In the Lincoln National Forest we have a 24" cap. Very little gets marked to cut anywhere near the cap. They cried about "old growth" here, and there is no real old growth left. Not cutting anything over 24" dbh is the equivalent to a farmer not harvesting his crop when it's ready. I don't think we should cut every one of the bigger trees, but cutting none of them is asinine.
Andy
We have a 24" cap on U.S.F.S. land here too, unless certain exemptions are written into a timber sale. Then, as slowp noted above, those exemptions have to be approved by wildlife biologists, hydrologists, and soils people. Once the sale plan containing those conditions makes it through the federal end, it goes to the public (including the environmentalists) for comments, and then back to the government for final approval.
more and more we're gonna have to convert forests to tree farms and plantations... overcrowding kinda forces the industry in that direction does it not?
We already have more second and third growth timber plantations available to meet all of our woody debris needs for the next 500 years. The real focus now is continued streamlining and making operations more efficient and sustainable.
I don't think we have or will every really face a timber shortage....i think we will face an "available timber" shortage (timber that can actually be cut)
There's always going to be that steady supply of smaller-diameter woody material from private, municipal, and state lands. I hear timber operators here crying about what goes on or doesn't go on with federal lands...and yet they have more work than they can handle already on private and state ground. What logging companies really want is to go back to the days of logging big timber and reaping windfall profits. However, market conditions and the shifting of mills to the processing of smaller materials means that won't ever happen again. Yet, as a cutter, I like falling them bigg'uns.
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