Timber's Cover-Up: The Truth About Oregon Forests
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2016
- Beyond Toxics reveals the truth behind Oregon forestry practices and the devastation being caused by Big Timber and current Oregon Forestry Laws.
While the timber industry likes to talk about "working forests," current timber-harvesting practices are NOT working to manage healthy forests. Today, over 4 million acres of Oregon's biodiverse forests have been converted to tree farms. Tree farms rely on herbicides to suppress biodiversity, and manage a single-species harvest. Herbicides are often sprayed from helicopters over Oregon's state-managed forest lands. Federal forestry laws BANNED aerial spraying in the 1980s.
It's time to update Oregon's Forestry laws to promote resilient forestry practices that uphold our values and create true sustainability. A true working forest supports good-paying, long term jobs by maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Mixed tree species, soil health, clean water, carbon storage, wildlife protection - these are all necessary to protect the future of Oregon forests.
Sign the petition to Governor Brown and other legislative leaders to insist on better protection for Oregon forests:
tinyurl.com/gw89ouu
Read, "We Need Resilient Forests," a blog about this video from Beyond Toxics' Exec. Director, Lisa Arkin, here:
tinyurl.com/jdloyen
For more details, visit: www.beyondtoxics.org/resilient... - Krátké a kreslené filmy
I remember seeing white looking trees on the sides of the road on a roadtrip to oregon. I was so confused because in the images from google they were so luscious and green. Thank you!
Easy to confuse some people I guess
The companies and even the National Forest replant densely. The assumption is that a large number will die off. But if they don't you have dog-fur forests where the trees battle for light above ground and water below. The lower branches are allowed to die by the tree and are shed because they don't benefit the tree. That contributes fuel loading at ground level and enhances fire conditions.
I think it's important to ask who is benefiting from the current industrial forestry system. Anyone with experience in the woods knows that it is definitely not the forests. But loggers, and the Oregon economy aren't benefiting nearly as much as they could be either. The whole reason clear cutting is the preferred timber harvesting method is because it is the most efficient, and not at employing people. It generates the highest profit margin. Depending on the company, that profit may not even be staying in the state. Do you think that when a timber company is analyzing their harvesting techniques they are prioritizing the benefit to the local economy or to the logging community. I doubt it. Loggers cost money, so the fewer of those you need the better. If China is paying the highest price for the logs, they'll sell them there, depriving the local economy of the economic potential that adding value to the resource locally would provide. It is in nearly every oregonian's interest to take the hopeful part of this message seriously.
Well stated, Daniel. We are in no way claiming that loggers shouldn't have jobs. Statements like "environmentalists are all anti-jobs" are made-up by big companies to keep folks in the dark. We want to support and protect loggers and millers and any Oregonian who seeks a profession in natural resources. It's our job to put pressure on these companies to conduct their business in an ethical and responsible way that doesn't pollute and degrade our environment, cut jobs from hard-working farm & forestry workers or weaken local economies.
It isn't really that efficient either, besides the damage to soil, biological diversity, and the other self evident problems, the wood harvested is junk useful making paper, and possibly pole barns. In the late '70s as the "greed is good" meme took off, there was a push to trade USFS lands, which mainly did grow trees for private, clear cut land. I worked for the Forest Service at the time and I can say that there was a lot of push back from the rank and file. The USFS was hiring MBAs to manage the National Forests and they barely knew what a tree was. Somehow sense was talked into the eager to profit. One argument was that the land trades were always at the benefit of the private corporations. They wanted to trade treeless, eroded land for forested public land. The onus would be on the USFS to convert the clear cut land back into producing land. The costs were all one way. Taxes pay for most forest operations. Timber companies buy timber sales, but are monitored by the USFS during the harvest and clean up.
That is not a forest but a gigantic bug and beattle farm covering most of the state
I like how clearly you can see the legal spray buffers that they left at 2:24. So obvious that they didn’t spray anywhere near the stream.
