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To: r9etb
I'm not sure, but I believe most, if not all of us here are not condoning clear cutting as any form of timber management practice.

There's lotsa profit to be made by thinning and management of forests so that acreage can be harvested every decade or so as long as we wish.

In addition to profit, forests are healthier and more disease/pest resistant overall, and deadfall is cleaned up so that the danger of these incredibly hot infernos is nullified.

154 posted on 08/21/2002 2:37:15 PM PDT by cake_crumb
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To: cake_crumb
I'm not sure, but I believe most, if not all of us here are not condoning clear cutting as any form of timber management practice.

There are people who do condone and practice clear-cutting. Be that as it may, I'm not really condemning it as a general rule.

My point was made in response to the claim that logging does not destroy ecosytems. It's rather obvious that logging does damage ecosystems. The damage is to some extent reparable. Left untreated, though, logging can permanently change (i.e., "destroy") an ecosystem.

Clear-cutting is an obvious example where there are potentially significant environmental impacts due to erosion and other factors. IIRC, the USFS did some studies a few years back in Oregon's Deschutes National Forest, on the environmental impacts of various types of logging. Un-restored clear cuts showed very significant erosion problems. (I could probably drive you to the very spot...)

By the same token, I encourage anybody interested to visit Camp Sherman, OR -- worth visiting anyway -- to take a look at the forest thereabout. Historically the area has been quite heavily logged (selectively, for BIG trees, for real profits), but the forest shows no obvious signs of it having happened. In that same area there's also a very interesting on-going demonstration of various thinning methods, the results of which look quite encouraging.

155 posted on 08/21/2002 3:05:10 PM PDT by r9etb
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