Managing forests is one of the good ecological way to use renewable building material/energy. This picture is just part of a cycle.

Subdivisions as far as the eye can see! All ready for development! Oh, the Glory!

"Pineview Estates"?

Unless you are willing to not buy anything made from trees, you are being hypocritical. Using nature to make our lives better is not a bad thing, especially when it is managed well.

Sure it isn't pretty to look at, but neither is the aftermath of forest fires, which often occur with no human intervention.

i have my avatar in the woodworking forums as the lorax. i hope that it reminds people (including myself) to be less wasteful...and to think of the trees.

i agree, it doesn't look beautiful, but they own this land, and if they want to grow and harvest trees on it, i say its better than putting up a polluting factory or building a bunch of low grade housing on it.

The pine tree makes great pulp for paper. Trees are harvested like wheat and replanted. This renewing resource keeps the paper companies going filling our paper needs without stripping the planet of anything. If anything, through their research, trees are more insect resistant and are stronger and straighter.

For the record, at least here, trees along the road can't be harvested because of the Right Of Way. Those trees belong to the DOT (state or county). They can only be harvested with permit.

Some places can't be harvested due to the ground being unstable. Sinking tree harvesting equipment in the mud is very expensive to remove.

Just 2 cents!

If anyone thinks they are doing this for some more benevolent reason, they are only kidding themselves.

However, whats almost as sad as the clear cutting are the ignorant remarks concerning it.

You can clearly see the road trough those trees, and there's open stretches too.

What is really sad is that many of these "harvests" are done at a financial loss to the Forest Service after they have built the roads and such to them... so called "deficit logging".

Even worse than that, a lot of the trees end up in foreign mills- sold at a loss to US Taxpayers. Doncha just love the best government money can buy?

I've been watching the History Channel's "Ax Men" which follows a handful of logging companies up in WA. When they get a job, it is a specific, and relatively small, patch of land/mountain. They don't just cut randomly and then leave. Whether it be from a tree farm, which is what they cut from the most, or patches of "other" land, they are restricted by the area given. Once they're done, they replant, wait many years, decades even, then come back, etc.

I think it may be hard to see it as the same thing as a corn crop because of the slow regrowth rate, but it is no different. I live in Indiana, and no one sheds tears over cut wheat, soy, or corn.

I believe the law only applies to public land that is harvested under permit and fee. Privately owned land may not be subject to this law.

There's nothing wrong with clear-cutting a forest. Think of it like picking broccoli - only bigger, and you have to wait a lot longer for the crop. It's a truly renewable, sustainable resource.

Since it is not meant to hide anything (anyone driving any of these roads sees through to the clearcut) don't ascribe some evil intent to decive on the part of timber companies. Probably (as someone pointed out) it is simply the county right-of-way that didn't get logged.

Yes, the Olympic Peninsula dn many areas of the PNW have been logged like crazy. No, I don't like that old growth still gets logged. But do I get all worked up about a plot of land that is currently a tree farm, and gets logged? No, why should I?

When you eat an ear of corn, do you get all upset that some region of Iowa that used to sprout native prairie grasses now grows your corn instead? Probably not.