AP: Harvesting dead trees divides timber industry and ecologists

[question everything]

Harvesting dead trees divides timber industry and ecologists

Legislation may speed up process

By Jeff Barnard
ASSOCIATED PRESS

November 14, 2005

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – On a common-sense level, it's obvious. When a forest burns, the trees are dead. So you cut them down, haul them to the sawmill, and plant new ones. Soon the blackened hillsides will be covered with healthy, green trees.

(snip)

But many scientists say those dead trees, standing and falling to the ground over time, form the very foundation of a healthy and diverse forest that will seed itself with trees uniquely suited genetically to thrive on a specific site and support a rich diversity of fish and wildlife, even if a new forest is slow to regenerate.

(snip)

A battle simmering for about 10 years is focused on legislation in Congress that would help the U.S. Forest Service harvest burned timber and plant new forests more quickly after fires, storms and insect infestations, rather than following a process that can take so long the trees are too rotten to use for lumber by the time it's completed.

(snip)


Until 1995, there wasn't a question what to do in forests after a fire: cut the dead trees and some living ones. Use the revenue to plant new ones. That changed with the so-called Beschta Report. Written by Robert Beschta, a retired Oregon State University professor of hydrology, and seven scientists for the Pacific Rivers Council, an environmental group, it reviewed the body of scientific research and concluded salvage logging should be prohibited in sensitive areas because it promotes erosion and removes the big trees that are the building blocks of recovery. It advised trees older than 150 years should be left standing, plus half of everything else, and new roads not built. Environmentalists used the report to win enough lawsuits to lead Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth to declare his frustration over "analysis paralysis" to Congress in 2002.

(snip)


The Society of American Foresters supports the idea of reforesting the backlog of some 900,000 acres on national forests, arguing replanting speeds the growth of timber as well as wildlife habitat, and salvage logging can be done with minimal environmental damage.


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051114/news_1n14trees.html

[mike_c]

1. well, I'm an ecologist so I suppose my response is rather predictable...

...but I regard salvage logging as just another form of theft. Dead trees are the next cycle's nutrient base. The decomposer community that depends upon them is vital for forest nutrient cycling and other ecosystem services. It's time to stop thinking about forest ecology in profit and loss terms, dammit.

[question everything]

2. Indeed. This is what is fascinating visiting areas consumed by forest fir

seeing new life sprouting from the ashes, literally.

I remember living in Iowa and watching a controlled "prairie fire" to replenish the nutrients, the way it used to be when prairie fire would occur naturally.

[LizMoonstar]

3. i have a question

until it's feasible to go no-wood, how, as an ecologist, do you suggest logging should responsibly work?