Patrick Moore wrote: > I have travelled extensively through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and I > have never seen single tree selection in coniferous forests. That, Mr. Moore, is precisely the point..one does not "see" single tree selection!!!! How sad that you have apparently become so accustomed to the 1,000+ acre old-growth clearcuts of British Columbia that you have become blind more holistic forest harvest methods such as single tree selection. One can hardly say that they could drive through BC and not see the ravages of industrial forestry there..... > 1 ha is still a clearcut. The reason for the small size is mainly aesthetic > and subjective and has nothing to do with silviculture. All over the world, > foresters are being required to adopt harvesting and silvicultural systems > that are not optimal for regeneration due to public opinion that is based on > aesthetic and conjectural opinion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against > single tree selection where it makes sense silviculturally, but this is in a > minority of forests. This attitude is precisely the problem!!! Notice Mr. Moore's condemnation of smaller clearcuts does not address the ECOLOGICAL benefits of smaller cuts, but only laments the silvicultural "disadvantage" of smaller cuts, namely that they are less profitable. This is the problem with industrial forestry as practiced today, they are only interested in harvest methods that maximize profit, and all other factors be damned! They defend clearcuts as mimicking natural disturbances, and yet i would challenge anyone to show me a natural disturbance on the size and scale of industrial clearcutting that removes 80-100% of the biomass from a large (often 1,000 acre+) area! Even in extreme examples such as an intense blowdown, the trees are left by nature to cycle their nutrients back into the soil, and nobody can claim that such rare, cataclysmic natural events occur on a frequency anywhere near current clearcutting harvest schedules. On the other hand, fire--an extremely beneficial tool in the maintenance of natural forests that does (or at least did) occur with fairly regular intensity, frequency, and amplitude--is condemned by the forest products industry because a) economically valuable trees can be damaged or destroyed, and b) fighting forest fires is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that the timber industry has cashed in on. In short, natural processes that can be mimicked to maximize economic return are considered "silviculturally significant," natural processes that promote overall forest health and yet are not profitable are overlooked and even condemned. "When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." (Abraham Maslow)
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