Re: Digest for transition-durango@googlegroups.com - 2 Messages in 2 Topics
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TravisFirst Name Custer
Feb 22, 2011, 10:01:03 AM2/22/11
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wow...i can´t really believe they posted that one as well...extremely uneducated. Unfortunately I don´t have time to write anything but pretty laughable. some peoples kids eh?
T
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Subject: Digest for transitio...@googlegroups.com - 2 Messages in 2 Topics
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T
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Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 10:37:37 PM
Subject: Digest for transitio...@googlegroups.com - 2 Messages in 2 Topics
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- Forestry letters please [1 Update]
- Tell Manna to support FNB! [1 Update]
Topic: Forestry letters please
-
dirty...@riseup.net Feb 21 10:24AM -0800
^
Since The Herald doesn't allow back-and-forth debates, but allows single
author responses to letters, will folks please write the editor and
counter this person's bullshit?
Logging part of good forest management
http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20110221/OPINION03/702219965/-1/opinion03
(search the internet for stuff like "deforestation facts america" for
talking points!)
Some words from Derrick Jensen:
Only 5 percent of native forest still stands in the continental United
States. 440,000 miles of logging roads run through National Forests alone.
(The Forest Service claims there are "only" 383,000 miles, but the Forest
Service routinely lies, keeping double books--a private set showing actual
clearcuts, and a public set showing some of the same acres as old growth--
misleading the public by labeling clearcuts "temporary meadows," reducing
the stated costs of logging roads by amortizing them over a thousand
years, and so on). That's more road than the Interstate Highway System,
enough road to drive from Washington, DC, to San Francisco a hundred and
fifty times. Only God and the trees themselves know how many miles of
roads fragment the forests.
http://www.derrickjensen.org/slw.html
Thanks everyone!
-Nathan, EF!Dgo
Topic: Tell Manna to support FNB!
-
dirty...@riseup.net Feb 21 06:52AM -0800
^
Hey everyone! Please send Manna Soup Kitchen polite letters asking them to
support Durango Food Not Bombs! Post on their FB, send them emails at
mannasou...@gmail.com and kitchen.mann...@gmail.com or send
them a letter at 1100 Avenida del Sol, Durango, CO 81301 (Phone:
970.385.5095)
Thanks for your support!
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TravisFirst Name Custer
Feb 22, 2011, 11:13:27 AM2/22/11
to transitio...@googlegroups.com
Here is something....tell me what you think. Maybe you can help by adding some facts and then I´ll send it in from my email...a little co authoring of sorts since I don´t have the time to research too deep. But I wanna see something get out there.
for the wild.
It is a little unfortunate that there has to be so much back and forth about this issue...particularly when the rebuttals are poorly researched, and misunderstood in their own context. It seems as though Dug´s piece ¨Logging a part of good forestry management¨ was simply an emotionally charged response to a disagreement, but unfortunately fairly well lacking in any substance or truth.
We can start first with the definition of clear cutting...which for the most part seems to be subjective in large part between the industry and those of us who walk the lands. I too have walked some of these ¨thinning projects¨in Durango and been absolutely apauled at the level of destruction present. I have also, in the same respect, walked through vast areas of true clear cuts in the Northwest. Entire mountainsides void of life of any sort. So obviously, this is not yet the case here. However, this does not seem to justify the level of destruction present in our forests in Durango. Point is that this is clearly more than mearly thinning.
Now that we can put subjective definitions aside I´d like to move on to the true facts. Facts that I will clearly source so that we can keep out rhetoric and ungrounded ranting. These thick forests of younger trees, often called dog hair stands, are in fact not necessarily healthier, and they are actually caused by fire suppression and logging practices (both clear cutting and lack of reasonable thinning), among other events. Forests, we must remember, are always working towards an old growth stage and seek to thin themselves to the proper level with the desired end being a greater number of large trees, fewer small ones, and less cluttered biomass in the understory. This doesn´t mean a void of life at all, rather it is simply more organized and in a more harmonious state than the rush of life that occurs ecologically after a destructive event (be it human or otherwise).
Point of all this is that Dug seems to be trying to show that we must manage these dog hair stands, which on some levels is true. There is a lot of information available showing that old growth stands reach a certain level of carbon equalibrium, and in fact continue to store carbon in the soil and on the ground as they grow and age (¨Old Growth Forests: Functions and Values of A Vanishing Ecosystem). Biomass it seems has been misunderstood when industry comes into play, because obviously the logging industry wants more ¨biomass¨ in terms of amounts of trees, and obviously old growth stages produce less quick two by fours and take much longer to develop.The hipocrasy comes in because many of these unhealthy stands are at the intentional cause of the logging industry in the first place, and poorly thought out logging practices designed to require thinning and thus create more industry. Also, keeping in mind that old growth stages of forests are ideal we have to be willing to log less, and conserve more tracts of land to allow them to reach their full ecological potential...and this potential lies outside of our human utilitarian needs and desires. These old growth stands are at full potential in and of themselves.
