Anyone who is able to make the trip to see our Old Growth
Forests in Western Australia do so now, before it is too
late. I was lucky enough to recently see our Great
Forests. I was also able to see where there had been clear
felling of these trees. Take the time and make the
effort. It is well worth it.
We don't own the earth, we only borrow it from our
children.....
[There are 15 posts - the latest was added on Sun 16 May, 6:34]
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Go hug and kiss a tree you greenie bitch and have a bath , you stink you feral.
I suggest you go hug and kiss a tree. It is probably the
closest to any sort of affection you will ever get. You
have no idea what you are talking about. I am not a
greenie bitch or a feral. I don't live in the forest. I
did however meet the "PEOPLE" who are. The Thorn Tree is
for travellers not for people who sit on their fat hairy
butts all day on a computer adding posts for things they
obviously know nothing about. Go outside and do us all a
favor. Get run over by a bus. People like you we don't
need............
Nettie, It's because of people like him the world is in the trouble it is in. They have no concept of reality and how our environment is effected when we destroy it. The rain forest destruction will have the biggest effect. The future will suffer because of it. We have only one planet that we live on. I live in Oregon and we have a lot of trees here. There is old growth which is tremndous but there is a lot of clear cut here too. I am not for complete preservation, but there has to be some control or there will be nothing left. All because of greed and the almighty dollar.
I am a Canadian forester and clearcutting is not the
problem; the improper use of clearcutting and bad
land planning are. If people would realize this instead of
harping on the tired old scapegoat of "no clearcutting",
then maybe we would actually get somewhere in terms of
thoughtful and sustainable use of our land. I could show
you some unbelievably beautiful forests of towering 70m tall
Sitka Spruce SECOND GROWTH forest, rivalling any forest in
the world for beauty which, when logged, would have been
deemed to be a disaster area by environmentalists if they
were around 100 years ago. Ecosystems don't operate on
human based emotional ideas of what appears good or bad to
the human eye. Some "disasters" are actually very good for
long term sustainability and biodiversity, while other
apparent disasters are in fact true disasters. We need to
separate our emotions when judging land use issues,
otherwise we are no different than the forces which have
created so many environmental problems in the past. I'd put
up my email to discuss further with people on this
interesting issue, but I'm a little afraid of some of the
mail I'd get.
Thankyou Dennis. It is refreshing to see there are others
out there that care about our world. I can't pretend i
know what it is like in the US or Canada I can only speak
on what I have seen on a recent trip to the South of
Western Australia. We took a walk about 600 metres through
some of the best forest in the South West only to come
across an area of Approx 500acres of clear fell. There was
only one tree left standing. This old Growth was cleared
for wood chipping. The foresters had taken the wood needed
and what was left was going to be burnt. No-one was
allowed onto this land to collect firewood or wood for
furniture making and if they did and were caught they would
receive a $2000A fine. No questions asked. I understand
there has to be some logging but they could do it
selectively. Where they only take what they need, instead
of knocking over every tree to get to the ones they want.
Then to burn what is left, it is just criminal. These
trees have taken 400 years to get to where they are now.
The decisions of our government to log these forests were
not based on sustainability or biodiversity they were based
on money. Corporate greed by companies lining the pockets
of politicians so they are re-elected next time. Second
Growth Forest for these Tingle trees will take 400 years to
get to this stage. Will there be anyone to see it.
Nettie, It sounds worse there than here in Oregon. The laws have changed here for clear cut. After all clear cut they now leave the slash to rot and return to the soil for nutrients. They used to burn it here too but found it was better to leave it. They also require the land to be replanted. Will this land have to be replanted that you looked at?
What I really worry about is the rain forests that are being cut and the land used to graze cattle. Because the soil in rain forests is poor the land soon is good for nothing and will never return to a rain forest again. It's gone for ever. The worlds rain forests are such a major part of the ecosystem that we will pay for it in major changes in the weather patterns in the world. I believe we are already seeing that. The oxygen that these rain forests put out is a major part of what is needed for this world to continue on. Just like the old song, we don't know what we had until it's gone.
