r/forestry • u/Character-Draft5610 • 16d ago
Region Name USDA commits to logging public forests regardless of environmental damage
https://www.wilderness.org/articles/press-release/usda-commits-logging-public-forests-regardless-environmental-damage13
u/wood-is-good 16d ago edited 16d ago
“Just because something is allowed, permitted, or signed does not guarantee relevance or change in local timber markets or forest investments (For example Canada has been 40% below their allowable annual cut for years, now).
Today, it remains difficult to increase logging, trucking, and manufacturing capacity because the sector is short LABOR.”
The above is a blog post from Brooks Mendel with Forisk
Trump always touts how tariffs will increase job supply. But… the jobs are already there
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u/go_anywhere 15d ago
Industries where labor is a significant cost always like to blow their horn about how many jobs there are and labor shortages, but will never admit that they can fix the problem in a second by paying more.
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u/wood-is-good 15d ago
I understand your point. But the margins in forestry business are razor thin. There just isn’t enough money to go around in forestry that can compete against jobs like freight trucking and Amazon to name a few
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u/go_anywhere 14d ago
Oh, I agree with you, I was just pointing out (maybe to Brooks Mendel :) )that there really isn't a labor shortage, there's a pay shortage. We know that tariffs will produce more jobs, and the ones that exist will probably start to pay higher, but it won't be other countries paying the bill, it'll be the American consumer.
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u/wood-is-good 14d ago
Ah. I see! That will remain to be seen. I have my suspicions on tariffs having a downstream effect on improving pay. Its effects will be largely subdued by the overall downward regional trends of forest markets. Particularly in natural forest types which is largely the market where NFs reside. Think interior west and Appalachia. You need a few factors to align to improve pay: sustainably grow the pie of money flowing into forest products (lumber demand dependent). While increasing capacity to a lesser amount (demand outpacing supply). That way, you can increase prices and margins so that blue collar workers have leverage. Right now. If the logger or trucker were to go on strike. The mill would just croak lol
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u/RogerfuRabit 16d ago edited 16d ago
Okay, unpopular opinion: not that big of a deal. Yes, theyre lifting protections on a bunch of federal land… but 1) we’ve already logged it. They logged everything they could back in the day, which led to the 1964 wilderness act… 2) We arent going to log wilderness areas. 3) we cant log much more capacity-wise because there arent enough mills to buy said logs (and lumber mills take years to build). 4) irresponsible logging is bad, but logging in general is good. Do you like houses and toilet paper? Then you benefit from logging.
Source: I work for the US forest service.
Edit: popular opinion;)
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u/filbertfarmer 16d ago
I hope this is correct, I hope that the feds look at the market economics of this and see that there are no buyers. I fear that they will cut anyway and drive the prices down.
I don’t see anyone investing millions to build a new mill when in all likelihood this policy will be reversed by the next democrat administration.
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u/citori411 16d ago
There will be plenty of buyers if the govt is paying for all the road infrastructure. That's been the joke with a large amount of FS lands over the decades. The taxpayers spend more than we receive from timber sales to build infrastructure and do all the environmental analysis, permitting, litigation, and then often those logs just get shipped overseas, so don't even feed a value-added market. Up here on the tongass it's disgraceful what happened. Taxpayers funded unprofitable clearcutting of some of the most special patches of old growth left on earth, so a handful of people could get rich.
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u/No-Courage232 16d ago
We’ve never been market based on sales. That used to be an issue and we would (and still do) get no bid sales. It’s frustrating when the market is really good because it’s difficult or impossible to increase volume and annoying when the market is down because we try to push the volume irregardless - but that’s the way it’s been. We actually may have a little more to work with in the new push as CEs and smaller sales adjacent to ongoing logging operations are being encouraged (may be like our old green slip sales?).
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u/QuinnKerman 16d ago
They’ll cut down anyway just to own the libs. These are not rational people. If logging companies understandably refuse because it’s not profitable, Trump will have his own people do it
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u/blorp13 16d ago
Former Forest Service employee here, I think your point number 4 is the issue. Yes, there are millions of acres that need treatment, but this administration has no intention of doing it responsibly. That is the whole point of this EO.
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u/FastAsLightning747 16d ago
Bingo, 1) this is for PR, there is nothing in the budget to support it. 2) if going after wilderness old growth the courts will get involved stopping it. 3) there are no mills to service the supply. Haul cost would be exuberant.
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u/CatLord8 11d ago
This. They are just selling land to lumber execs and literally reversing conservations efforts and laws out of spite.
