Old growth is too expensive to harvest

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Ditto.

When I went Forest Service a dream was fulfilled. My forest supervisor climbed the ranks from CCC in the thirties as a teenager to steering nine National Forests - there was no such thing a partisanship w/ political parties. He learned and knew his work.

Reagan was elected, things changed. Party workers were given cabinet posts and it trickled down from there. Business managers became govt. agency heads. My boss left with early retirement and they replaced him with a postal service lifer from D.C. - knew nothing about trees but his brother was a CEO at Diamond International - who knew nothing more than stock returns and herbicide use. End of an era. I left too, no future for me being a farmer of forests for industry needs spending tax dollars to boost private profits. Went lateral too, I guess we all make mistakes.

I see many groups so skilled at organizing for the "benefit" of American people...but I have to question the funding behind such. Greenpeace isn't into quarterly returns for shareholders, Bloedel McMillin is, as is Monsanto and Dow. Science is questioned by those who have an interest in the outcome, like the Tongass isn't dying or glaciers aren't melting or the air after the WTC collapse is "safe". Powerplants now back to 50's standards, but at the same time the environment "benefits?" Capital science. Fatal outcomes, but no fear, we have growing economies and many new jobs.

These ex-foresters know supply and demand and capacity, they earned their work and knew what's right regarding sustanence. The new foresters are products of industry, pawns of profit.

That letter will have no effect on bush's drives, only profits do, and the way they are steering that lust won't even do that. An era has ended, soon many other dependencies will too. I'm only glad that my lateral transfer gave me some skills that don't fit right with my morals, but sit right with effectively helping to end the insanity. bush has to be stopped and this can never happen again. Is it jobs everyone's afraid of loosing? Look around. Is it Chritian moral beliefs? Again, look around. We've been lied to and it's not just a blow-job.


IMHO.
 
Sorry Dan, I meant to target (as did the retired foresters) timber industries...that's pulpwood and pine, redwood and spruce -pretty much exempts hardwood harvesting - whole 'nuther ball game. I've yet to see an oak or hickory plantation, especially one that's dependent on chemical vegetation management or is riparian to salmon nurseries.

We're talking clear cutting and road building. Your guys don't druel when they see another roadless area become exempt from protection. We're talking the west here. The United States Forest Service is the largest road builder in the world - not for families to venture out and upward, but for semi trucks to get the wood they couldn't justify getting before.

I've been a teamster pulling cherry and locust, high dollar logs taken individually, not skidded up a mountainside, or shipped in whole to Japan to pay a debt incurred from the Vietnam War - now what, thirty years ago and we still pay? America needs more selective logging done by people like you, more reliance on domestic hardwoods and less from countries who are apt to clear every log to buy that American way, a whole lot less clear cutting conifer virgin growth, whatever little of it there remains. Issues are hightened when the forests and practices in question are principally dead-center in the largest functional rain forest on the planet - or we could ask the EPA, who says pollution is disappearing and asbestos is good for us.

Maybe it's the busswords - industry meaning everything from fat spoiled rich frat boys drilling for oil to the shoeshine kid in Brooklyn. It definately has a greasy connotation thanks to Energy and Transportation. Sorry. Be proud, I am of you.
 
Makes me feel optimistic to read Caryr's p.o.v. - indeed some thought and experience behind him.
 
Point of origin of information - and each group's incentive.

Always study them.
 
What the enviromentalist don't beleive is most of that old growth wood is rotten in the center at the butt after a tree gets that old it eventually rots. There are mills here in B.C. that can handle old growth but why cut it when second and third growth trees produce better stick lumber. Old growths are good for beams as they seem to have less twist and chek but nowwadays with engineers specs gluelams have replaced old fir beams.

I beleive in leaving old growth stands alone theres no real need to fall them what is more valuable is old growth Western Red cedar.

As for the spotted owl thing its "Save our Forest wipe your ass with a spotted owl" :D

Logging here on the West Coast and Pacific Northwest is alot different than it is in the east out here the equipment is larger to handle the larger wood. You know when you got a big chunk of wood to lift when it takes two EX300 Hitachi log loaders with healbooms :laugh:
 
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