Countries around the world are working harder than ever to save their forests. Brazil's 80% Amazon deforestation reduction target will be met by 2016, four years earlier than promised. In 1998 China banned tree cutting to preserve its forests after the loss of trees caused flooding along the Yangtze and Yellow rivers. The ban is now extended to 18 of its 23 provinces. Here in the US, environmentalists backed by the EPA's Endangered Species Act have reduced logging in national forestlands by 75% from its peak 20 years ago.
So imagine my shock when I opened the Seattle Times and saw the headline "GOP seeks more logging on national forestlands." The GOP's goal: to set minimum requirements for timber sales and annual revenue for each national forest. In other words, to force logging. And also driving home its favorite issues: cutting federal subsidies and rolling back environmental regulation.
The GOPs truly unassailable argument? The bill creates U.S. jobs! Not in sawmills or other finishing stages that require skilled labor -- US lumber demand is so low that many sawmills are closed, at least here in the Pacific Northwest -- but in cutting down trees to sell to China.
That's right, we're logging our national forests to export raw timber to China. According to Fox News, exporting timber is a "surprisingly bright spot in the US economy." Exports to China grew by 300 percent in the first half of 2011. And in these desperate times, it's all about the economy.
But is selling our natural resources really the way to go? The logging industry's 2010 after-tax profits were only 1.1%, according to a Western Washington University study. And these low profits are from timber harvested on private forestland where costs are lower.
Writer/entrepreneur Christopher Swan, who specializes in infrastructure design, explains, "The reality is that forestry strategies are driven by the cost of roads." Private land carries no restrictions about where roads can be built. Logging in national forestland where road building is restricted increases costs, cutting into the already slim profits from timber. Some years, the US Forest Service actually loses money on timber sales, as much as $15 million in 1997. So it's not a good investment from a financial or tax revenue perspective.
Why then would lawmakers in Washington State, home to so many rabid tree-lovers, lead the charge to log national forests? Because the new bill calls for an irresistible incentive: paying localities 75 percent of logging revenue, as opposed to the 25 percent they've gotten historically under the forest-payment program.
Originally, the program generated enough to fund schools and other rural services. But after logging declined, the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act was established to allow affected counties to opt in to a payment program that did not depend on US forestland timber sales. Some Washington counties like Skamania, which the Seattle Times reports is 90 percent national forest, still rely heavily on the program. Without it, the county would have to close half of its school districts.
Federal officials often cite recreational opportunities as rationale for protecting forests, but the benefits of forests go much further than that. Two Japanese studies recently reported on the health benefits of "shinrinyoku" or "forest bathing" - a practice we call walking in the woods. The studies found that shinrinyoku lowered pulse rate and blood pressure and caused a reduction in the stress indicator cortisol. Other studies demonstrated an increase in cells that fight cancer and a reduction of glucose levels in diabetics. Forest walking is practiced all over the world. Americans go hiking. China is building "Forest Bathing" resorts.
Forests are our treasures whose value to recreation, health and happiness is immeasurable. With financial returns from logging our national forests uncertain at best, how can we even think of cutting them down?
Secondly, forest management practices on public and private lands have changed over the past generation. While clearcuts are not pretty they remain a useful silvicultural practice which can be done in variations ways which reduce their impacts on recreational and other ecosystem services. Shelterbelt systems, smaller "patchcuts", contour planting and larger set-backs from surface water features, steep slopes and wildlife habitats can reduce the impacts remarkably.
On fiscal responsibility the Forest Service has always "lost" money and has always sent timber sales proceeds back to Washington and then waited for District Forests to receive whatever Washington doled out. But the importance of forestry in generation of jobs, services and entire economies has been generally ignored. Decentralizing forest management and revenue planning is actually the only way the National Forest system can begin to respond to regional, state and county needs and constituents. Solyndra's single failure was 30 times the Forest Services entire 2007 loss - why has DOE not taken a harder look at biomass, the only potential real low carbon renewable?
That said, I went for long hikes in the woodlands of Washington state on a few occasions when I was younger, and it was a breathtaking experience. Your northwestern forests have stayed with me ever since, and even is a recurring theme in my dreams. Was interesting to find out there is a Japanese theme of "forest bathing", which sounds about right.
In recent decades, environmental issues have entered the picture. These concerns have become a part of the regulatory process. Also, since there already was a large range of help and advice available to forest owners, the environmental concerns have been introduced to forest owners with relative ease.
