Interesting discussion on logging

[Jehinten]

Mike Rowe interview on Logging with Mike Albrecht . It came out about a month ago. So apologies if someone else has shared it already

 

[evo]

The timber industry is a mess. Sure we import a shit ton and the scales only recently tipped as a net importer. Most of our larger trees are all sold for export to Asia as they bought most all of our mills.. it’s impossible to find a production mill in the PNW that can handle 36” diameters or greater.. our mills were torn down and sold for scrap, focusing on higher rotation mechanized logging..
When that shift occurred loggers got jobs on the fishing boats or as gas station attendants. Unfortunately they mostly blamed the spotted owl. Production slightly slowed but picked up again without a reflection rebound of jobs. Mills closed, and the man power needs never recovered with mech logging.
Don’t get me started on silviculture and how modern forest plantations are epic fire traps

 

[Bart_]

I saw a blurb on TVO I think citing conifer monoculture replant forests are about 850% more forest fire prone than the strip logged mixed forests they replace. Apparently the deciduous stands form a bit of a natural fire break.

There's still 5% of the old growth big trees in the PNW waiting to get logged. no joke : (

 

[evo]

I saw a blurb on TVO I think citing conifer monoculture replant forests are about 850% more forest fire prone than the strip logged mixed forests they replace. Apparently the deciduous stands form a bit of a natural fire break.

There's still 5% of the old growth big trees in the PNW waiting to get logged. no joke : (

Estimates are much lower than that, ~1% from some sources. In some of the most inaccessible places too. The % difference might be the lowland distinction, which is a whole different biome. The little lowland OG is locked up in state parks or other areas with some protections, except for some really unique areas on the olympic peninsula where typical OG consists of a whole bunch of other crazy rare plants. Few know we have prickly pear cacti populations, ceanothis, manzanita, sundews golden chinquapin and a slew of odd balls.. hundreds of miles from their nearest neighbors….
I think you will find page 2 interesting

https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr646.pdf