August 25, 2002 .
John Balzar:
Paying the Price for Logging on the Cheap
Old-growth trees are far more than fiber-by-the-foot.
When George W. Bush poses for a photo op in a
burned-over public forest, he's right about one
thing: It's a shame what we've done. And it's a
worse shame what we're doing--more of the same,
squandering the last of our treasure just about as
fast as we can.
There is always an excuse for logging public forests
on the cheap. During Bill Clinton's administration,
the excuse was jobs. Now it's fires. Tomorrow it
will be something else. I'll take a guess: We'll thin
the forests in the guise of reducing fire danger then
we'll have a series of big El Nino storms. Because
the canopy is thinned out, trees won't be able to
rely on each other to share the work of breaking
the wind. There will be massive blow-downs. We'll
have to rush in and "salvage" that lumber too.
Taxpayers will subsidize all this--paying more for
the logging roads and survey work than they
receive in timber sales. But managing public forests
at a loss is nothing new. And as long as we're going
to have a 19th century approach to our forests,
why change the fundamentals, eh?
The Big Lie that we're asked to believe is that our public forests are managed
as a "sustainable" resource. That when trees are cut, new ones are planted,
sometimes two for one. When a timber broker feeds you that bull, ask whether
he would trade you that piece of green paper in his wallet that says $100 for
two pieces of the same paper that say $1. That's what passes for sustainable
forestry.
I'm a tree hugger, yes. But I'm also a tree user. I'm a woodworker in my free
time, not to mention I earn my living thanks to the availability of newsprint. The
maddening truth is that conservation and consumption are not incompatible
when it comes to trees--never mind the contrary tone of our dead-end debates
about national forests. You can love forests as the place where nature reaches
full glory, as havens for animals and cathedrals for our soul. At the same time,
you can cherish them as a storehouse for that most tactile, warm and beautiful
of our raw materials.
We could enjoy our forests for both purposes and for generations to come if
only we regarded trees for their value, not their volume. Too bad we're running
out of time. When a 500-year-old fir is cut down and peeled into plywood to
be nailed on a wall and covered with paint, a sensible person would say that
something is wrong. It's like the mugger who steals a Rolex and pawns it for
$50 and considers himself ahead. A 500-year-old tree has far greater social
value standing in the forest than loggers pay to cut it down. Likewise, these
trees are worth more on the market as the ingredients for heirloom furniture and
large-dimension architectural display features than as cheap wallboard.
Sadly, that wood may disappear before we recognize it. Only after the
Japanese and the Europeans cut down their forests did they understand the
value of ours. Today, straight-grained fir logs from the Pacific Northwest can
command six or 10 times as much abroad as they do at home.
How can this be happening? Simple. In the antediluvian mind of the American
lumbermen, wood is just fiber measured by board-feet. Old trees grow slower
than young ones. Thus, there is a premium on ridding forests of the biggest
trees for quick profit, making way for saplings. Timber lobbyists like to use
agricultural analogies. But they overlook the fact that if you harvest all of your
pumpkins when they are one inch around, you don't have much to offer come
Halloween. No industry in the land is run with such little imagination and brazen
profligacy.
What can we do? Also simple. We acknowledge that a 200-foot tree has more
significance in the forest than 10 20-footers. That's both for the sake of humans
who visit and creatures that depend on it. We shouldn't allow these trees to be
cut for less than the standing value of leaving them alone. And when big trees
are felled, it should be at a rate no faster than they can replenish themselves.
That's sustainable harvesting in the honest meaning of the term.
But that will make them too expensive, you say. No, it won't. We'll come to
realize the value of what we have before it's gone. Yes, this wood would cost
more, and it should. That way, our great-grandchildren will have trees in their
public forests that make them crane their necks to behold. And we'll have
beautiful, mature wood, now and tomorrow, worthy of dining room tables and
ceiling beams and wood-strip canoes--things that bring the pleasure of nature
into our everyday lives.
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