Well in western Canada we quite often clear cut blocks of forest for lumber, and based on European perspectives it probably looks like an entire forest, but there are a few considerations:
It's almost always younger trees (-100 years old) and often second growth (not taking old growth coastal trees)
It's pretty tightly regulated in terms of ecosystem impact, sensitive locations, buffers, though lots of people disagree with what should be acceptable
They understand it's in their own self interest to replant, as some of these companies are harvesting planted trees already.
It's definitely not perfect, but on the whole is sustainable, and in some cases like our recent insect infestation (mostly caused by aggressive fire suppression) the preferable method to limited scale thinning
I have no problems with cutting second growth, especially timber that was planted by man. It's specifically timber companies interested in harvesting old growth that irks me, because there's hardly any left, especially in Europe.
Going a little further, given that second growth harvesting is widely performed & commercially viable these days, seeking to log old growth comes across as simply looking for "easy money"- old growth hardwood fetches high prices, and you skip the work of planting.
Well for me it's because i care about the environment but have no interest in a dumpster-dived vegan diet.
And since i live in a detached home and own 2 cars"environmentalists" don't want me in their tribe.
When you're labeled you get the entire reputation of the group, and the group gets all the attributes of its members. That makes broad labels either a tough sell or pretty meaningless.
I’m sorry you have encountered environmentalists who made you feel that. For what it’s worth most environmentalists I know live very normal lives and are trying to make changes at the systemic level rather than blaming individuals.
The way I see it, a lot of environmental damage is a consequence of people trying to find a decent position within a system that doesn’t really consider environmental impacts. You want a spacious house so that requires living out of the city and there are poor public transport links so a family has two cars because anything less is a massive inconvenience. That’s perfectly reasonable.
But the situation we live in doesn’t just ‘exist’ but is formed by humans and can be changed so that you can still make your decisions but without such the same environmental impact and maybe a better quality of life.
In my opinion, the key is that our patterns of consumption aren’t really based around what we want but what is made available to us, which we then rationalise post-hoc. For example, people don’t produce lots of plastic waste because they inherently want to, they do it because the places they buy from find it cheaper to wrap stuff in loads of plastic than use alternatives (precisely because the environmental cost isn’t included in the cost of the plastic). There isn’t really a feasible alternative for lots of people. I disagree with the ‘we should all take our hemp bags to the local organic farmer market’ argument some environmentalists make - I think we need systemic change that makes it easier for people to consume less.
People complain about environmentalists ‘telling them what to do’ about eg paper straws but they don’t see that a business is doing the same when they only provide plastic straws because they’re cheaper for the business (because they can offload the environmental costs on to wider society). There’s no ‘neutral’ option.
However, historically resource consumption has been linked with power. Whoever consumes the most land in the village is the most powerful, and so on. That complicated things a lot and (in my opinion) feeds into the “screw you i’m going to pollute if I want to” attitude some people have.
The movement around the Hambach forest is incredibly diverse: it covers die-hard anarchists, protestant and catholic priests and everything in between.
There is no need to not partake in a protest just because you suspect you might not do everything you can to further the cause.
Any support is usually welcome.
It's almost always younger trees (-100 years old) and often second growth (not taking old growth coastal trees)
It's pretty tightly regulated in terms of ecosystem impact, sensitive locations, buffers, though lots of people disagree with what should be acceptable
They understand it's in their own self interest to replant, as some of these companies are harvesting planted trees already.
It's definitely not perfect, but on the whole is sustainable, and in some cases like our recent insect infestation (mostly caused by aggressive fire suppression) the preferable method to limited scale thinning