Well said.
Open Source Logging?
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Well said.
North Star
ArboristSite Lurker
Unfortunately no, these decisions are final. The committee I speak of was created to appease the environmentalists in a huge polluted city that want to dictate how the rest of the province should be run. The tract I'm talking about was 10 square km that had a known zinc deposit that was waiting to be defined by the right company. This was cut off by this committee of greenies. This land is probably 50km from where I live in a mining town. The funny thing, is that all of the mining tax revenues generated by the mines where I live and work end up funding roads, schools and hospitals in southern ontario. But yet they want to stop mining. It's horrible to see these lands taken off limits by people that live 10 hours away because they think its best. The political pressure in southern ontario is enough to shut down mills and mines in northern ontario - this has been demonstrated over and again.
Exactly right.
Close to a couple of decades back I remember a winter time read of a book by Allan May that in a lot of ways dovetails
quite a bit [in many ways], of what is is being disscussed in this thread.
allan may - A Voice in the Wilderness - AbeBooks
quite a bit [in many ways], of what is is being disscussed in this thread.
allan may - A Voice in the Wilderness - AbeBooks
redprospector
Addicted to ArboristSite
Hmm. I may be getting in over my head here, and I'm not being arguementative, just trying to tie what you're saying together with what I've seen.
One. If we're talking National Forest Land, where does the individual ownerships fit in? If it is the "head honcho" over that particular forest, how can it be managed, or how can they take ownership of anything if the people in that position change every few years, and each one has their own different ideas of how to manage this forest?
Is it possible to successfully manage that forest when almost all possible markets were spoiled by previous mis-management?
The onus of responsibility may fall on individual ownerships, but who is accountable? Or is there any accountability?
Andy
Really tough question. I have an answer, but I need to think about the words first. You are 100% right to call me on this one. Gimme 24 hours to come up with a coherent answer.
redprospector
Addicted to ArboristSite
I took "onus of responsibility" to be in the context of private land. It would make sense in that the management is more of a continual and even handed process.
Government land? Dunno . You guys have more recent experience with public lands than I do but what I see is good people who could make good decisions...if they were allowed to.
The lack of communication thing always frustrated me. On private ground I could usually get an answer quickly and it would be a definitive answer that I could use immediately. Whether it was yes or no or a compromise between the two, and whether I liked the answer or not, at least I knew what to do. And what was expected of me.
Working with the FS was like living in a world of ever spiraling complexity. Finding answers and guidance beyond the strict wording of a contract was difficult. No, it was almost impossible. The problems were always simple ones , stuff you could throw men and machinery at and come up with a workable solution. Getting the permission to do that was the stumbling block.
"I'll ask my supervisor" and "we'll take it under consideration" and "it's not in the contract and there's no need to discuss it any further" doesn't get any logs down the hill.
Government land? Dunno . You guys have more recent experience with public lands than I do but what I see is good people who could make good decisions...if they were allowed to.
The lack of communication thing always frustrated me. On private ground I could usually get an answer quickly and it would be a definitive answer that I could use immediately. Whether it was yes or no or a compromise between the two, and whether I liked the answer or not, at least I knew what to do. And what was expected of me.
Working with the FS was like living in a world of ever spiraling complexity. Finding answers and guidance beyond the strict wording of a contract was difficult. No, it was almost impossible. The problems were always simple ones , stuff you could throw men and machinery at and come up with a workable solution. Getting the permission to do that was the stumbling block.
"I'll ask my supervisor" and "we'll take it under consideration" and "it's not in the contract and there's no need to discuss it any further" doesn't get any logs down the hill.
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Gubmint land? Nobody seems to be responsible. I guess Congress is responsible in a way through budgeting and overseeing what is going on. They have bigger fish to fry. Meanwhile, in this part of the country, there are people with different agendas in the Forest Service, the Chief of the Forest Service--a political appointee who usually is already working for the FS, follows or tries to follow what the President's folks want.
Now, trying to stay neutral, I have read and heard through the grapevine that our current president actually wants to increase the cut. But it aint happening. There was extra money available to do so and the District Rangers actually turned it down. These days are unlike the old days. District Rangers are very seldom foresters that have come up through the ranks. District Rangers are likely to be former administrative assistants, fish biologists, botanists, etc. They do not have a timber background nor are they interested in that because there is no pressure to produce. In the old days, to refuse to increase production would have resulted in a transfer to Godawful, Nevada. That doesn't happen now.
Rangers in this region are hired for their "collaborative" abilities. They try to please everybody. That doesn't work. The group with the biggest threat gets the say in things. In our case, that is the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, based in Portland, OR. They are an environmental group who want roads closed and the "forest restored". According to them, jobs should be created for restoration in our community. That is not happening.
