[Goose]

No, you can’t just wave a hand and dismiss it as “propaganda.” Just take a trip up to Oregon and you’ll see the results of clearcutting — including 21st century clearcutting — all over the hills. From where I live in Eugene, the hills east and west of us are marred by clearcuts like bad haircuts. It’s a lot better than it used to be, but it still happens. And it’s ugly, jarring, and bad for everybody except the landowners whose private property forest lands are worth millions. Lots of erosion to begin with, not to mention the forest ecosystem vs. the left-over remnants.

Clearcutting is the dominant form of logging on private industrial timber lands and state forest land in Oregon. Extensive clearcutting has occurred across hundreds of thousands of acres of privately-owned timber lands for the past century, and continues today.   This has some devastating impacts on our forested ecosystems - converting healthy, functioning, and diverse forests into monoculture tree plantations. 



Clearcutting was also extensive on federal public lands in the 1960s-1980s. Today, most logging on federal public land in Oregon has been focused on thinning or selective harvest and not clearcutting in the past 15 years.

The above is from www.clearcutoregon.com, which is yes, an organization with an agenda; but they approach the issue starting with facts.



Washington, north of us, is much the same, lots of ugly clear cuts scarring the hills.

Clearcutting is popular on private lands because it maximizes the return to the owner and to the logging company. However, I would expect that on private land replanting generally follows immediately in order to restart the cycle. A very similar situation exists in Scotland. You will see acres of mature trees adjacent to acres of small trees adjacent to acres of seedling trees. It isn't "virgin" forest, but the deer don't care. It is somewhat a monoculture, because tree types are chosen that grow well, grow quickly, and are in high demand. Sometimes the high demand requirement overrides the grow quickly requirement. This results in diverse blocks at least. Also, different companies make different bets about what trees will be in demand years down the road. The soil in Scotland is often so thin that any erosion would be disastrous. The owners are very careful to avoid that. This type of "tree farming" is also regulated to prevent gross mismanagement. I am not sure this is a bad way to manage a large part of the forest that is on public land as well. At least this way it stays a forest.

[Goose]

No, you can’t just wave a hand and dismiss it as “propaganda.” Just take a trip up to Oregon and you’ll see the results of clearcutting — including 21st century clearcutting — all over the hills. From where I live in Eugene, the hills east and west of us are marred by clearcuts like bad haircuts. It’s a lot better than it used to be, but it still happens. And it’s ugly, jarring, and bad for everybody except the landowners whose private property forest lands are worth millions. Lots of erosion to begin with, not to mention the forest ecosystem vs. the left-over remnants.

Clearcutting is the dominant form of logging on private industrial timber lands and state forest land in Oregon. Extensive clearcutting has occurred across hundreds of thousands of acres of privately-owned timber lands for the past century, and continues today.   This has some devastating impacts on our forested ecosystems - converting healthy, functioning, and diverse forests into monoculture tree plantations. 



Clearcutting was also extensive on federal public lands in the 1960s-1980s. Today, most logging on federal public land in Oregon has been focused on thinning or selective harvest and not clearcutting in the past 15 years.

The above is from www.clearcutoregon.com, which is yes, an organization with an agenda; but they approach the issue starting with facts.



Washington, north of us, is much the same, lots of ugly clear cuts scarring the hills.

Clearcutting is popular on private lands because it maximizes the return to the owner and to the logging company. However, I would expect that on private land replanting generally follows immediately in order to restart the cycle. A very similar situation exists in Scotland. You will see acres of mature trees adjacent to acres of small trees adjacent to acres of seedling trees. It isn't "virgin" forest, but the deer don't care. It is somewhat a monoculture, because tree types are chosen that grow well, grow quickly, and are in high demand. Sometimes the high demand requirement overrides the grow quickly requirement. This results in diverse blocks at least. Also, different companies make different bets about what trees will be in demand years down the road. The soil in Scotland is often so thin that any erosion would be disastrous. The owners are very careful to avoid that. This type of "tree farming" is also regulated to prevent gross mismanagement. I am not sure this is a bad way to manage a large part of the forest that is on public land as well. At least this way it stays a forest.