Trees are indeed renewable, although for many species it takes a very long time. Old growth forests are defined as having trees that are two hundred to thousands of years old. These forests are not renewable in any practical sense unless one is immortal.
I responded to your post by pointing out the difference between your position--which seems to be that jobs and private ownership of unrenewable natural resources is a sanctified one--and one which holds than the needs of humanity (which you profess to be concerned about) are more complex than jobs. If you cannot see or appreciate the difference in those positions that is your choice, but calling Del's post as snot-nosed and pompous, and characterizing my post as a sermon while being an inarticulate purveyor of pure and simple ignorance and greed is hardly enlightened.
I also think you are probably in need of a bit more knowledge about the forest and jobs. Perhaps we should legalize hemp!
<<Aren't our National Forests are already protected from logging?
No, unfortunately most Americans do not realize that their National Forests are logged.
When they find out, they want it stopped. (USFS, "Forest Service Values Poll
Questions, Results and Analysis," Bruce Hammond, 1994.) Although there are laws
intended to protect the forest from environmental damage, they are routinely ignored.
In a 1991 legal opinion regarding the northern spotted owl case, Federal Judge William
Dwyer described federal land management agencies actions as a "systematic and
deliberate refusal to comply with the nation's environmental laws." (Seattle Audubon
Society v. Mosley, 798 F. Supp. 1484, 1489 (W.D. Wash. 1992)) Less than five
percent of this nation's native forests remain unlogged, almost all on public lands.
Do we need to log National Forests to provide wood products?
No, less than four percent of the wood products Americans use come from the
National Forests. (USFS Timber Sale Program Annual Report, FY 1995, p. 6.)
Private lands are more suitable for timber production. National Forest land is on
average of lower productivity and on steeper, higher elevation terrain than are private
forestlands. (USFS, Forest Resources of the United States, Rocky Mt. Forest and
Range Experiment Station, 1992.)
Subsidized public timber artificially lowers wood prices and government dumping of
cheap timber devalues all timberlands. Ending logging on public lands will greatly
increase the value of private timberlands and the timber they contain. This will provide
an incentive for sustainable management of private timberlands.
The U.S. has the best environmental laws. If we don't log here, won't we have
to import wood that was produced under worse conditions?
The United States, pressured by its powerful timber industry, has prevented real
progress in any international agreements to protect forests. To sharpen its competitive
edge in the global economy, the U.S. timber industry continues to seek access to
cheaper trees at lower costs: the precise measure delivered by the "salvage logging"
rider. All federal environmental laws were suspended. Had the U.S. Senate ratified the
1992 Earth Summit Convention on Biological Diversity, the "salvage" rider would have
been in violation of the agreement's provisions for habitat protection.
Are there viable alternatives to wood products?
Yes, less waste and more recycling could easily replace the four percent of the wood
products that come from the National Forests. One out of every two trees cut in this
country is wasted through inefficient utilization and lack of recycling. (Worldwatch
Institute, State of the World, "Reforming Forestry," 1991.) Alternatives for pulp and
building materials exist, but cannot compete favorably with subsidized National Forest
timber.
There is no shortage of nonwood fiber material in this country. U.S. farmers annually
generate 280 million tons of excess agricultural fiber suitable for papermaking.
Generally, these fibers are known to be pulped with higher fiber yields than wood and
require fewer chemicals, less water and less energy to be processed.
Farmers would benefit from new income from those residues that would otherwise be
burned, new opportunities for value-added rotational crops, and new uses for more
than 65 million acres of idle farmland in the United States.
Do regional economies depend on public lands logging?
No regional economies depend upon public lands logging. In the states with the most
federal commercial timberland, logging and wood products employment represents a
minor share of overall jobs. In Idaho, for example, only 3 percent of all jobs are
related to wood products. And this is counting logging and manufacturing of all paper
and wood products, regardless of whether these products originated from public land
timber sales or not. In Oregon, only 4.6 percent of all jobs are related to wood
products. In Colorado, where federal forests account for a large share of the land
base, only 1/2 of 1 percent of employment is related to wood products. (Bureau of
Labor Statistics, Covered Employment and Wages Program, (ES-202), November
1997)
Federal timber supplies are insignificant to the lumber and wood products sector.
