lots of the public are very ignorant about ecologically sound forest management, unfortunately. "save the trees" is an effective emotional argument. i was once one of those people, but then i learned
I spent a couple of years consulting to earthforce.io (they make forest management software)- before I started I thought I understood forestry, boy how wrong I was, how little I knew!
that seems like a cool job! do you think they still hire freelancers? i'm looking for freelance work and i'm very interested in forest management but don't have a forestry degree, i just own some land.
Unless it's a public company/non-profit they don't have to make any of this information public in most(all?) US states. Usually all you have to do is make public the name of the company and the registered agent(typically the lawyer you hire to receive legal notices for the company).
ah right crumchbase - founder with a "crunchbase rank" in the two hundred thousands range, stanford-stanford-harvard. there is something about stealth combined with valuations.. can't put my finger on it..
They're building a lot of physical hardware, hence the need for cash (it was a pretty huge seed round) - He's a cool dude for real, very decent human, curious what your concern is?
> "save the trees" is probably better re-labelled as "save the old growth trees". Would you agree?
yes, we should most certainly protect old growth stands. they are very rare in the forests that i'm familiar with in the US east, and maintaining that ecology overrides any economic benefit gained from cutting the trees, imo. i'm in no way advocating for cutting down old growth stands, my comment was more in response to how we manage the forests that came after we cut the old growth.
> Would you consider tree farms as ecologically sound? (I'll note those are intentionally over-planted, homogeneous, and burn like crazy)
this depends on how the forest is managed. monocultures are bad and diversity is good (though a lot of stands have predominant species, naturally), forests need disturbances (whether through thinning or fire or naturally), etc. but a diverse forest can still be in rough shape. i'm getting at the edge of my knowledge fwiw.
> Which key facts caused you to change your mind?
i bought forest land and learned as much as i could about forest management, so there is too much information to list. i can share books if you're genuinely curious.
A sincere and big thank you for the response! The extra context and nuance are really useful to have.
My reading list is already kinda long, I think that spares you from having to dig out any references :)
My curiosity is perhaps most of what would interest a thru-hiker. I always want to learn more about how forests work, things like "bears would live here" - "these types of edible plants would grow here". If there are any books along those lines that jump to your mind - I would be very interested to add those to my reading list.
it depends on where you hike? "southeast medicinal plants" by coreypine shane would give you a lot of applicable information for the entire AT. i read "bear attacks" by stephen herrero last year before a backcountry trip in glacier national park and the information made me feel a lot more comfortable.
Instead of "us versus them" statements, I encourage vigorous examination of presuppositions. The urgency of the situation could not be more obvious.
The claim "the public is ignorant" is oft repeated by industry-friendly experts in all levels of academia and government. But the policies of the experts have been an objective disaster in the US West. You appear to promote science that is invalidated in real time.
i get what you're saying, but that's not what i'm saying.
state and national forests are a shared natural resource owned by the public, therefore the public has input over these things, sometimes overriding the science. a lot of the "objective disaster in the US West" is due to these policies that are informed by a public who only wants to save the trees.
i'm talking particularly about non-old growth stands where the forest needs to be thinned, but it hasn't, like in the west. old growth stands are a whole 'nother thing. here is one such example where this old growth debate is happening with public input in vermont: https://vtdigger.org/2024/01/18/logging-versus-old-growth-pl...
It is very difficult to cover all the angles in a few short comments. I disagree that "the public who wants to just save trees" is the responsible party.. it is more complex than that.
>policies that are informed by a public who only wants to save the trees
I can give citations for a dozen extensive studies and workshops, some years in the making, alongside more recent research papers from California academia. The ones I know of mostly originate in the University of California system. Actual policy as implemented is informed by those studies but not dictated by them.
Due to the rule of law, actual policy on the ground in the last forty years is divided in practice by the owners of the lands. In California, most of the "public" forest lands are owned by Federal agencies. The "desire to save the trees" conveniently dovetailed with a Federal obligation to maximize commercial value of National Forest timber. The combination of those two, different, policy groups resulted in what has happened in the last ten years.. that is, overcrowding of trees, disease, massive die-offs, and catastrophic wildfire.
Another crucial point.. the pine trees of the low Sierra and North-Eastern California are not at all in the same category as the Coastal Redwoods, or South Sierra old-growth. yet this discussion here seems to make no distinctions.
For those interested in learning the basics, this is a pretty good playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvOmkebY7k2UP4N_BicWV...