Forest Management and Clear Cutting

Bird Dog writing at Maggie's Farm points out the differences between deforestation and clear cutting and explains why clear cutting is a good thing.

Clear-Cutting and Forests
Controversy: Deforestation and Clear-Cutting in the US

Before I dig into this hot topic, a little perspective and a few definitions.

Deforestation is the more-or-less permanent removal of natural growth, preventing forest succession. It�s a common event in the US: every housing development and every farm field, ski area, park, every lawn and essentially every sunny green meadow (with some natural exceptions), represents deforestation. By the 1860s, the forests of the Eastern US were essentially completely deforested for agriculture, pasture, firewood, lumber, urbanization, or for charcoal-making: New England and the Eastern US now has far more woodlands than it did then.

Every gardener knows well how much nature wants to turn your garden into a grassy weed-patch, then into a woodland. Humans force nature to obey with great difficulty.

And everyone who sanctimoniously bemoans deforestation in South America should first look out their window to see one�s local deforestation. Our Great Plains, it is believed, were at least partly the result of Indian burning practices and wildfire. And the Scottish moors? Largely the result of deforestation too, but they are beginning to re-plant. Deforestation is definitely a bad thing, from a conservation standpoint, but often not from a human economic standpoint. Manhattan Island is pretty good without the forest, thanks to Guiliani and Bloomberg.

Clear-cutting, as opposed to selective logging, involves cutting almost every tree down in an area, with the intention that things will grow back. It is an efficient form of silviculture because, when the woods grow back � whether re-planted or just re-seeded via Nature � most of the new trees will be ready for harvest at the same time.

Unlike deforestation and selective harvesting, clear-cutting restarts the clock of natural forest succession, just as does forest fire or severe wind damage. Fire is a key to woodland health and diversity: we see the unhappy consequences of fire suppression in the West, with apocalyptic fires due to fallen dead trees rather than routine smaller fires which efficiently recycle forest litter. In an era of unnatural and probably foolish fire suppression by government (essentially a subsidization of the lumber industry and the vacation-home real estate business), only clear-cutting can imitate the normal cycle of forest succession and renewal, habitat diversity, and thus the species diversity, that conservationists seek.

This is only the first part -- go and read for the rest. Good stuff. Jen and I live between two mountains that are managed by the Department of Natural Resources for WA State. In WA State, all logging proceeds go directly to fund various school districts. We look out our window and see some clear-cut patches, some mature patches, some old growth* and some 10-year-old forest patches. Trees are a renewable resource, the only problem is that some people's timeline cannot accept the 30-year cycle of renewability. * (The old growth happens in areas where logging equipment cannot reach.)