MYTH # 3 — Are We Destroying Our Forests?

[Jeff]

Did anyone else catch this on ABC Monday?

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/US/myths_040322-7.html

[Furby]

I have it on tape and will watch it when I get time, I did however read the link.
I think it all comes down to definition.  :-/

[beenthere]

The environmental scare "hype" does seem to prevail over common sense and reality. I suppose nothing new, but I think in the long run, the situation that we cannot cut some trees now just means that they will be there in the future when we need to cut them (or they will be blown over, burned up, or disease will get them).  Everyone can have their own opinion. I have mine. Wood is re-newable, and harvesting wood is good for the environment.  I like questioning the "myth".
 ;D

[ADfields]

WOW on ABC even   Good for them!! 8)
Andy

[dail_h]

   I got to agree with Furby. If you define fiber farming,the growing of a single species on thousands of acers at a time,and harvesting them all at one time then we are probably "NOT" losing our forest. Howeverif you define forest as a mixed species,mixed age,dynamicand progressive ecosystem, then YEP, we are losing it at an alarming rate.
   I stayed in trouble over 30 tears ago when I was in forestry school,because I wouldn't  conform to the "Slash and Trash For Cash"as the best management practice.For 30 years I have watched as industry and govermental agencies haveconstantly bombarded landowners with this propaganda,until most landowners now don't realise there is any other way to grow and harvest timber.There are numerous studies( although well hidden} that prove that a properly managed mixed age,mixed species forest will over an extended period yeild more volume as well as more income to the landowner. How bdo I know this? Because while in college,I did a paper in Forest Economics,and found the data to prove it ,and then documented it,studies done by the same agencies that turned right around and told landowners that they needed to clearcut their 35 year old stands of pine and hardwood. The supposed reasoning behind this was to get rid of the hardwood weed species.   BULL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The real reason was to provide large corporations with a steady supply of uniform sized product. Oh by the way,I got an F on the paper,not because my data was wrong,but because it did not agree with the then current management philosiphy of the school,industry,or goverment agencies.
   I know tha there are some species that simply won't survive in mixed stands,and I don't have a problem with manageing those species that way,my comments are for forest in general.
   I didn't mean for this to be such a long post,nor do I mean to offend or upset anyone, these are just the facts as I percieve them to be ,and my personal opinions. I'm sure the upper management of the corporation that I currently work for won't approve of my stand on this issue,but then,I don't approve of their's either. I love to see stands of large mature trees,but I also love to cut mature logs into lumber,and veneer too,one of the great paradoxes of my life I suppose.

[Ianab]

I guess there is no 'one size fits all' definition of forestry.. except to say.. 'Are there trees growing there?'
Different people have differrent aims..

1-Preserve the forest as it is (or was)...
2-Maintain the forest with selective logging...
3-Cut and let your forest regrow...
4-Grow trees as a crop like corn....

So what is the 'Right' option?

In NZ we have option 1,2 and 4
1 is any government land, it may have to be carpet bombed with 1080 poisen to keep the introduced pests out.. but untill there is a better solution what else can ya do
2 is private owned native forest, you can get a permit to mill 'some' trees, selective logging or small clearcuts
3 is the majority of commercial forestry. Plant pine trees, prune, thin and harvest in 25 years.. repeat

But good thing someone is putting some common sense into the whole forestry thing

Ian

[crtreedude]

Interesting topic. Amy and I just took the train and then the subway into NYC yesterday. While we were riding I noticed out the window that trees were growing into the rock that had been carved out for the train.  Trees will grow anywhere they can get a foothold.

Like most so-called reporting, this is only toe deep.  As far as the environment is concerned, just let the land alone, believe me, it will turn into forest.

However, if we want to harvest trees for use as lumber, well that is going to take some thinking. Also, if we don't want to destroy trout streams because we silted them up, well that is going to take some self-control.

The problem is that very few people want an investment that does not return anything in 10+ years, maybe more like 25. It's funny, I talk with people who are in their early 30s who want to retire in just a few years.

