Salvage Logging
Proponents: Legislators and the timber industry
Opponents: Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE)
Legislators have defined "salvage logging" as the act of logging unhealthy forest stands, considered to have a probability of experiencing extreme insect and disease infestation of catastrophic fire. However, no scientific consensus exists for describing an unhealthy forest, predicting or classifying catastrophic fire event, or classifying the resultant damage of an insect and disease. Salvage logging was an alternative way of meeting timber demands and generating revenues by timber industries and legislators without much opposition from the public. This is because the laws permitting such logging practices are so vague and confusing. Legislators espouse that the sales from such practice brings in money to the Treasury while rendering the forests more "health." Proponents claimed that harvesting timber would reduce fuel-loading to reduce the intensity of fires and thin-out forests stands to relieve inter-tree competition. Though this sounds plausible, the criteria for determining what sort of trees would be removed, and who would make the decision still remains unanswered.
Salvage logging is an attempt to compromise excessive logging and controlled logging. Excessive logging obviously leads to deforestation as is evident in most areas of the world today. The savannas of Africa, the steppes of eastern Europe and Russia, the pampas of Argentina, and at least some of the prairies of North America used to be forested before human disturbance.
The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) are strongly opposed to this kind of vague laws employed by legislators in salvage logging. In certain instances, the practice has been referred to as "logging without laws" because it exempts timber companies involved in salvage sales from most environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act. It also allows for clearcutting of huge forest areas. It prevents citizens from exercising their right to challenge illegal logging plans. FSEEE also suggest such vague laws will allow for massive clearcutting of healthy trees and that it also directs the federal government to dramatically increase timber harvests.
Allowing for deforestation by the federal government by such vague laws gradually contributes to global deforestation and a corresponding increase in species extinction. Reforestation, by replanting, is only done on a fraction of the deforested area, and it usually creates a monoculture plantation, with much less biological diversity and less disease resistance than in virgin, or old-growth forest.
Logging is a huge industry in the Pacific Northwest for obvious reasons. The abundant, lush, forests are an ideal location for major logging companies to stake their claim. For many Pacific North westerners, and Americans in general, the logging industry is a major part of the economy. Many loggers have been raised and trained for their entire life to become loggers. Many loggers know no other skills to support themselves other than logging and the logging industry. There are many communities located in the Pacific Northwest that are supported fully by the logging industry. Without the logging of the old growth forests, their families and their livelihoods would be ruined.
The Forest Reserve Act reduced destructive logging and preserved watersheds which led to the establishment of national forests’.
there are only stumps? This is the result of clear-cut logging. The negative aspects of
As long as humans have lived in forested areas, they have cut down trees for lumber and/or to clear space for agricultural purposes. However, this practice has resulted in the destruction and near extinction of our national forests. Today, fewer than five percent of our country's original forests remain (Thirteen) and the U.S. Forest Service continues to allow more than 136,000 square miles to be logged each year (Byrant). Even more alarming, is the fact that only twenty percent of the current public forest lands are permanently protected by law, leaving nearly eighty percent to be consumed by chainsaws and bulldozers (Heritage...).
Molecular studies indicate that humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos are very closely related in terms of their lineage, which split into hominid and Pan lines about 6-7 million years ago. Chimpanzees and bonobos share a more recent common ancestry, only about 2-2.5 million years ago. Although they are now considered an endangered species, chimpanzees are extremely successful creatures ecologically and can occupy a wide range of habitats across the African continent near the equator. By contrast, bonobos can be found in a substantially more ecologically restricted region of lowland rain forest in central Zaire (Stanford 399). For the purposes of our ...
Logging in the United States is a very controversial subject. Many people have different opinions on how we should take care of our forests and sometimes the arguments can get heated. Logging needs to be done to protect small western communities from catastrophic wild fires. Logging also gives small communities a way of income. When people think of logging they think of clear cutting which is damaging to the environment, but clear cutting does not happen too much on the national forests. The Forest Service has strict guidelines in which they follow to make sure the forest will stay healthy for years to come. Logging must be done with wildlife, human effects of the forest, and the health of the forest in mind. Logging can ultimately liberate small towns in the forest from fire danger and liberate the towns from having to depend on surrounding communities for a way of income. The forest and animals are also liberated from dense forest which can suffocate animals and plants. The animals are provided with more food with grasses after logging has accrued. Logging if done right is great for the forest and towns that are in the middle of the woods.
