Opinion: Clear-cuts help keep forests healthy
By Daniel Tomascheski
Katherine Evatt isn’t the only one who can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s not surprising that many people are alarmed to see good forest practices at work. A few acres of downed trees don’t square with their notion of what a healthy forest is supposed to look like.
Ironically, it’s what they don’t see that tells the real story. They don’t know that the robust stands of foothill conifers nearby, filled with wildlife and natural wonders, are themselves the product of decades of sound forestry practices – including commercial harvesting.
The debate over cutting trees has raged for generations, often without facts to back up either side. Few people had ever bothered to actually go into a forest to study it in place over time. But Sierra Pacific Industries has done that now for nearly two decades – with rigorous monitoring and assessment of commercial forestry practices, water quality, wildlife habitat, archaeological resources and native plants.
As an example, SPI has maintained permanent water quality monitoring stations within Shasta County’s Battle Creek watershed – following EPA-approved protocols and testing by an EPA-certified laboratory – taking measurements for temperature and turbidity every 15 minutes, every day for the past nine years. Independently verified data from those stations and testing for the presence of herbicides demonstrate that water quality there can support salmon, trout and other fish species.
Daniel Tomascheski, vice president of resources for Sierra Pacific Industries, is responding to the Nov. 29 guest column.
I worked in the Forest Industry in Northern Idaho for 20 years and the only thing I saw that was positive to come from clearcuts was a paycheck. The forest suffered, the water quality suffered and the wildlife suffered. The loggers got paychecks and went and bought big toys. Then when all the trees were gone they had to give back their toys because they couldnt afford them. It takes 10’s if not 100’s of years for those trees to grow back, and in some cases they never have grown back. In the meantime the roads built with taxpayer dollars are putting sediment into the streams that support a healthy fisheries,and drinking water. It allows people to get closer to the wildlife they want to shoot (definately not a plus in my eyes), and it is a pretty ugly mess.
I say lets turn all unroaded lands into Wilderness Now, before its too late.
I’ve seen plenty of SPI clear cuts on the Sierra West Slope (and Idaho) and there’s nothing pretty about them. Fresh cuts leave a distorted landscape full of slash and exposed soils, which facilitates sediment discharge into the streams and rivers. Being exposed to the sun vs. the shade of a forest brings heat exposure, and the advancement of terrestrial invasive species. Species diversity is also less in a commercially sustained forest then a forest filled with multiple tree and plant species.
There is such a thing as sustainable silviculture (forestry) and clear cutting doesn’t belong. Forests are so much more them a monoculture crop, which is what the timber industry has tried to turn them into.
Tahoehuskies, explain the difference between growing trees as a crop and growing corn as a crop please.
Also, please explain why SPI should be barred from growing trees as a crop.
As usual, transparent & accountable dialogue rolls out from NEITHER side politically, but have to side with the 2 responses over the ‘corporate’ P.R. approach.
What ‘Tahoehuskies’ was shooting for was the word “ecosystem” – measuring trees in something other than “lineal board feet of yield” never includes the damage down to the undergrowth (the soil, organisms in the soil, insects, vegetation, understory, etc., etc.) that comprise the decades-long development of the entire ecosystem under & around a tree colony.
Also implied is the idea that no one really knows what a “healthy forest” actually looks like, as in those same decades, we tinkered with fire suppression (until finding out its’ flaws),”polygon” studies, what a particular ‘gridspace’ representation on a forest could tell about its’ condition, etc. without adequate resources committed to finding out what stewardship enables in forest growth.
Due to the ‘snapshot’ version of various defenses on either side (i.e., “we do “water monitoring” on such & such a place on a river”), we are lead to believe that that happens everywhere on million-acre holdings, when it does not.
I will correct “tahoehuskies” on another point: there is such a thing as sustainable silviculture – although obviously not nearly enough, which is another story.
There is a private forest on the S.E. side of Vancouver Island, called Wildwood, studied by forestry agencies and groups from all-around-the-world (yours truly has studied there with folks from Australia, the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Finland, Japan, Norway, the U.S. Navy (!!)-(yes, they have their own forester) as to the amazing amount of vitality going on within the confines of a sustainable forest – one that is “logged”, but only to the extent that encourages the same ecosystem values mentioned above. A magical place indeed !! – encouraged to renew itself. . .
I would bet, however, that the author, Daniel, would not requisition himself a “leave” to find out what a healthy forest actually is, which is not yet subject to what his employer thinks passes for “stewardship”. . .
Even the Chinese have discovered that a tree is worth three times more standing than “cut down”, but that is not a part of current logging/lumber mentality – except perhaps Collins Pine. . .
Satori, my point was that SPI is not trying to grow an eco-system any more than a corn farmer is trying to grow an eco-system. Yes Collins does a great job, but the fact of the matter is that we now important lumber from British Columbia that is logged in thousand acre clear-cuts. That lumber is also subsidized by the Canadian government in violation of NAFTA and the end result is it is cheaper to buy Canadian lumber in California than Californian lumber.
We are exporting the environmental impact of our consumption by trying to put unrealistic expectations on tree farms. SPI produces timber for lumber. I dont see the issue with that.
Satori, perhaps look around at Blodgett experimental forest. Thats Berkeley’s forest and yes they have clear cuts and yes it is very healthy. But it is what it is; a tree farm.