Saying we have as much trees as we did x amount of years ago is interesting and valuable. But, how much harvestable, valuable lumber is out there? Are we quickly ending up with very little good trees left on peoples property because all of the good ones have been harvested and all of the bad ones have been left?

In someways, I think we are still in the hunter-gatherer stage of lumber - I go out and find a tree that has been growing, maybe before I was born. I cut the tree and harvest it. All well and good, but eventually the "wild" trees will be gone. Then the only thing that will be left is the ones we raise.

We did the same thing with the buffalo - and eventually those who made their money shooting buffalo had to start raising cattle instead. I wonder if we are following the same pattern with lumber?

Fred

[Tom]

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.  I think the efforts made by small land-owners to provide "fiber" is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  It's difficult to find someone who will plant for tomorrow because our Tax structure provides the coffers with more money if the land is Residential or Commercial.   The individual tree farmer is bucking the Government and the "environmentalists" by providing the material for the construction of all of those folks that are against him.  My pine doesn't grow well in an un-even aged stand and still provide the board footage per acre that can gotten from a plantation. I would rather plant and harvest in a thinning rotation until I had provided the world with the most from these acres that I could.

Hardwoods a weed?  In my plantation they are. I have a place to grow hardwoods and have one of the most dense stands of chestnut white oak in the county.  Where they grow is allocated as a wildlife passage and the trees pretty much do for themselves.  If I were to ignore the use that I assigned to that acreage, I could have more by cutting some to open up the canopy.  Not much grows out there that isn't already mature. Pine seed won't take because of the thick layer of leaves on the ground. Hardwoods that take root or grow from root sprouts are few and seldom are more than 2 inches in diameter, dying before they can reach the sun.  The under-story is full of Holly and Palmetto.  Left alone, this land will not change for at least another hundred years and probably more. The trees controlling the canopy are healthy and have many years left in them. A fire may change things but I figure there will be houses here before anyone considers the wood a product. Fifty acres to my immediate west have already been bulldozed clean by a developer.  In comparison, my plantation is a forest.

If those who were concerned for the Natural stands of trees would get off of the tree farmer's back and get the Government to provide good incentives for people to become tree farmers,  the need for cutting the natural stands would be minimized.  That's not to say that it would go away, nor that it should.  

I saw someone on one of those logging-is-bad shows on TV the other day standing at the base of, what he called, a 300 year old white pine.  He was talking about having to protect it and that there wouldn't be trees like this one day.  I don't know what the life span of that white pine is but I'll bet he has seen the bulk of its life already. If he doesn't want it cut, he would be better off buying some land and growing some white pines.  He could have gotten some trucks and bought some of the trees next door that were buried or piled and burned too.

It really pulls my chain to hear all the negativity associated with plantations, clear-cuts, etc when the man planting the trees will probably never see them mature.  He is growing trees, fiber if want to call it that, in the face of a government that wishes he were building houses, environmentalists who complain but live in apartments and own no land, developers who think "all" trees are weeds, utility companies who send their right-of-way clearing to the land-fills, homeowners who cut all of their trees for fear a limb might hit their house, foresters that won't spend time with small landowners because the money is with the big companies  

I'd venture to say that an acre of plantation could save many acres of natural forest if only because of the intense management.

Well here, the big companies are going under.   Their thousands upon thousands of acres of plantation and lowlands that they were protecting with voluntary BMP's, are being sold off.  Who's buying the land, developers? My county no longer has much agriculture, doesn't' want it.  Yet, it is full of people who think it is the smart thing to do to champion the last-standing oak while they run the tree farmer away.

If a person doesn't want trees cut then don't fuss at the logger, do away with the need for the wood.

[crtreedude]

Well Tom, I am one of those evil plantation owners myself. And yes, some of the trees (the ones I plant) are planted in pretty little rows and maintained.

One of the reasons I do it in Costa Rica is that the government there does give incentives for me to do just that - as well as protect the streams and rivers.

The natural forest are nice, and I have about 30% of my land in virgin rainforest. You are correct though, a 300 year old trees is probably almost dead. It would be better to cut it, harvest the wood, and start several more. From an environmental point of view, it will be better.

