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I would add,

Lobby to change the Northwest Forest Plan. For you non-PNWers, this is the plan that was put into place after the Spotted Owl shutdown. It was supposed to keep the timber industry going, and protect the critters. Instead, neither has happened.
 
Two great articles about environmentalists and taxes and the basics of forest mismanagement.

Are Environmentalists Ripping Off U.S. Taxpayers? | Forest Industry Network

Evergreen Magazine - Why Implementation Procedures Of Federal Environmental Laws Must Be Reformed

Since everything changes, everything needs a reform.

Great articles, dead on!

Too much government of any kind is bad, too much of the tree huggers BS destroys all of the forest. By feel good means the beatles are well fed while all of our renewable resources go to spoils instead of it's wise use.

I don't have much respect or use for the overly aggressive tactics of the ForUS Circus.
Most regulation is written in an office on the east coast, then the round peg is forced into the deserts triangle problems. No account for local uniqueness.

Big government is destroying all that is right with America.

Forests and public lands should be managed at state and or local levels.

Feds should stay out of it.

Kevin
 
At some point in this country we stopped actually listening to the voice of experience, regulators that had no actual time in the field were put in charge of writing the rules for this country and it has had negative effects from coast to coast.
 
Two of the Beatles are dead, so I doubt that the remaining two have much effect. :D

I would not call the Forest Service --overly aggressive. In fact, I'd call it the opposite. The agency out here is in a paralysis. There are folks screaming for more road and trail management, more firewood, more of everything.

How do I do this without getting political....

Meanwhile others are screaming for "less government". The FS workforce here is gutted. You couldn't increase the amount of timber put up for sale if you wanted. There are not enough folks on the ground.

Contract it out? Well, that takes folks to make up the contract and folks to check up on the contract. That would require hiring and training more "government" to oversee the process. Whether you like it or not, there are contractors who will try their best to rip off the taxpayers. Some contractors are also a beaurocracy in themselves.

Give it to the states? What will that do? The states will have to hire more folks to oversee the land too. Like it or not, we have public lands which should be open for the public to wander about in. Not given or sold off to a private firm who will gate off the roads to keep us out.

Our state would be under the same amount of pressure as the Forest Service is by the environmentalists.
For example, a guy got enough contributions to somehow buy out a state tract of forest and turn it into a preserve, which burned up. He tried to save the last of the Old Growth Lodgepole. That area is now out of production.

The state is under pressure to stop clearcutting, just like the Forest Service. The poster child for this was a picture of a landslide in 2007? which was on private land, but the harvest had to have been approved by our state DNR.

The DNR is gutted. They have laid off folks....more of the less government. The counties are in the same boat.

Until the timber markets improve, the state can't sell as much timber. Our state uses the profit from the sale of timber to fund our schools. So, we do not have as much funding for schools.

It isn't simple. Less government=less folks on the ground to care for roads, trails and trees. Privatization=kicking the public out of the woods.
 
Zackly. The government that needs smallified isn't the land management part. Roads? Nope. Schools? Yeah right. There's a huge elephant in the room, and that elephant is the war in the middle east. That's where all of our money is going. Did you know that it costs almost a half-million dollars a day to keep an aircraft carrier on standby and not doing anything? We've got 10 or so now, and at any given time one or two are in a shipyard, one or two are in the Sea Of None Of Your Business, one or two are training to go there, and one or two just got back. That's just aircraft carriers. Thousands of troops, airplanes, helicopters, munitions, contractors, media... the costs add up pretty quickly. We'd save a lot of cash, and by extension forests, if we didn't have such huge expenditures elsewhere.
 
I agree with less government, but not like your thinkin patty, less government to me is the guys sitting behind a desk and making rules they don't know anything about. Not the people out doing things that make sense, its not an easy fix by any means.........maybe some day
 
I agree with less government, but not like your thinkin patty, less government to me is the guys sitting behind a desk and making rules they don't know anything about. Not the people out doing things that make sense, its not an easy fix by any means.........maybe some day

In the realm of the Forest Service, the guys can sit and make all the rules they want, but the courts will decide whether or not a timber sale goes. That is, if it isn't planned to what the enviro industry feels is the correct way.

Forests are not run by foresters or even the mythical guy behind the desk in the East.
 
Forests are not run by foresters

The bane of federal forest management.

What does a judge know about forest management?

From all my rants, my dog knows way more than any judge.
 
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The FS workforce here is gutted. You couldn't increase the amount of timber put up for sale if you wanted. There are not enough folks on the ground.

Same in Connecticut -- the State Forests aren't run as "enterprises;" hiring a forester is a cost and the revenue they generate -- even though it's a net profit -- goes to the General Fund so it doesn't show up on their budget offsetting the cost.

We could double our cutting just from state land on a sustainable basis, generating more jobs and more revenue, but there is no method in place to link the expenses like hiring foresters to oversea the harvest to the revenues received. So it's not done.