All this rhetoric about increased drug use, teen pregnancies, less exports, and all the vast length of socio-economic and political consequence are not fully caused because we are cutting less wood. Rather these are caused by an entire range of problems in our world today...Almost all out of the scope of this debate. the only one grounded to the topic of logging is the increased wood prices, and according to the IBISWorld statistics on US Timber Industry Research wood prices plumited in Dec of 2010, due in part to the drop in the housing market. This like I said is part of issues entirely outside the scope of this debate. Please don´t use ungrounded facts or rhetoric to sway people´s thoughts away from the true topic. We are destroying forests, not managing them, and show me an old growth forest that needs managing. We must begin by managing ourselves and our out of control consumption of the natural world.
If we want to have forests for our children and their children we must begin by protecting them now, and using a sustainable approach to how we exist as humans on this planet. Sorry folks, but this may just mean using a little less, and leaving a little more for the planet to maintain a healthy equalibrium. We have to stop cutting for cutting sake.
For the wild.
Travis Custer, Junction Creek
for the wild.
It is a little unfortunate that there has to be so much back and forth about this issue...particularly when the rebuttals are poorly researched, and misunderstood in their own context. It seems as though Dug´s piece ¨Logging a part of good forestry management¨ was simply an emotionally charged response to a disagreement, but unfortunately fairly well lacking in any substance or truth.
We can start first with the definition of clear cutting...which for the most part seems to be subjective in large part between the industry and those of us who walk the lands. I too have walked some of these ¨thinning projects¨in Durango and been absolutely apauled at the level of destruction present. I have also, in the same respect, walked through vast areas of true clear cuts in the Northwest. Entire mountainsides void of life of any sort. So obviously, this is not yet the case here. However, this does not seem to justify the level of destruction present in our forests in Durango. Point is that this is clearly more than mearly thinning.
Now that we can put subjective definitions aside I´d like to move on to the true facts. Facts that I will clearly source so that we can keep out rhetoric and ungrounded ranting. These thick forests of younger trees, often called dog hair stands, are in fact not necessarily healthier, and they are actually caused by fire suppression and logging practices (both clear cutting and lack of reasonable thinning), among other events. Forests, we must remember, are always working towards an old growth stage and seek to thin themselves to the proper level with the desired end being a greater number of large trees, fewer small ones, and less cluttered biomass in the understory. This doesn´t mean a void of life at all, rather it is simply more organized and in a more harmonious state than the rush of life that occurs ecologically after a destructive event (be it human or otherwise).
Point of all this is that Dug seems to be trying to show that we must manage these dog hair stands, which on some levels is true. There is a lot of information available showing that old growth stands reach a certain level of carbon equalibrium, and in fact continue to store carbon in the soil and on the ground as they grow and age (¨Old Growth Forests: Functions and Values of A Vanishing Ecosystem). Biomass it seems has been misunderstood when industry comes into play, because obviously the logging industry wants more ¨biomass¨ in terms of amounts of trees, and obviously old growth stages produce less quick two by fours and take much longer to develop.The hipocrasy comes in because many of these unhealthy stands are at the intentional cause of the logging industry in the first place, and poorly thought out logging practices designed to require thinning and thus create more industry. Also, keeping in mind that old growth stages of forests are ideal we have to be willing to log less, and conserve more tracts of land to allow them to reach their full ecological potential...and this potential lies outside of our human utilitarian needs and desires. These old growth stands are at full potential in and of themselves.
All this rhetoric about increased drug use, teen pregnancies, less exports, and all the vast length of socio-economic and political consequence are not fully caused because we are cutting less wood. Rather these are caused by an entire range of problems in our world today...Almost all out of the scope of this debate. the only one grounded to the topic of logging is the increased wood prices, and according to the IBISWorld statistics on US Timber Industry Research wood prices plumited in Dec of 2010, due in part to the drop in the housing market. This like I said is part of issues entirely outside the scope of this debate. Please don´t use ungrounded facts or rhetoric to sway people´s thoughts away from the true topic. We are destroying forests, not managing them, and show me an old growth forest that needs managing. We must begin by managing ourselves and our out of control consumption of the natural world.
If we want to have forests for our children and their children we must begin by protecting them now, and using a sustainable approach to how we exist as humans on this planet. Sorry folks, but this may just mean using a little less, and leaving a little more for the planet to maintain a healthy equalibrium. We have to stop cutting for cutting sake.
For the wild.
Travis Custer, Junction Creek
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