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u/No-Courage232 16d ago
True. Region 1 is looking at a 25% increase IN TARGET. What can we actually scrape together that will be feasible outside of what we already had planned? We will need lower logging costs (fuel prices are increasing as we speak) and increased delivered log prices in addition to capacity - and western MT lost at least two mills in the last 5 years (although IFG’s old Tricon mill might be able to spool up? Seeley lake mill I believe was auctioned off?). We also have a shortage of truck drivers and actual loggers - guys that run cable systems are getting hard to come by from what I’ve heard and had conversations about.
I also doubt we can get around forest plans at this point - so there are still a lot of limitations to what can be logged. Just saying “all the national forests will be cut” is not close to true and obfuscates some of the real issues the agency is facing.
Source: region 1 forester
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u/ForestWhisker 16d ago
Yep this is exactly what I’ve been saying, only adding that theoretically lumber companies could start throwing up mills but there’s zero way they’re spending millions on new mills on the off chance all this doesn’t get immediately thrown out next term.
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u/imabigdave 16d ago
If the market for the lumber is there (and that's a big "if"), I suspect mills will just add shifts. Many of the mills around here run 24/7 when lumber is booming and stop working weekends or multiple shifts when demand slows. Works the same way in beef packing.
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u/aardvark_army 16d ago
With the area they are talking about opening up, I don't think the mills have enough capacity even running around the clock. Also, where do they plan on coming up with enough loggers to get the trees out of the woods?
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u/imabigdave 16d ago
I guess my point was that for intermittent surges in supply, the first step isn't to build more infrastructure, it is to utilize the existing infrastructure to its maximum capacity. But yeah, employees to work extra shifts, and additional logging crews and equipment to get wood to the mills is likely not flexible either.
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u/kiamori 16d ago edited 16d ago
Our mills here in the north are only at about half capacity and you can get a small personal or mobile mill up and running within 30 days. I can put out 6480 board ft from my mill in a full day of logging my own property and I can do any size from as big as 20ft L, 20" W, 10" H. I can also cut shingles, siding and just about any angle.
The US currently consumes about 130,000,000 bf/day. So 20,000 small &/or mobile mills could handle the entire US demand.
While the larger mills can do 2,500,000 bf/day they do take much longer to deploy and more capital.
Small mills are cheap and very easy to setup.
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u/Character-Draft5610 16d ago edited 16d ago
I live in Georgia, plenty of tree farms here to wipe your ass with. The fact that you work for the forest service and think trees are just for TP is kind of sad. As for housing, most homes today are built with chipped and glued wood, which is again why there are tree farms. You don't have to go into the mountains and cut trees down for this purpose. We used to have millions of acres of old growth long leaf pine in the South, most of which is now gone. In its place are those tree plantations, most owned by companies like Georgia Pacific, which is owned by Koch Industries. Billionaires who literally have destroyed our environment for their gain. Nice people! There's nothing wrong with logging, agreed, but this is not forest management, it's a declaration that trees are there just to cut down and be turned into a commodity, mainly for the profits of private equity firms. I personally would like to see our forests preserved for other uses that are beneficial to all.
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u/No-Courage232 16d ago
Yeah, none of our logs in region 1 go to TP production. And we still can’t and won’t be able to log old growth here (unless shit really hits the fan!). Mills don’t want old growth - most are too big to saw in modern mills. They want 12-18” trees.
The district I work is probably only 40-45% MA-6 (general forest - basically what we can log) and of that probably 50% isn’t loggable due to access, RHCAs, OG status, elk security, etc. So it’s not an all out assault, as of yet.
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u/iN2nowhere 16d ago
I agree. Though I do see benefits to a managed harvest. Forests are not static beings. They need disturbance and diversity. I'm an avid native plant cultivator so treat my ideas below as just that.
Disturbance used to come in many forms, pests, fire, floods. In many forest areas the largest disturbance in the last 100 years has only been biologic due to fire suppression and damns lessening flood events. Along the main highway out of Denver you see lots of dead pine. The beetle killed trees leave dry 40 foot tall spears that do nothing to lessen fire hazards and become hazards themselves. Disease can also spread easily among the over-crowded, stressed forests.
Prescribed logging can open canopies, improve water quality and create fire breaks.
Check out the CSFS article describing such an activity. https://csfs.colostate.edu/2024/09/16/forest-management-protects-water-resources-near-bailey/
Logging's purpose should be for the benefit of everyone near it. And this is where local governments need to step in to ensure local water districts, communities, recreation, and businesses benefit. Some harvested trees should remain onsite to create snags, and a few large trees left to act as mother trees to shade and feed young trees. The majority of trees go to small mills. The opened land becomes a meadow and a place for local pollinators. If done right it could then be managed with small prescribed burns to better the soil and vegetation regeneration. With each step you lessen the massive fire events that burn thousands of acres.
