Conservation vs Preservation

Steve Nix, a professional forester, wrote this in his about.com blog:

[The Hearst story: Chain Saw Scouting] has infuriated thousands of foresters, forest scientists and scout supporters that the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) has been attacked for actually living up to their conservation pledge by using sound forest management practices in most if not all the harvests. Many of these forestry professionals grew up under the influence of the Boy Scouts of America and are now leaders in BSA.

Here’s an excerpt from the story that ran in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

[F]or decades, local Boy Scouts of America (BSA) administrations across the country have clearcut or otherwise conducted high-impact logging on tens of thousands of acres of forestland, often for the love of a different kind of green: cash. … Scouting councils nationwide have carried out clearcuts, salvage harvests and other commercial logging in and around sensitive forests, streams and ecosystems that provide habitat for a host of protected species, including salmon, timber wolves, bald eagles and spotted owls.

Count me as taking offense. They logged for cash!?! As opposed to doing something else for what? Shells? Trinkets? Credit default swaps? I’m sorry, ‘pretty’ doesn’t pay the bills.

I won’t comment on whether any of the BSA councils failed to follow codicils within deeds of property when they were given gifts of property. I don’t condone that. I don’t like not caring for a piece of property through timber management either.

Here’s a portion the BSA’s response:

The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes … While chartered by the national council, local councils are governed by their local volunteers and executive boards. Each council’s Scout Executive manages council operations–including finance, property management, … Timber harvesting has been a part of many council land management plans for decades as a way of practicing good stewardship of land resources.

I have my differences with the Boy Scouts, but give them credit for wrestling with stewardship and not simply perpetuating the illusion of preservation. Preservation tries to maintain the land in a unaltered condition, an impossible task. Trade-offs are part of life (download and read American forest policy-global ethical tradeoffs).

What looks like devastation (to some) is not forever. For some reason we think that logging should only be done for a loss and only if there is nothing else to be done. We seem to have forgotten that forests have been thrown out of balance by our fire suppression. That forests’ flora and fauna have niches.

In upcoming posts, we’ll look at a place that uses alleged “high-impact logging” such as clearcuts: New Zealand. New Zealand still harvest trees. Wood is their number three export after meat and dairy. While California imports 75% of its wood, New Zealand produces enough wood to take care of its own needs and exports the surplus. To me, a California forester, it’s heaven with a lower case “H.” Mind you, they don’t cut native trees. They cut California trees: California’s Monterey pine(Pinus radiata) to be precise.