant the forest... and then spend the money to try and mitigate for the harm done to fish and wildlife (ie - salmon)?

JK: NO! Let the loggers pay the true cost and see where the chips lie.

Clack: Why not leave it alone and let nature take its course? We get regeneration of the forest faster, cheaper, and with vastly less harm to the environment.

JK: Can I recommend that to your doctor if you get near death? - Lets just let natur take its course. That will be a great comfort to your wife and children (or parents, significent other, etc.)

Why not reduce Oregon's cronic un-employment problem and improve the forrests at the same time with good practices aimed at restoration AND employment?

Or do yo have a problem with rural residents making a living wage?

Thanks JK

I'd rather not see our National Forests turned into industrial tree farms.

The problem as I see it is so many want to reject science out of hand because it doesn't stack up to how they want to use the forest.

I think these two statements are related. The fact is that the forest debate has never really been about science. The question is to what extent our national forests should be preserved for recreational use and wildlife habitat and to what extent they are industrial resources that produce timber. Most people think they can do a little of both, but it seems that the direct economic benefit of timber harvests always trumps the indirect economic benefits from recreation and wildlife.

If you look at the Tillamook Forest, it is a major reason why Intel is in Hillsboro. It is that immediate access to nature that makes Oregon a great place to attract the highly skilled workforce that Intel needs. But the current forest plan calls for almost the entire forest to be clearcut at some point. We won't really notice the effect for a few years. But ten years from now when someone comes to consider a job at Intel they will take that drive to the coast and instead of a forest they will see a patchwork of clearcuts. They will start wondering whether Oregon is such a great place to move to. Then Intel and other companies may wonder whether its such a great place to expand either.

So the question is not what the science says, but what the economics says. And in both cases the advocates of timber harvest at the expense of recreation and wildlife lose. But in the political balance they have much more weight. You have governments and workers who depend directly on revenue generated by timber harvests. They don't really care that the cost is greater than the benefit so long as others pay the cost.

In the 70's the motto was sustainable yields and more wood was but than was really called for in the market. In the 80's the demand for wood went up and the idea of sustainable yields got thrown out as forest employment skyrocketed. Then in the 90's the environmental damage of that overcutting became apparent and the timber industry nose-dived with all those new jobs and more disappearing. Now it looks like we are going back to the 80's with the timber industry and counties pushing for harvests way beyond what is sustainable. And in a few years, as the clearcuts become visible and the timber supply declines, there will be another correction and more workers will find that what they thought was lifetime career wasn't.

Because this isn't about science, its about politics.

JK - Pardon the interruption, but your response to Clack was disingenuous. "Can I recommend that to your doctor if you get near death? - Lets just let natur take its course. That will be a great comfort to your wife and children (or parents, significent other, etc.)"

This comparison is ridiculous. A post-fire forest is not "near death" or anything close to it. It is in the middle of its natural cycle, a cycle that has began thousands of years before the chainsaw was invented.

And this: "Why not reduce Oregon's cronic un-employment problem and improve the forrests at the same time with good practices aimed at restoration AND employment? Or do yo have a problem with rural residents making a living wage?"

First, nothing you or I do TO the forest is going to "improve the forest" one bit. A true forest is the result of millions of biological processes working together over time. We can interrupt, hinder or halt those processes, but we cannot accelerate them in a way that is natural. We might be able to mitigate the damage we do, but we understand far too little about what we are doing to truly "improve" the forest.

Second, it is long established that consolidation and automation in the timber industry are more responsible for the loss of jobs in the wood products industry than anything else.

JK wrote: NO! Let the loggers pay the true cost and see where the chips lie.

OK, JK, where do I send the bill? There's the unemployment compensation, forgone income tax revenues, and most recently disaster relief costs for the commercial fishermen (and women)who are unable to fish for salmon because the habitat was logged off and degraded over the past century.

Then there's the water filtration bill. I think the city of Salem had to spend around 100 million dollars (I could be wrong on the price) after the 96 floods becasue their water treatment plant was overwhelmed by the silt from the 1000's of clearcuts in the North Santiam watershed.

How about missed recreational and tourist opportunities because we no longer have the large areas of pristine wildlands that draw people-like they do in Montana? Because of the timber industry's political dominance, Oregon has protected far less of its land than our neighboring states. Because we had Georgia and Louisiana Pacific and Willamette Industries instead of Boeing, we've protected less than 4% of our land. Washington--over 10%-- and California (a much larger state the last time I looked) has protected over 13% of theirs.

JK also wrote: "Why not reduce Oregon's cronic un-employment problem and improve the forrests at the same time with good practices aimed at restoration AND employment? Or do yo have a problem with rural residents making a living wage?"

We can't cut our way to prosperity. We tried that in the 80s and we're still paying the bills (see paragraph #1). Mechanization, imports, housing starts and interest rates are far bigger influences on the properity of timber dependent communities than available supply. That being said, there's certainly a role for the timber industry in Oregon and plenty of work for people in rural (and urban) communities to restore the forests.

2/3rds of Oregon's Westside federal forsts have been logged and replanted-often at excessive and dangerous levels. Thousands of miles of poorly designed and unstable roads now deface our watersheds and regularly slide into our rivers and streams. Removing roads and restoring complexity and structure to the plantations will require skilled workers who deserve a living wage. While there will undoubtedly be some commercial output from some of these efforts, it is doubtful they will universally pay for themselves (actually, neither did our previous timber harvests, but that's a whole nuther blog). So once again, it'll be up to us to foot the bill.

Come to think of it, we've been doing that all along.

JK: NO LET THE LOGGERS PAY THE TRUE COST.

Clack: First, there is a difference between loggers and the logging industry. Loggers are generally rural folks with not a lot of employment options. The companies that make up the logging industry are increasingly corporate, with diversified private land holdings all across the country. For the most part, public land logging is gravy for them, and they have no qualms about firing their employees and relocating the mill to Tennessee or Canada when the land has been logged.

Second, if the logging industry paid the true cost of administering logging sales , the value of the wood, and the cost of remediation, logging on public lands they simply wouldn't do it. Then you'd be attacking conservationists again for putting loggers out of work.

JK: Can I recommend that to your doctor if you get near death? - Lets just let natur take its course.

Clack: 20 years ago some politicians said Yellowstone was "dead" after the fires, and that we had to turn the bulldozers and chainsaws loose inside the park in order to "recover it". Today we know the fire was just part of natural cycle, the forest and wildlife needed it. It restored balance and now things are fine.

Your analogy might work if I went to the doctor with an ingrown toe nail and he suggested I amputate the foot and have me fitted with a prosthesis that would work just as well as the real thing.

JK: Or do yo have a problem with rural residents making a living wage?

<h2>If logging jobs pay such great wages, why was Roseburg so poor in the 1970's and 80's (you know, the boom years before environmental concerns reduced the cut)?</h2>