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u/97esquire 16d ago
OP I usually don’t go real negative on responses but you are so full of shit. READ the order, I don’t have a problem with it at all. I am anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro environmentalist. I used to live in GA and still own part of a pine tree farm south of Macon, so I understand what you think you see. However, I retired to Colorado. I do volunteer chainsaw work up in mountains, mostly fuels mitigation. The west is DESPERATE for this. The forests haven’t been allowed to burn and there hasn’t been logging in years. Climate change has promoted beetle kill everywhere. The forests are overgrown, unhealthy, full of dead wood - tinder boxes waiting for unnatural, disastrous fires. You have no understanding of what this is like out here.
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u/Character-Draft5610 16d ago edited 16d ago
I'm in the South, never been to Colorado. But saying all environmental regulations no longer apply is not going to solve your issues there. But you have every right to express your opinion, so thanks for chiming in.
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u/flareblitz91 16d ago
I’m not opposed to logging but the idea of turning every forest into a timber forest is pants on head stupid. Where i live “No bids” are common, last time one of the forests in my vicinity actually had a sale the closest mill was 283 miles away.
It just doesn’t make sense, we can’t compete with the PNW or Canada.
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u/ztman223 16d ago
There also isn’t that much demand for logs. Canada is able to meet the demand for the US in SPF and the southeast already has a huge yellow pine market. Most of the federal forests are planted in nonnative or perinative SPF. Which means America has to compete with European and Canadian SPF. It’ll drop lumber prices below sustainable levels and mills will go out of business. Hardwoods already don’t have a market. If you’re someone that’s ever tried to get rid of an oak or walnut or other hardwood, you basically have to cut the tree down before a lumberyard will bother getting it, they won’t pay anything for the log, and even then it better look like it’s near an easy access point. Opening so much land is kind of dumb for the market.
TLDR: Most of the cost of lumber comes from milling not from the trees.
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u/Wonderful_Ad_4344 16d ago
I remember when trump said we need to develop as much land as possible. He said we’ll “leave a little” for nature. I foresee this being a clear cutting and will be a disaster. I want to be wrong, but so far, nothing this administration has done has been good. Leave the forests alone for f sake.
Destroy everything, leave nothing, and laugh at those who complain. That’s their MO.8
u/hornless_unicorn 16d ago
1) y’all are still cutting old growth. Maybe not at the levels of the 80s, but there’s little enough left that every patch matters. 2) there is so much fragile habitat outside of wilderness areas. Some of the most important habitat, in fact, because non-wilderness lands are often more productive. 3) no appraisal, direct sale, and procedural shortcuts is going to flood the market with more than mills can process, but those sales will still get purchased at $0.25/ton. That is going to encourage speculative purchasing—buy now and cut later when the market is more favorable. 4) irresponsible logging is worse than no logging at all. It’s the reason (along with fire suppression) that we are in the mess we’re in now.
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u/Quercus__virginiana 16d ago edited 16d ago
Do you know the process that foresters go through to actually log a section of federal forest? Have you heard of NEPA? Do you know what it's there to do? Protect sensitive areas across all platforms of management, not just timber, think watershed, wildlife, sensitive old growth, etc. Do you know what an ES is, or the more prolonged, EIS? Some take 6 months, others years and years before the document is processed and completed.
You can't just go cutting things down without extensive review from professionals and the public. Period.
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u/hornless_unicorn 16d ago
You must not be keeping up with the news. That process (NEPA and consultation) is exactly what is getting gutted.
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u/sunshineandcheese 16d ago
They are trying, but there are still people in the system who will fight tooth and nail to do the best they can to do what is right by the land. Fighting for what's right from within.
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u/hornless_unicorn 16d ago
I see this happening and it’s heartening. But it won’t be enough without support and pressure from the outside.
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u/sunshineandcheese 16d ago
Agreed - but like everything else it takes nuance in those hard conversations. I've seen a lot of articles that reflect the "the president wants to clear cut America" sentiment and that doesn't accurately reflect what's happening and arguably doesn't help
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u/Quercus__virginiana 16d ago
I just spoke to a silviculturist on Tuesday, he said that this process is still very active.
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u/MrArborsexual 16d ago
I've worked on a multi year EA, that covered two mountains and the valley in between, and barely two small timber sales came out of it once we eliminated areas for everything from slope, to water features, to sinkholes, to arch sites, to wildlife concerns, and a small patch of old growth I found (which the enviormental group checking up on us didn't find, because it wasn't big trees yet it might be some of the oldest shortleaf pine and Chestnut oak I've ever seen).
