Salvage Logging :: Logging Environmental Forestry Essays

Salvage Logging Proponents: Legislators and the timber industry Opponents: Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) Legislators have defined "salvage logging" as the act of logging unhealthy forest stands, considered to have a probability of experiencing extreme insect and disease infestation of catastrophic fire. However, no scientific consensus exists for describing an unhealthy forest, predicting or classifying catastrophic fire event, or classifying the resultant damage of an insect and disease. Salvage logging was an alternative way of meeting timber demands and generating revenues by timber industries and legislators without much opposition from the public. This is because the laws permitting such logging practices are so vague and confusing. Legislators espouse that the sales from such practice brings in money to the Treasury while rendering the forests more "health." Proponents claimed that harvesting timber would reduce fuel-loading to reduce the intensity of fires and thin-out forests stands to relieve inter-tree competition. Though this sounds plausible, the criteria for determining wha t sort of trees would be removed, and who would make the decision still remains unanswered. Salvage logging is an attempt to compromise excessive logging and controlled logging. Excessive logging obviously leads to deforestation as is evident in most areas of the world today. The savannas of Africa, the steppes of eastern Europe and Russia, the pampas of Argentina, and at least some of the prairies of North America used to be forested before human disturbance. The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) are strongly opposed to this kind of vague laws employed by legislators in salvage logging. In certain instances, the practice has been referred to as "logging without laws" because it exempts timber companies involved in salvage sales from most environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act. It also allows for clearcutting of huge forest areas. It prevents citizens from exercising their right to challenge illegal logging plans. FSEEE also suggest such vague laws will allow for massive clearcutting of healthy trees and that it also directs the federal government to dramatically increase timber harvests. Allowing for deforestation by the federal government by such vague laws gradually contributes to global deforestation and a corresponding increase in species extinction. Reforestation, by replanting, is only done on a fraction of the deforested area, and it usually creates a monoculture plantation, with much less biological diversity and less disease resistance than in virgin, or old-growth forest.