In producing this calendar I have examined and photographed in 30 national forests, 11 private timberlands, numerous BLM forests and state forestlands in 5 states. The amount of our forests is unbelievable. In the last 2 years I’ve taken 6,000 photographs and covered over 80,000 miles photographing and observing old-growth, second growth, national parks and managed forests. I’m awe-struck. I once believed that we were in danger of losing all of our old-growth to timber harvesting and that the spotted owl was in danger of extinction. After photographing old-growth in almost every forest I have visited, and personally photographing 206 spotted owls, all in second growth, I’m convinced that neither is in any danger from man.

The extent of our forests is so vast that it is mind boggling. I have photographed everything from new seedlings in a managed forest to old-growth redwoods 4,000 years old. The thing is... it’s all there. There is over 40 million acres in the 5-State Northwest which are currently protected and have been withdrawn from a productive timber base. These belong to national and state parks, Wilderness designated areas and other “preserves” including wildlife “set-asides”. Within these protected areas are also millions of acres of old-growth that will never be logged.

It sometimes is hard to imagine the vastness of a million acres. Let me try to put that into some sort of perspective. If you wanted to cover a million acres of our western forests on foot and really cover the forest, literally touch every square foot of it, how long would that take? Well, if you could average 10 miles a day, going cross-country as Lewis and Clark did, not following trails or roads, but ‘bushwhacking’ and climbing mountains, fording streams and rivers, crawling over fallen logs, etc., it would take you 825,000 days or 2,260 years to really see that one million acres. It’s an incredible amount of forest. (If you started today, you’d be done in the year 4252.)

The irony is that all of our “protected” forests, i.e., national parks, Wilderness lands etc., are really not protected at all; forest fires are allowed to burn out-of-control and disease and insect infestation are allowed to damage or destroy the forest. The philosophy practiced is that of non-management. In other words the “Let-it-burn because it’s natural” philosophy, which is born of the environmental-preservationist movement. Unfortunately, this philosophy has almost cost us our premier national park Yellowstone, in the fires of ’88. It is also responsible for the elimination of a wide variety of species, competitive with other species within the park boundaries; the grizzly is gone, the black bear, the mountain lion, the wolf, the beaver, the black-tailed deer, the bighorn sheep and numerous others.

Locking-up any more natural resources really only means the destruction of a well designed management plan to sustain their healthy environment and their multiple-use characteristics for our enjoyment and the greatest majority of wildlife. We will lose all that we are trying to protect.

Managing our forests, on the other hand, provides for it all. It allows for old-growth, for wildlife, for wood products, healthy forests and for jobs. Let’s keep responsibility in our forests and manage for the greatest benefit to our forests, not just selected single species.

Enjoy our FORESTS - Our Renewable Resource.