🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3410A813.7AA4@forestmeister.com>,
Joseph Zorzin <redoak@forestmeister.com> wrote:

> I don't know the details of this situation, but a landowner doesn't
> really have total rights to do ANYTHING with their land. They don't have
> the right to destroy the streams, cause fire hazards or other
> environmentaly destructive actions. Clearcutting is often really just an
> aesthetic problem not an environmental one- and I've done a few small
> clearcuts myself (as a forester). But pillaging a large forest for short
> term gains, if it hurts the local economy is morally wrong and
> economically destructive to the rest of society who will be paying the
> welfare checks for the ruined families. Again, I don't know the details

This is a little dire.  Redwoods sucker from the roots if you cut them
down, and the forest recovers very rapidly because of the established
root system.  Redwood logging can regenerate a mature forest more rapidly
than any other conifer.  Spotted owls have been found living in 20-year
old Redwood second growth.  

The owners have agreed to a land swap that will save Headwaters, and it's
up to the environmental community to make that swap work.  Until then,
it doesn't do any harm to protest.  It's September, after all, and pretty
soon the crowd will thin out.

As far as riparian protection, I don't know what the law is in California,
but would be surprised if there was none.  For private land, clearcutting
is usually a better way of managing the forest than highgrading, 
euphemisitcally referred to as "selective logging."  Most high grading
operations leave stands of diseased and damaged trees, do as much damage
to wildlife habitat, and much more to ruin the productive value of the
land.

-- Larry


> here, but I wouldn't agree that a landowner can do ANYTHING. After all,
> we are a SOCIETY with some responsibilities to others. Of course
> conservatives speak with a fork tongue- they preach Christianity out one
> side of their mouths while ferociously screeming about THEIR property
> rights out of the other side of their mouths. Such a selfish attitude is
> foolish as - in the long term we're all gonna end up in the Earth
> anyways. If we're gonna end up in it- we ought to take a stewardship
> approach to our future home.