by Chandra Janean

Created on: August 18, 2008

I may be a tree hugging liberal, but by no means stereotypical in my views of the complexity surrounding environmentalism. In a capitalistic society, we can not deny market forces and political pressures that lead to decision making in land and resource use. I believe private companies should be allowed to conduct logging on public lands, because the degree of oversight is greater than that of private companies logging private lands. If sound silvaculture methods are used, then public lands offer a high potential for the benefit of multiple stake holders. Logging in public forests already happens, it's not to say that areas of sensitive biological or cultural diversity should be offered up to the highest bidder, but I think that public lands need help because of a lack of government funding in forest management. I believe the logging companies can offer a mutually beneficial service to public entities if they are given strict guidelines on the size and number of trees that can be removed from public lands, and pay particular attention to erosion and road building concerns.

Areas of dense forest that are not thinned can end up providing a high fuel load in the case of fires, and the 2008 Fire Season in the State of California is a recent example of the intensity of fires which can occur due to high fuel loads. I think that forest management goes to the wayside when political groups are tallying up annual budget numbers. I also think that environmental organizations who oppose logging in public lands should focus their attention on compromise and address forest quality and biodiversity more than their complete opposition of logging operations. If the environmentalists, government and logging companies work together it can benefit humanity and the environment.

Humans have altered the environment so much at this point in history, its difficult to understand how forest health and quality has been impacted by our choices. Each apex predator we remove from a region and each animal or plant that becomes extinct affects the quality of the environment. Each water way that is diverted for human use and every fence that is built has an impact on the ecosystems around them. We can not fool ourselves into thinking that a ban on logging will improve environmental quality. Granted a high degree of regulation may reduce the profitability of logging by private industry thus reducing the incentive to work with government and public interests, but it is the price they should have to pay in order to acquire profit from a public resource. The profitability of logging operations should not be subsidized by the American Public, because Corporate handouts are not the way I want to see public lands and income put to use. Moreover, I think that private logging companies interested in harvesting public lands should subsidize forest management and contribute a percentage of their profit back to forest management to fund regulatory oversight.

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