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View Full Version : Movement underway to sell the National Forest land



oldwetherman
07-01-2016, 17:50
Worrisome article that I just came across elsewhere.
http://www.outsideonline.com/2093281/great-public-land-heist-has-begun

Rain Man
07-01-2016, 21:35
Yep, the corporate welfare aspect isn't even disguised this time.


“This bill directs the Department of Agriculture, through the Forest Service, to convey to a state up to 2 million acres of eligible portions of the National Forest System (NFS) in it that it elects to acquire through enactment by the state legislature of a bill meeting certain criteria. Portions of the NFS conveyed to a state shall be administered and managed primarily for timber production.”

Slo-go'en
07-02-2016, 10:13
The National Forest Service is already mostly a timber management outfit. Why would any state want to take on this responsibility and expense when the feds do it for them? The way the game is rigged, it's a money loosing proposition.

More troubling is the attempt to allow commercial resource extraction on National Park land.

sfdoc
07-02-2016, 10:43
Like we can't destroy the planet fast enough. I guess the rich aren't rich enough. Greed is a poor man's 4 letter word. Privatize! Privatize! Privatize!

Connie
07-02-2016, 10:48
..defile the land.

Nice quotation in that signature.

We have some channel material, replacing 2x4's in construction. There is truly (no lie) sustainable renewable bamboo laminate for structural beams.

Our forests should be forests, helpfully "managed" only for forest health, for example, by allowing firewoid permits again. That thinned smaller diameter trees, not too many and not too few, so forest fires were less frequent and did not burn as hot, as with recent federal "know-it-all" policies.

Connie
07-02-2016, 11:01
We need the oxygen produced by trees and grasslands more than the lumber industry needs jobs, in fact, those jobs should be fazed out.

Yes, I have lived in Washington State, where the local lumber industry employees were the worst villians in the community. Whose kid was that? Which brother raped that schoolgirl?

Bah! Lumber industry.

That "family" were the "poster-child" limber industry family.

Who starts the fires next to Glacier Natuonal Park, to sell the lumber? The "timber cruzer" said so.

If you think the "lumber industry" in this country does anything "sustainably" look at the "stump city" too near the road in Western Washington near Hoquiam, Washington. Look at all of Western Washington state from the air: look at the heavy foliage small diameter trees, not worth lumber cutting - fence posts only, after 50-years.

When cutting, look at Reedsport, Oregon huge Export, and one tiny Domestic shed. Even Portand, Oregon route out to Astoria, Oregon had that. The trees leave this country.

Look at the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, in Oregon, for cloned trees - good only for packing ceates.

I met the man that made the "folksy" film for one man, one man, a German, responsible for clear-cutting the rainforest.

Venchka
07-02-2016, 15:34
I'm all for grinding up all of the bamboo in North America. Insidious, ugly invasive nuisance plant.
What we need is the carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by plants. The oxygen is a bonus.
Wayne


Old. Slow. "Smarter than the average bear."

w8xdr
07-02-2016, 17:24
By attempting to push the land onto the states whom are not able to manage it, the land could eventually end up in the hands of private interests. Seems like just another avenue for the global elites to keep people away from the rural and stuck in large metro areas where they can monitor and control every aspect of our lives... Sustainable Development, baby! Gotta love it.

Dogwood
07-02-2016, 17:27
First I've ever heard of bamboo in its many forms from a 1 ft high stabilizing beautiful variegated ground cover to strong sustainable 60+ building/scaffolding timber refereed to as "ugly." Not all bamboo is of the running type. Some clumps slowly spreading to a sometimes max diameter so not all bamboo is invasive. Even with the most invasive running types a restraining barrier such as a 55gal cylinder, AL sheet metal flashing, etc can be sunk in the soil to hold it from being highly invasive. Might have to check for any wayward runners attempting to jump the edge of the barrier but it's not at all hard restraining it IF such a plan is set in place before running bamboo gets planted.

Dogwood
07-02-2016, 17:29
Dept of Forestry has long been infiltrated by lumber interest. Dept of Forestry is about managing the forests which in practice is not always equitable with conservation.

Venchka
07-02-2016, 17:56
First I've ever heard of bamboo in its many forms from a 1 ft high stabilizing beautiful variegated ground cover to strong sustainable 60+ building/scaffolding timber refereed to as "ugly." Not all bamboo is of the running type. Some clumps slowly spreading to a sometimes max diameter so not all bamboo is invasive. Even with the most invasive running types a restraining barrier such as a 55gal cylinder, AL sheet metal flashing, etc can be sunk in the soil to hold it from being highly invasive. Might have to check for any wayward runners attempting to jump the edge of the barrier but it's not at all hard restraining it IF such a plan is set in place before running bamboo gets planted.
You, of all people, should be aware of the use of bamboo in urban environments as instant screens. Bamboo, water hyacinth, kudzu and banana trees have no place in the U.S.A. & Canada.
I am invasive plants intolerant.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
[/RANT]

FreeGoldRush
07-02-2016, 18:57
We have some channel material, replacing 2x4's in construction. There is truly (no lie) sustainable renewable bamboo laminate for structural beams.

