Word: timbers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Many Americans believe these lands are all included in the national parks, and that the U.S. Forest Service is a gentle custodian of the woodlands. Except in certain protected wilderness areas, that is not so. The Forest Service and BLM, which oversee the public lands, are empowered to sell timber rights to the highest bidder, and sell they have -- a staggering 5 billion board feet a year, sweeping away 70,000 acres of old- growth forest annually. What is grown in its stead is not forest but "fiber," as the timber industry refers to wood...
Though the timber industry has zealously replanted over the past two decades, the hallmark of old growth, biodiversity, has been lost. Gone are the broken-topped dead trees or "snags" favored by owl, osprey and pileated woodpecker. Gone the multilayered canopies and rich understory, the scattering of hemlock, incense cedar and sugar pine. Gone the centuries-old firs in their noble dotage. Increasingly, the forests have been transmogrified into tree farms of numbing uniformity, countless ankle-high seedlings and spindly saplings germinated from seeds selected for their productive capacity. The logging operations have tattered the seamless fabric of old growth...
...ancient forest that once covered the Northwest remains. From Alaska to British Columbia to Oregon, forests that predate the 13 Colonies are being sacrificed for plywood, planks and pulp. The rapidity with which these primeval stands are being cut down has driven a handful of environmental extremists to sabotage timber-industry equipment, tie themselves to trees slated for harvesting and booby-trap trees with buried spikes that can mangle saws or injure unwary cutters...
...this bewilders timber-industry leaders, who say there are plenty of owls, plus abundant old-growth stands set aside in wilderness areas, that are safe from the saw. In Oregon about half the state's estimated 3 million acres of old growth cannot be logged because it is unsuitable or designated as wilderness. But that leaves 1.5 million acres of old growth that can be cut. Some of these areas contain no owls and are not likely to be protected...
...understand what is at stake in human terms, it helps to visit a community that depends on timber for its existence. Take Oregon's Douglas County, which, like the fir, is named for the Scottish botanist David Douglas. Oregon produces more lumber than any other state, and Douglas County boasts that it is the timber capital of the world. It stretches from the Cascades in the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. There one can tune in to Timber Radio KTBR, feel the roads tremble beneath logging trucks and watch children use Lego sets to haul sticks...