Between 1988 and 1996, the amount of timber logged from National Forests dropped
by 70 percent, from 12.6 billion board feet to 3.9 billion board feet. During this period,
national employment in lumber and wood products jobs actually rose. In 1988, the
lumber and wood products sector supported 771,000 jobs with a $15.2 billion
payroll. In 1996, the sector supported 778,000 jobs with a $20 billion payroll.
Do we need to log forests to prevent forest fires?
No, fire is a natural and beneficial part of forest ecosystems. Without it, the ecosystem
quickly degrades. But avoiding catastrophic fire risk is often used to justify logging.
Ironically, however, according to the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Final Report
to Congress, "Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate,
and fuel accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human
activity." Clearcutting can change fire climate so that fires start more easily, spread
faster, and burn hotter. If the intent is to seek the most environmentally sound and cost
effective means to reduce the fuel hazard and fire risk, then the Forest Service should
be instructed and fully funded to implement understory prescribed burning without
commercial logging. The long-term goal should be full restoration of ecological
processes, including fire.
But aren't our forests are managed for a range of values known as multiple
use that balances recreation, wildlife, and commodity production?
The National Forest Management Act of 1976 and the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield
Act of 1970 require management of the National Forests for a range of uses, including
wood, clean water, livestock rangeland, wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities and
wilderness. However, problems have arisen because some of these uses are
contradictory and the Forest Service, lacking clear direction on how to reconcile them,
has been heavily influenced by the demands of extractive industry. As a consequence,
logging has become the predominant use of most forests, damaging and even
destroying the other forest values.
A look at the agency's budget tells the story. The final expenditures from the general
fund of the U.S. Treasury in 1996 (Fiscal year 1988 Budget, Explanatory Notes to the
Committee on Appropriations, USFS.):
Timber sale program: $791 million
Fire management: $485 million
Recreation: $164 million
Law enforcement: $59.6 million
Wilderness: $33 million
Are environmentalists' lawsuits locking up forests and costing jobs?
Contrary to the timber industry's frequent claims that the cause of money-losing timber
sales on public lands is environmental regulation, all environmental analysis/
documentation and appeals/litigation costs totalled less than six percent of the total
expense of the logging program in FY 1995.
Between 1979 and 1988, while logging levels increased, more than 26,000 timber jobs
disappeared. Due to automation, it takes only 3 workers to produce the same amount
of timber today as it took 5 workers to produce in 1979. In the Southeast, new chip
mills can consume 200 square miles of forest in 3-5 years, while employing as few as
4-12 workers per shift. In the Northwest, nearly half of all the lumber cut is exported
raw or minimally processed. Every million board feet shipped overseas takes 7 direct
jobs and 14 more indirect jobs with it. (Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment
Team, "Forest Ecosystem Management: An Ecological, Economic, and Social
Assessment," USDA Forest Service, et al., p. VI-26, 1993.)
In 1996, the Forest Service issued a report that predicts that by 2000, recreation,
hunting and fishing on National Forests will contribute more than 30 times more to the
national economy than the timber sale program. The billions of dollars currently
subsidizing the logging of public lands could instead employ tens of thousands of
people to restore native biodiversity rather than destroy it.
Are forest management decisions are best left to local communities?
Public forests belong to all Americans. Local input in the decision making process,
while important, will not yield the best result because of conflicts of interest at the local
level where a greater number of people are employed by extractive industries. For
example, 25 people in the small timber town of Quincy, California, contrived with the
region's largest purchaser of public timber to triple the logging on 3 National Forests in
the heart of the Sierra Nevada. If implemented, millions of people in southern
California will suffer from decreased quantities and quality of their drinking water.
The statutory establishment of the Shelton Sustained Yield Unit in Washington State in
1946 gave the Simpson Logging Company, a local business, a virtual monopoly on
federal timber. The intent of Congress was to ensure a sustained flow of timber to
support the local communities. The result was that the area was heavily logged and is
widely considered — even by the Forest Service — to have been a disastrous
experiment in social engineering. Both the forest and the community suffered as a
result.>>
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