[PACrofter]

@Carl Russell 100 wrote:

Manage your use, not the forest. If your various uses are part of a normal complex of interrelationships then there will be minimal impact on the forest ecosystem. Only by allowing the forest to be what it is, or is going to be, will you be able to have a sustainable use of that forest. Carl

Huh? If your goal is ‘minimal impact’, then there is no ‘forestry’, sustainable or otherwise. How do you define ‘sustainable use’ if you’re aiming for ‘minimal impact’? The only way to reconcile those two concepts is to envision you tiptoeing through the forest picking up odd bits of dead wood and – maybe – fallen acorns. Taking down a tree for any reason is incompatible with minimal impact; even removing a tree that blew down in a hurricane is *not* minimal impact. After all, that wood would otherwise rot down into food for many animal and plant species if you left it in place.

The approach I described balances (a) allowing the forest to do what it does, with (b) ‘using’ the forest for my needs. I could, like so many others do, come in and clear cut the forest for a one-time timber harvest, and then let it sit there and regenerate over the next 80+ years, but that’s not what I described. My intention is to gradually change the balance of species and the spacing of plants to provide benefits to not just me but other species as well. The forest will become more of an edge habitat than the overgrown jungle it is now, and edge habitats have been shown to be more productive (read: home to more biological activity) than either prairies or dense forests.

Moreover, the uses to which I intend to put the little corner of forest over which I have stewardship *will* be sustainable. I will demonstrate over time that landowners have alternatives to clear-cutting when they strive to figure out how to make a living from their patch of land. This lesson will benefit not only my forest but the forests of others; how can that not be sustainable?
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Ford aerostar history

[PACrofter]

One way to help mitigate these risks is to use the woodlot for something else while the trees are growing to harvestable size.

I bought 50 acres earlier this year and I’m planning on thinning the trees to allow grass to grow underneath and then grazing livestock there. I figure if I manage the tree species to provide mast for pigs and manage the spacing to allow grass for cattle or sheep that I’ll be getting a two-fer or three-fer. And, if I can get maple syrup or timber at the same time, then so much the better. The thinnings should provide firewood, too.

Maybe it’s a five-fer if I can manage it properly?
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MERCEDES-BENZ W164 HISTORY

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