The land is supposed to be replanted but unfortunately when
it is they replant with trees that are not native to the
area. They plant Pine trees of Tasmanian Blue Gums because
they grow faster and can be harvested sooner. We saw the
effects of the burn on our trip. The sky was black with
smoke. I can't begin to imagine what effect that has had
on the earth. We have a government department in W.A.
called C.A.L.M. which stands for Conservation and Land
Management. I have never been able to understand how there
could be one department with control of both conservation
and land management. Thankfully now the government has
finally realized they are not compatibale and have made 2
separate departments. Unfortunately the damage has already
been done. I have managed to open some peoples eyes to the
problem, hopefully one day it will be enough to make a
difference. Thanks Dennis it's great to know there are
others who care.
It's Mark again; I don't know if anyone will be reading
this since it's so far down the TT, but some more comments.
Yeah, I was speaking from a North American perspective so I
can't really comment on the Australian situation which you
describe. It's too bad that we are realizing the
significance and need for old growth reserves so late in the
game. In BC, it is so difficult to create more parks
because decades ago the government locked up ALL of the
public forest within cutting permits and now we have little
left to create parks with. So if we now want to take forest
out to make a reserve, that forest may represent a large
chunk of the remaining forest to be cut, so the economic
repercussions are pretty severe. Again, bad land use
planning.
I would again encourage people to separate emotions from
the objective use of knowledge when judging forestry
activities.
For example, the idea that forests are responsible for
filtering out CO2 and releasing O2 has been widely accepted
by many people around the world. Unfortunately, for almost
all forests it is totally false. What most people don't
realize is that although trees take on CO2 when growing,
after they die, as all trees eventually do, all of that
stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere as the
tree decomposes. There is no, or very insignificant, net
carbon uptake in a stable, mature forest. Second growth
forests, on the other hand, do take up carbon because they
ARE growing larger. But! Burning the Amazon is releasing
lots of CO2 because that forest had an accumulation of
carbon which has now been released into the atmosphere. The
real lungs of the Earth are not the forests but the oceans,
where huge amounts of carbon can be deposited as solid
carbonates. This is no green light for burning our fossil
fuels though; I briefly looked at a paper the other day
which concluded that the amount of carbon tied up in fossil
fuels is twice that which can be absorbed up by the oceans.
Selection logging is not necessarily better than
clearcutting. Simply because there is still greenery left
on the land after selection logging doesn't necessarily mean
it's more environmentally friendly. Selection logging can
in many forests result in much more soil degradation than
clearcutting, and can also really restrict the ability to
establish healthy young trees. But in other situations it
is the best way to harvest a forest. Sometimes the
best way to harvest a forest for biodiversity's sake is
with responsibly performed, very large and unsightly
clearcuts. Every situation and forest is different, and no
two clearcuts are the same, so it is impossible to
generalize on whether clearcutting is "better" or worse than
selection logging.
It is human nature to want quick, easy, and simple answers
to solve our problems. This is the danger that I see in
much of the current environmental movement, because
ecosystems are anything but simple. They are incredibly
complicated and no two ecosystems are alike. I fear that
this attitude will only result in the replacement of bad
land management with different "green and fuzzy" bad land
management.
Love your Mother
You have made some good points in your post, but you have
forgotten a very important part of the forests. The
wildlife. There is no consideration for the wildlife. As
I said before I understand there has to be some logging but
where is the sense in cutting down 500 trees to take the 50
trees you want. Our government has just signed what is
called a Regional Forest Agreement. They congratulate
themselves for creating what they say is another 16
National Parks. Which they say can not be logged. What
they don't say is they took 12 National Parks from us and
made them into State Forests so they can be logged. With
one signature they can take a National Park that can't be
logged, make it a State Forest and log it. At this rate we
won't have any Old Growth left. It makes no difference if
the forests are the lungs of the earth or not. The
important thing is that once the Old Growth is gone, it is
gone. To cut down a 400 year old tree and only allow the
reforested trees to live to 90 years will not replace Old
Growth. Birds like Cockatoos and Parrots don't make nests
in the branches they use the holes in the trunks. These
holes arn't in young trees only the old trees. Where are
they to nest when there are no older trees? Please keep
the debate going. I will post at the top or e-mail me.
