As with so many political arguments these days, there is a middle ground in the dispute as to whether to log state forests. I am not a forester. But for many years and hundreds of hours, I have wandered through the forests of Conway looking for the elusive Conway moose. Off trail in all corners of town, on state land and private, I have reveled in the peace and beauty our forests offer.
As is true in most of New England, the forests are not old growth. Pictures of our town from the turn of the 20th century reveal that most of the land was cleared for crops and grazing. So, in forest years, our woods are young. Some of the glades I wander through are wonderfully rich and diverse, with a great variety of trees — oak, maple, cherry, black birch, beech, ash, shag bark hickory and many more.
And the undergrowth is very much alive with ferns, mountain laurel, trillium, shrubs and many saplings. But acres upon acres of land in the state forests are monoculture; only sickly and dying Scotch pine that were planted in the 1930s and 40s to prevent soil erosion grow there. The undergrowth is remarkably devoid of plant life. These are not healthy ecosystems.
In my moose walks, I wander through glades that have been logged over the years and through large swaths of forest that were flattened by the 2017 tornado.
In areas that were logged responsibly, where the loggers or storm left healthy seed trees of many varieties, I am struck at how quickly the forest revives. And, yes, there are areas that seem to have been logged less responsibly, where fewer healthy seed trees are left, where the forest does not grow back as quickly.
The middle ground answer to the logging issue is neither to allow unfettered logging, nor is it to suspend all logging. The answer is to ensure that logging is done responsibly, focusing on those parts of the forest that are less healthy and varied with practices that foster quick and diverse regrowth.
What about the argument that logging must be curtailed so that the forests can continue to extract carbon from the atmosphere?
Again, there is a middle ground answer. Sure, if you strip log all the forests with little regard to regrowth and burn all the lumber, the result would be a great reduction in sequestered carbon. But when the lumber is used in construction, its carbon remains sequestered for perhaps hundreds of years. (Check out the frame of a house built in 1900. It is likely made of American Chestnut and holds infinitely more carbon than is extant in the trees that died from chestnut blight.)
Those of us who want our environment to be protected have argued for years that jobs in extractive industries such as mining or oil and gas drilling should be replaced with jobs in industries that are sustainable, like working in responsibly run wood industries. And when wood products replace concrete and steel, both of which have a very heavy carbon footprint, the result is a major plus both in terms of jobs and the environment.
Our media outlets, especially social media, like to push us toward extreme views where there is a clear right and wrong, good and evil. But economies and environments and cultures aren’t so starkly defined; they are more nuanced than we are pushed to believe. Answers to difficult questions often require reflection through a wider lens. This is true on a global scale and it is true in our backyards when we consider whether to log or not.
Peter Rosnick lives in Conway.