A rant against clearcutting

 

A few weeks ago I spent a weekend at the Oregon Coast. While driving west on highway 26 through the Coast Range toward Cannon Beach and Seaside, I was appalled at the amount of forest that had been clearcut. From the road one could see thousands of acres of rolling hills in the Tillamook and Clatsop forests where there had recently been healthy ecosystems, now decimated to be as bare as Samson's scalp. I wondered if it was my imagination that more clearcutting seemed to be apparent than in the recent past.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying state forests can't be logged. After all, I'm writing this from a wood-framed building stocked with lots of wood furniture. If I could, I'd replace my vinyl linoleum floors with a nice wood parquet for that Boston Garden effect. I'd replace my ratty recliner with a wood-backed Eames chair.

But it turns out I was on to something when it comes to the Tillamook and Clatsop forests and the debate over just what their purpose is: an industrial tree farm or a natural wonder.

Earlier this year, the Oregon Board of Forestry moved toward a new policy on the Tillamook and Clatsop forests, voting to boost the cut on state forests. Apparently this came after demands from the Legislature and from Tillamook and Clatsop counties for more logging and timber revenues.

Increasing logging was just the start, though. The Board of Forestry also launched an effort to rewrite its definition of the "greatest permanent value" of the state forests as being timber production. This contradicts the existing definition:  " healthy, productive and sustainable forest ecosystems that over time and across the landscape provide a full range of social, economic and environmental benefits to the people of Oregon."

What is this, the Dark Ages? Or, as a recent Oregonian editorial said, "Oregon's state forests are not tree farms."

Granted the people of rural Oregon have been hit hard in the last 20 years by declining timber production and revenue. It's understandable to want to bring more jobs back to logging towns like Vernonia, Mill City, and Willamina. Even so, cutting down every tree in sight is a matter of cutting off the nose to spite the face.

Oregon's forests are bountiful enough to provide plenty of timber that is logged sustainably. We don't need scorched-earth tactics in order to get this job done. And while this should not be an either-or choice of ecosystems and beauty versus economics and jobs, it's not merely empty romanticism to look at the forests from a speeding car and lament the devastation. It's not just loggers and logging companies that have a stake in Oregon's forest, but every Oregonian. And I'm quite confident that if you polled every resident of this state, the case for massive clearcutting would be sawed and felled in no time.

Comments

[Eric Cantona]

as an avid outdoorsman and native Oregonian i could fill several pages with my thoughts about clear cutting, but i'll try to just lay out a few brief thoughts.

you are most likely not seeing more clearcuts in the last few years because the price of lumber is in the gutter, and very few operations are cutting.

the price of lumber is key to how logs are harvested, as well. unless the rest of the world adopts similar non-clearcutting requirements, we'll not see it here. the bottom line is that the cost of harvesting in any other fashion is too costly to be able to compete in the world market.

life sucks if you're a tree in Oregon...

[Nikos]

These pictures are shameful. They are also offensive from the aesthetic standpoint. The combination of greed (corporate or otherwise), poverty (loggers?), and lack of cultural sensitivity and education (corporations, loggers, the average voter) is what will unfortunately rule the day. Sad.

[emulsy]

Yeah, man. Rush had it right.

"So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw"

[Greg]

It seems like that drive became worse within the past few years, but I thought that the "newer" clear cuts were a result of clearing out trees that been knocked over in windstorms.

So while I sympathize with this rant, there may be more to the story in regards to recent subtractions from the landscape.

[Jeff]

Yes, Greg is correct. The first picture, as you approach the Seaside/Cannon Beach 101 junction, was a salvage cut from the winter blow down two years ago. It looked like the blow-out from Mt. St. Helens in the weeks after the storm-trees snapped like twigs. On the north side of 26 a few miles further east is a row of fifteen or more giant firs blown over with 25-30 foot root balls forming a wall. Nature can be nasty!

[s]

Hike up to Saddle Mountain on a sunny day. There are certainly many more acres of bare land than just from winter storms. Our logging policy must change.

[David]

Here is a question: What building material is more "green" than wood? Those of you who are advocates of "alternative" building productes should consider the facts. Steel, brick, aggrogate and plastic are all recyclable, but non renewable. Wood is both! We have a rich history in this State, and the Tillamook State Forest is a prime example of good forest management in this state is all about. That area was scorched by three fires! Mud flowed, fish runs were flushed out, and some thought the forest would never come back. But look at the results! We know how to grow trees, our livelihood depends on it! I agree that a clear cut looks bad. But it's temporary. Trees get planted within one year, if not sooner, the brush grows, and the large forest animals have a place to forage. Take a picture of the area that you think is the worst of the worst, for 5 years in a row, and watch the trees grow! It's a great responsibility we have to provide green jobs, and a green building material. Why would we want other countries with less stringent laws than ours supply the USA with wood?

[carless in pdx]

Sustainable wood harvesting is probably the best and most efficient way to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, as well.

[Dave]

I just returned from some drives in the Tillamook forest, and the entire watershed appears to be a disaster. I didn't drive on one back road where all hillsides within view hadn't been almost completely clearcut, and where waters were all running silty with soil runoff. A lifelong Oregon resident, I am completely appalled. I have a bio degree and have spent hundreds of hours observing Oregon forests, and the series of burns 50 plus years ago have no relationship to this much more recent devastation. Wow. I can't believe these logging practices have been allowed. On both private and public lands.