In August 2002, President Bush launched his revolutionary campaign against wildfires known as the Healthy Forest Initiative (HFI). The President’s dynamic plan centers on preventing massive forest fires by thinning the dense undergrowth and brush commonly seen in our national forests. The thinning will occur in priority areas that are in close proximity to homes and watersheds. The Healthy Forest Initiative also aims at developing a more efficient response method to disease and insect infestations that sabotage our forests. Finally, if fully enacted, the Healthy Forest Initiative would provide the loggers with what is known as “goods for services”. This will compensate the loggers for the financial burden that will surface as a result of this aggressive thinning (http://www.sierraclub. org/forests /fires/healthyforests initiative.asp). In order to promote the progress of his Healthy Forest Initiative, in 2003 President Bush announced the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. This act took the main issues discussed in the Healthy Forest Initiative a step further. Bush plans to make a collaborative effort with federal, state, tribal, and local officials to protect our woodlands against future infernos. The act also calls for more public participation in reviewing any actions taken in lieu of the Healthy Forest Initiative. Furthermore, Bush wants to restore the land that has already been destroyed by wildfires and help to recover the threatened and endangered species that were affected by the fires (http://www.
O’Neill, T. (2013, February 27). Why African rhinos are facing a crisis. National Geographic News. Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130227-rhino-horns-poaching-south-africa-iucn/
“In addition to being places of magnificent beauty, the old growth forests of the world represent hundreds of years of life on this planet, and many of the trees are the tallest living things on the planet (Old Growth Forests, 2004).” Because of their size, these trees, and the forests they reside in, are targeted by logging companies such as Weyerhaeuser as highly profitable areas that provide supposed economical benefits to surrounding communities in the way of new jobs.
America’s winemakers are making superior wines and reaping global acclaim. In a single generation the United States wine industry’s global success is a fascinating story of entrepreneurial vision and savvy marketing. The American industry has new innovations, new competition, and new markets, which make the future look bright for the wine industry.
Red liquid sweet but bitter, the taste leaves the drinker wanting more. It's been a long hard week, and waiting at home for you is a nice bottle of red wine from one of the best local wineries. Wine has been around since about 6600 BC; and slowly but surely it grew to become one of the most money making industry in Sonoma County, wine itself. When looking and hearing at economic growth or impact, the main topics that are talked about are climate change, college, or even sports. Little do we know that wine has had impacted the growth in Sonoma County. Throughout this paper we will be looking at the history of wine, and the impact of wine in Sonoma county.
Cameroon, Chad, Mozambique and Congo are the primary countries being affected in South Africa from these anonymous poachers. From the year of 2000 to 2013, the rate of poaching has elongated from 6 to 946 and standing alone in 2012, over 668 rhinoceroses were shot dead in account of the SADEA. Although the staggering rates on poaching of rhinos for their horns seem have caught the attention of millions of individuals across the world, many people fail to realize the significant impact it has on the environment, and so does the Professor of Political Science at the University of North Dakota, William Montgomery.
According to National Geographic 2014, Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Deforestation occurs all around the world and tropical rainforests are primarily targeted. Our world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation. Currently or in the recent past countries with significant deforestation include Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, parts of Africa and Eastern Europe. Deforestation affects our planet and everyone in many ways. According to LiveScience 2013, seventy percent of the world’s plants and animals live in forests and are losing their habitats to deforestation. Loss of habitat can lead to species extinction. Our world has lost so many species of plants and animals in last couple of decades. This has negative consequences for medicinal research and local populations who rely on the animals and plants in the forests for hunting and medicine. In some regions of the world deforestation can cause floods, when it rains trees absorb and store large amount of water with the help of its roots. But when they are cut down the flow of water is disrupted w...
Today deforestation is all over the world and it is increasing. Our forests are disappearing at a very fast rate. Most people, when they think of deforestation, think of the Amazon Rain Forest. However, this is not the only place that deforestation occurs. Deforestation also occurs in East Asia, Indonesia and the Congo. China has only 2% of its forests left. Some of the last of the world’s rainforests are in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Amazon. Deforestation is a big problem. It not only affects the world around us, bu...
The single biggest direct cause of tropical deforestation is conversion to cropland and pasture, mostly for subsistence, which is growing crops or raising livestock to meet daily needs. The conversion to agricultural land usually results from multiple direct factors. For example, countries build roads into remote areas to improve overland transportation of goods. The road development itself causes a limited amount of deforestation. But roads also provide entry to previously inaccessible—and often unclaimed—land. Logging, both legal and illegal, often follows road expansion (and in some cases is the reason for the road expansion). When loggers have harvested an area’s valuable timber, they move on. The roads and the logged areas become a magnet for settlers—farmers and ranchers who slash and burn the remaining forest for cropland or cattle pasture, completing the deforestation chain that began with road building. In other cases, forests that have been degraded by logging become fire-prone and are eventually deforested by repeated accidental fires from adjacent farms or pastures.