Once went on a field trip to a site where a large logging area was broken up into smaller pieces by leaving stands of trees, a brook, and some other landscape features untouched. Of course it was still a logging site, and would take time to recover, but if the logging area planner has a keen eye the area can be enjoyable for recreation within 5 years instead of 35.
Some additional info on the Finnish network of owners-logging companies-regulatory bodies:
http://www.metsakeskus.fi/web/eng
The Forest Service that govern all state-owned lands, national parks as well as harvested forests:
http://metsa.fi/sivustot/metsa/en/Sivut/Home.aspx
Still, our forestry history is full of mistakes as well, and our experiences does not fully translate into American conditions. One size does not fit all.
http://metsa.fi/sivustot/metsa/en/Sivut/Home.aspx
http://www.metsakeskus.fi/web/eng
Forested ecosystems release oxygen while sequestering many pounds of heat trapping gases in their living bodies while evapotranspiring cooling water vapor that cools the soil, the leaves and the entire area. Terrestrial ecosystems are the Earth's fresh water, oxygen and rain factories while creating clouds that block the heat of the sun from the Earth.
Upon deforestation, the climate heats up and dries out. And, once the soil is disturbed and the trees butchered, the C02 and methane are released back into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. The trees are also the habitats/homes of all biological diversity and are the food, shelter, cover and nurseries of all animal biological diversity.
Today, America has one-quarter of its trees/forests remaining extant. While man can grow tree farms, he cannot re-create an ecosystem -- never been accomplished. Save ecosystems, you save the Earth.
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Citation please? Ancient humans would not have had the technology to cut down enough forests to spur climate change. In order for deforestation to effect global climate, it has to be on a massive scale, i.e. what has been happening in the Amazon in recent decades.
Most Americans are exceedingly untouched by the natural world; they only care about cash flows and a few silver coins. Conversely, the Native Americans were totally literate about the world around them. In other words, they were far more cognizant about Earth. On a hot day, would you rather stand under a tree or a tree-less spot? Got it!
As Earth's forested and terrestrial ecosystems are the Earth's fresh water factories, the sequesteration of heat trapping gases, oxygen releasers and the umbrellas that shield the Earth from the heat of the sun, how could anyone hope to believe, Earth, not man is the best manager of the Earth's ecosystems because, to-date, man cannot re-create an ecosystem. Ecosystems are not merely a bunch of trees; an ecosystem is one, whole, living, life giving organism, kept alive not just by trees but all biological diversity.
The science on wildfires: European settlers transported and introduced their annual, European weeds that died, just in time for fire season. California's hills were green before the European invasion, not straw colored or brown. These straw-like weeds, the perfect fire kindling, took over in spaces vacated by our perennial herbaceous and forest's native plant and tree biological diversity. When the soil is disturbed, like for deforestation or slicing down native tree biological diversity, something will grow in the vacated soil. Opportunistic European weeds, then take over in the vacated soil.
The dynamics of wildfires have changed throughout the entire western U.S. because of the introduction of the European straw/weeds. These alien, invasive weeds that die in time for fire season produce a faster, hotter and more intense wildfire and more frequent wildfires. Historically, wildfires in the western states were slow moving and with lightening strikes would burn all summer long, so slow moving, they left mosaics of forested ecosystems untouched. Today, are wildfires are almost firestorms, faster, hotter and more frequent.
Today, we still have a few remnants of old growth forests, untouched by man. Earth got it right, long before the white man showed up.
Well it could be that if they live there, they are aware that forestry has always been a major economic activity in Western Washington, and that national forests are *not* national *parks*, but a renewable resource that (if properly managed, and that's a valid issue) can provide jobs, recreational opportunities, and habitat preservation at the same time.
I know liberals, I know loggers, and I know liberal loggers ... but I don't get the impression that this author has spent much time among the actual residents of Western Washington.
Many of our forests are overgrown. As an example, healthy ponderosa pine forests average about 17-20 trees per acre, while today in some places in the West densities are up to 800 trees per acre. This is a recipe for poor forest health and massive destructive wildfires. This forest service report contains an astounding photo from this year's Wallow Fire in Arizona. The completely burned area is completely untouched forest. The green area is forest that was treated with selective fuel reduction. Trees were removed to widen the distance between crowns, forcing the fire to the ground, where it is actually healthy for the forest, and far less destructive.
http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/management/fuel_treatments.pdf
Preservationist ideals that think no tree should be cut are as misguided as complete clear-cuts. It worsens forest health, not improves it.