1077 Retired Forester says Selective Logging not always best for Forest

Retired Forester says Selective Logging not always best for Forest

Newsletter published on November 14, 2019

My newsletter on the 2019 Australian Bushfires (updated to include item
1 below) is at
http://mailstar.net/bushfires.html

(1) Retired Forester says Selective Logging not always best for Forest
(2) My interview on Unz Review "Pope Francis blesses Pachamama – a slide
into paganism?"

(1) Retired Forester says Selective Logging not always best for Forest
Gerard Neville was a forester in the NSW Forestry Commission, based in
Urbenville in northern NSW; he also worked in the Tasmanian forestry
service, and as a consultant in many Forestry services overseas. He now
lives in France

Subject: Re: Hippies of Nimbin admit Greens to blame for Bushfires. How
many Koalas died?

Thanks Peter

I thought these lessons had all been learned after the Canberra fires
about 15 years ago ! - but maybe only in the ACT perhaps? I understood
that prescribed burning had come back into vogue in the Blue Mountains
for example?

You are on the right track - mostly.

However as far as selective logging is concerned you need to consider
its impact on what remains in the forest.

Logging is mostly concentrated on taking out trees which are
commercially viable and if this is just for sawlogs - just about always
the case except where there is a market for pulpwood - then in the log
run forest quality will deteriorate unless the "left over" (ie lesser
quality because of species or form - misshapen, too many branches etc)
trees are also removed. In NSW the Forestry Commission used to carry out
TSI (timber stand improvement) after a logging operation to fell
unusable trees and also to thin out smaller trees with potential to grow
into good quality mature trees.

You can draw parallels with a farmer managing his herd or flock - if all
he removes are his best animals overall quality will decline. If he
wants to improve quality then he has to get rid of inferior ones if he
can. And as in the case of forests you don't want to hang on to the best
forever for eventually as they age they decline and become "useless" at
least in a commercial sense and finally die.

Clear felling can be appropriate in some circumstances - where the
forest has become degraded through past repeated selective logging with
no follow up TSI (and TSI was largely phased out because labour
intensive it became too expensive) - and a market arrives for low grade
wood (pulpwood).

Anyway I am glad to see that some common and practical sense is
beginning to permeate the debate about land management - too bad though
that this has required loss of lives and property destruction.

The commonsense approach to land management was well understood in
forestry circles 60 years ago, before the greenies began to dominate
public discourse.

Gerard

(2) My interview on Unz Review "Pope Francis blesses Pachamama – a slide
into paganism?"
http://www.unz.com/audio/kbarrett_peter-myers-has-the-pope-turned-pagan-rolf-lindgren-trump-is-my-president-and-will-win-in-2020/

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