By the way, I sometimes have rabid environmental types complaining about what I am doing. I just tell them to put their money where there month is. I know of a piece of land about the same size as mine, shoot, they can protect the who thing and the government won't even charge them taxes - the cost? More than 150,000 USD for the land. If they have that kind of money just sitting around, there is plenty of land to buy. I feel pretty good that I am protecting 30% and creating Biological corridors for the wild animals.

If anyone cares what I think :D, Tom, I think you are doing a good thing. Definitely not meaning to imply anything else.

Fred

P.S. Is the fiber and sliced bread supposed to be a pun? If so, it should be outlawed.  ;D

[Swede]

Tom;
Thank You for a good lesson in proper language
 I´ve written about how we are supposed to manage our forests here and also how big company makes, that well  managed softwood  are growing until they are 70-80 years, about the law saying that you can cut and sell for the half purchase price without paying tax and the result of that law...............

What about Your circulation? How do You manage it from planting to clear-cut?
Do You clear-cut in a certain age or size  or when it don´t grow any longer?

Swede.

[Tom]

Swede.
Our rotations differ depending on the use of the trees. Here is the plan that  I  hope to follow.

The land layed fallow 2 years.  
I planted seedlings on plowed ground with no hilling.
Volunteer trees have made the plantation a lot thicker than I wish.  I need to do a thinning now. The planted pines are 6 yrs.

Another thinning at 10 years, taking every other tree will provide pulp wood.

A thinning at 15 years, taking every other row, will provide pulp wood.

A thinning at 25 years will provide pulpwood, chip'n-saw and some saw timber. leaving trees on 10 foot centers.

A thinnng at 35 or 40 years will provide saw timber and thin to trees on 20 foot centers. (clear cutting here depends on market.)

If I haven't already clearcut then there will be a clearcut harvest at 50-60 years depending on market.

I'll only be about 121 years old then and will plant again after a year or two of fallow land.

I also have a plantation that is at the 17 year age in the same rotation plan.

The end of the cycle is difficult to determine because of market and the probability of my not owning the property at that time.  The way things are going here, this area may be in houses in a couple of years.  The plantation will be bulldozed and burned by the developer if that is the case.  The market isn't high enough to interest a developer in the harvest effort.

[Stephen_Wiley]

Good question, but the article is not complete in dealing with all of the issues. Some have been eluded to in the above posts.

I recently retuned from Oregon's Small Wooland Lots meeting at the 1st Oregon Forestry Fair.

We have a couple of trees here in Oregon, just in case any of you were wondering :D

Major concern was expressed as such:  Private, Family owned tree farms are the back bone of  the states economy and in that it takes three generations to harvest timber on the West side of Oregon. On the East and in California it takes six generations.

In the next 10 years 80% of  private owned wood lots will exchange hands. Out of that 80%, 50% will be lost due to lack of family involvement, experience, education, lack of management plans and continual changes in heitance tax laws resulting in losses completely.

Further, growth (development) in to urban areas is causing disturbances resulting in an increase of pathogenic diseases. The onset of out of control new fungal diseases e.g. SOD Phytopthora ramorum proposes a threat to not just the forest. This disease started in the urban enviroment and has quickly moved into forests, woodlots, nurseries, food crops.  Note: most recently a shipment to Florida and Georgia from California was found to be infested. Luckily it was stopped.  How many shipments are not stopped or detected. Three other 'new' pathogens are currently being studied and the significance of their impact is yet to be determined.  Key factor is these are the fastest infecting pathogens observed in comparison to other known pathogens. Which in the last 15 years known pathogens have also increased in their reproduction and spread.

The Eastern States have seen commercial greed in mechanically robbing  Sugar Maples for sap. Resulting in numerous fatality and creating conditions in which undisturbed pathogens could become endemic. Other issues: Loss of Dogwoods due to Anthracnose spp. And yes, some tree fatality due to pollution factors.

Introduced pests are increasing in their numbers of tree kill e.g. Gypsy Moth, Asian long horn, with numerous others factor into this equation. Anyone try counting these pests which also work as vectors in transporting fungal and bacterial pathogens?