This isn't even an industry purely driven by the domestic market -- I think the figure is 40% of Connecticut's forest harvest is exported (red oak flooring is apparently popular in China). How many more good points of public policy can you hit? More state revenue, more private sector jobs, and it's bringing cash back to this country and state from overseas.

But the funding system is so facacta a couple years back they applied for a grant under the Stimulus bill to hire two foresters for several months to run the firewood program -- even showing the additional sales in firewood permits (at $30/cord) would offset the entire cost of the two temporary foresters...they just needed the seed money to start the program. Couldn't get it. That's the type of government spending that should be a no-brainer...it provided a benefit and had no tax costs.

Instead we hire the Dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Science to head up our DEP, with his insistence he'll only take the job if he also gets utility regulation, so we know have a Department of Energy & Environmental Protection that is in charge of everything from setting telephone rates to air pollution to maintaining picnic tables...take one guess where traditional conservation and recreation operations rate in that organization.

==============
To the original topic, quoting from one of the articles:
extreme environmental groups have successfully used the courts to interpret our environmental laws so as to cause even the most benign forest management activities to be subject to public notice, comment and appeal procedures

Let's remember, this type of foot dragging is a jobs program, too.

Not a good jobs program because it's wasting resources for no good reason; but there are a beavy of folks being employed who have a vested interest not in quickly coming to compromise on differences of opinion, but on dragging out environmental reviews and legal processes as much as possible.

From lawyers (a really poor job market for folks graduating with law degrees), to ologists on both the NGO & Government sides, to secretaries filing paperwork...you're not going to hear them admit it and scream about losing their jobs like loggers screaming about owls...but it's just as much of an economic issue to the people involved on that side of the aisle.

And it gets worse as you go up the food chain -- one of the greatest ways to set your kids up with a nice income and avoid estate or gift taxes is to form a charitable foundation, but then have the kids draw six figure salaries for very part time work "managing" the foundation.

Foundations' tax returns left unchecked - The Boston Globe is one example of how these "foundations" are abused to personal gain above and beyond normal employment needs. (Another favorite is that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is organized as a non-profit, tax-exempt charity...and until the newspapers embarrassed them by pointing it out this summer were paying the members of it's Board of Directors upwards of $90,000/year for attending a half day meeting once a month.)
 
The solution really is smaller government. Not in the sense of fewer people building roads and managing timber sales, but rather in far fewer laws. I read recently that it is not possible for a single person to read all of the laws they must follow in their lifetime, if that was the only thing they did. That is unreasonable and in fact detracts from the rule of law.

Reducing the laws would reduce the lawsuits. There are too many laws that allow people without any standing to have a say through the courts in far too many areas of life. Most of the following stems from this basic first step.

Judicial reform. It used to be that a judge wanted to know, in common sense terms, why the court should bother with your case. Courts had limited budgets and didn't like people who wasted their time. Judges were trained that courts should keep a low profile and be used as a last resort. Courts today are inflated with an unreasonable belief in their own importance and have been funded excessively.

End overseas funding of lobby groups. The middle east and Russia have bankrolled the environmental lobby for years. China is becoming an increasingly bigger money source for attorneys who want to sit in San Fransisco or DC and tell other people how to do their job and live their life. This foreign meddling is deliberate and strategic. They know they can't defeat us on a battlefield, but they can convince us, it sadly seems, to lie down on die on our own.

Move decisions out of DC. End federal management of forests and all federal laws pertaining thereto. Give the control to the states. The local people have a vested monetary interest in proper management for the long term. DC does not and wouldn't know how to go about it anyway, they have proven this. Someone at a desk in DC accomplishes almost nothing on a practical level and the money would be better spent locally.

There will be a huge fuss and cry over any attempt to implement any of the changes I've suggested. Many here on this forum, while agreeing there are problems, will not like these solutions. We have to agree to some first steps at least and do it fast or it is all going to collapse. None of us want that, but economically we cannot sustain the current waste of our natural resources.

Anyway, here are a few thoughts, we all know the problems and I think we can all agree on many real solutions for the near future and the long term.



Mr. HE:cool:
 
Okay, everybody has defined the problem. Great. Now, who has a solution?

My head will explode thinking that hard.

Somehow, those pesky laws that allow anybody to sue, or even appeal a sale need changing to make it harder to do so. Perhaps requiring a bond or "putting your money where your mouth is".

I'd also make a ruling that anywhere that had a clearcut done in the past, could be entered again without
doing all the surveys for slugs, snails, etc. Enough surveys have been done. There's plenty of uncut buffers for them.

I like Nate's idea of self funding. Too many of my former co-workers seemed to be oblivious to the fact that private companies have to make a profit.

I'd get rid of the Northwest Forest Plan.

There, are those solutions?
 
