Foresters do sustainable, good work.Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Bob Kintigh For The Register-GuardAre Oregon's private forests really in such terrible condition as Jim Weaver Jim Weaver is the name of:
I would like to present a totally different view, based upon my real-life experience in Oregon forests. A few of my credentials: I am a certified See certification. forester. I have 60 years' experience working in Oregon forests, and for 50 of these I have managed my own timberland. I was 2005 Oregon Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year and am 2006 National Outstanding Tree Farmer on the Year. My 12 years in the Oregon Senate included four years as chairman of the Senate National Resource Committee. Weaver's statement about the forest industry being in a ``cut out and get out'' mode makes one wonder if he has been in the forest recently to see the areas that he referred to as suffering "devastation" many years ago. If he did, he would find healthy young forests, often approaching merchantable Salable; of quality and type ordinarily acceptable among vendors and buyers. An item is deemed merchantable if it is reasonably fit for the ordinary purposes for which such products are manufactured and sold. For example, soap is merchantable if it cleans. sizes. Does Weaver know that in Oregon we have an industry-instigated model Forest Practices Act that requires reforestation Reforestation The reestablishment of forest cover either naturally or artificially. Given enough time, natural regeneration will usually occur in areas where temperatures and rainfall are adequate and when grazing and wildfires are not too frequent. ? Even without it, we landowners would plant trees and care for wildlife habitat and soil resources, because it is the right thing to do. Weaver further shows his ignorance of the forest industry by implying that the diminishing plywood plywood, manufactured board composed of an odd number of thin sheets of wood glued together under pressure with grains of the successive layers at right angles. Laminated wood differs from plywood in that the grains of its sheets are parallel. industry is due to the lack of large logs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Plywood can be made from logs down to 10 inches in diameter. The plywood industry is in trouble today because of competition from oriented strandboard. There is no shortage of large logs. I have fewer markets for them, and receive a lower price for them, than I do for small- and medium-sized logs. Weaver really goes off the deep end when he makes a statement that houses cannot be built with twigs (who said they could?) and that it takes 100 years to grow a Douglas fir Douglas fir: see pine. Douglas fir Any of about six species of coniferous evergreen timber trees (see conifer) that make up the genus Pseudotsuga, in the pine family, native to western North America and eastern Asia. . I have news for him. I have a 70-year-old stand (a natural monoculture mon·o·cul·ture n. 1. The cultivation of a single crop on a farm or in a region or country. 2. A single, homogeneous culture without diversity or dissension. originating on land that was logged, burned and grazed graze 1 v. grazed, graz·ing, graz·es v.intr. 1. To feed on growing grasses and herbage. 2. Informal a. To eat a variety of appetizers as a full meal. for many years) in which there are at least three trees measuring 38 to 42 inches diameter. Trees in the 30-inch range are a common. I can grow logs of the size desired by modern mills in 40 years or less using genetically superior seedlings and practicing good vegetation management. I challenge anyone to find any erosion in my clear-cuts. I make provisions for various kinds of wildlife, including eagles, cavity nesters, big game and upland Upland, city (1990 pop. 63,374), San Bernardino co., S Calif., in a citrus-fruit region at the foot of the San Gabriel Mts.; inc. 1906. Citrus fruits and grapes are packed and processed in the city. Paint, orchard heaters, auto parts, and feed products are also made. birds. We had our 249 acres of family-owned forest lands inventoried in 1994 and again in 2005. Although we had harvested 1.5 million board feet in the intervening period, there were still 500,000 more board feet standing in 2005 than there were in 1994. Sure looks sustainable to me. Weaver and other people who share his beliefs need to get out and see what foresters are doing. I often have had someone tell me at the end of a tour, "Now I see why you clear-cut." Those who advocate "single tree selection management" have no long-term successful examples to show us. I verified this with a forestry professor at Oregon State University Oregon State University, at Corvallis; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1858 as Corvallis College, opened 1865. In 1868 it was designated Oregon's land-grant agricultural college and was taken over completely by the state in 1885. who is an advocate of such management. In the 45 years that I have been logging on our properties, we have produced logs to make enough timber to build at least 500 homes. Isn't that of some social and economic value? How many homes could have been built from the dead trees standing on the B&B fire had they been salvaged promptly? My fellow foresters and I feel that Weaver's column was a put-down put·down or put-down n. Slang 1. A dismissal or rejection, especially in the form of a critical or slighting remark: "Such answers were, perhaps still are, a . . . . We love our work and feel we are doing a good job. It's our life. As I said when I accepted the national tree farmer award, "Next to my Lord and my family, trees have been my life." We hold no ill feeling against Weaver and would like to extend to him and others who feel the same way a personal invitation to visit our tree farm and see our management. Former state Sen. Bob Kintigh of Springfield is a forester and is 2006 National Outstanding Tree Farmer on the Year. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion