Let’s Work Together To Have Better Forests

I’m just one of thousands of men and women in the timber industry in the great Northwest, and it seems like I’m always reading about how environmental activists want to put me and all the other timber workers out of a job because we’re bound and determined to cut down the last tree.

I just have to say something on our behalf.

Even though we work in the timber industry, we still love the outdoors. I enjoy camping, hunting and riding my mountain bike or my trail bike on all of the old logging roads, or just driving through the mountains enjoying our beautiful forests.

What I don’t understand is while we have acre after acre of diseased or bug-infested trees that can only get worse instead of better, the environmentalists want to let them stand and do nothing. They say let nature take its course.

Great! Then fire season comes along and wipes out thousands of acres of forest land that could have been salvaged and used and thinned. And then there are the millions of dollars it costs to fight these fires, plus the lives and homes that could have been built for any of us.

Still they say don’t cut any more trees.

But why do we cut trees in the first place?

We grow up, we marry and have children and we want to buy or build a new home. Maybe we want a piece of land to clear and build a beautiful log home or a nice three- or four-bedroom house with a deck or patio or both. Where does this come from? Unlike money, it grows on trees.

You might say we can build our homes with other kinds of materials, but what about the roof or the floor or other woodwork? Even if it could be done, you and I couldn’t afford it.

Like it or not, the demand for lumber will always be there. Sure, like any big business, the timber companies are in it to make money for their stockholders. But unlike back in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, when they went to cut down everything in sight, these big companies have learned that if they keep going at the rate they were there would be nothing left to cut. Now they use new, scientific methods. They have tree farms where they study how to grow trees bigger, stronger and faster than Mother Nature can by far.

Why don’t we quit fighting each other and work together somehow so we can have more trees, a better forest for recreation, hunting and camping for all of us?