To really understand what forest sustainability entails, take the time to observe and humbly learn from natural forest ecosystems. Forests that have been around a few thousand years and managed, somehow, without our help, to sustain themselves incredibly well. Explore some old, relatively unlogged pine stands in the Metolius Basin to see how well Oregon's interior forest did without logging. Under this regime, the great cedar, spruce and fir stands have disappeared, along with jobs and spotted owls. Salmon streams are scoured or filled with sediment.
Rain runs too quickly off denuded hills and thousands of miles of unstable roads.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of brave new plantations are blighted and failing. Floods, now unbuffered by mature forests, are causing unanticipated levels of damage. Tractor logging and unrestricted roading have damaged hundreds of thousands of acres of fragile soils. Cumulative impacts from logging, grazing and fire suppression have seriously impacted millions of acres. Prior to logging, dominant trees in the natural forests averaged 200 to 300 years old.