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Re: [GWL]: Old Growth



>
> Just curious.  What is it about old growth forests that make them
desirable
> or even sacrosanct?
>
> Is it just because they are old?
> Is it because they represent an ecosystem that cannot be replicated in a
> younger forest?
>
> Dan Strickland

Greetings from Port Angeles, Washington, where we live in a 5 mile band of
land that surrounds over a million acres of old growth forest known as The
Olympic National Park.
Nothing, and I truely mean, nothing, looks like an old growth forest.  The
branches are covered in mosses that sometimes weigh more than the branches
themselves.  The forest floor is covered in places by solid masses of
mosses, or in the early summer, carpets of a native oxalis that stretches as
far as you can see through the forest.
Many birds and animals live within an old growth forest that will live
nowhere else.  One is the spotted owl.  There aren't that many left.  My
employee room-mates with the head of the Owl Crew.  They go into the forest
every 10 days for 2 week stints and hoot to call the owls in.  They know
where every owl in the Park is.  Another bird is marbled murrelet, which is
a semi sea-bird that nests on an open, moss covered branch in old growth
forests.  According to National Geopgraphic, we have more biodiversity in
our forest than a jungle.  The trees are absolutely massive, huge things
that can grow so large that 15 people, holding hands can barely encircle.
( True, not many of these are left; and the loggers that take them down glow
with pride that they got the honor of cutting them.)
One misconception that people have is that in a large amount of the old
growth, deer and elk are not in residence.  When the wind blows, branches
can crash down.  They are usually so dark from overhead branches that mosses
and ferns are the most common food.  The large herbivores live on the
outskirts, where sun causes the undergrowth to produce huckleberries, alders
and other more nutritious fare.
http://www.northolympic.com/onp/
Will give you the parks' website.  I don't wish to give you pretty pictures
( but they are there ), but rather information.
My father in law is 88 and lives in New Jersey.  He only knows what the
media divulges.  He says "What's the difference?  Cut it all."  He doesn't
get it.  We have logged this state to the point that this is the last of it.
Now it's time we used that prior logged area like corn fields.  Cut it,
plant it and cut it again.  But we certainly can log this country in less
than a lifetime and when it's gone, it's gone forever.  And for a pocketful
of cash that is spent in a very short amount of time.
I am not an ardent environmentalist.  I'm 42 years old and a native of
Washington who has seen the same mountain logged 3 times since I was a
child, sitting on the porch wondering if we could ever log the whole world.
Entire forests that I have visited as a child are gone.  Roadways that
evoked images of passing through a tunnel are now open to the sun and
surrounded by stumps.
I sound like a tree hugger.  Please come see this National Park.  A million
people a year come.  And yet it isn't at all crowded because they are spread
all over and around it.  One of my employees went hiking for 3 days last
week.  Day one they saw 3 people.  The second day they saw one person.  The
third day they saw nobody.

Diana Politika
The Greenhouse Nursery
Port Angeles, WA

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