🚀 go-pugleaf

larryc@teleport.com (Larry Caldwell) wrote:

--snip--

>Watersheds can recover, and forest ecologies are amazingly resilient.

Great point, Larry, when speaking of low- and mid-elevation temperate
rainforests such as those west of the Cascade summit below 5000 feet
or so and in the Coast Range here in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon in
particular).
I would add that repeated damage (for example- 30 year rotations
practiced for a couple of hundred years) may cause eventual, lasting
harm (soil depletion, water table changes, etc.) resulting in a change
in the structures of the ecosystems involved. 

As Paul Sisney author of "Round And About: Perspectives On A Park"
points out:

"In a 1926 letter to Stephen Mather, Director of the National Park
Service, C.G. Thompson, then Superintendent of Crater Lake National
Park, recommended against Silver Creek Falls as a national park. ...
"If the region were still virgin there is no doubt their merit would
warrant very careful consideration as to national park value but,
unfortunately the  region has heard the sound of the axe for many
years, a large majority of the big trees having been felled so that
the remaining timber is practically all second growth. Worse, there
are large areas of stark stumpage staring one in the face from every
angle.  From the brink of one of the best falls (South Falls- rex) one
looks across a canyon up a slope that is absolutely bare execpt for
hundreds of thousands of stumps that from a distance look like so many
dark headstones. When the axemen went through they took everything
that stood upon these various acreages ......'"

"In 1935, also recommending against Silver Creek as a national park,
J.L Bossemeyer stated, 'the prevalence of cut-over land and farming
activity in the vicinity is such as to destroy that feeling of nature
undisturbed that is so essential to a National Park.'  Mr. Bossemeyer
further warned, 'Under private ownership, the inhabitants of the area
encourage brush fires for the purpose of opening the land for grazing.
Second growth timber is cut as soon as it is of suitable size for
poles. This situation will assuredly result in the eventual loss of
the  wonderful scenic beauty of Silver Creek Falls State Park, through
the decline of the water of Silver Creek.' Bessemeyer urged the
inclusion of this area within the Recreational Demonstration
Project.'" (which later became Silver Falls State Park- rex)

"What a difference a pair of decades makes! Writing in 1953, (author
W.A.) Langille noted that 'altho (sic) logging and subsequent fires
have reduced the primeval park forest to a negligible quantity, the
area does support a vigorous, piling-sized second growth of Douglas
fir, with intervals of heavy sapolings and thickets of younger growth,
that give every promise of indefinitely sustaining the supremacy of
this superior tree over the entire park... It is indeed fortunate that
the old growth Douglas fir has been so widely cut and removed before
the land was acquired for park purposes. The splendid new growth that
succeded it now covers much of the area and is some fifty years old,
with intervals of younger trees that make an ideal forest for park
purposes.'"

And, in a later view, "State Park Director Dave Talbot in seeking to
acquire an additional 120 acres for the park was quoted in 1984: 'If
you stand at the (South) Falls and look up and west toward the setting
sun, you'll see the property we want to buy.' If the state should not
buy it? 'And then you'd look toward the setting sun and see
clearcut.'"

To get an example of what this would look like, just visit South Falls
Lodge and view the photo from the late 1800s of a man standing at
South Falls looking at the burned over area that is mentioned by the
authors above. The Park did acquire the area and the beautiful second
growth Douglas firs are admired today by visitors from around the
world.

"All my life's a circle and I can't tell you why," the late Harry
Chapin. (Ok, so he won't be coming to dinner tonight or ever again -
he's deceased, not late.)

--snip--

>Most of the voting citizenry never leaves pavement.  

Gosh, Larry, many mushroom pickers barely leave the pavement!!!!-)

>They rely on mass media
>and what they see out their car windows to form their opinions.  There is
>some doubt that is a reasonable way of determining land management policy 
>in national forests.  I would probably be wiser to remove the issue 
>completely from the political arena, turn management over to foresters and
>biologists, and just give the professionals the parameters of how much
>wildlife, how much timber and how much scenery we want 50 and 100 years 
>from now.

>Not that I think that will ever happen.  Too many politicians (on both sides
>of the issue) would be unwilling to ever give up that much power. 

>-- Larry

At last, a common sense approach to timber management - apolitical.

Still waiting.............

rexs13

***All mushrooms are edible, some species only once.***