Now factor in all the political brouha which has resulted in mis-management. Not pointing any fingers but at least on the West Coast it is a skelton National Forest staff which does not have the education equivelant that the State office does.
Most of their time is spent in preventing litigation from activists rather than manage forests.

What about the management tools .........are all the pesticide tools as damaging as the political spin put on them made them out to be.

What about influences from activist's which focus on animals such as the spotted owl.  How many millions was spent to find out that many of us and our childrens children will be dead before this species is even close to being small in number.
 
So is the ' myth ' - we are killing the trees, or is the ' myth' - that we think we can prevent the killing of trees.

How can people who have no knowledge of  pathogenic diseases make prudent decisions on trees or forest preservation.

Can anyone stop political mismangement.  

While the activists are busy attempting to preserve something the bugs and diseases are annihlating the value they do not comprehend.  

"Return these lands back to their natural state" and what state is that?  Geological surveys have shown where forests now exist. 100 years ago they were grass lands. Another  100 before and they were covered in Cottonwood and locust. Than a few hundred years more and Oak and other seedlings have been found.

The Bible refers to Israel as the land of milk and honey and beautiful in majestic trees. huh? Where are they now ?

So how many people will be watching over the interests of our forest lands which include our urban areas (as SOD has shown they are inseparable). How much knowledge and ability will they have in detecting problems and preserving the integrity of these lands.

I have only hit on a few other issues.........who is next?

[crtreedude]

I think one of the concerns is that our ability to change the climate has outstretched our ability to predict the outcome. According to what I have read, the Sarah desert used to be grasslands and have trees less than 1,000 years ago, then it was overgrassed (they think) resulting in loss of topsoil, etc. Now it is a desert. Then again, it could have been the result of climate change. No one is sure, and that is the point. Imagine the impact to USA if Kansas turned into a desert.

The question is not are things changing, but are things improving or getting worse. Removing trees so that their products can be used seems to me to be a good thing, if their remove doesn't destroy the entire environment. The real problem is when you denude a slope that then loses much of it's topsoil during the next few seasons rain. Selective, sustainable harvest seems good. I am not so sure about some of the other practices.

In Costa Rica, if you denude many of the slopes, you end up with mudslides and you will be responsible for destroying a town at the bottom of the hill. I think this illustrates the importance of at least trying to think about these issues a little bit before someone clears a slope for lumber and then converts it to pasture.

The old saying was that my right to swing my fist ends at your nose. If my actions effect your life and property, I have to be careful. If I own a pond and decide to use a poison to kill all the fish so that I can replace them with other fish I prefer and a big rain comes and washes the poison into a trout stream near me,  then I promise I will find out that those fish were worth more to the EPA then I could have ever imagined. (I know of one company fined $30 per fish!)

I don't think I have answers, just mainly questions. Environmental awareness is good, as long as it is understood that it is not without cost, and you don't drop those costs on the people trying to make a living. If you want to protect all forests, someone is going to have to pay for it. You can not just remove someones right to harvest his trees - especially if they have invested in them.

A plantation is a major investment, believe me, I would not be happy if someone imposed on me that I can not harvest the trees.

Fred

[Wes]

It makes me laugh when the city folks move to my area and complain when someone cuts a tree. Here its mostly mountains and trees, the farms that are no longer being used are overgrown. if these people saw a picture of this area in the early 1900's they wouldnt see any trees, they were all cut down by the NJ Zink co. for charcoal and now you would never know that ever happened.
 I dont agree with what they did but that shows how well our forrest recovered.

[crtreedude]

City folk spend too much time watching Disney movies and not enough time actually out in the wilderness they say they love. I currently (not much longer!) live near NYC, and when I am hiking the trails, I am amazed how few people I see on the trails.

Selective harvest of a tree to me is about the same as selective harvest of a head of lettuce. It just takes longer to grow. I do have some massive trees on our plantation in Costa Rica that will not be cut, but that is to protect the streams and rivers.

