And read the above for posts "the problem". One person advocating clear cuts, another saying no, because look what was done in the past. No compromise, or if there is, the enviros will dictate it.
Given your experinces are in America and mine are in Canada there are some differences for sure, and learning to compromise was something that took some time in coming. Many examples up here.
Clearcuts should not be banned. Nor should they be the only prescription. There's places for them, and places where they should never be.
Absolutely. But those are relatively new thoughts relative to the length of time we've been logging. We used to clearcut everything everywhere at one time. That's just the way it was.
Salmon? We spend millions on stream restoration here. You know what is funny? No salmon can make it up the river without being trucked. There are dams blocking the river. Think that might be an "adverse effect"?
No dams on any of our major salmon streams here and hundreds of examples of damage to the fisheries resource as a result of logging. Note I particularly pointed out the specifics of that.....grapple yarding steep unstable mountainsides and building roads in the same places. From the late 60's on that method of logging gained great favor as it allowed areas to be logged you couldn't touch with conventional high lead tactics. And be aware I'm not trying to condemn anyone or anybody for anything, just pointing out the facts.
We're on the other side of the pendulum. I'll exaggerate but it isn't too far from the truth. We mustn't let one soil particle into a stream or it will kill all the salmon in the world. Now, have you ever seen the color of rivers and streams after a heavy rain? The streams coming out of "pristine" wilderness?
What color are they? We're buffering streams by as much as 400 feet in --THINNINGS. We don't allow stream crossings, we make it darn hard to log.
Then there's the cleaup work. Mulch, seed, subsoiling, waterbars. There's more.
Yep. You're exaggerating a bit alright, and I've seen the difference between streams in intact watersheds and those in logged watersheds many times. No comparison between how water is shed from those different landscapes.
Things have changed.
Yep, and not always for the best.
If salmon are so endangered, why are we allowing fishing for them? Why are we hearing about record breaking runs on the Columbia?
You hear about ONE race of salmon returning in large numbers after a half century or more of diminishing runs and that somehow is supposed to be a credit to the industry? Or what were you attempting to imply?
And the number of people who still fish for salmon is miniscule compared to what it used to be, as I'm sure you have noticed.
Now, dams are one of the major problems down there for sure, but there has never been a watershed logged in the history of mankind that was the better for it as far as fish producing values after the fact.
Because we no longer clear cut, we have elk living in the valleys year round. They used to just come down in the winter. Now we have to dodge them on the highway year round. A deputy sheriff was killed when he slammed into an elk.
I really didn't expect this kind of stuff from you SlowP.
I'll refrain from more comment, but suffice it to say that I tend to ridicule the ridiculous sometimes, so be aware.
Huckleberry patches are getting squeezed out by trees.
You are welcome to come pick some off my Huckleberry bush that's growing on a three foot diameter old stump in our backyard.
The viewpoints along roads no longer have views. I have to mention all the unemployment. The woods used to provide employment for most of our residents.
What part of all this do you think I'm not aware of, and if we could clearcut freely again would that change anything other than providing a "view"?
Yet, we have the professional environmentalists, who are educated with law degrees, and degrees in fine arts, (examples) and funded by the second generation of city people, telling foresters how to manage the forest. They dictate how to log, but don't know the difference between high lead and a skidder. They don't want to learn, either.
If that's actually the way it is down there then you really are in trouble.
However, having lived through all the pro-environment/anti-logging rhetoric from the 60's til now.....coming from both sides..........you'll have to excuse me for taking what you've written with a grain of salt.
Rant done for today.