2x4s come almost exclusively from private timberland where pine is planted for the purpose of being cut and sold 20 years later. Substituting a different building material simply means that fewer pines will be planted. Land owners might use that land to grow how instead. Or put cows on. You certainly cannot impact the Forestry Service's destruction of public lands by avoiding 2x4s.

RockDoc
07-02-2016, 20:11
says the hypocritical customers of the timber industry... who pay them to do what they do in accordance with all laws.

"Bah! Lumber industry."

Hey I know, why don't you attack people who exhale carbon dioxide as evil and destroying the planet too. Oh, wait!..

Venchka
07-02-2016, 20:36
says the hypocritical customers of the timber industry... who pay them to do what they do in accordance with all laws.

"Bah! Lumber industry."

Hey I know, why don't you attack people who exhale carbon dioxide as evil and destroying the planet too. Oh, wait!..


Population growth is curiously absent from the list of plagues ruining the planet. Hmmmmmm
Wayne


Old. Slow. "Smarter than the average bear."

Uriah
07-02-2016, 21:56
Population growth is curiously absent from the list of plagues ruining the planet.

The planet won't be ruined. Not by man, anyway. It is, as Carlin states, a self-correcting mechanism. It's been around a lot longer than us, and will continue to be.

But it's hard not to agree with the overall sentiment that it is we humans who inflict the suffering (just not on the planet itself, but rather its inhabitants) and shall suffer because of it. Especially when there's more of us with each year.

Bronk
07-03-2016, 11:51
Many times land in private ownership is managed much better than what the federal government does. The Department of Conservation in Missouri is often criticized for its timber practices that are aimed not at conservation but at profit for the agency. When they won a 100 million award from damage caused by a mining company they didn't spend the money restoring the land, they used it to buy more land and build a new state park. While I enjoy using federal and state lands, I often wonder if they would be better managed in private hands.

Uriah
07-03-2016, 12:18
While I enjoy using federal and state lands, I often wonder if they would be better managed in private hands.

We don't wonder that here in Utah much. History has proven that while the Feds have preserved vast tracts of land, the state continually aims to "explore and utilize" that land. "Jobs are created!" they tell us (failing to mention that most these jobs are filled by large companies headquartered outside the state and by outsiders who follow the jobs, only to spend elsewhere). 'Environmental protection' and 'economy' are very nearly mutually exclusive, but feasibility studies show that the federal parks (and national rec areas and national monuments) can do both, and far better than the states have historically managed. Our country can continue to operate in the red without difficulty (many countries do, and the US is still one of the wealthiest), but at the state level, it's not so much the case. Oil or timber (et al) companies stand close by, ready to pounce.

I don't trust the federal government much, but it tends to do well with parks*, which is why during almost every presidential stint, we tend to have another park or two added to the collection (regardless of the incumbent's political affiliation).

*Forest Service lands, not so much.

Connie
07-03-2016, 12:29
I think we should purchase more bamboo products from China, our trading partners.

I never liked trusses for construction, thrown together with brackets, and usually covered up.

In contrast, bamboo laminated beams are beautiful.

I have seen thin sheets of bamboo laminated to wallboard, I suppose. Beautiful.

I have seen bamboo flooring. It is very beautiful. I have no experience if it wears well.

We should purchase more bamboo products to get a better price.

Maybe we could bring in the materials and have jobs to produce finished products here.

Another Kevin
07-04-2016, 22:41
Send that National Forest land to New York, we don't have any. Then again, there's a reason for that. Our state land enjoys a higher level of protection.


The lands of the State, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the Forest Preserve as now fixed by Law, shall be forever kept as wild Forest Lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any Corporation, public or private, nor shall the Timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.
--New York State Constitution, article 14.

It's had pages and pages of trvial amendments (like damming the reservoirs for New York City, allowing Interstate 87 to be built, allowing the Lake Placid Olympics, and so on...) but the gist has stood since 1894, despite repeated moves to privatize. Every amendment allowing the exchange of land has resulted in more than an equal amount and quality being added to the Forest Preserve.

The Forest Preserve, if memory serves, is now larger than the State of Massachusetts.

A shame that the rest of the country couldn't have arranged for constitutional protection of wilderness.