To All Who Try To Sell Others On The Idea Of Sustainable Farming, Forestry.

From the perspective or viewpoint of someone that works in the educational field it is important to educate folks in what we see as being better. That will include expanding the vocabulary of many folks and hopefully expanding their view of what we see as beneficial or not. That is just the nature of education, learning things you didn’t know before. I personally think that is one of the most interesting and rewarding aspects about this lifestyle – one continues to learn…

On the contrary, keeping things simple and not deep is part of keeping things going just like they have been and the result of that are obvious to anyone really looking at the reality of farming or forestry. Sound bites and short cuts usually come up short. So it is hard to teach and make things real simple at the same time. Life is complex. If someone uses words you don’t understand or recognize just look them up in a dictionary. I find that when I go to that trouble I am more likely to remember what the word meant the next time I see it.

Public education is a very important part of what we do. Not that we want to imply or even think that people are dumb, people are not generally dumb. But teaching a new perspective or view of things may require introducing new terms or words as part of the process.

But in reality it is like we say all the time. We think we know the secret to being sustainable…. and the secret is that there is no secret, just hard work investing in the future with all our activities be it in the field or the forest.

Being sustainable is not the easy way, if it were – everyone would already be doing it…. I suspect nobody really knows what is truly sustainable, but many have good ideas and proven records and experience.

It’s like a line in a song we sing around here, “it makes sense that it is the hard way, because it is hard to be sensitive”- from Red Hoss Log, second verse, always used as the closing music on our DVD’s.

That’s my two cents worth that is free, but hopefully priceless…and not worthless.

I think it is important to think critically and analytically, always ask questions, there are on dumb questions, but often dumb answers…. so make anyone that writes/says something you don’t understand, to explain it further, in detail and if it doesn’t make sense to you, ask them to give references to their opinions and positions… and do the homework/research which is how we all may educate ourselves.

Don’t take anyone’s opinion for granted. Don’t worship so called hero’s because the real hero’s don’t want or need to be worshiped. Be yourself and enjoy your own uniqueness and perspective. Get information from as many sources as possible.

Sincerely,

As most have probably gathered by now, my interests as they relate to this forum are pretty much limited to draft animals, specifically horses, and sustainable forestry/utilization.

With that in mind, when I fully engage in a post, it is usually with folks that practice forestry and are familiar with the terminology. To explain something like “utilizing an uneven-aged silvicultural prescription” would take at least a couple of long paragraphs to do it right. That could create a post that is extremely long every time one was written. I do not have the energy or desire to do that. Any trade or profession has its specific terms to describe day-to-day activities. You understand draft powered terminology, correct? Imagine responding on every post every term used. Could get pretty long, eh?

If you have a specific question for a specific term, its simple, ask. No one is going to lambast you for asking, to the contrary, it should be encouraged within reason. That my friend, is the process of education.

Perhaps starting individual threads for terminology in the category Carl started a while back would be good. That is if folks have time to contribute to it.

Sit back, listen & learn. You will be surprised what you pick up after reading the posts after a period of time.

I voted on the poll. Absolutely no secret as to how I voted…

Bumpus and any net surfing Lurkers, (hopefully forest landowners or perspective practitioners of restorative forestry)

Here is an attempt to answer some of your questions. Since we have met in the past and you are familiar with the work we do from visiting our farm and forests several years ago, here is how we describe it as beneficial to practice restorative forestry.

The best analogy or comparison is in the paper we have on the HHFF site under the title of: Forestland – A Natural Capital System.

http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org/docs/ForestlandCapitalSystem.doc

This is simply a common sense comparison of a forest with a stock portfolio, with each individual tree being a stock that one is invested in, owns and depends on for future generation of profit or wealth.

Now – first it is understood that privately owned forestland is the property of that owner and they have the inherent right to do with it as they see fit, within common values that forestland holds for the common good or water quality for instance and the use of “best management practices” often required by many states to keep loggers from lowering water quality by their practices.

