paccity
Addicted to ArboristSite
very true, i have seen a big change around here after weyrhauser did ther little hostile take over of wilamette ind, they are takeing and when there done they will prob sell it off.
Ground Disturbance
- Thread starter slowp
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Hancock are among the worst of the bunch as far as land-stewardship "bad guys" go. I don't think they even look at the land except as an abstraction. Champion weren't much better, but at least they were a forest products outfit. Hancock selling timber is like McDonald's selling car stereos.
Can you find the skid trail?
8433jeff
Aftermarket connoisseur
Can you find the skid trail?
No picture, slowp.
I agree, Hancock is mowing the white river corridor like the front lawn, its amazing to watch the trees disappearing at such a high rate over such massive areas.
Cut and run
That's the same thing Maxxam did when they took over Pacific Lumber Company in California. PL had been cutting their own timber on a sustained yield basis for many years.
Maxxam came in and started cutting everything they could get their hands on as fast as they could. They creamed the woods, then filed bankruptcy.
This is kind of a long read but it's probably the most accurate description of what happened that I've found.
Pacific Lumber Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That's the same thing Maxxam did when they took over Pacific Lumber Company in California. PL had been cutting their own timber on a sustained yield basis for many years.
Maxxam came in and started cutting everything they could get their hands on as fast as they could. They creamed the woods, then filed bankruptcy.
This is kind of a long read but it's probably the most accurate description of what happened that I've found.
Pacific Lumber Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
raycarr
ArboristSite Operative
I know someone that had a picture of that Texan Whorowizz with several bullet holes in it.
Humptulips
ArboristSite Guru
IMHO thinning is a huge mistake on the coast and I'll be darned if I can see why anyone would consider reentering every 15 years unless your goal is to minimize profit and maximize stand damage.
All of that has nothing to do with sustainable harvest either.
All of that has nothing to do with sustainable harvest either.
Here, it all has to do with politics. What can be done without going to court. Thinning is usually acceptable to the people who sue. Mention clearcut and all the legal B.S. to stop it begins.
I have no idea what is planned for the future. I don't think anybody does. We used to joke about the five minute plan. I don't think that exists anymore, either.
forestryworks
Addicted to ArboristSite
:msp_cursing:
They should just let professionals, standing behind good, tried and true science and methods, do what they know needs to be done.
But that would only work in a perfect world I suppose.
Sure, mistakes were made in the past, but without mistakes there would be no knowledge!
Well said.
Every site and every sale are different and require flexibility in both law and action. Washington's FPA is pretty good at allowing this flexibility, but is often superseded by Federal mandates and profit margins. I don't know local law in other states. What I do know is that foresters are retiring faster than they are being replaced, and the kind of well-considered decisions they make are being made by stockholders instead.
What we need is more foresters, more people with feet on the ground and eyes in the canopy, who can look beyond this quarter's profits and plan for a given forest's condition 20, 50, 100 years out. To look at a forest, rather than a simple crop. Trees aren't corn, and by the way, corn farmers, you can't just aggressively monocrop a piece of land indefinitely without expecting soil deterioration.
What we need is more foresters, more people with feet on the ground and eyes in the canopy, who can look beyond this quarter's profits and plan for a given forest's condition 20, 50, 100 years out. To look at a forest, rather than a simple crop. Trees aren't corn, and by the way, corn farmers, you can't just aggressively monocrop a piece of land indefinitely without expecting soil deterioration.
8433jeff
Aftermarket connoisseur
No, and that was happening less and less until the ethanol boondoggle really hit its stride about three years ago. Without that, prices for corn and soybeans and other crops corn is replacing would be nowhere near the level they are now.
Humptulips
ArboristSite Guru
I understand exactly what you're saying. I last plan I read for the Humptulips drainage and Quinault ridge basically called for thinning it and never touching it again. Some huge blowdowns here that should be cleaned up but that would involve clearcuts so no way. Funny thing is it's already clearcut by nature but that's good as long as the wood stays on the ground.
But back to the original topic though. I've always thought a little ground distubance to be a good thing. Those young trees really like them clear spots.
Dalmatian90
Addicted to ArboristSite
And you end up damned if you do, damned if you don't it seems.
You get old, well managed private forests that get sold to the likes of Maxxam or John Hancock.
The folks who led forestry efforts back in the early 1900s in Connecticut advocated public ownership because the time frame for profitable, sustainable harvests was beyond the career if not lifetime of any individual owner.
And yet public ownership gets tied up in it's own political and bureaucratic nightmare.
I guess it's not just forests. Some days it's hard to keep your chin up when you see so many folks eating their own seed corn across all political, social, and economic segments of this nation.
redprospector
Addicted to ArboristSite
No, trees aren't corn.............but they are a crop. I remember when we would walk through a corn field and hand pick what was ready, leaving the rest for a later harvest. I think it should be similar with trees (in this area anyway). Every crop has a different way to be grown and harvested.
Lumping everything together in the forest is a big mistake in my book. Here on the Lincoln they have a 24" cap. So now all those 30" to 36" trees that were killed by bugs a couple of years ago are left standing, unless they are endangering a power line or something else that would inconvenience an environmentalist. There are quite a few big trees (for this region) that are on their way out, ripe and ready, but can't be harvested. Just my opinion, take it for what it's worth.
Andy
forestryworks
Addicted to ArboristSite
The pine here sure do love skid trails! Talk about regeneration - kablooey!
I couldn't agree more. That's exactly why repeated-entry commercial thins have come to be an accepted practice -- for every entry, different trees are removed for different reasons. I tend to mark trees whose removal will put light on the ground to encourage regen, or will release suppressed individuals. I'll also mark co-dominant individuals to encourage growth of larger and more vigorous trees. This is called, generically, "group selection and retention". What I'm after is a stand structure where there are as many baby trees as there are mature ones. I want to ensure that there are trees to cut later. I also want to conserve soil whenever possible, so I often mark to simplify skidding operations. I want to ensure that any disturbance is deliberate and not incidental.
It's a known fact that Douglas-Fir is largely intolerant of shade. This has led to the myth that it will not grow back in an understory. Anybody who has walked through an old-growth stand can clearly see that this is not true, as there are always more than one cohort in a mature stand. In an unmanaged stand, canopy gaps are created by mostly disease and weather. In a managed stand, we can create those same gaps through harvest. The most important thing is to make the gaps large enough to stimulate growth in younger trees without being large enough to cause discontinuity in the forest community.
In my mind, it's all about the soil. Preserve soil, and the forest will follow.
RandyMac
Stiff Member
"Mistakes of the past"
I know well the long term effects, that some styles of logging left.
Mostly on a historic, yet ongoing process, When I logged, the were several regs about soil management, streams, watersheds in general, not saying we didn't do long term damage.
One of my areas of research is the Bull Creek Drainage. It was logged with reckless abandon. Hell was paid, twice in 10 years, record floods and the debris flow from that drainage caused lots of damage.
I know well the long term effects, that some styles of logging left.
Mostly on a historic, yet ongoing process, When I logged, the were several regs about soil management, streams, watersheds in general, not saying we didn't do long term damage.
One of my areas of research is the Bull Creek Drainage. It was logged with reckless abandon. Hell was paid, twice in 10 years, record floods and the debris flow from that drainage caused lots of damage.
hammerlogging
Addicted to ArboristSite
schooners used to make it 8 miles up the Little River in Mendocino, now its about 3 ft. deep all the way. Logging sediment.
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