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Clear-cutting is much maligned, and unfairly so. People often have a romantic notion that you can selectively cut a forest and just cherry-pick out the high-va
by thrower123 5y ago
Clear-cutting is much maligned, and unfairly so.
People often have a romantic notion that you can selectively cut a forest and just cherry-pick out the high-value trees, and that if you were to do this, it results in a healthier forest. That is a fantasy for the scale of logging that we rely on for industrial production of wood products.
Typically, the way that forest is managed is that you clear-cut it in strips or blocks, in a manner almost reminiscent of medieval crop rotation. This keeps sections of differently-aged forest adjacent to one another, which has a whole host of benefits for wildlife habitat, tree species diversity, soil quality, fire prevention, etc.
The paper companies and large landowners have been doing this for fifty, seventy-five years now, and they've pretty much worked out the techniques to be able to maintain their forests in sustainable ways.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- guerrilla 5y ago> That is a fantasy for the scale of logging that we rely on for industrial production of wood products. Approximately 10,000 square kilometers [1] are managed this way in Sweden. Still a small minority but definitely not exactly small scale. It also seems to be the majority in my region for some reason. I've only seen them clear-cut for diseased trees. I think there's one thing that the crop rotation method still isn't that great for and that's erosion. 1. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skogsbruk#Typer_av_skogsbruk https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skogsbruk#Typer_av_skogsbruk
- rmetzler 5y agoMaybe my question wasn't formulated precise enough. I just wanted to understand, why "clearcut logging, followed by replanting, creates fuel conditions that make fires easier to ignite and harder to control. These effects persist for decades."