The theory!

So, the crux of this whole ecological forestry shebang lies around the concept that logging a forest or in other words "killing trees" will actually make it a better forest. So right off the bat we are not talking about clear felling a forest (A process where every tree is an area is felled) In the past people who wanted to avoid clear felling used a technique known as "selective logging". The principle being that you select individual trees and only remove those, leaving the rest to continue growing.

What's wrong with that?

Well the trouble is that to make money out of this you need to take the biggest and the best. These are the healthiest trees, the ones with the best DNA, the fastest growers and the straightest ones. So you do this again and again and again for 100 years and what you are left with is a forest of bent, diseased, slow growing trees. Unfortunately this is where a lot of farm forests and state forests (in NSW at least) are at.

 

In the picture above you literally can't see the forest for the trees! Scary thing is those trees could be 30+ years old. What happened? Well on top of the problem outlined above, at some point someone got a little too excited with the chainsaw. When a tree falls (which is quite a natural occurrence in a forest) it creates competition for the light that is created on the canopy floor, so in a natural forest this would be "patchy"(Something that happens here and there). In an over harvested forest it happens everywhere and competition for light becomes the norm. Eucalypts, (the dominant tree in most Australian forests) have a particular aversion to sharing. They don't like their crowns (tops of the tree) to touch and if they do they stop growing.  You are left with thin and bent trees that will never grow.

So in the picture above without intervention these trees might lay dormant for the next 50 years. they will never achieve their full potential and will never be a home for birds, mammals and reptiles.

The tree below didn't need to fight for light, it won the race to the top of the canopy and in all likelihood will have a couple of hundred years of life left, at some point it will develop hollows in its trunk and will house all kinds of animal life. Trouble is a tree like this is the perfect tree for a timber mill. It's straight, it's branches begin high in the tree so there is lots of timber that can be used. No matter the end product this tree is the one that makes a guy with a chainsaw go "you beauty!" 

So the health of a forest is not measured in how many trees there are but the quality of the trees that remain and forests that have been logged in the past if treated in the right way can actually do better. Removing some of the competition for those healthy trees to thrive will allow for a better looking forest, with less weeds, more wildlife and bigger, taller, older trees.

So the whole point of all of that is to say that logging bans and locking up forests in nature reserves isn't always the best outcome for a forest. It's often better than many of the alternatives but we can learn to use forests effectively for human needs if we have a bit of respect and a bit of knowledge on what they really are.  

Sustainable forestry

Sustainable... I've come to hate that word. What the hell does it mean? The dictionary defines it as "able to be maintained at a certain rate or level". That doesn't really mean anything does it? I mean I could club baby seals for the rest of my life and maintain it at a certain level. That wouldn't make it good, or morale or sensible or good for the species. Sustainable gets dropped like its the answer to the worlds woes and in forestry at least it's come to be an excuse to get away with anything that's not clear felling. Even that gets a run sometimes.

Check out the link below:

NSW Forests

It shows just how much timber is being taken to support the NSW Governments contracts with large timber companies who need timber for chipwood.  They agreed to supply so much that even with operations like this they still can't keep up the supply.

Forests NSW wood supply

But have a look at the Forests NSW website and the word sustainable gets a flogging. I counted 12 uses of the word sustainable on just one page Forest NSW Website

The forests in the video above can be sustained.  Australian forests grow back all on their own, but that doesn't make that type of forestry smart. As I've come to learn over the past 12 months forests don't fit into financial year calendars and electoral cycles. Smart forestry sticks to one simple principle as I see it "Grow more wood than you take". Yes, you need to think about many other things like soil health, biodiversity, wildlife, disease, stocking rates, machinery etc but if you stick to this simple rule and don't get greedy everything else should fall into place.  

Time will tell if this principle can work.

Setting the scene

Logging is bad! That's what I always thought. Forests are good and need to be left alone. I was brought up on a property almost covered in forest, the trees and the soil are in my bones. When indigenous cultures talk about being part of a place and the place being part of them I think I get it.

 When my father passed away in 2010 the romance of this notion was broken. Here was a property that had to pay taxes, rates, all the fences were broken and I had scored myself a nice cushy desk job in the city. Beyond starting a tractor and filling up the ute with diesel I had no practical skills and no time to use them if I did.

For the first time ever I considered that at some point we'd have to sell the farm unless we could come up with a viable solution to generate enough income to cover these costs. It would have to be something that didn't take up all my time, so when it was mentioned that the forest might have some trees of value I listened, though I was pretty skeptical when I spoke to a few logging contractors and consultants about it.

Me: "Hi I'm interested in a sustainable logging operation on my property"
Contractor: "Oh mate all logging is sustainable nowdays, the government makes sure of that"

I've seen forests that have been logged "by the rules" and they aren't very nice places.

So there is more to this story to tell along the way but in short I believe there is a way for the forest to pay its own way. To not only cope with harvesting but to thrive because of it. The trick is to know your forest and to not get greedy.

Stay tuned....