Pepper Trail’s opinion column on salvage
logging misses the mark, casting forest management in a
one-dimensional, ecological way. Rather, forest management and
salvage logging must be driven by sustainability.
We live
in a three-dimensional world — ecological, social and
economic. It’s not a matter of balancing these, for balance
implies they are separate. They are inextricable and
interdependent. In this sense, salvage logging has never been a
purely ecological undertaking, nor purely economic, for that
matter. And if one accounts for salvage via the maintained social
fabric and improved habitat, air and water, the dollar loss that
can show on paper is all of a sudden a tremendous gain!
Trail says that defining salvage in a holistic (read: ecological)
way will save our relationship with the earth. We believe defining
it, and adaptively managing forests in a sustainable way —
the explicit recognition of not only the ecological, but the
interdependent social and economic factors — will save our
relationship with not only the earth, but our world and the people
that are part of it. This is about the interconnectedness people
have with healthy — sustainable — forests.
Bob Harrington, Montana state forester, and Gail Kimbell,
regional forester, Northern Region, USFS Co-Leads, Western Forestry
Leadership Coalition Denver,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Forest management in 3-D.
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