I came here to say basically this. I'm not a scientist but I live in a heavily forested and logged area with 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation forests (ie, logged 1-3

I came here to say basically this. I'm not a scientist but I live in a heavily forested and logged area with 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation forests (ie, logged 1-3 times in the last 150 years or so). Here's my observation: - old growth forests are beautiful and amazing, but old - forests that are treated as a renewable resource are productive due to appropriate maintenance (thinning, etc) - forests that were replanted but not maintained are unhealthy and take more than 50-100 years to cycle back to a healthy natural forest - left alone, on the west coast anyway, there is a typical cycle of fast lived quick growing -> slow growing long living species that takes 100's of years to get back to where it was. I recently built a house on a property that was 3rd gen but abandoned (last logged 30-40 years ago). We wanted to keep as many trees as possible but because the land was never maintained most of the trees were thin and had parasites. The "widow makers" had to go. You could definitely see the progression of different species doing their thing at their own paces. Alders were mostly gone, hemlocks and firs were starting to fall and die and the cedars were starting to take over, but most of those were still young (but healthy).