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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

Hi Dan:

Years a go I read an article. I think it was (Mother Earth News) where
there were Indians on the their own reserved land practicing forest
management
in order to harvest timber yet still allow the older growth trees to set
seed for the
indigenous specie. What was interesting and unique about this was they had
complete
respect for the understory and would even go to great lengths to make sure
the footprint
of the operation was kept at almost nothing....
1st, They did take 200 year old wood, but selectively, Seems they knew or
know how
to open the tree canopy (which happens by lighting strike or disease in
nature anyhow)
and harvest a minimum of timberwood and leave the branchworks for rotting
and mosses
in the area where the tree had been dropped. They would also plant more
trees in the direct
area with natural seedlings of select hardwood and conifers to replace the
canopy in as
short a time span as possible.
2nd. The log road/s were never dedicated to the road. They would painfully
reconstruct
a road back to it's original design by completely digging everything up
where they wanted a
road to go, go in and do their business, then backfill the road as it had
lied before undistrurbed.
3rd. The trees they did take could be a 200 year old sequoia or oak, yet
right next to it or in direct
proximity they would leave the stand alone of old growth ensuring older wood
for their livelihood
and prodignys for years to come.
What the article seemed to imply was that you could never tell where they
had been for harvesting.
Too bad the dept of interior and weyerhauser could  not adopt this type of
low impact regimen
into forestry considering that particle board which is a major component in
construction can be
mixed with hybrid poplar and hardwood, reducing the need for total hardwood
or conifer....
I read this somewhere like back 10 years ago, so......
Just my spin on it.... I'm no expert.
Best wishes,
~Gianni

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