It'll be interesting. A mining company from Canada has just gotten approval to do exploration drilling 12 miles from here. The GP Task Force says they'll go to court to stop it. Maybe they'll blow all their grant and donation money on that fight?
Personally, I'd rather see our area working in timber rather than mining. We're kind of hard up for jobs here so the mine is welcomed by most folks and you can't blame them. Maybe I'll sell some cookies if it brings in people. Maybe I'll sell my place and move to Seattle, Montana:msp_smile: if it brings in people.
Stay tuned.
Now, trying to stay neutral, I have read and heard through the grapevine that our current president actually wants to increase the cut. But it aint happening. There was extra money available to do so and the District Rangers actually turned it down. These days are unlike the old days. District Rangers are very seldom foresters that have come up through the ranks. District Rangers are likely to be former administrative assistants, fish biologists, botanists, etc. They do not have a timber background nor are they interested in that because there is no pressure to produce. In the old days, to refuse to increase production would have resulted in a transfer to Godawful, Nevada. That doesn't happen now.
Rangers in this region are hired for their "collaborative" abilities. They try to please everybody. That doesn't work. The group with the biggest threat gets the say in things. In our case, that is the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, based in Portland, OR. They are an environmental group who want roads closed and the "forest restored". According to them, jobs should be created for restoration in our community. That is not happening.
It'll be interesting. A mining company from Canada has just gotten approval to do exploration drilling 12 miles from here. The GP Task Force says they'll go to court to stop it. Maybe they'll blow all their grant and donation money on that fight?
Personally, I'd rather see our area working in timber rather than mining. We're kind of hard up for jobs here so the mine is welcomed by most folks and you can't blame them. Maybe I'll sell some cookies if it brings in people. Maybe I'll sell my place and move to Seattle, Montana:msp_smile: if it brings in people.
Stay tuned.
North Star
ArboristSite Lurker
What mining company would that be? Just curious - Im in the exploration industry.
The 1st nation/Indian reserves are the most successful at halting drilling or exploration in my neck of the woods. In the last two years, there have been two companies that had to walk away from their properties due to protests/blockades/court injunctions. These companies depend on their stock price to raise funds and as soon as they run into these problems, their stock plummets. That's usually the end of the company.
Ascot CEO: Mining gamble near volcano could bring thousands of jobs
It is a company out of Beautiful British Columbia that is into exploration--Ascot.
It is a company out of Beautiful British Columbia that is into exploration--Ascot.
North Star
ArboristSite Lurker
Ahh one of the millions of juniors out of Vancouver. All of the companies that I work for are either based out of Vancouver or Toronto. Best of luck to them.
Alright, it's tomorrow now. Here's my half-baked explanation of what seems to be happening from my perspective.
The two groups I linked to above are both producing software for use in estimating forest behavior.
The first, FMRC, is a USFS office which is more focused on sale-level metrics, and their software is freely available to anybody who wants to use it. It's not truly "Open Source", in that the user is not allowed to modify or redistribute it (in the spirit of the GNU or BSD licenses), but that's not really a problem, as the underlying lookup tables are themselves Public Domain, and if one were so inclined, it would be only a matter of time, talent, and money to create a similar program suite from the same background data. That said, the FMRC guys are absolute superstars when it comes to customer support. They're a small group and they work closely together to make sure that their programs work together. There are regional tables for most commercial species grouped together by FS region within the US which, in general, breaks out to separate equations for each species by 16- or 32-foot logs. There are some holes, though; as it happens, nobody has done ANY work on hardwood growth models in R6 AT ALL, which means I have to manually deduct an approximation of the difference between a generic conifer and whatever hardwood I'm cruising. I don't want to go into greater detail on that right now but suffice it to say that I hope somebody does the math for me someday so I don't have to.
The second, FBRI, is a non-profit dedicated to stand-level inventory extrapolated to the landscape level. Their software is a astoundingly powerful suite of macros and lookup tables which push and pull data back and forth between GIS and a relational database. The major licensing difference is that all of their tables are proprietary. Further, through use, they become calibrated to the local ownership being inventoried. They are also a small group of technical wizards who support their product well. The software and what it can do are both pretty intense and I'm still learning but I'm pretty sure this approach will be the way things are done from now on. A major innovation is a feature that generates a local Site Index at a 10-meter resolution based on a whole bunch of mysterious and spooky math.
So: mensuration techniques, software, and data analysis protocols are becoming standardized, which approximates the idea of "Open Source" at the industry level. This is good. It means that over time, timber sale volume estimates will get better and better. We're already coming in at an average error of <50Mbf per million, cruised versus scaled.
