A recent commentary in the Addison Independent supported logging a portion of the Worcester Range in Vermont, arguing that it would “improve” the forest
“health” and “resilience.”
As a former Vermont resident and an ecologist, I suggest the commentary’s signatories are promoting an anthropocentric, not a biocentric perspective.
Ironically, the title of their commentary is “Science-based” management saves forests.
Yet the signatories to this are ignoring science. Logging to improve forest health is what I call “chainsaw medicine.” It is a domestication of the forest ecosystem.
The groups signing on to logging appear to believe any natural tree mortality is intolerable. However, natural selection by insects, wildfire, disease, and drought actually “improves” the forest through evolutionary processes that logging does not emulate.
Logging only degrades the forest. It does not “improve” forest ecosystems. I’m not surprised that the Nature Conservancy supports logging, as their critics know them as the Nature Conspiracy, but other organizations like NE Wilderness Trust or Trust for Public Lands should know better than to support any logging.
In the 1800s, Vermont’s forests underwent a significant genetic bottleneck due to logging and forest clearing for agriculture. There are virtually no virgin untouched forest stands in Vermont, and the existing ones are small, typically less than 100 acres in size.
The lack of large old-growth trees is particularly noticeable among Vermont’s forests. The largest trees in Vermont tend to exist in cemeteries and in front of 200-year-old farmhouses that were not logged in the past. However, few of these individual trees form a forest ecosystem.
To log any naturally recovering forests is like ripping the scabs off a burn victim. Vermont’s forests have already undergone a significant ecological decline.
Within any forest, there is tremendous genetic variation, and the individual ability of any tree to thrive under adverse conditions is essential to evolution.
One in a hundred trees might have a genetic profile that gives them more resistance to drought, insects, or disease. Removal by chainsaw medicine can reduce the resiliency of the forest stand, especially when facing new evolutionary pressures like climate warming.
In addition, logging removes carbon from the land. Forests are one of our best means of storing carbon. Even dead trees store carbon for a significant period as down logs and roots in the soil. Dead trees also are also important nutrient storage and wildlife habitat.
Nature selection is the only viable means of ensuring forests resist future ecological and evolutionary pressures.
If you want to preserve forest health, stop chainsaw medicine. Our forests are not “unhealthy” just because some trees die. The trees that remain are the forests of the future. And at least some of the signatories to the letter ought to recognize that fact.
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