Nettie, must say the three of us have something going here. I can't believe that they take so little of the trees when they clear cut in Australia. Is there a varitey of tree species or just one? What we see in the Northwest in Oregon, Washington, and Canada are primarily Douglas fir. If done right, and I'm not advocating clear, they can use almost all of the wood. The big burns after clear cuts and wig wam burners at lumber mills have all disappeared. At least now it's working much better here. I'm not sure if Canada has adopted those methods or not. As I said before it's all about money. Mark has not mentioned it, but most that are profiting from timber have only recently been looking at the efects of what they are doing. I don't have the information at hand, but I read recently that new research has found that they will be unable to keep repeating the cut and replant cycles like farming for ever. It will not work. Just like farming other crops, you have to rotate crops for the soil to produce. Because of the long years involved nobody in the business today will be in it or alive when the next so called "crop" is harvested. So each generations decisions affects the next. We don't have the opportunity to correct them. I just hope the next generation sees what we did wrong and is able to correct it. Many animal species are extinct because of humans. How we treat our envoirnment has such an enormous impact on whether this world will even be liveable 100 years from now. But does anyone even care?? After all we will be all dead then. This throw away society of today could care less about tomorrow. Have fun today because we may all be nuked tomorrow. I am more of an optimist than that and hope that there are enough inteligent people in the world that we are above destroying the earth and ourselves.
Nettie, your are right about the animals and birds that only live in Old Growth. The spotted owl in Oregon stopped logging in some areas because they only live in certain areas. Now that really got to the loggers!!! You should have seen their response. Bumper stickers like "I eat spotted owl for breakfast". Really intelligent people they are. They only know how to chain saw a tree down in two minutes that took 500 years to grow. Mark might say I am wrong and he can do it in 1 minute with his 50 hp saw.
The trees in the South West that bring in the most money
are Tingle, Karri and Jarrah. Unfortunately I don't have
exact figures on how many trees are used per acre.
Accurate figures on this arn't easy to get. Most of the
Government info I have I treat as propaganda. I read a
newspaper article that said there were 16 new national
parks created under the RFA I have just finished a brochure
put out by the RFA that states it is 12 new National
Parks. 75 years ago you could blame ignorance and say they
didn't know any better. Today we have to learn by our
mistakes and teach our children to respect what we have and
not what we want. My six year old son asked after seeing a
clear felled area why someone would do such a bad thing.
The only answer I could give him was for money. He thought
about this for a while and came back and asked "Mum how
much is a tree worth?" I still havn't been able to answer
this. We hear all the time you have to separate your
emotions from the issues but it can't always be done. Stay
optimistic and believe that one day things will be done
better and that there will still be something worthwhile
left for future generations.
The more we debate I think the more we will see that we
really agree with each other, because I too consider myself
to be an environmentalist. We probably totally agree in
principle with each other, just a few disagreements on
details. I donÆt mean to be specifically critical of you
guys, I was criticizing some parts of the larger
environmental movement. I am also very critical of the
logging which has taken place in the past, which has been
essentially solely focussed on cutting trees. I donÆt know
the situation in Australia, but it is likely that if I
looked at what you are talking about I would probably agree
with you. I too feel that we need to protect species and
old growth. As you said, 500 year old trees wonÆt be
replaced in a short 90 year rotation. This is exactly why
we need parks (also for the emotioal reasons that when we
see a clearcut we will know that other similar forest is
protected), and it is also why we need to protect second
growth forest so that it will become future old growth. It
is also why we still need to be performing responsible
clearcuts in other areas. This is because the old growth
cathedral forests of Douglas fir in most of the Pacific
Northwest arenÆt self replacing (from what IÆve read of
AustraliaÆs Eucalyptus forests they are the same way as
well). They established themselves after major disturbances
such as fire centuries ago. Eventually, after 800 years or
so, the Douglas firs will die and fall down and be replaced
by a smaller climax forest of western hemlock. This has
happened last year in Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island.
This year we had some strong storms come through which blew
down many old trees because they are rotting due to old age.
Douglas fir wonÆt regenerate itself after selection
logging except in the driest parts of its range. So we need
a sort of dynamic system of parks which protects all stages
of forest succession.