Trees for the next generations to come ! Save our forests ! GV ! 🌲🌳🌲🌳🌲🌳🌲
The non biodegradable herbicide toxins that are sprayed between the saplings to make sure its a mono culture make certain the replanting does not provide food or habitat in the southeast USA pine timber as well. They use aircraft and 4 wheelers to spray the perimeters and between the rows. It has caused major serious major declines in bobwhite quail ( almost extinct in the wild) and wild turkey and especially the grouse.
I have a feeling you dont quite understand the difference between a forest and tree farm... tree farms aren't meant to be forests they are meant to be farms, they just happen to look like forests while they grow until harvest
It is all under the forest service and considered the same as forestry. But you are sure right a lifeless tree farm should never be considered a forest.
Of course it's meant to be a farm. But the problem is, is this something we should be doing to mother nature? I don't think so, certainly not as a wide-scale standard harvest practice.
If you want this to stop, decrease your paper usage, decrease your wood consumption. The industry just supplies what consumers buy. It is everyone's fault not just the loggers who need a job to sort their families. Btw, loggers work extremely hard physical dangerous jobs for low pay in horrible conditions. Logging companies might make decent money but the loggers themselves won't even come close to upper middle class wages.
The “forests” shown in the 1st half of the video are “industry’s standards,” clearcuts that are densely replanted by large Oregon corporations as monocrop tree plantations. The reasons the trees are so bleak is that the Douglas fir crave sunlight, but when they are planted at hundreds per acre on a 10x10 grid, no sun can reach the forest floor. The tree’s lower branches are dead and only the very tip tops grow green foliage, creating a biological desert [with only economic value for logging]. The scenario does not support the understory of native shrubs and trees that would normally create biodiversity and habitat for birds and wildlife
as well as keep the soil rich with stored moisture and carbon.
Click on this link to see photos taken of how Seneca is treating their lands, the adjacent communities and surface waters.
www.flickr.com/photos/143300419@N04/
The purpose of the short documentary Timber’s Cover-Up is to demonstrate
the unhealthy and destructive practices of Oregon’s industrial logging.
An important emphasis is that there is another way.
The second half of the film offers an introduction to economically viable and eco-healthy alternatives that truly benefit Oregon communities, our watersheds and our climate future. With ample video and still footage at our disposal, this film
doesn’t cherry-pick the images and data. We simply show examples of what anyone can see on a drive out to the Oregon coast. Just look up the next time you are on Highway 125, 20, 22 and 34!
Beyond Toxics by the time the final harvest is complete the forest floor will have gone through another cycle. Hopefully a fire doesnt destroy these areas then followed by a flood.
All farming is devastating to our ecosystem unfortunately not just logging
Sad that you feel that way. Not ALL farming has a negative impact on our eco system. Can say that cattle farming is the most destructive to the soil while buffalo farming is of great benefit to the land if managed properly along with sheep and goat farming. There are many crop farms that also benefit the wild life as well as human life. Making emotional blanket statements does not truly help anyone as it enevitably draws upon the emitions of othes to react. Not all will react in a positive manner.
Plesse. Do your research, shoe and state clearly the real facts with supportong evidence that support your your statements.
God bless
Yeah we cant cut down trees for revenue in this state any longer, we should probably stop eating food too huh ……….genius.
This is sooo sad !
Death and destruction to
All one can see !!!
After 100,000,000 Dollars do you need more ?
The longer we wait the tree becomes more valuable, but at what return on investment?
and we have so many buildings and homes and factories that are vacant empty why do we need more lumbar ?
It's all about the money!!!
Spray or fog don't kill it first ,kills everything all ready ,foggy sky
I had no Idea... thank you
This is quite misleading. Even a tree grown in an open field will show decreasing tree ring diameter, but will add approximately the same area year over year. A "natural" forest started after a fire or other disturbance usually contains far more trees per acre than a planted one.
Furthermore, cutting Douglas-fir on a 30 year rotation is very uncommon. 40 to 50 years remains the standard.