However -- local knowledge will always trump sweeping protocol. Nothing beats boots on the ground. The industry needs, now more than ever, to prioritize creating and nurturing expertise. Shutting down and merging offices to save "costs" only serves to squander what expertise we have.
The two groups I linked to above are both producing software for use in estimating forest behavior.
The first, FMRC, is a USFS office which is more focused on sale-level metrics, and their software is freely available to anybody who wants to use it. It's not truly "Open Source", in that the user is not allowed to modify or redistribute it (in the spirit of the GNU or BSD licenses), but that's not really a problem, as the underlying lookup tables are themselves Public Domain, and if one were so inclined, it would be only a matter of time, talent, and money to create a similar program suite from the same background data. That said, the FMRC guys are absolute superstars when it comes to customer support. They're a small group and they work closely together to make sure that their programs work together. There are regional tables for most commercial species grouped together by FS region within the US which, in general, breaks out to separate equations for each species by 16- or 32-foot logs. There are some holes, though; as it happens, nobody has done ANY work on hardwood growth models in R6 AT ALL, which means I have to manually deduct an approximation of the difference between a generic conifer and whatever hardwood I'm cruising. I don't want to go into greater detail on that right now but suffice it to say that I hope somebody does the math for me someday so I don't have to.
The second, FBRI, is a non-profit dedicated to stand-level inventory extrapolated to the landscape level. Their software is a astoundingly powerful suite of macros and lookup tables which push and pull data back and forth between GIS and a relational database. The major licensing difference is that all of their tables are proprietary. Further, through use, they become calibrated to the local ownership being inventoried. They are also a small group of technical wizards who support their product well. The software and what it can do are both pretty intense and I'm still learning but I'm pretty sure this approach will be the way things are done from now on. A major innovation is a feature that generates a local Site Index at a 10-meter resolution based on a whole bunch of mysterious and spooky math.
So: mensuration techniques, software, and data analysis protocols are becoming standardized, which approximates the idea of "Open Source" at the industry level. This is good. It means that over time, timber sale volume estimates will get better and better. We're already coming in at an average error of <50Mbf per million, cruised versus scaled.
However -- local knowledge will always trump sweeping protocol. Nothing beats boots on the ground. The industry needs, now more than ever, to prioritize creating and nurturing expertise. Shutting down and merging offices to save "costs" only serves to squander what expertise we have.
redprospector
Addicted to ArboristSite
I now have a little understanding about the software used. BUT (and I'm still not being argumentative), who is accountable? Or is anyone accountable?
I will use the Lincoln for example, over the last 20 years or so. Logging was a way of life here, then we get a ranger who all but shuts the forest down. The one decent sized mill in the area tries to tuff it out. The next ranger tries to open it up somewhat, but at the first sign of a law suite from environmentalist and the forest is all but shut down again. The mill calls it quits. Now this is not in times of economic hardship, but rather in the middle of decent times. Several companies in the forest products industries tried to move into the area, but the FS couldn't (wouldn't) give them any kind of encouraging words on being able to let them have enough product to keep their doors open. So now we have a forest that is overgrown with little funding for thinning. Logging? Hahaha, that's a distant memory. When I started falling there were several thousand loads of logs going down the mountain every year. Now, there are less than 1000 loads going down the hill. The markets for logs are all but non existant, there are 4 (so called) sawmills in the area now. They are all portable bandmills. Now I have nothing against portable sawmills, but 4 of em don't constitute a log market. There is a pallet mill south of Las Cruces. That's about 100 miles past where the old mill was, and since they're the only real game in town they pay less than what we got localy just a few years ago (and that was true before the economy went to crap). The only other possible market is the Mexican's wanting poles for telephone poles....of corse we can't export though.
The first ranger that I mentioned was a self proclaimed environmentalist. In my mind he was the beginning of the end, and he was quite proud of his accomplishments.
The next ranger I mentioned started out with what seemed to be good intentions, but (in my view) not enough guts to see them through. He told me once that it was just not worth the effort & expense to fight environmentalist in court. (I've been told the same thing by a few others since then.) We've had several other rangers since then. They only seem to last a few years each.
I agree with you wholley that what is needed is boots on the ground, someone in charge with extensive knowledge of the local forest, and a desire to really take care of it.
I believe that without good market's, good forestry is extreemly hard to achieve.
It seem's that no one is held accountable for mismanagement of forests, and that no one is really rewarded for forests that are well managed.
Maybe that's why open sorce isn't a good idea. There are so many involved that no one can be held accountable.
