Hi Chris;Well here in Canada there is a very strong movement for the preservation of wildlife habitat and bears are a favorite focus point. The welfare of bears seems to have become a symbol of environmental awareness for some folks, so much so that due to restrictions in hunting regulations we have a situation in northern Ontario where bears are litterally trying to break in to people's houses. There is a misguided notion that clearcutting forests puts the bear population at risk and this is clearly an example of public misinformation which is gladly exploited by those who would like to see all logging in this country put to an end. I admit I don't know about the details of the studies I mentioned but I can get references. I am speaking from experience though. I spend a lot of time roaming around the forests of this country and I have come across bears many times and often enough to have a general sense of the likelihood and frequency of such encounters in a remote forest of Canada be it hardwood, softwood or boreal. Let me tell you walking around in a clearcut in northern B.C. is a different experience where it is routine to see bears EVERY DAY and often several times a day, so much so that it requires a different attitude to being out there. Clearcutting results in a more plentiful food supply for bears so much so that they are beginning to overpopulate which is also not natural and is a problem in itself ( for people AND bears). I used this example not to say that clearcutting is good but rather just to illustrate that there are misconceptions about the lumber industry destroying habitat and threatening the extinction of bears which are pervasive and obviously untrue. I guess I can't blame ecoterrorist mouthpieces like David Suzuki for using the same fear mongering and disinformation tactics to arouse us that the wealthy commonly use to keep us all hypnotized with our faces in the food trough of excess. But I don't have to like it.<>Granted a mature forest supports a Yes the Jack Pine cone requires heat to release it's seeds and after a fire a similar thing happens to the burnt area due to opening up the forest floor to sunlight as what happens after mature trees are removed although the ground is not torn up and looking like an ugly wound on the earth as a clearcut does. ( If you've never seen one up close you can't imagine how ugly it is). Many scrub plants and berry bushes suddenly shoot up where they couldn't grow before due to lack of light. You are right that fire does beneficial things but my point was that something useful to human life is also lost and we still have the need for it so we will still take it from somewhere else resulting in deforestation in two places. If we were to go in and selectively remove the largest trees which are most likely to get a lightning strike and have the most board feet of lumber we can reduce the loss to fire, keep that CO2 sequestered, and make use of the wood simultaneously. More and more this is becoming an approach the logging industry is taking. It is more costly than clearcutting and hence would result in an increase in luber costs for the consumer which is something I eagerly applaud. I smile when I consider the day when our cost of living will skyrocket in this society. As it should.forest fires have been sending co2 into the atmosphere for millenia, but that isn't what has precipitated global warming. furhtermore, in the case of north america, fire has been one of the primary evolutionary forces. the ecosystem of this continent has a sort of co-dependency with fire; sort of like a purging/renewal mechanism. in fact, there are certain conifers which need the high tempatures of a wildfire for their cones to open and release the seeds. Having said this I also want to say that I agree we should set asside certain areas like the old growth coastal rain forests with the huge douglas firs and sitka spruce that escaped the last glaciation and are something truely wonderful to behold and spend time in just as we do with other natural wonders. Yeah if only humans were as smart as plants........i don't know about this, but i've kind of always assumed that a plant's 'oxygen cycle' and 'co2 cycle' pretty much cancel each other out. but there's no denying that trees sequester large quantities of carbon (breaking down co2 to do so, no?). Joe |
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