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- Aren't these artificial replantinS a good replacement for America's natural forests? NO!
First, many replantings are complete failures. Vast areas of our public lands which were covered with healthy forests are now barren, because all the replanted seedlings died at every replanting attempt. Clearcutting causes massive soil erosion and demineralization, making it impossible for a large, healthy forest to grow on many sites ever again! The final result is desertification; many areas of our National Forests are now parched wastelands.
Second, artificial stands of monoculture trees must be intensively managed a2ainst nature Repeated applications of toxic chemicals are necessary to prevent the natural diversity of plants and trees from returning. These monoculture stands of trees are extremely susceptible to massive infestations by pests and diseases, which then prompts the Forest Service to cut down uninfested as well as infested trees. Also, these stands have no moist underbrush, as do natural forests, and therefore are very dry and susceptible to intensely hot. catastrophic (unnatural) fires.
Aren't these artificially maintained stands or tree at least economically successful replacements for natural forests? NO!
Forest Service timber programs in nearly every National Forest lose money for American taxpayers The small revenues from federal timber sales never pay back the enormous costs involved in subsidized logging, road building ($10,000 or more per mile), the heavy machinery to clearcut, the expensive site preparation methods, the expensive hand replanting, and finally the enormous Forest Service and other agency timber related overhead costs in the bloated administrative bureaucracies.
Even using the Forest Service's own deliberately confusing accounting system (TSPIRS), the Forest Service has lost an astounding $365 million in the recent fiscal year.
The destruction to fisheries and outdoor recreation causes tremendous economic losses and unemployment in those and related industries. These financial losses far outnumber the paltry revenues from timber cutting.
Timber workers must suffer the ravages of boom and bust cycles of unemployment.
Subsidies applied to below cost federal timber sales put the government in direct competition with small woodlot owners. This creates incentives for the woodlot owners to clearcut and sell off their forests for a short term profit, instead of managing their land in an ecologically and economically sound manner.
The only beneficiaries of the federal timber program are the few timber companies and lumber mills who are taking the cream of America's public forests at bargain prices.
What is the correct method for obtaining wood from forests, without destroying the forests in the process? SELECTION MANAGEMENT.
Selection management is the method of cutting only individual or small groups of trees in a healthy natural forest at periodic intervals, such as every ten years. The forest is continually planting new tree seedlings on its own, without the expense of additional human labor. High quality timber is available from the same stand on a perpetual basis. Employment is more stable over the long run. More jobs are assured. The soil and its fertility are continually replen¬ished by the natural forest processes, so no expensive artificial fertilization is necessary.
Timber companies all over America practice selection management on their own land. They know selection man¬agement is good financial management It is money in the bank, with guaranteed income on continuous timber sales for decades ahead, and all this with lower capital costs than even age logging.
On Federal lands, selection management can be used very efficiently to produce timber to supplement our nation's timber supply, the vast majority of which comes from America's privately owned timberlands. By ending clearcut¬ting, natural forests will begin to return, bringing the native vegetation, tree species, and animal forest inhabitants back to the newly recovering forest ecosystems.
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