Tom/Barb wrote:
...
As far as logging in the parks? go to Google maps and see the Olympic park, enlarge it you will see there is plenty logging going on in the park. not as much as the private and state DNR lands close by but still it is continually happening.
When roads are being improved, parking lot or campgrounds expanded, Hazardous trees in public areas are felled, or other improvements to the National Park take place, only the trees necessary for the project are removed. If the trees have commercial value they are sold to the highest bidder, and the taxpayers (Treasury) get at least some of the project costs back. This is good sound use of the resources and no reasonable person objects. It would be wasteful and poor public stewardship to just burn the trees or haul to a landfill.
Many of the National Parks have National Forests or private timberlands directly adjacent to the National Park boundary, and timber harvesting can take place right up to the property line. Many people still do not understand the difference between a National Park and a National Forest, and the boundary is often not clear on the ground to a lay person (and usually impossible to determine from Google Earth without a boundary overlay, and I have noticed in some areas Google has it marked wrong). So people look at Google Earth and see the harvest units in the vicinity of a National Park and think the Park is being logged. It is not. National Parks do not have commercial timber harvest except as supporting other Park activities. The National Forests harvest timber, as that is one of the reasons the National Forests were created in the first place.
