Again, Admin Opening Tongass National Forest...

National Forests are managed mostly according to the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act. They are not managed with economics in mind at all. Money has nothing to do with it. Two thirds of the USFS budget is related to fire suppression. If they cared about economics at all they would be harvesting 3 or 4 times the current rate and be somewhere near the AAC, Annual Allowable Cut. Logging and thinning are how we are going to create fire resilience in the neglected National Forest System.

I have spent a lot of time in the Methow. Be careful about extrapolating your windshield cruise. The Forest Service is now treating a lot of stands near the road for people to see. Get out and hike around if you want to get a sense of forest health and management.

ppine wrote:
It is not remotely practical to treat a National Forest of millions of acres of remote country like a tree farm. .

You should come see what is happening in the Okanogan National Forest south of Highway 20. Limbing, thinning, and control burns have cleaned the forest. When the Carlton Complex fire happened, it burned right up to the managed area and went out, there was no fuel for it to burn.
Tree farm are managed for money. national forests are managed by money.

Logging plans are always subject to environmental review since around 1971. The process is currently being streamlined under NEPA to speed it up. One of the confusing aspects of the Tongass NF is that a lot of the areas in question are roadless and therefore subject to more stringent rules than areas that already have a road network.

Logging has always been allowed in NFS lands. Conservation includes managing and culling out the forests, not leaving them untouched...

Forest management requires thinning and logging. On the West Side of the Cascades, and the Oly Pen, clearcutting is totally acceptable because the timber species are shade intolerant.

Mangement requries controlling the spacing in a forest. That takes logging of not only dead trees but live trees. It is not remotely practical to treat a National Forest of millions of acres of remote country like a tree farm. There is no such thing as limbing trees in a National Forest or cleaning up the slash except by burning it after a logging operation.

The Tongass is wetter than even the Olympics. Fire is not an issue. Remoteness and lack of access is a big issue. Helicopter logging is very expensive and normally only used for high value species like western red cedar or yellow cedar.

Logs are normally bucked in the woods or on a landing into 16 or 32 foot lengths plus some trim no matter how they are harvested.

Yosemite Sam1 wrote:
Here is the difference between forest management and logging.

Big Bear had beetle infestations and trees had to be harvested. Locals were edged and dead trees had to be felled and cut into pieces either for woodworking or fire logs.

In a fire in Olympic peninsula, the logging unit engaged said selectively harvesting won’t be profitable. So they are allowed clear cutting to include living trees and those that impede their access. Results, massive landslide and contaminated stream and destroyed watersheds.

No, that is forest mis-management, and no fire in the park was blamed on the logging operations.

In this state many millions of acres are leased to tree farmers, you do not see any fires in tree farms because trees are money, there is no slash on the forest floor, trees are trimmed up to where there are no branches to support fire pluming thru the forest canopy, thus any fire that starts simply creeps along the forest floor doing mothers nature's work.

Were the DNR to practice the same methods as the tree farmers there would be no major wild fires.
Right now as we type this, the Methow Valley forests from the pass to Winthrop has 4 feet of dry slash on the forest floor, over half of trees are dead standing. and DNR will do nothing.

Yosemite Sam1 wrote:
Here is the difference between forest management and logging.

Big Bear had beetle infestations and trees had to be harvested. Locals were edged and dead trees had to be felled and cut into pieces either for woodworking or fire logs.

In a fire in Olympic peninsula, the logging unit engaged said selectively harvesting won’t be profitable. So they are allowed clear cutting to include living trees and those that impede their access. Results, massive landslide and contaminated stream and destroyed watersheds.

No that is forest mis-management.

And the logging had nothing to do with the fire.

Here is the difference between forest management and logging.

Big Bear had beetle infestations and trees had to be harvested. Locals were edged and dead trees had to be felled and cut into pieces either for woodworking or fire logs.

In a fire in Olympic peninsula, the logging unit engaged said selectively harvesting won’t be profitable. So they are allowed clear cutting to include living trees and those that impede their access. Results, massive landslide and contaminated stream and destroyed watersheds.

ppine wrote:
You have listed some National Monuments, not Parks. I have never seen loggers "remove trees in pieces, not logs." Please explain.

national monument or park, you"re not logging.

Truck logging they can take the whole tree, helos can't

All of the proposed projects on public lands including the Tongass are subject to environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act by the Forest Service.