Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 10:20:32 EDT
From: <MEK104@psuvm.psu.edu>  Mark Kubiske
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Decreasing forest land (WAS: Libertarians ... $)

in <1992Jul22.023458.3629@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu
writes:


>...  I was simply (if implicitly) making the point that most of what we get
>from forests that isn't derived from timber is either now, or in the
>future, derivable from other sources, mostly because they are used in
>relatively small quantities.  Although I can imagine artificial manufacture
>of wood, we use it in such large amounts, that I tend to believe that its
>more economically viable to simple grow it on tree farms.

Actually I was referring to things like medicines, naval stores, latex,
etc., as well as the things you mention below.  I suppose these things could
be produced on plantations explicitly intended for their production, but
then we run into a problem of multiple use of a limited resource - land.  I
think that forest utilization for these products is the best solution
socially as well as economically.  In any case, I don't share your vision of
our manufacturing capabilities within the forseeable future.

>If you're talking about things other than products (like hiking, salmon
>spawning, animal habitat), I appreciate that, but they haven't done much to
>save the Scottish forests, or the Eastern forests, or the taiga that passes
>through north of here, or the temperate rain forests.

I'm not sure what you mean.  Save (prevent) them from disappearing?

>I haven't detected a distinction in your posts between forests and a group
>of trees growing close to one another.  Do you see one ?

Well, yes there are differences although often the differences are very
subtle.  Not far from where I live here in PA there is a "natural area" of
unmanaged forest.  The eastern hemlock is quite impressive, but it is a pure
stand with a virtually barren understory because of the dense canopy.  It
very much reminds me of the red pine plantations managed by the paper
companies back in Wisconsin, which are similar, I suspect, to what you
visualize when you refer to a tree farm.  The only difference is that the
hemlock grew naturally from seed and the red pine were planted in rows.  One
might call the former a forest and the latter a tree farm on the basis of
how the trees got there whereas in fact they are quite similar on the basis
of character.  Of course, there are vast ecological differences, such as
successional status and stand dynamics, which may also be a consideration.
There are better examples.

>I really can't think what timber companies do for forests, certainly not
>the forests of the PNW, although its clear what they do for land being used
>for tree farms.  Just as horticulture provides great benefits to the plants
>under cultivation, I'm sure that timber companies do a great deal to
>enhance growth conditions for trees.

Quite right although timber companies also have a vested interest in forest
health as well (see below), and conduct a significant amount of research
allong those lines.

>However, I don't really see this as the point.  The question is not whether
>we want trees - we clearly do - but whether we want forests.  Weyerhauser's
>farms out here are generally much more productive on a wood fiber per-acre
>basis than the forests they have been replanted on, and I think that's
>great - we use wood a lot, and it makes sense to cultivate it in the most
>efficient manner possible.

It sounds as though you appreciate the reality of it, unfortuanately, many
people don't.

>What I question is the *replacement* of large (as in 80-90%) sections of
>forest with tree farms.  The forests here have apparently survived for
>thousands of years without contemporary forest management; I suspect that
>such practices would do little for the forest, even if the trees were to
>grow much better.

I certainly understand your sentiment and I share it to some degree.  The
problem is 'how much is enough?' Put another way, as more and more public
land is taken out of timber production each year by congress, the producers
of the wood using industry are forced to resort to maximum yield cultivation
whether they want to or not.  For example, they can either harvest 10K board
feet from 50 acres of public forest in the form of a timber sale, or they
can intensely manage 20 acres of their own land and, including thinnings,
and obtain the same volume.  While cultivation can be performed for maximum
yield and short rotation, things like site prep., fertilizer, insect
spraying, replanting, etc., can make it more expensive than harvesting
public land where they can rely on natural means of regenation (assuming Con
gress doens't force them to replant) over longer rotations.  And as demand
for wood products increases, and available timberland decreases, the demands
placed on productive land grows and grows until we run into other problems
such as site impact, etc.  (what we were talking about in a related
discussion).  In additon, tree farms, or plantations, simply can't supply
all of our needs, not only for lack of volume, but also because there a many
species that it is simply not feasable to cultivate - this second point
applies mainly to hardwoods so the PNW is not really affected here.  Thus
the problem is how much forest preserve is enough and how much is too much?
I agree that we need *some* forest preserve, nevertheless I don't have an
answer to that, I'm not intimate enough with the numbers involved.  I don't
know that anyone has "the answer".  I only want to stress that the situation
is far more complicated than simply saying "don't cut down forests, preserve
all the forests" as we so often hear.


Mark