Bush Moves To Open National Forest Land To Busines

[houstonsemipro]

May 5, 2005, 7:08PM

Bush moves to open national forest land to business

Click link to view the article from Houston Chronicle.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3169065

[kjb434]

Good news for national forest. This will prevent forest fires and allow old growth trees to live longer. The four national forests in Louisiana have been in a logging process. The forest rangers woud perform there control burnings and would have trees in the fireline paths cut to prevent fire jumping which a problem in forest fires. With the right winds, a fire would jump from on tree top to another which makes it difficult to control. Some national forest in the country have no extensive fire control because of environmental groups that stop it. This makes the forest even more succeptable to forest fires.

The logging industry has created processes to log forests to be in more in-sync with nature. Look at east Texas. Very little of it is National Forest. Infact, neighboring Louisiana has more national force, but Texas logging companies have been responsible in control tree harvesting. The concept of reforestation is good for environment and for the logging industry. Theodore Roosevelt established reforestation and National Parks because he believed both could live in harmony.

Trees are a natural resource that can be replenished. As long as we have cylces in place to keep trees growing while still making use of them, then its fine with me.

[westguy]

Man,

Just stop. Sheesh.

[jpcampbell]

One interesting thing about East Texas... The trees there that recently have been clear cut for the most part were the result of a reforestation process from way back. There is very little original growth in the area at all. I would love to go back a 100-150 years and see the giant 6' in diameter pine trees that I have read about.

We had land near Crockett along the Davy Crockett National Forest since the Civil War and I have seen the majority of forested land clear cut. I really did hate to see it happen. I hope the reforestation programs are well thought out and we can see the growth like it was just a few years ago. That specific resource is renewable if the programs are well organized.

[tamtagon]

Managing the national forests should contribute to the industrial output, it's may take two or three decades, but tree farms are excellent. However, forest fires are vital to the health of the forest as is trees which die of old age.

Personally, corporatly owned farmed forests and the off-limits national forest must be syncronized. Open the existing National forest to clear cutting, to be followed by a controlled burn -- at the same corporate property must me put into production hibernation for as many years is needed for a couple lifecycle generations of the native plant life - which may be 500 years. Management of the forest and management of forest products must combine efforts and exist as a part of the ecosystem. Basically - the recreation, wildlife and production management should not be restricted by property lines.

[jpcampbell]

This is more of a casual observation as I have no facts to quantify, but a lot of the land I saw clear cut in East Texas was privately held. Individuals get in a bind and sell the timber on their land.

I am not sure, but I doubt that reforestation programs are as enforced or encouraged on private clear cut land as they would be on national forest areas. We've seen some beautiful land that housed deer and other wildlife just get turned to nothing but cow pasture. This is a worse loss.

It will be interesting to watch how these programs play out.