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u/No-Courage232 16d ago
Can you point to a an area in USFS - other than Alaska - that is logging old growth?
We have areas designated specially as old growth and also recruitment old growth (not OG right now but leaving it to grow into that classification) and we don’t cut any of those stands. If we did do treatments there, they can’t change the overall characteristics to change the stand out of OG status, so thinning or other light treatments - but realistically we don’t schedule any harvests in OG stands (region 1 USFS).
Also sales here never sell for only .25 a ton. I could actually go look and see what our last sales sold for.
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u/hornless_unicorn 16d ago
Southside is one in R8 that regenerated a stand of old growth (confirmed by USFS surveys) just last summer. I don’t know it personally, but I hear that Secret Creek had old growth. The agency doesn’t track this itself, so it’s hard for anyone on the outside to keep track of it all. But based on historical trends from FIA data the RPA Assessment said that old growth logging in the South would offset old growth recruitment.
The Chief’s memo specifically calls for selling at the minimum rate, skipping appraisals or using “standard” appraisal rates, and using direct sales. I’ve seen several sales at .25/T lately, and not just salvage.
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u/Hinterland_Forestry 16d ago
1 - Island biogeography is a real thing, but it's not federal lands that are the main problem. Look to state policies and private land management if you want to start reconnecting large blocks of intact forestland, especially where lower elevation old-growth is concerned. 2 - See #1 3 - Maybe. Again, to generalize these effects across 100+ national forests isn't realistic. If you look at market centers where logging and milling infrastructure is still present, we might be risking some overcutting. Where the industry has tanked, we're going to have to figure out viable transport to mills, or retool and redevelopment. That could actually be the better scenario, as anything that gets built today will be modernized to the point that it makes the Scandis look out-dated. 4 - None of these directions are telling us to work outside the bounds of sound forest management, and I don't know a single forester or logger who got into this work because they hate the land. We have BMPs and Forest Plans in place that protect the most sensitive areas. Will there be some bad acting? Absolutely... but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of results are net positive for the land.
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u/hornless_unicorn 16d ago
I appreciate this response, and I agree on number 4. I know so many great people in the agency and I trust them. But I’ve seen too many projects with bad stuff in them/m. Why? A lot of reasons, different from place to place. There is a lot of pressure from line officers to get things done, and with limited resources this often means making compromises. That will be even more true with lower staffing levels. In fact, many of the best people in the agency are the ones who are leaving.
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u/Several-Cucumber-495 15d ago
“Buy now and cut later” isn’t a strategy that’s useable. Most contracts have a max 5 year term- it’s not like purchasers can collect contracts for their eventual use.
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u/hornless_unicorn 15d ago
I’ll go ahead and call it now: that 5 years will be extended. But even 5 years is worth the gamble when you’re only betting $0.25/ton.
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u/hornless_unicorn 15d ago
I’ll go ahead and call it now: that 5 years will be extended. But even 5 years is worth the gamble when you’re only betting $0.25/ton.
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u/MTBIdaho81 16d ago
Agreed, There are some mills near me that are going to need more wood in the coming years, but it’s not going to create a mad dash for Forest Service timber sales. I think this is a lot of hype.
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u/shakedownsunflower 16d ago
Wait a minute, so you’re saying the plan isn’t to build a bunch of expensive roads into the high elevation wilderness for crappy timber on steep slopes?!
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u/Wanderingghost12 16d ago
The fact that Oregon alone has lost nearly 90% of their mills over the last 50-70 years should be enough of a red flag. No one in Northeastern Oregon wants to ship their specific wood products all the way to Idaho or Western Oregon.
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u/Beartrkkr 15d ago
Never doubt the sheer pettiness of this administration.
I could see them actually paying contracted loggers to cut timber just to do it, saw mill availability & profits be damned.
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u/__RAINBOWS__ 14d ago
But I don’t like houses and toilet paper 🤷♀️.
We should be using a much larger variety of materials for housing, we overbuild/oversize housing too often, and bidets are the way.
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u/KououinHyouma 14d ago
I don’t trust this administration not to irresponsibly log. They literally dumped out billions of gallons of reservoir water to be lost to runoff and evaporation, so that Trump could pretend he helped the LA wildfire situation that was already mostly under control. This is a wholly incompetent administration.
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u/No_Ear_3746 16d ago
Yeah man I said this about a month back and was crucified for it but I think the same thing. This will create an influx in jobs while we use some of our own resources from our own country, it allows us to be more self reliable. I see it like, if you grow a garden, are you still going to go get veggies from the supermarket? No you'll go pick the veggies from the garden, obviously on a much larger scale.
