Oregon Hikers

retired jerry wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2019, 7:10 am

So however did the Douglas Fir get here before clearcutting. I've always found that man does it better than nature argument interesting.

I don't think it is "better", I just think it is "faster". Look how the harvest cycles on private land have been reduced over the years. They are harvesting trees more frequently now than they used to.

WS said that but I wish I had

If you have a big clearcut, it's cheaper. You build a road to one staging area and harvest a bigger area from that one staging area so overhead is less. You can afford to have bigger equipment so benefits of larger scale. And it's easier (for lazy humans) to plan to have one big clearcut than a number of smaller ones. And that's just the way they've done it in the past.

I don't think the trees grow faster in a big clearcut than a small clearcut. I think they're harvesting more often and getting smaller trees. Rather than having big timbers they can make wood chips and use them for paper or make bigger pieces from the wood chips.

I don't know that harvesting smaller trees more often makes much difference, but you need to go back to studies of what habitat is required for long term survival of plants and animals. I don't think they do this well.

It's about costs, it's cheaper to plant, cheaper to harvest. Spraying the ground with herbicides removes the competition with the new trees. They can do it all at once rather than in multiple harvest cycles.

There is no easy answer. I just don't want to see it on public lands.

again, I wish I had said that

and it's easier. More complicated to figure out how nature works and how to work with that