But the fact that we need to protect old growth and older
second growth for biodiversity doesnÆt preclude clearcutting
in other areas. Although we need areas of forest with old
growth attributes for biodiversityÆs sake (as you mentioned,
for parrots in Australia or Spotted Owls in North America),
I disagree with the idea put forth by some that 100% of the
land area must maintain old growth attributes 100% of the
time. I see no justification for this; it is not natural
for most of the forests of Canada, it doesnÆt work well for
growing trees, and it will also not be good for species
which do not favor living in old growth forests. There are
many wildlife species in Canada which prefer clearcuts over
forest (assuming of course that there are forests nearby),
and several plant species which are totally dependent on
large catastrophic disturbances such as clearcuts or fires.
There are however ways of increasing old growth attributes
in second growth forests (which I agree with you that we
should be doing), such as creating snags by chopping off the
tops of some trees and leaving the stem there, leaving
small reserves of forest within clearuts, and also by
leaving some live trees standing as wildlife habitat, and
also by using longer rotations. But you have to be careful
in leaving living trees behind because they may sometimes
harbor tree diseases such as mistletoe and root rot which
they can pass on to the new trees.
Dennis brought up a very good issue about the continual loss
of nutrients in some forests after several short rotation
clearcut cycles. This is another issue with which I agree
with you guys that there are problems. This problem, at
least in the Pacific Northwest, is common on drier sites
with sandy or coarse grained soils. Dry sites (those on
upper slopes) are particularly susceptible to this because
they have a net loss of the rain water that falls on them
through groundwater flow. This tends to remove nutrients
from the site along with it. So the main store of nutrients
on the site becomes the large organic debris on the forest
floor. By doing short rotation clearcutting you remove the
supply of debris and thus along with it much nutrient
supply. Ways to avoid this are to do longer rotation
clearcutting, or leaving more debris behind when you log, or
also doing selection logging (since the dry soils will allow
selection logging without much damage to soils - but I would
caution that selection logging can remove as much of the
debris as clearcutting if it isnÆt done properly), and also
by artificial nitrogen fertilization (but this is only a
short term solution). But again, my point is that you canÆt
generalize. On wetter or inherently richer soils this isnÆt
really much of an issue, because the bulk of nutrient supply
for the ecosystem doesnÆt come from rotting debris; it comes
from groundwater flow from upslope, or from the inherently
richer soils generally found on lower slopes. As a purely
hypothetical example, in many lower slope sites, you could
pretty much cream all organic matter off the site and plant
trees and they would likely be very happy (not that I am
suggesting doing that). Another issue is that in the
Pacific Northwest we have red alder, which has the ability
to fix atmospheric nitrogen, thus greatly enriching the
ecosystem with nutrients. Alder only comes in after a major
disturbance such as clearcutting, it wonÆt grow in a forest
with selection logging. So by clearcutting and allowing
alder to grow for say 40 years, then planting conifers, you
greatly enrich the site. On the other hand though, some
arboreal lichens also have the ability to fix nitrogen,
although much less than red alder. They tend to grow in
older forests, so by doing short rotation clearcutting you
may be eliminating their contribution. So there are many
complicating issues, and I keep saying it - you canÆt
generalize. I have described the situation in the Pacific
Northwest. Maybe itÆs totally different in Australia, where
they have different species and they receive less rainfal so
have less of a difference between upper and lower slope
ecosystems. I have more things to say but I think we are
taking up much memory on the TT.
I agree Mark, longer rotation cutting would be a help, that
is if the debris was left behind. At present what is left
after clearcutting in our south west is being burnt. We
now have new machinery cutting down our trees. They do the
job of 5 men in one day. At present it seems our
government is more interested in money over conservation.
I guess they are no different here as to over there. They
don't seem to look to the future. There is always going to
be a need to cut down trees, but as long as there is money
to be made by corporate greed problems will still remain.
I would say that almost all environmental problems are caused by greed or a total lack of concern for the future.
Consumption of the worlds resources must be measured by their ability to reproduce and their relationship to all other living things. There is nothing new to take it's place once it's gone. The second law of thermodynamics will be the end of everything eventually. Why must we hurry it along? Trees are very obvious. Let's not forget that there are many many species, flora and fauna, that are gone forever. Who did it? WE DID. What a species we are