That being said means that we understand that grandma may be in the hospital and needs allot of money fast, so a heavy harvest of the family woodlot may be the only source of that larger income available to the family.
We understand that reality beyond our advice to be restorative or leaving the best trees for the future. This is why we have a clause in our management agreement that requires that we are given the “first right of refusal” on subsequent or the next harvest. We feel that if a high grade or a clear cut is (determined by the landowner) to be applied on a site we have left the best trees to grow faster, then we should get the benefit of the value “cashed in” from this next harvest. As long as we would give as much for it as a conventional logger then we will do the work and despite it not being our choice of the best management, we want to keep it open to gain from our work and to leave the forest better from our techniques when/if liquidating the stand. In other words if you are going to high grade or clear cut the animals still do a superior job compared to machinery considering the residual condition of the site, including unmarketable trees and soil.

What it comes down to is that the biggest healthy trees are making more money than any other trees and those are the ones to protect and enhance through culture treatment and techniques. So if is a matter of need of income that would determine if anyone takes the long term view and that of leaving a legacy of a continual income producing piece of land or one that will have little value as a forest in the near future. Once a piece has been high graded or clear cut it is indeed in line to be developed for lots and houses as the next way to getting money out of the land. That is the common way most land is conventionally managed. There are all sorts of numbers on how much acreage we lose to development yearly…lots…indeed.

The “sustainable” idea is that folks can get by on a steady smaller stream of income while leaving the forest to increase in value with time. Our approach does allow some wood to be cut every so often on a shorter harvest rotation than high grading or clear cutting or liquidation of the natural capital system that gains value in it’s biological presence. In other words get some money every ten years or all the money once in a lifetime.

This is a very complex subject and maybe this post will grow from others contributions. So I am going to let it be at this for now and see if you have any further questions after reading the link information.

I will say that there are negative results to modern high grading and clear cutting that are not a part of the results from these practices in the past.
In particularly the presence of alien invasive botanicals that are so aggressive that the forest may never regenerate itself again if all the biggest trees are taken at once or the entire forest is removed. This is not information that is part of conventional forestry methods that are being “sold” by public foresters or industrial foresters. It is simply the truth as we experience it in our area.

It is also something to think about as an ethic or principle of doing “good work”. “Good” meaning that the natural resource is not lowered in value from any treatment. That ethic of stewardship or a determination to leave a place better than we found it is not commonly held in our modern world. That is a sorely missing part of modern life. It is the source of human dignity for many that do this work of restorative forestry and also a clear economic strategy
for sound culture that leaves an improving condition for a living system in the future.

Yep, you are right, if you only cut the veneer candidates and big trees, I would call you a high grader.

High grading is the primary reason that conventional foresters prescribe even aged management or clear cutting to cut it all down and let it start over to give fair advantage to shade intolerant species. I reject this notion based on many years experience or regenerating shade intolerant species through single tree selection methods.

Clear cutting speaks for itself. I hear it all the time, “we will just cut those big ones and let the little ones have room to grow”. The fallacy in that reasoning is that the big ones and little ones are often the same ages, so the little ones are little for a reason and don’t always respond to release and in the meantime the heavy disturbance provides an opportunity for disturbance dependent invasive botanicals to get started or shade tolerant species to become dominant in the future forest.

So, that is part of what we think about this and we will see what anyone else says.

Sincerely,

I understand where Bumpus is coming from, being a simple rancher (some would say very simple!) I read some of Jason and Carl’s posts and scratch my head and reread parts. Generally I can muddle through it though.
What I have done in the past when we were onto something I couldn’t dig out of my thesaurus, was send a message to whoever made the posts to get some clarifications. Everyone has been very patient with me there.
Being a small rancher in Wyoming, I’m far removed from most of you folks and your hardwoods. So it’s all new to me anyway. Also very little actual farming here. Pretty much grow grass and run it through a cow.
In the long run, I have to say I really do enjoy reading these guys even when they get a little ‘wordy’. I like to exercise my brain a little and maybe expand my vocabulary.
Another aspect that has surprised me was the horsemen (and mulemen) that we have on this board. Watching and listening to some of these guys has been an eyeopener for this cowboy. There’s some good ‘cowboys’ all over the place. By cowboys I mean people who use and ‘savvy’ horses (or mules).