Walking through our new woods
Two of my sons are cross-country runners, one at the local grammar school and one at the local high school. I began training with Jake, the high schooler, but I ride my bicycle while he runs. Lenie has now joined us, alternately walking and jogging. Yesterday, as Jake ran off down the lower logging road, Lenie and I walked the upper one, which has turned into a beautiful young cedar forest with trees between 8 and 12 feet tall. Just about five years previous, I had walked up the same logging road with a friend who was a committed environmentalist as well as a writer for the
magazine. The forest had just been felled and my friend could not hide his disgust at what he perceived as widespread environmental destruction by a logging company. I tried to explain to him that the logging represented a good use of forest land, and that I was familiar with the practices of the local timber company, Southcoast Lumber, and they did things correctly, namely, they logged, then burned, then replanted according to a very long-term logging schedule. “They have an economic stake in taking care of this land,” I said. “Thousands of homes will be built from the timber, then in another 20 or 30 years, they’ll log again and repeat the process.” I tried to explain to him that even the burning they do after logging is good for the land. “Fire is a natural part of the ecosystem of these forests. What could be more environmentally responsible than that?” He dismissed my explanation, as I knew he would. He was one of those environmentalists who seem to treat their beliefs as a religion. He blocked out explanations that showed timber companies doing any kind of enlightened logging. He simply looked at the denuded land and saw its ugliness. He couldn’t see the productive beauty that was eager to spring up as new trees. For him, logging was simply bad! Now here my wife and I were walking through this beautiful new forest. The logged timber has long ago become new homes. The land sloped away from us to the Pacific Ocean, and we could survey miles of new trees leading to the ocean. But I could see this in my imagination five years ago, amid the heaps of stumps and slash. Why couldn’t my environmental friend see that this was a responsible use of land, not a rape of a forest. Would he acknowledge it even now? I’ve lost track of him so I can’t ask him. I’ve met a lot of people like this. They are committed to a line of thought, and no amount of reasoning will sway them from their beliefs. And their thoughts DO become beliefs, as far as I can tell. Thought and reasoning implies listening to alternative views as you search for knowledge. Beliefs imply that you have reached your decision. There is no more room for talk. Too many environmentalists have become “true believers,” rather than pragmatists looking for sensible solutions to environmental problems. They have become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Companies like Southcoast Lumber are part of the solution. They are making money by caring for their forests. We’ll cut our Christmas tree out of this new growth of forest when there’s snow on the ground. We take care to cut out a crowded tree to help the timber company improve the new forest. Reminds me of a Robert Frost poem: Whose woods these are I think I know, His house is in the village though, He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. … I’ll skip to the end: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
August 30th, 2007 at 1:28 am
Yep. An awful lot of “environmentalists” believe that any use of land is wrong.
It IS a religion, and radical fundamentalists of any religion are, generally speaking, nuts. Sometimes benign nuts, sometimes very dangerous nuts, but in general, nuts.
Radical fundamental environmentalists are no different than the radical fundamentalists of any other religion. They WON’T listen to reason, and can run the gamut from just being willfully ignorant to outright dangerous.
Responsible use of land is at once a birthright, a purchased privilege, and an obligation everyone shares. But the key is RESPONSIBLE USE. Not the neglect that many environmentalists say we should do.
During the mid-to-late ’90s, if I’m remembering correctly, harvesting and burning in the western states was SEVERELY curtailed, in the name of environmentalism. The result was tons of deadfalls per acre. What was the natural outcome of this? The uncontrollable wildfires we saw a few years ago, as a result of lightning strikes in fuel-dense areas. Many people lost homes, some people lost lives, because those forests had not been maintained properly, in the name of “environmentalism”.
Proper management of those forests would have saved property and life. Radical fundamental environmentalism, and an administration willing to listen to it and base public policy on it, cost many people their homes, and some people their lives.
August 31st, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Several years ago I was blessed with the opportunity to educate a “tree-hugging bunny-lover” into the realities well managed forestlands in the NW. She was visiting from southern California and was AMAZED at all the trees that she could see from the top of Saddle Mountain (near Seaside).
It was here first trip ever to the NW, and I believe her exact words were: “We’ve been told that you guys have cut down almost ALL your big trees!”
From our vantage point I was able to point out the forest in various stages of regrowth ranging from freshly harvested ( admitedly rather ugly) all the way up to fully mature trees (virtually indistinguishable from ‘old growth’) in what I would guess were about 5 year increments. She couldn’t believe that a forest could ‘go green again’ in the span of five years or so.
September 5th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Hi Dave. You may remember me as the guy who got in trouble at the school I work as for having a copy of your “white supremacist” magazine. Anyhow….
We have about 140 acres of woodland in Walpole, MA at our campus. We’ve reopened our sledding hill, gotten more sun exposure for our gardens, reopened our mile or so of trails. I also cut about 4 cords of firewood a year from my employer’s land in exchange for the improvements I’ve made to their property. It’s fair to say I’ve done a lot of chainsawing.
Still, I consider myself an environmentalist who hates to see large clear cuts. It’s one thing to cut trees here and there and something else to level a 200 acre, often very hilly plot. I don’t know about Oregon, but out here the clear cutting can be very rough on the forest soil and nearby streams. I’m all for working forests, especially privately owned ones. I wouldn’t mind owning some timberland myself, but if and when I do, trees will be taken out in a more reserved fashion. I’m not saying that some areas wouldn’t be clear cut, but probably there won’t be much.
Another problem with large-scale clear cuts is that it leads to large, even-age stands, often composed of only a couple of tree species, which in turn invites extra insect and/or disease problems.
Another thing I see in my travels to forests around the country is that the trees are harvested too fast in my opinion. 20 or 30 years of growth may be enough for the landowner since that’s all a chip board or pulp mill requires for log size, but shouldn’t we have some forests that are allowed to grow large, mature trees? From what I’ve seen very few timber land owners are willing to wait that long between harvests because the trees slow their growth and since everything has to be measured in dollars of value added per acre per year, when the growth rate slows, well, that’s when it’s time to cut. Thankfully some forests are tied up in the national parks. From what I’ve seen even the national forests turn their trees over too fast.
I’m not sure the size question is an environmental question, however, or simply one of taste and preference. I don’t mind seeing forest working and trees being cut, but what I have seen is forest land being pushed too hard, a lot like I see farm land being too intensively cropped, come to think of it.
Still, as I say, I cut trees myself, so maybe I’m not like your lost environmental friend.
Lastly, I was in Oregon for a few weeks last month. After visiting with my brother’s in-laws in Sisters, we went up to Astoria and spent several days running down the coast to California. We had lunch in Gold Beach too. That river inlet there is pretty fantastic from what I saw.
Take care,
Steve B.
Walpole, Ma