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Forest Facts
Some 1.5 billion trees are planted in the U.S. every year, about 5 trees for every American.

Annually, U.S. forestland owners plant about 6 trees for every tree harvested.

About one-third of America's original forest - some 300 million acres - have been converted to other uses, principally agriculture.

There are 26 million more acres of forestland in the Northeast than there were in 1900.

Today, forests blanket about one-third of the U.S. land base and about half the U.S. East.

U.S. annual growth rates have exceeded harvest rates since the 1940's.

Timber harvesting is forbidden on 50% of all National Forest lands in the U.S.

National Forests account for 20% of the nation's forestlands and 19% of its timberlands.

National Forests hold 46% of the nation's softwood timber inventory but only provide 6% of the annual harvest.

Since 1986, the harvest of timber from America's national forests has declined 70%.

In the West, 34% of all forestland and 54% of all timberlands are in national forests.

National forests in the Pacific Coast and Intermountain West regions hold 68% of the nation's softwood timber inventory, but provide less than 28% of annual harvest.

Forest density has increased 40% in the U.S. over the last 50 years.

Flying Finns

More Junk Science from OSU

I write this essay with a heavy heart. As a professional forester for 35+ years, I have always professed good forest stewardship backed up by the best forest science. But over the last 20 years or so, forest science has been polluted and degraded by political advocacy of a pernicious and destructive nature, and so too have our priceless, heritage forests been destroyed by horrendous and catastrophic fires.

There is a crisis in our forests and in our forestry schools and those crises are interconnected. Bad forest science, junk or pseudoscience if you will, has sunk to the level of promoting forest destruction. Instead of commitment to saving forests from destruction, our forestry schools now promote that destruction on the most tenuous and disingenuous grounds.

The root cause of both crises is a corrupt political movement ... read more


Analysis Paralysis Cure Found

Our colleagues from the National Association of Forest Service Retirees have come up with a remarkable cure for Analysis Paralysis, a dreadful disease that has crippled the U.S. Forest Service for the last 20 years. They describe their cure in a February 12, 2010 letter to the Forest Service – a letter in which they critique the agency’s proposed new planning rule.

Pardon our cynicism, but the mere fact that this letter is addressed to “Forest Service Planning NOI, C/O Bear West Company 172 East 500 South, Bountiful, Utah, 83010” should tell you everything you will every need to know about how hopeless this exercise is and how detached the Forest Service has become from the rest of the country. Time was when such a letter would have been addressed to the Forest Service Chief (Tom Tidwell, who’s actually a pretty nice guy) at his office in Washington, D.C. But no more.

The planning rule s what it says it is – a rule that describes the Forest Service’s planning process. The problem is that this process is little more than a feeding ground for lawyers representing environmental groups who oppose any and all forms of management in our national forests. Worse, the process is perpetual, and it no longer produces a product or a service that most Americans would recognize. Hence, the shop-worn term, “Analysis Paralysis.” Click here to read NAFSR’s nonetheless thoughtful comments concerning the proposed Forest Service planning rule.

Click here for John Marker’s comments concerning the proposed new planning rule. John is a long-time Evergreen contributor (and supporter) and is a NAFSR founder.

If you seek a better understanding of the ideological cause of this unfolding environmental disaster, look no further than the Wildlands Project, a loopy Hard Left environmental group that is hell bent on “re-wilding” much of the western United States. Click here for the Montanans for Multiple Use site.  They are a fairly reasonable outfit that clings to the notion that public forests should be managed for the public good. Be sure to click on the map showing Wildlands’ vision of what the west should look like. And don’t forget to read the quotes from the organization’s founders. While you’re reading this nonsense, keep in mind that these folks have considerable influence in the current Congress. They’re also favorites with New York’s wealthy Park Avenue set...

 


The Story of “This is My Office!” (a video)

The Pacific Logging Congress and its Pacific Forest Foundation have a long history of involvement in educational projects designed to assist loggers, foresters and the public.

When PLC was founded in 1909, its main missions were logger safety and logging camp sanitation – critically important goals that put the newly minted organization at the educational forefront in the lumber industry’s westward expansion. 

PLC’s members have always worked on the leading edge in the evolution of both logging and reforestation methods. They continue to embrace new ideas ... read more
Idaho's old Bunker Hill Company - once one of the largest lead-silver mining and smelting operations in the world - planted more than two million pine and fir seedlings on the barren hills around Kellogg. The seedlings, which were grown in an underground greenhouse in the mine in the 1970s, are now 30 to 40 feet tall. Look closely on the far right and you'll see one of the stacks at the company's old smelter. Both the smelter and its  stacks are gone now.
Idaho's old Bunker Hill Company - once one of the largest lead-silver mining and smelting operations in the world - planted more than two million pine and fir seedlings on the barren hills around Kellogg. The seedlings, which were grown in an underground greenhouse in the mine in the 1970s, are now 30 to 40 feet tall. Look closely on the far right and you'll see one of the stacks at the company's old smelter. Both the smelter and its stacks are gone now.
Latest Additions
More Junk Forest Science from OSU
2010-03-09 12:49:33

I write this essay with a heavy heart. As a professional forester for 35+...

Newsline Winter 2010
2010-03-09 12:04:40

Forest Owners and Carbon Markets: Can’t We All Just Get Along? The...

Society of American Foresters Policy Update, Feb. 22, 2010
2010-03-09 11:53:08

SAF Actions    SAF Comments...

Notes From All Over
Provider Pals

Provider

Provider Pals students, Marni Zaoner, Eureka, Montana and Shani Gardner, New York City, happily mugged for the camera on a TBC Logging Company site near Libby, Montana in the summer of 2005. Provider Pals is an award winning educational program designed to build bridges of understanding and respect between the cultures of urban and rural youth and their natural resource providers. The non-profit Evergreen Foundation has been a strong supporter of Provider Pals, also a non-profit, for more than a decade. Learn more at www.providerpals.com.


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