Over the last five years, I have set about seeking the truth to many questions raised by the media and environmental groups with regard to the ways in which our forestlands are being managed. In my search for the ‘truth’, I have photographically covered 5 western states and literally thousands of miles of forest roads both in our public forests and on private timberlands. I have photographed everything from new harvested units and the subsequent new ‘regenerated’ growth, to ancient forests thousands of years old and everything in between. But mostly, everything in between. You see, most of our forests always were in the ‘in-between’. Our forests were never all old-growth or ‘ancient’ forests. Massive fires, caused naturally or intentionally set by Indians, burned millions upon millions of acres each year. And these fires were not always the light-forest cleansing type. Those who study forest ecology and fire history will explain how each forest has been affected over the centuries. Indeed, some forests were sparred with each fire, and developed into old-growth, however this could have been anything from luck, to it’s specific geographic protection.

My point is that our forests are always in some form of dynamic change. This can be evidenced by the photos which appear in this calendar. In each of these photos over the course of recent history, (some as little as 60 years ago), these forests were impacted heavily by fire or were logged extensively by early settlers and never replanted. Yet look at them now as second and third growth.

What is unique, is that through proper forest management, we have learned how to speed up the process and return a forest to a healthy, productive environment in a relatively short period of time, where on it’s own, it may have taken hundreds of years. The only problem with waiting for nature, is that we no longer have the luxury of an inexhaustible space, the planet. The human population presently at about 5.5 billion, is growing at an exponential rate, and is expected to double in the next 50-70 years. Questions begin to arise to the forward thinker. What will this mean to our children and our grand children? That isn’t that far off. How will they be able to feed and house themselves, particularly if we don’t intelligently manage our resources now?

In this country we build almost 80% of all homes with wood from trees in our forests. Is that bad? No, it’s good! Why? Look at these photos again. Almost all of these forests have grown back in a short period of time. Why? Because we have managed them with proper forestry science. Not emotionalized agendas, but tried and tested, proven methods for maintaining healthy, thriving forests eco-systems. Only by continuing to ‘manage’ our forests, will it be possible to meet the demands of our children and the world to come. And the beauty is, that of all the materials in the world, the only one that is renewable is wood from trees. Concrete isn’t... steel isn’t... oil isn’t! Only trees are renewable. We can regrow even more trees than we use. As a matter of fact, that’s just what we’ve been doing. U.S. wood producers plant an average of 5 new trees for every one harvested. Because of this fact, we have actually improved the amount of wood fiber growing and have achieved ‘sustained yield’ years ago (growing more wood than we use).

The problem we face now is that of making intelligent choices about our future. Does it make sense to rely more on non-renewable resources like steel or oil (plastic) or to make more use of renewable resources like wood? And if it makes sense to use wood, then would it follow that we should be managing our forests to provide for the greatest majority of benefits to all concerned?

Environmentally... think globally, act locally... this makes perfect sense!