Fred

[Furby]

Around here it's the city folks that move out to the woods and then cut everything in sight. After they are  done they bring in two or three little landscape trees.  :-/

[L. Wakefield]

   Excellent thread! I remember several previous posts that seemed to reflect a general consensus that urban sprawl takes up potential forest or farmland which is 'gone forever' when the paving and buildings go up. This is a very different thing fromforest cultivation, or clearcutting, or any of the other myriad activities that can affect the overall picture. Even the definitions and methods of data collection can substantially alter the picture.  lw

[sawhead]

I have to agree with dail h on this, the large companys have done well in propagating the myth that plantation is the way to go.  The people bought into it because it means money in a shorter time for them. The uniform size is the important thing for the company because if there are logs of various sizes then its hard to automate the processing. You do not run sharp chain sawmills with various sizes of logs. Automation means less people to pay and especially less trained personell ( like sawyers, Jeff, Ron and myself for example). Years ago in Arkansas the mills practiced select harvest , cutting only the mature trees then leaving the rest to grow .they would burn the undergrowth every few years,and the timber was some of the best in the world( imho). Now its cut it all, then replant in nice rows , went from the best to some of the worst (see arkansawyers post about the terrible lumber he has to work with).I can understand the landowners point ,most need or want the money now ande besides when they are gone , no guarantee that the next person will continue the long term growth of the trees but it has to start somewhere , we all say "somebody should do something about this "  guess what ? We are the somebodys. Sorry for long post ,but touchy subject for me.

[Swing_blade_Andy]

HI  GUYS

It's me again.

Does anyone remember that thread- a long thread now, over on that other forum.... A few years ago called 'Amazon loggers'. It started with a pic of a Native Amazonian barefooted cutting an enormous tree with a huge antiquated chainsaw and ended with a blow by blow analysis of social economics and politics. Quite hot.

I think that this one is a touchy subject for everyone -anyone with a brain that is. For my part I'm not so well educated in the subject (forestry) as some of the previous authors. However I feel rather disgusted when I see plantation forestry that has been supported here. The main problem is that its most often a monoculture. That means not just that there is only one species of pine growing in acre after acre of prime and scenic land but that there is most often NOTHING ELSE growing there. In Ireland, in Europe generally, in NZ and Australia I have seen mile after mile of tall straight pines, moss and nothing else. No birds, no undergrowth, no animals nothing else can survive the blanket of acidic needles that chocks the earth. Even after the trees are felled there is absolutely nothing else which will grow save bracken ferns (they grow on the moon if they could afford the trip.)

There is an absolute blockage in brain activity to my eyes in countries who are so called (supporting a forestry industry) by allowing, promoting and even subsidizing pine plantations. They cannot understand the damage being done to the wider economy in the name of some profits and taxes and a few jobs. In Ireland, there is documented proof that one of the outcomes of pine plantations is the pollution and acidification of the finest fishing lake in Europe. Lough Corrib has always been class 1 pure water which is why it attracted people from all over the world to fish making more money that the few trees which surround it, would ever be able to earn. Now that great lake is class 2 water and dropping.

Back to the top of this epistle. I don't think that there is a profit to me made on this planet by clear harvesting old growth trees and planting second class species just because they grow faster. The quality and profit results from a 3-400 year old tree or forest cannot be matched by consumer softwood. Selective harvesting of old growth on a long term rotation can be sustained and even improve a forest. I am working with a group who is try this in Nigeria but is very hard to get everyone to agree on which trees should be harvested and which left.

What is the answer? I am sure that there is a direction, which will ensure that plantation owners, mills and consumers benefit but there has to be a rethink and some long range planning done. Not just into future but over the horizon.

Andrew

[Ianab]

Hi Andy
I agree with you about the 'natural' mixed age selectively milled forest is environmentally a nicer option. But plantation has its place as well, it's just another crop like corn or wheat. Just the rotation is a bit longer. Land can be converted from pasture to pine forest or back again in maybe 12 months, the land isn't seriously damaged by the pines being grown and any chemical imbalance is quickly corrected by appropriate fertiliser application.
 Studies in NZ have not shown any significant difference in water quailty running off pine forest or indigenous old growth. Water quality has been more affected by population and intensive farming (fertiliser run-off etc)
 
I sure would hate to see old growth forest cut down and replanted in plantations, but the current plantings in NZ are all on marginal farmland or previous plantation areas. Some would be onto their 4th rotation by now so the land is certainly not ruined.

