My family owns a timber
company in Washington state, and for us, money grows on trees.
Every time we buy something, we see the physical signs of
our consumption in our backyard. Paying for my recent college
education, for example, took about 300 log truckloads of
second-growth Douglas fir, cedar and hemlock trees. A $60 pair of
jeans equals a log of doug fir that’s eight inches at the top and
36 feet long. When we pay medical bills or leave our town of 200 to
go on vacation, we cut more trees.
I grew up on the
timber farm, which is owned by some 30 members of my mother’s
extended family. Some of them work for the family company on the
Olympic Peninsula, operating chain saws and laying out clear-cuts;
others work as interior designers in Chicago or as wine importers
in New York City.
Not everyone approves of the family
business. One of my relatives, for instance, called the company’s
timber income “blood money.” But for the most part we get along and
enjoy each other when we gather in Washington to talk about log
prices, sustained yield and board footage.
A surefire bet
for a heated family debate, though, is the question of how we
should manage Grandfather’s Park, 18 acres of river bottomland that
the family removed from timber harvest in the 1970s. Homesteaders
logged the park with oxen in 1880, 20 years before my family bought
the land, so it’s not the “virgin” old growth visitors often
mistake it for. But now the trees are huge again — covered in
moss, footed with sword fern and, when it’s sunny, lit by
golden-green light.
For decades, my uncle, the farm’s
current manager, harvested a load or two of dead and dying trees
from the park each year, which earns us about $2,000 a load. But
this year, some family members got together and petitioned to stop
any logging of the old trees. Immediately, another group formed,
and it argued that ending salvage logging in the park would be a
symbolic first step towards destroying our timber company.
The debate wasn’t over ecology and economics but about
underlying philosophies — whether or not it made us “better”
people to stop the salvage logging. But this wasn’t a philosophical
exercise. The argument began through mass emails and quickly became
ugly and personal, sprinkled with decades-old quotes dredged up
from the family’s collective memory. During the meeting the
anti-loggers shed tears and made emotional speeches, while other
family members signed petitions, conducted biased surveys, sat in
awkward silence and occasionally shouted. I mostly listened.
The people who wanted to stop salvage logging accused
their opponents of being greedy, out-of-touch and totalitarian. The
pro-salvage logging team retorted that the “greeners” were wealthy,
out-of-touch and manipulative.
Each side resorted to
cliches. The “environmentalist” cousins acted as if a human
presence automatically ruined a forest; the “anti-environmentalist”
group acted as if trees were only good for human consumption.
I know that neither group is actually that narrow-minded.
But they were both afraid that any compromise would lead to total
surrender. In the end, however, there simply weren’t enough
stakeholders for this to be a never-ending battle, as it is with
the Forest Service.
After a couple of hours, the people
in my mother’s generation put together what was generally
considered to be a win-win resolution. They created a park
committee, consisting of two moderate representatives from both
camps, which will be in charge of deciding when and how we
salvage-log. I think it’s a face-saver more than anything.
Grandfather’s Park is still open to salvage logging, but it may be
years — if ever — before the next load of dying trees
is taken out.
While it was painful and depressing to
watch my family argue, the meeting wasn’t discouraging. Most of the
young people at the meeting saw past the hullabaloo and agreed with
both points of view. It might just be because we’re younger. Maybe
as you age you simplify the world around you in order to stay sane.
Or maybe we chose the middle path simply because we didn’t want to
offend anyone.
I prefer to think that my 20-something
generation learned something from our parents. I prefer to think of
us as “green loggers” who have moved beyond the black-and-white
environmental vision that’s been passed down to us. Most of all, I
hope that when the time comes for us to call the shots, we’ll
be able to trust each other.
Lissa James is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News in Paonia, Colorado. She just concluded an
internship with the paper and is heading back to Washington to work
in the family business.
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