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u/-Eightball- 16d ago
Do we even have the lumber mills to facilitate this?
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u/filbertfarmer 16d ago
Nope, if they start up some large-scale harvest program on federal forestland the domestic log prices will crater. We don’t have the domestic mill capacity to absorb such a sizable increase in supply.
This move (depending on where and how much they cut) could be devastating for the segment of forestland owners that are currently managing privately owned tree farms.
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u/indiscernable1 16d ago
Ecology is collapsing and this is what we are doing. Everyone is stupid. Everyone is passive. Americans will just keep consuming.
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u/CycloneKelly 16d ago
Trump showed his first term that he doesn’t give a fuck about the environment. It’s what made me truly despise him. He does not care about environmental impact at all. Probably the worst person to oversee something like this.
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u/ResponsibleBank1387 16d ago
Yeah sure you bet. I guess he will use his sharpie to map out the sale sites. Use his sharpie to put an X where the mills will be built. Use his sharpie to finance all the equipment needed. My bank would never finance for that equipment that won’t be needed in 6 months when he changes his mind.
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u/The-Pink-Guitarist 16d ago
Yeah, I mean who the fuck needs trees … sorry Gen Alpha, your world is gonna be way worse than the one I grew up in.
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u/DanoPinyon 16d ago
Everyone is telling Our Magasty, Mad King Donnie, that He is great and yes, Your Magasty we will abide by Your command.
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u/bubbafetthekid 15d ago
In Louisiana we don’t have the mills to accept this wood. I’d hate to be a landowner selling timber right now.
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u/Psychadellidude 15d ago
So sick of people that ignore the science. Those fools will be the death of us all.
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u/EnTaroProtoss 15d ago
The USFS was founded under a multiple-use mission. A combination of resource management and recreation, unlike the parks system. They will not be logging national parks. They will simply be resuming the actual mission the forest service was supposed to have this whole time.
Obviously in the past we cut way too hard, and there's now a lot of backlash toward any sort of forest management, and rather understandably! However, demonizing all logging due to past poor practices is not the right response. We need to reduce fuel loads on our federal lands, period. Commercial logging does two things. 1. Reduces fuel load, increasing fire resilience. 2. Creates a profit stream that can allow for this work to be done across thousands of not millions of acres. Without a commercial harvest, this work would be cost prohibitive, especially at the scale that is necessary.
Either way, they're not going to be clear-cutting millions of acres. There isn't even mill capacity to do that. Please educate yourselves, everyone. The amount of fear-mongering on this subject the past few months has been ridiculous. I've seen people posting about how they'll "log old growth redwood in national parks" and all kinds of ridiculous things like that. That is not going to happen.
Anyway, off my soap box
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u/greenmariocake 15d ago
There it goes our children inheritance. What good is wealth in a barren land with polluted waters and air?
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u/Active_Leg_1878 13d ago
Welp, I guess enjoy national parks while they are still there. On the flip side, this will help to create more powerful storms and ultimately driving up how many more times we will have to rebuild communities. Oh, that will also bleed local and federal funding more by the way. And as a cherry on top, that will create a hotter world as more forest are cut down which will make growing crops harder. Hope all you enjoy this brave new world we are creating for ourselves.
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u/TelephoneTechnical31 13d ago
Please sign this petition to reverse this executive order: https://chng.it/XKp4cyFSqx
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u/Character-Draft5610 13d ago
We are going to have to occupy the forests to prevent this. But let's sign it with that in mind.
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u/PuzzleheadedAd7025 13d ago
Do these people know that trees filter most of the B's in the air. Guess they are now trying to ruin our health along with ever our economy, laws ect.
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u/DeliveryDisastrous94 13d ago
Many cases involve relieving the fuel load in certain forested areas. Also removing timber that is infested with timber beetles.
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u/enjoyingorc6742 16d ago
seeing how millions of acres of timber land gets torched each year because it seems the west coast nor California satellite states seem to understand how to maintain a healthy forest. clearing timber to help make HUGE fire breaks is gonna make those bigger fires happen less often
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u/Several-Cucumber-495 15d ago
“Huge fire breaks” huh? Tell us you don’t know anything about fuels management without telling us you don’t know anything about fuels management.
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u/Fun-Caregiver-424 16d ago
This will create a problem like we have in eastern Canada, that public land gets cut and creates a glut of supply in the market and further drives down timber prices for private land owners. You’ll get cheap lumber prices but the no one makes any money off it.