The Timber companies used to manage the forests on our behalf.
All they wanted were the logs in exchange.
They would cut 2-3% every year, and then replant. And manage the forest floor to avoid fire and disease.
They built and maintained roads throughout.
Every checkerboard clear cut was a fire break.
And it was all “sustainable”.
The decision to end logging in CA is the genesis of our current situation.
Well...that is true for merchantable forests.
But then you have the brush lands. Those have to be dealt with by another method.
Right now, as I type this, they are taking merchantable wood down to 3 and one half inches for stud wood. They saw those 2X3s out of that small stuff.
Then comes the chip wood. Do you know that anything over a certain size..say 36 to 40 inches gets taken in for chip wood? I saw that first hand in ORE a year ago last summer. A six log load going for chip wood because there was only a couple of mills that could handle large diameter logs.
As for the brush lands? BIOMASS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-11yXWMqjSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6AyKQOY4C0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTcQ-O90944
They also make steam boiler systems that use a backdraft turbine system to produce electric power as well as heat buildings.
Or make systems to simply produce electric power. All operated by a couple of people with their smart phones.