The Hellbender Chronicles

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March 04, 2004

Gotta Appreciate the Gall

Only the timber industry would propose subsidized logging without careful regulation and oversight as a resolution to a natural, beneficial forest condition. This is the latest from industry hack Jack Hedlund:

The Bush Administration has delivered a few new "tools' to the forest management toolbox.  They are intended to assist forest supervisors who are finding it increasingly more difficult to match their budget to management needs.  Perhaps most intriguing is the one called "stewardship contracting."  Simply put, this new tool allows for a "goods for services" arrangement between the Forest Service and a willing contractor.

Let's say a particular forest incurred a great deal of wind damage during a given funding year.  Since the forest budget for the year was established during the previous year, there is unlikely to be any extra funds available to address the situation.  Stewardship contracting would allow the supervisor to arrange clean up with willing contractors fore whatever profit might make for the service.

By this method, forest health and safety issues could be addressed much more rapidly and at little additional cost to the Forest Service while benefiting multitudes of taxpayers through job development and revenue flow.  It could be a win-win situation.

Does this windthrow scenario ring any bells?

Only one problem there Jack. Salvage logging is solely done to salvage the economic value of a downed tree and has nothing to do with forest health. Unless by forest health you mean removing essential forest structure while contributing towards increased degradation of already troubled forest soils.

Posted by jkleissler at March 4, 2004 01:28 PM

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