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Great topic. Decent show, but too little time to get into how complex this issue can really be. Ultimately, the statements and reactions of panelists and others commenting are based on personal values. Sorry Alex (BARK), there just isn't much science to support many of your positions. Mt. Hood National Forest is managed for multiple uses as you know. In our national forests there are wilderness areas, late successional reserves, designated roadless and primitive areas (even though some are indeed roaded) riparian and critical habitat block outs, etc. - so many overlays that prohibit ANY active, timber extracting management - all of this in addition to other federally managed administrative units - National Parks, National Historic Monuments, National Recreation Areas, etc., that prohibit logging. So where is the multiple use on our federal lands? Why is it so evil to extract small volumes of timber consistent with a thinning, restoration or, God forbid, regeneration plan?

If you study your science, Alex, you'll notice that clearcutting vs. thinning have totally different biological objectives (duh, logging fewer trees than clearcutting?). Clearcutting aims to start a forest stand over. Nature does this via fire, and/or insect and disease induced mortality. Sure, clearcutting as we knew it hardly mimicked these events by removing much of the structural complexity that results after a natural cycles, but some of the more progressive forest scientists of their time came up with solutions related to snag, green tree and CWD retention, that have since been adapted as state law (at least in WA). Improvements such as variable density retention are even embraced by some of our industrial forest managers. But the goals of thinning range from maintaining growth rates on the trees that are retained (vs. allowing them to slow as they do at later stages) to accelerating conditions that are more old growth like. This process happens naturally as stands pass through what many refer to as the stem exclusion stage of stand development - the weakest trees die due to density and competition related stress, while the strong prevail. So why not accelerate this stand maturation process and the emergence of old forest characteristics by mechanically removing trees that are at one stage or another of succumbing to natural processes, if we can conduct such a removal in a minimally invasive way through low impact logging methods, followed with road obliteration or maintenance, etc? Why not promote local jobs, use of local wood products, and some connections to the forest that go beyond your weekend hike to gawk at big trees and lament our current epidemic of nature deficit, obese city kids that don't know a Douglas fir from a western hemlock?

posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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