BIO 100
Redwood Trees:
They could be our future...If we're not careful they could be a thing of the past.
Humboldt Redwoods State Park, home to the largest contiguous block of old-growth redwood forest left on the planet. aprox 10,000 acres. 130 are highter than 350 feet tall. Redwoods are remarkably resilient and can grow in difficult circumstances. They can sit almost completely dormant in the shade for decades, before an older tree falls and it gets the sunlight it needs.
-Iconic Trees-The Earth's tallest forest is made of Redwood trees
-Greenhouse Gas Reducers
-Decay-resistant Wood
-Forest is home to many emblematic species such as:
-Northern spotted owls
-Seabirds called Marbled Murrelets
-Coho Salmon
THE PROBLEMS:
(According to Joel K. Bourne, Jr. of National Geographic)
- Deforestation
- Clear cutting unleashed a bad amount of soil into streams.
- Causing salmon runs to dwindle, as well as other species that had existed in the redwoods for a million years.
- Species were declining dangerously
- Today less than 5 percent of the roughtly two million acres of virgin forest remains.
- "Reeling economy and housing bust were shuttering sawmills throughout the redwood range"(Bourne)
Protesters have occupied an old growth space for years-- they have compromised with logging companies and have reached conclusions.
ANOTHER PROBLEM: employment/unemployment
- The era of corporate lumbering around san francisco began in 1848.
- The 1906 earthquake created another frenzy of lumbering to rebuild the city.
- World War II housing boom and cheap military-surplus equipment caused more lumbering.
- By 1950s mills were "sawing more than a billion board feet of lumber a year"(Bourne)
- Unemployment in big logging areas would be devastating to the economy
According to Bourne, protesters have been in an old growth space for years... they have already compromised with logging companies and have reached good conclusions. The problem now is "keeping the ecosystem intact by minimizing erosion and maintaining wildlife while maximizing timber production."
SOLUTIONS:
- Sacrifice short-term profits for long-term investment in the forest.
- Make policies of only cutting down as much lumber as can be reproduced by the forest.
- Albret Stanwood Murphy's that pacific lumber would never cut more than 70 percent of a stand of timer or cut more from its forests than would grow in a year.
- Industrial Forester Jim Able. He would aim to never exceed 30-35 percet of the volume of the stand. He tried to never take more wood than the forest has grown in that time.
- Change Materials of logging
- Bourne says that California is working: heavy tractors "that caused so much erosion have largely been replaced by smaller, lighter shovel loaders"
- "by picking up entire logs instead of dragging them ont he ground, shovel loaders eliminate the erodible skid trails taht were the...bane of salmon-spawning creeks" (Bourne)
- Ecological Forestry: forest is managed to provide a habitat for wildlife and clean rivers plus wood products and jobs! That is the ultimate goal!
WE CAN DO IT!
References:
"Redwoods: The Super Trees" Joel K. Bourne, Jr. National Geographic, October 2009. pg 28-59
"Clearcutting: A Crime Against Nature" Edward Fritz. Austin: Eakin Press, 1989.
"Watershed restoration, jobs-in-the-woods, and community assistance : Redwood National Park and the Northwest Forest Plan" Pacific Northwest Research Station (Portland, Or.) http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/5124/PB99158321.pdf?sequence=1
