Sticking points

[Charlie Thompson]

TSC, Bill and Tom -

Great US-Canada hockey game ! But I digress.

[Joseph Zorzin]

Charlie:

 

I will comment on your sticking points.

 

I think we end up sounding awfully pretentious when we presume to declare that forests should be over half the land area of the Commonwealth.

Charlie, that's what "visions" do- they aren't meant to be a precise plan for the future but are meant to to describe what an ideal future should be like.

 

It is naïve of us to think that “development” is simply and always bad; it is arrogant to believe that we have the knowledge or right to completely tie the hands of our descendants.

 

If half the land is protected as forests, that means the other half can be developed and redeveloped. Certainly there are old, dying shopping centers and old, dying neighborhoods that can be redeveloped. And, again, Charlie, a vision statement in no way ties the hands of anyone, least of all the Commissioner who'll read this and possibly just throw it out.

I reject the argument that this has simply been a timber management agency; if that were true, the objective measures of that orientation would be possible to list.

 

Sure, it's not a timber mgt. agency in the full sense of the term but a lot of people want to make sure it doesn't become one- because in recent years it's started to seem that it was moving in that direction.

 

The private lands question is beyond the assigned scope of work

 

That's debatable. But, since the DCR oversees private sector forestry work and most of us agree that how the state lands are managed should reflect what's going on on private lands and do what's not being done on private lands, it's not unreasonable to have a vision for private lands too.

 

And while I believe that forest landowners should use licensed foresters to handle their cutting plans, I will not sign on to the recommendation that all cutting plans must be submitted by licensed foresters.

 

Forestry is probably the only profession on the planet where members show so little respect for their own profession. I think even the world's "oldest profession" has more self respect.

 

My opposition to this requirement is based on drawing a clear line on where the public interest in private lands ends, and what I believe is the foolishness of narrowly delineated silvicultural correctness.

 

Apparently Charlie has never seen forests butchered by high grading or he might change his tune. Perhaps Charlie is unaware that thousands of forest owners have been ripped off by high graders. Perhaps Charlie, as a professional forester, has never found a new client whose forest has been butchered- then he didn't have to spend years trying to rehabilitate the forest at little or no income- when I hear the state people whine that they don't have enough "resources" though they get their salaries every week, have "free" trucks and offices, and tons of tree marking paint- they should try rehabbing private butchered forests with zero money. Maybe Charlie has a solution for rehabbing private butchered forests with zero money.

 

The no commercial cutting stricture makes no sense.

 

Charlie, do you think National Parks should have commercial harvesting?

 

The “most favored” status accorded to uneven-aged management is neither desirable, nor necessary.

Apparently a lot of people feel that it is necessary- which is why this vision thing is happening. After spending 37 years doing nothing but field forestry I've found very few stands that needed even age silvicultural work.

 

Within any overarching zoning schema, the agency should manage the land, not as examples, not as demonstrations, but as a public land base.

 

The problem, Charlie, is that many people don't have any faith that the state is capable of managing this half million acres as "a public land base", whatever the heck that means. Many of the critics agree that the demo forests thing is a bad idea but for different reasons. But perhaps a different phrasing might sound better- that the land should be managed in such an exemplary way, that it is a demonstration of good forestry, not so much that it will become a circus of forestry demonstrations to the public and private owners urgently seeking to see such fine work.

 

There is no scientific basis for a “general prohibition” against biomass harvesting.

 

There is no scientific basis for ANY harvesting on publicly owned forests.

 

Joe

 

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FYI - Here are my current "minority report" items in advance of our 
meeting.

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