I may be totally wrong, and I know my post should probably be moved to the whining thread. But please correct me where I'm wrong, like I said before, I'm trying to tie what you have said in with what I've seen over the last many years.
Andy
redprospector
Addicted to ArboristSite
Congress responsible??? Hahaha. That's the most irresponsible bunch of yahoo's I've ever heard of.
I think you hit the nail on the head though when you said that people in the Forest Service have different agendas.
Andy
Dude, I WELCOME argument. Any questions that you have which make me uncomfortable are huge red flags telling me what I need to work on next.
I agree with this 100%. The enviro's are MUCH better used as allies than enemies. It takes a bit of work and time but a good number of them are honestly interested in doing good, and a bit of effort to educate them goes a long way. The trick is to find the keystone person who would halt actual progress in each ownership, and to spent the time and effort showing them that we aren't the Bad Guys. PROTIP: beers after hours work way better than politics on the clock.
This is the part that we have no control over. We, foresters and loggers, have no input to either taxpayers or stockholders, and those are the people who need to be convinced that short-term profits and long-term economics are not necessarily at odds. We need to work together to speak as one, somehow, to tell them all that trees grow really well, and that rivers recover from minor disturbances, and that forest products benefit us all. We need to stop drawing lines in the sand that don't benefit anybody, least of all the land we all depend on. We need to sit around a table and agree on the language we will use to talk to the folks who hold the purse strings but don't do the time on the ground, so that they will trust us to make decisions on their behalf.
AU CONTRAIRE
You are very much right. Working forests need working Foresters. Foresters plan sales, and sales keep people supplied with products that they need. Problem I see is a lack of dialogue between the various levels between inventory and finished product.
god damn I sound like a hippie
Don't worry about it, you're making sense... tree huggers and environuts speak from the heart and most times emotions don't make sense to anybody else...
Forests need management, not neglect (read protection). Unfortunately an open source (open sore) would invite too many loud, well funded, under informed, voices to have a say. Bureaucrats have a nasty ability of dodging the blame and only listening to the shiny suit with the loud voice and a bunch of lawyers.
redprospector
Addicted to ArboristSite
Hahaha. I try to avoid arguments anymore. My Dad used to say that he had never seen me win an arguement...a fist fight would alway's break out before the arguement was over.
I prefer to have discussions now.
I can kind of see your point...but (I hate that word), if the enviros have the forest locked up then the markets dry up. If they stay locked up the markets tend to die.
I've tried the "beers after hours" thing. I was alway's insulted, and treated rudely. One enviro told me that people had no right living in the forest. We should all move out and let the forest return to wilderness.I told them that I didn't believe a forest could be returned to wilderness, and asked where they suguested we go. They said we should move to the city, that's where people should live. I told him by his logic we couldn't because the city (pick one) was wilderness before mankind came along.
I've found that most environmentalist are a little wacky anyway. Feed them a few beers and there's no way to have an inteligent conversation.
AU CONTRAIRE (haha. I just wanted to use that)
If the foresters and loggers can't or won't deliver the goods then the market goes away. No buisness can survive long if they can't get the raw materials they need to produce their products. There is a company that made a deal with the Mescalero Reservation and was going to move a pellet plant into the area. The deal with the Mescalero fell through (as most do), and the company couldn't follow through because they couldn't even get any encouragement by the FS. If the foresters were allowed to do their job, and the loggers were allowed to do their job, then there would be plenty of small diameter to supply one little pellet plant off of the entire Lincoln National Forest (at least in my mind). Now at the same time this is going on the FS had to hire someone to bring in a yarder and clean up an area that was decimated by fir loopers. No, they couldn't do a salvage thanks to the enviro's, there's what's called the "Checkerspot Butterfly" in the area. The FS had to pay to cut hazard trees by the hiway and all the rotten spruce & fir that was left on the hill side, and yard it to the top to be left in decks until it rot's into the ground I guess. We have no control over this because no one thinks it's worth fighting to do what's necessary to take care of the forest. The event that made this cleanup possible was after about 5 or 6 years of enviro's not allowing any of those dead trees to be cut, one of them finally fell down, hitting a suburban traveling down the hiway, killing those onboard. Pretty sad when someone has to die to be able to clean up dead trees.
We are seeing different problems I guess. Problem I see is we need a little less talk, and a lot more action.
I think we'd see that action if there was accountability. If a forest is an overgrown tinderbox, and getting worse, the questions should be asked; Who is in charge, and why is this forest in this shape? The Head Honcho over a forest is the manager. If the FS was run like a company and the manager wasn't taking care of his charge, he would no longer have a job. Not transfered somewhere else, unemployed. I just think there should be accountability.
Andy
redprospector
Addicted to ArboristSite
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