Not a regular on this board but your the only place I know to turn to so congrats you can help me with my problem.
Now, here's whats up:
The city I live in has decided due to fire danger that everybody has to chop down roughly 2/3 of they're trees
I own 5 acres of dence lush forest which serves as a home to deer, bears, elk, rabbits, songbirds exctera
Plus loads of wild flowers and other vegetation.
I've seen places where they've already thinned and it's horrific.
They leave the largest trees but chop down just about everything else. Which raises the question if you always chop down all the young trees because theyre "latter fuels" then when the older trees die what's going to replace them?
The due date for having the work done is coming up and if I'm not in compliance I'm fined 1000$ a day.
I feel like I'm being fucked in the ass here and I figure that this isn't good for the forest either. Plus the parts they've thinned are ugly as shit.
So help me /out/ pls tell me that there's something I can do to save the forest. Is what theyre doing even fucking legal!??!
Thanks anons.
Pic related is very similar to how the areas they're trimmed are.
>>760970
Tell them they can buy the timber you are being forced to cut. Or that you can lawyer up and you can fight them in court.
Sorry but any respective first world country Cant legally make you do anything you don't want with your land. Thats dumb. Itt get a lawyer
>forester here
You are causing significantly more harm not doing dick than they are doing cutting. They are doing what is called "seed tree regeneration", and is perfectly normal in forest management. Sure, the wildlife is displaces in the short term but will comes back. Results in a much healthier forest with more diverse structure/vegetation composition.
and its called "ladder fuels" not "latter", because they cause a ground fire to climb into the canopy, which is significantly worse and basically unstoppable from a firefighters point.
Yes, it looks like shit short term but put your feelings aside for the greater ecosystem.
and as >>760979, you should able to sell your timber or be receiving some sort of compensation
>>760970
Nice bait OP, Canada is on fire so you're trying to get people on an anonymous board to respond to you about your false plight.
>>760989
Mind answering my question about what happens when you chop down all the younger trees leaving nothing to replace the older ones when they die?
Also how does removing the smaller trees make the forest healthier? Or improve its structure? Or vegetation composition? (all of these terms are kinda vague too)
I have never seen this shit before in my life can you actually give some examples of places they practiced this form of "forestry" on that resulted in a healthier forest.
On the surface the idea that chopping down most of a forest makes it healthier seems pretty asinine, but so far digging deeper dosent seem to turn up any better results.
Keep in mind that if this is actually the best thing for the forest I'll do it, but I need to see some real concrete evidence first, not some bullshit theoretical garbage but actual photo grafic evidence of a before and after of an area they used these methods on.
Aswell as some explanations aa to how this leads to the forest being healthier.
>>760979
I'm American so I can't exactly say I'm first world.
Goddamb Freedom my ass! Can't even decide what to do with my own property.
>>761062
If I was given a general location/forest name/etc. this would useful.
Given the information you said, the larger trees are currently being left as seed trees for regeneration. They will then be harvested later for timber or left as snags (standing dead trees) for wildlife habitat.On the next harvest rotation more trees will be left for the same purpose.
You said they are harvesting/thinning for fire danger, so basically they are removing trees to reduce the fuel load in the forest. Due to mismanagement and fire exclusion in the past 1-200 years in North America, many forests are extremely overly dense, causing fewer, more intense/damaging fires than the historical average. Forest fires themselves are not bad at all, actually required for optimal ecosystem function, when done properly. However when they turn into running crown fires entirely wiping out thousands of hectares, that's not exactly good.
>>761062
Read any book on forestry management fagging t
>>761089
cont.
Don't really have time to spoon feed all the information but the evidence is basically the last 100 years of modern forest management across the north american continent. It has been extremely well studied and practiced, despite not being very publicly visible. While it may not look good to you, aesthetics =/= function. Forest growth/function is a slow process that is not at all visible to the uneducated eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_management
http://www.fs.fed.us/managing-land/fire/fire-management-today
>tldr: There are people much more educated than you working on this, as there has been for longer than we have been alive, listen to them.
>>761089
>Given the information you said, the larger trees are currently being left as seed trees for regeneration. They will then be harvested later for timber or left as snags (standing dead trees) for wildlife habitat.On the next harvest rotation more trees will be left for the same purpose.
So... they let the trees from the regeneration stay? Cause from where I'm from after you get your certificate of compliance they're going to come back in 10 years, ponderosa pine can't get that big in that little time, I means it can be decent sized medium tree but after the ten years are up won't these be considered ladder fuel? And if the trees are allowed to grow back won't that negate the purpose of removing them in the first place.
I know fires are ultimately a good thing for the forest but here's another concern of mine: there's a big difference between chopping down a forest and burning it. When a forest burns all the nutrients turns to ash and returns to the soil, when they chop it down and hual it of that depleates the soil of that nutients. It can't be sustainable to remove this nutritionts over the course of several hundred years.
There's lots of questions any my previous post you haven't answered.
A question I really like to know the answer two is what exactly you consider to be a optimally healthy forest?
Yes, yes, I'm asking you to "spoonfeed" me here as you say, and I appreciate your taking your time to answer me. but I'm guessing I'm the not the only anon who has these kinda concerns so if we could debate this out and come to some sort of cunclusions based on fact we could not only lay my concerns to rest but that of many other anons aswell.
Bump
>>760970
Deers and elks actually gain from open areas. Pic related is growth of moose population in Finland. Around the 60's clearcutting became more and more popular. Now days, it's pretty much the only common way.
>>760989
I'm a third year forestry student and I'd like to know why you would say that cutting makes the forest healthier or improve the structure. This is news to me. Yes small open areas are beneficial but those develop naturally as well.
Anyway OP shouldn't really be worried about the environmental downsides. They're insignificant. He could leave a small area untouched for the wildlife.
Say you are a Buddhist and that it's your Zen garden which sounds like it could be protected under religious laws and say that it goes against your belief to kill trees.
>>761587
>a third year forestry student
All you need know is how to handle a chainsaw.
If you're concerned about depleting nutrients, could you harvest only the large hardwood trunks and large branches and burn the leaves and small stuff in small, controlled bonfires? You could leave some piles too for later burning or just leave them to decay and serve as cover for small critters.
I'm not sure how extensive of a removal you're talking but I can't imagine it will look much different in a few years if you leave 1/3 of the trees and brush.
>>761715
Good idea!
If comes down to cutting them I'll do this.
>>761123
>When a forest burns all the nutrients turns to ash and returns to the soil, when they chop it down and hual it of that depleates the soil of that nutients.
Yes and no. Nitrogen and sulpher volatalize at a low enough temperature where an intense enough fire can remove them from the system. And nutrients trapped in ash can be washed away if there is severe enough rain before soil/vegetation can stabilize. There is also a significant amount of slash left after logging where not all of the nutrients are removed from harvest.
>>761656
Worth a shot I geuss, better study up so I'm a convincing budist.
>>761797
Well that's good to know, say do you have a source for this stuff?
No offence but I'm not about to just take the word of anon with out some additional evidence to back it up.