So do you think the FS could even break even on selling timber? I think not! They haven't been able to do it in recent history. You'd have to go back 30 years to get in the black. I don't really think for the most part I would support timber sales that lose money.
So what is the problem? Centralized government, too many rules coming down the pipeline from D.C. or even in this state from Olympia in the case of the DNR. Yes, the lawsuits but I see that as more rules coming down from the Mount.
Solution? Decentralize. Give the districts control but require them to show a profit on sales. That pays for the cost of running things and local citizens that have the biggest stake the most voice.

Never happen though, pipedream in fact.
What to do? learn how to run a shovel, buncher, processor or god forbid a log truck:msp_thumbdn: and resign yourself to the fact it will get worse.
There are already very few jobs in the woods and there will be less in the future.
Where's that crying icon when I need it.
 
I'm actually fairly hopeful. There is a real shift in mood in this country going on right now. People are watching what is happening over in Europe, the instability in the Middle East, and the economay here at home, and they are asking some really hard questions. States have already started cutting bloated social programs, and started looking at what agencies they don't need. States are also taking a real hard look at just what has DC done for them that they couldn't do better. It is a slow shift, likely to ugly as it is to go smoothly, but I have faith in our country that we'll work it out. One era of thinking and silly ideas it getting replaced with cold hard reality.




Mr. HE:cool:
 
What to do? learn how to run a shovel, buncher, processor or god forbid a log truck:msp_thumbdn:

Hey now, I run shovel quite a bit, and processor occasionally, and today I'll be driving a truck. I draw the line at running a buncher or a hotsaw though...just wouldn't be right. I've made some pretty good money this year following along behind them and putting the wood down that they, or their operator, couldn't handle.

Also, I know know quite a few truck drivers that have more than a room temperature IQ, don't move their lips when they read, have more teeth than tattoos, don't drop the F-bomb in every sentence, and bathe often enough that you can comfortably stand down wind of them on a hot day. Give me a little time and I'll try to remember which ones they are.:smile2:


Back on topic...good solutions so far. But aren't there more? And shouldn't there be? There better be.
 
I would add some sort of requirement mandating that forestry graduates and other natural resource graduates work a minimum of 2 or 3 seasons in the woods. Book sense and woods sense are two dynamically different things, and they both go hand in hand.

That should weed out those whiney fools who think gubmint jobs are just a chair in an office waiting on retirement, only because he or she showed up to work. How boring.
 
So do you think the FS could even break even on selling timber? I think not! They haven't been able to do it in recent history. You'd have to go back 30 years to get in the black. I don't really think for the most part I would support timber sales that lose money.
So what is the problem? Centralized government, too many rules coming down the pipeline from D.C. or even in this state from Olympia in the case of the DNR. Yes, the lawsuits but I see that as more rules coming down from the Mount.
Solution? Decentralize. Give the districts control but require them to show a profit on sales. That pays for the cost of running things and local citizens that have the biggest stake the most voice.

Never happen though, pipedream in fact.
What to do? learn how to run a shovel, buncher, processor or god forbid a log truck:msp_thumbdn: and resign yourself to the fact it will get worse.
There are already very few jobs in the woods and there will be less in the future.
Where's that crying icon when I need it.

Yes I do. Private industry does so.

However, they can't do so under the current constraints--the biggie being the NW Forest Plan. All that survey work is spendy. As are the blanket rules for canopy closure requirements, etc. etc. Streamline the timber planning process. Planning is where the money is spent, and so much of that planning produces nothing.

There was a ranger in charge here for a while that required a new unit, or equivalent volume be found to replace those that were thrown out during the planning process. He left. Which raises another point, the rangers on this forest, are very passive when it comes to putting up timber sales. So, even though some are nice people, I'd replace them.

Concentrate sales in plantations or areas that are already roaded. Reopen the old roads--all of the roads here were rocked. Throw in some :eek2: clearcuts--now called regeneration cuts, and get to work. This area grows trees despite volcanic eruptions, fires and people, and has good ground.

Now that I'm retired, start managing the Mineral Block again. That area is now ignored. The LEOs go there as does a TSI guy, but other than that, it is as if it doesn't exist. The rubber trees grow there. That's a term a faller called the timber because there wasn't as much breakage as he expected on the steep, broken ground.

Put the campground hazard trees that are felled, up for bid to go down the road as a log, not firewood. Some of those trees are valuable. I was questioned about one, which is still on the ground. I guess they can be shipped to yacht makers on the East Coast.

Much of the timber around here is at the size the mills want.

Oh, and I'd make another law, rule or whatever that if a person or group holds up a salvage sale, and their case is lost, they will pay the full bid price of the timber to the purchaser or treasury. That would take care of the endless appeals, injunctions, law suits that are used to delay fire salvage until the trees are culls.

Got lots of work to do, eh? Get rid of the NW Forest Plan is the biggie here, then tweak NEPA and the endangered species laws.
 
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