Old growth forest logging

[Theo Hopkins]

In article <33A35293.74B40E92 at highway1.com.au>, Gary Beilby BVMS
<beilby at highway1.com.au> writes
>D. Braun wrote:
>> 
>> On 22 Feb 1997, wbg wrote:
>> > Give me a break, and check your facts before recyclying the
>> > anti-capitalist Greens crap. We have more trees today in North America
>> > than we had in 1900. Since that verifiable fact might impair your
>> > ideologically bent polemics, you'd prefer to pretend it doesn't exist>
>> 
>

BIG SNIP.


Sorry to jump in late on this, too.

D. Braun is correct, but is talking about what is known as 'sustained
yeild forestry' when he says that there are more trees in the US than in
1900. He is correct, both in terms of numbers of trees, (more trees
because they are smaller), and in terms of timber volume, ie, the total
cubic meters (or board-feet in the un-metricated US) within the US
forest estate.

But....

'sustained yeild forestry' is yesterday's definition of good forestry.

I refer you all to the Earth Summit in Rio, five years back.

The forestry protocols said that "Forests shall be sustained for their
economic, ecological, social, cultural and spiritual values".

While the US (and Canada, Scandinavia, UK, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, etc,
etc.) all have more cubic volume of timber, the ecological, social,
spiritual and cultural values have lost out in a big way. 

In the PNW, this is exemplified by the infamous spotted owl, in danger
of extinction, or the failure to regenerate Pacific Yew after
clearcutting.
 
In Norway it is the possible loss of the rare lichen, _usnea longisima_,
as an example of ecological values being lost. 

In the UK with a 50% convertion from existing broadleaf woodland to
coniferous plantation, we have lost the cultural values of our
woods...'the sun-dappled bluebell filled English woodland' beloved by
poets. 

In Russian Karelia -between St. Petersburg and Murmansk- the old-growth
Kalevala area is being clearcut. The wild woods of the Kalevala are of
great cultual and spiritual importance to the Finns, as the Kalevala
region is where the Finns original came from, and is the area of 'The
Kalevala', a collection of mediaeval saga-poems that inspired Finnish
independence from Czarist Russia and the music of Sibeleus (spelling?).
I doubt Sibeleus would have been inspired by a single-species industrial
tree plantation. 

I could go on...

The Rio Summit also required nations to preserve bio-diversity, be it
spotted owls, very obscure lichen or bluebells*.

The US forest industry has dismally failed to protect the non-timber
value of forests, such as bio-diversity, and this failure continues,
especially outside the PNW and on private lands.

D Braun talks about 'anti-capitalist greens'.

Maybe he is getting confused with timber volume (cash value of forests)
and all the other value of forests, such as the spiritual values, which
have no known financial value.

[*Bluebells are a small blue flower that beautifully blanket, wall to
wall, acres of many English woodlands in spring.]

-- 
Theo Hopkins 
(Forest Action Network/United Kingdom)
e-mail wildwood at gn.apc.org
web:  http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/fan
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A timber industry that says it loves trees
is like my butcher who says he loves animals.
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