The most common chemicals used are pre-emergent, soil active chemicals soon after clearcut. They are toxic to plants but generally far less toxic than common chemicals like caffeine for humans and animals. And they don't spray in streams. They don't spray when the wind is blowing. Note the precise line between where the ground is brown versus green in the aerial footage. It remains green in the stream because they don't spray there. If drift and runoff were major problems, the line would be far fuzzier.
I encourage you to look up evidence that anybody has died or gotten ill from
Metsulfuron-methyl (pre-emergent)
sulfometuron (pre-emergent)
Triclopyr (post-emergent for killing leafy foliage)
2,4 D (same purpose as triclopyr)
True!
What about, are there places in the USA, particularly Oregon, and it's all been cur down for, and there is maybe 100 yards of forest lining all the roads before it's all cut down...? Any facts out there people?
You will see allot of this in SC.
Sometime you have to take the potatoes if all you want is gravy
Va. too.
We need to go back to way of widego
Something has to be done about this Sasquatch thing! I'm going out there to straighten him out!
i aggree it is unhealthy the way we are cutting lumber now. But 4 million acres is only 6% of Oregons total area.
I live in the heart of the Willamette Valley right next to the Cascade mountains and less than an hour from the ocean all I can say is boooo Weyerhauser!!!! They're not respectful
Yes they lied
Branches out if sunlight die, need for fires and thinning
Obviously made by people who have absolutely no idea about what goes on in the woods
Stupid is as stupid does.
First seek our father in heaven and his justice and everything will be added
I disagree with the premise of this video. I don't feel that there is any concerted effort to "cover up" any part of what occurs on a daily basis in Oregons working forests. I have to agree with the concern raised about shortened rotations, as I feel that it is generally short sighted to harvest trees that are 35 to 45 years old when allowing them to grow to 55 would put more of the logs in a larger class of sawtimber. However, it is important to recognize what forces are driving these management decisions. The demands of shareholders for ever increasing profits are clearly the driving force in Forest Management today. The opening scene of the video presents a good example of this. A young stand, fully stocked but with many stems suppressed is fairly common today. In the recent past many timber companies would treat a stand like this, and younger, with Pre Commercial Thinning, a practice that would use manual labor to choose, and sever the less desirable trees in the stand to allow the dominant trees to flourish. As a feller Buncher operator I see the results of this early treatment fairly regularly in stands that have fewer, larger and higher quality trees per acre. This practice for young stands has fallen out of favor primarily because it represents a cost, and to recognize the benefit from its implementation requires allowing enough time for the remaining trees to grow. Basically the shareholders want "their" money right now and ever more of it to boot. So the question is, who are these people? Well many of them are the very folks who have time, education and the attitude to object to "Industrial Logging". Industrial landowners are not hiding anything, they are responding to the demands of their shareholders. Perhaps a bit more scrutiny should be directed towards that paradigm. I would also like to speak in defense of the Oregon Forest Practices Act. As a another writer notes, it was a pioneer in this country and continues to work well today, managing to balance practicality with protection. Practicality is important because if timberland doesn't make money it will change use. While I can appreciate that someone with no practical knowledge of forestry may be shocked by an image of a recent clear cut canyon I think a more accurate visual image would be of a river as it leaves a timbered watershed, and then of that same river as it leaves a suburban or urban area. And in closing, the issue of herbicides is certainly a complex one. Chemicals are often detrimental to health and accordingly need to be used judiciously. They are expensive as well and landowners choose applicators and technology to achieve the best results with the minimum of loss. Most timberland requires only one spray treatment in a stands life cycle to ensure that the seedlings can overcome natural competition. Some land may require another spot treatment to address tenacious vegetation, but we need to contrast this against modern agriculture, whereas spraying can be prescribed numerous times in a single growing season, or as another commentor noted, a homeowner with little or no knowledge spraying indiscriminately. The fact of the matter is that if you desire to reestablish a vibrant stand of timber after harvesting you need to apply herbicides to allow the seedling to take hold and flourish. Timberland is incredibly important, valuable natural resource to this state and in fact the world. The industry which it supports, and which in turn supports it, must be appreciated. Insuring economic vitality will allow for working timberland to remain a healthy part of the mosaic of land in Oregon.