I'm not saying that plantation forestry is the best option, but I dont think it's as bad a disaster as you are saying. There is a place and a need for both systems.

Ian

[Stan]

One thing for sure, since GM swatted NBC for the exploding pickup story, the media is tiptoeing around big industries a lot more than they used to. Today's targets are commodity producers. Gotta decentralize the Electric company, gotta sue the fast food chains for fat. Gotta force the drug companies to fall into line with all the price regulations currently in vogue in Europe. Oh and tobacco might not be able to make the next installment on the billion dollar payoff, so maybe we'd better pass some more no smoking laws, like CA's beaches. It just don't make sense.  :-[

[sawhead]

Another thought concerning even age plantations ( cuz  I just remembered ) in this area we had a bad ice storm a few years ago , certain age trees were broke off at the top while older trees remained mostly unharmed. The natural stands while receiving damage were not nearly as hard hit. Bringing on this thought , if you get a disease affecting a certain type or size tree  then probaby it would run rampant in plantation timber but maybe not so bad in mixed natural timber.Just wondering. :-/

[Tom]

I suppose it could run rampant but don't forget that the plantations are being intensively managed and if something goes wrong, it will be recognized pretty quick and something done about it.  Natural stands could harbor illness for years without detection because nobody is allowed in there.

You will find valid arguments for both even and uneven stands of trees.  There are reasons that farmers plant a tree the same as reasons he plants corn.  The more trees he raises, I believe, the less stress there is on the rest of the forests in trying to provide building materials and fiber for the world.

[Ron Wenrich]

Well, we don't have ,amy plantations, but we do have a monoculture.  When the gypsy moth came to PA, it wiped out ridge after ridge of mixed oak forests.  The only trees not effected were tulip poplar.

Fortunately, it normally takes several years of defoliation before you have massive mortality.  There were thousands of acres lost to the bug before we got a handle on it.

Current forests aren't decreasing.  But, the land is fragmented.  That means you  don't have those large areas needed for certain types of habitat.  

We are starting to lose forest land in the Northeast.  A lot of this is due to development.  It will be coming to a forest near you.

As for forest management, I like the Dauerwald method.  It is practiced by the Menominee Indian tribe.  More people should be doing this. Its a hard sell.   Here's a link:

http://www.fao.org/montes/foda/wforcong/PUBLI/V3/T13E/2-5.HTM

Here's another from Timbergreen Forestry in Wisconsin.  http://www.timbergreenforestry.com/page13.html

[Swing_blade_Andy]

Ianab

Thanks for picking up on my comments.

Its just the feeling you get from the landscape you know. I remember Peloruos Bridge in the north of the South Island 30 year ago was the most beautiful place you could imagine. Mixed forest lining the Pelorous River , Kauri, Mac, a whole microcosum, nearly a rain forest in it lushness. NOW there are a few hardwoods lining the river an all of the hills around are an even carpet of green- poison pines. Its not natural. And also you can't tell me that the clear felling in the hills arouns Nelson and Malborough Sounds are GOOD MANAGEMENT. Those hills are so steep you just hae to look at them the wrong way and the top soil will be in the sea. I've heard that it does rain there also.Nowhere in Europe would allow such irresponsible harvesting be permitted. I have a lot of admiration for the Kiwi's but in this reagrd your country is sadly backward and lacking.

Plantations are a crop I understand but there are options. Duocultures at least will varigate the land use and diversify the habitat- something else can live ther as well- remember ther are other creatures that use the land as well as humans. I am still developing a prioposal to plant flowers inbetween rows of Mahogany trees the length of Barbados. Last time I spoke to them the government are interested.

I just think that there is not a lot of thinking that goes on under the typical forestry helmut.

Andrew