Post by NativeBeav on Jul 31, 2019 8:47:09 GMT -8
Just giving the age of the tree is irrelevant. Health, location, etc. are all important factors in the overall decision to cut. If we were to practice the most up to date forestry practices we have learned in the past 100 years, selective logging, thinning, fuel load clean up, etc., would happen on ALL public lands. But, god forbid according to the earth dirt worshippers we should focus on what is actually best overall for the long term health of the forest, not just a few feathered creatures.
You can't have it both ways - either you close up the fire fighting apparatus in state/ national forests and let it burn naturally when it wants to, which means more frequent, smaller fires that generally won't consume the larger trees, or you need to engage in fuel removal, thinning, etc. Seeing the remnants of the B&B fire near the pass of Hwy 22 heading to Bend raises my blood pressure every time. Assinine people/ policies did not allow salvage logging by helicopter to advance the regeneration, as well as tax revenue for schools, like OSU. Instead, we have our hand out to the Feds for timber subsidies, for not cutting timber. Why am I not surprised................................... 
On a side note, I too am building a house - gotta love wood!
I worked in the industry. First as summer jobs and then in banking. I lent millions to wood product companies. But something like this..... breaks the heart. Always respect the Forest. Wood products provides a lot of jobs. Many Oregon towns are still to this day dependent. Just respect the Forest. It can be managed responsibly for nature, as well as man.
it’s really not a binary thing. What OSU did was a mistake. Big mistake.
I have numerous family members that work in the industry as well. One of the reasons I have always been an OSU fan (other than the fact that OSU is awesome, and NOT tsdtr) is the school of forestry, along with the Hort program. Yes, I agree, not having all of the info, optics are bad, and it probably was a mistake. If there were extenuating circumstances as to why it needed to be done, and not just greed, they should have come out and stated their case. Silence.
What is really sad to me is, as I see it, the whole logging debate is a microcosm of the great divide in our country today. Neither side wants to look for pragmatic solutions, only all or nothing.
Timber communities that were destroyed by the Spotted Owl decision, have in many ways never recovered. And, IMHO, it was never about the owl. It was about shutting down state/ federal forests to ALL commercial logging. Made Weyerhauser rich. Put out of business the smaller companies that could not log on their own land, because they had none. And now we have more of a mess, more fires on public land, etc.
Point being, manage it well, selectively thin, log when needed, salvage log, etc. Don't completely shut it down. Makes no sense. I am sure you have heard the rumors about Weyerhauser funding groups like the Sierra Club during the '80's, right? It makes sense. My dad, who is many years passed away, was standing in the president's office of Willamette Industries when the owl decision was being debated. He told my dad, who was auditing Willamette at the time for the IRS, that if the decision goes through, it will double and triple the value of their timber assets overnight. And people wonder why Weyerhauser could have been funding the Sierra Club?
In the end, everybody loses in these situations - anecdotally, it was later discovered the Spotted Owl did not need Old Growth to survive, but it made for a good narrative at the time - the end justifies the means, right?