Blowhard
Fuck the shareholders
Oregon's forestry laws absolutely are the weakest in the west. The Oregon Forest Resources Institute has been producing ads trying to convince us that logging rules in Oregon are strong, when in fact they are the opposite. Claims that Oregon’s laws protect “water quality, wildlife and fish habitat” are flat out incorrect, our streams nearby clear-cuts regularly violate cold water & pollution standards and are completely unsuitable for salmon spawning habitat. Oregon has been fined millions of dollars by the EPA for failing to meet stream protection measures.
Yes, trees are re-planted to make more timber harvests, but they are all one tree species that are planted so closely together that little can compete thus creating a monoculture...which is the opposite of a healthy & resilient forest. They're no different than corn fields really and these trees are harvested every 30-40 years before the trees have time to store substantial carbon from the atmosphere, rendering them a useless system for carbon sequestration.
Krystal Abrams, you are clueless!
Wow great one, thats all you have to say, really shows who's clueless one.
Natural seeding occurs, too.
Dumb broad.!!
And when you have a major industry in your state as predominant as logging what you really wanna do is regulate the shit outta it so it goes outta business or to another state less regulated?? You moron
@@HubertofLiege Which may easily be destroyed during harvest, if extra care isn't taken. And frequently it isn't. I've seen it first hand as a logger myself, and know how easily it can happen.
Just let it all burn ?
This video is misleading. Beyond Toxics has cherry picked two specific situations that are not representative of Oregon's forests. First - they show many video shots in what appears to be a converted pasture. Did you notice there are no stumps in many of those video sequences? Second - the video then turns to showing post fire recovery efforts following the Yellow Point Fire, an arson fire that burned hundreds of acres of private and public property in September of 2014. These two situations are simply not representative of Oregon's forests.
DUMBS deep underground military bases
The timber industry is not hiding anything from you, and Oregon's Forest Practice Act is not outdated. In fact, Oregon is a national leader in forest protection - we were the first state in the nation to develop a robust set of laws around forest management. In the four decades since the law was enacted, the rules have been updated dozens of times as science and field experience have improved the professional understanding of forest ecosystems and effective management practices. Many of those rules are aimed at protecting water quality, wildlife and fish habitat. Those rules are adaptive to developing scientific knowledge. In 2013, ODF found over 96% compliance with forest practice rules. Additionally, 60% of the acreage in Oregon is owned by the federal government, only about 30% is privately owned. Harvests from private land has remained stable over the last 30 years. In fact, in the Pacific Northwest, private forestland owners grow 42% more wood than they harvest.
The information you provided here is flat-out incorrect. The EPA and NOAA have ruled that Oregon’s state logging rules don’t do enough to protect fish habitat and drinking water in Oregon’s streams and rivers to comply with the Clean Water Act. Rules under the OFPA consistently fail to adequately address runoff from roads, potential damage from landslides, buffers for streams, and herbicide pollution. The Federal government has denied $1.2 million in funding because the State regularly fails to address these issues.
Rather misleading message here, almost 5.5 million acres of privately held commercial timber land in Oregon are NOT on a 30 to 40 year harvest rotation. That would make roughly 13 to 14 percent of all timber land in Oregon harvested in this fashion. (If the 4 million acre figure is correct). I'm not saying that's a good thing...
Smells like a propaganda video.
What lies
What - you got something against healthy forests, pure water and clean air?
Oregon is ugly anymore
I have Never cared to be in forests 🌳
This video is a f@#king joke!
^^ This comment is a joke.
Fucking mono crop tree farms!
That is not a forest but a gigantic bug and beattle farm covering most of the state