Dean Wampler:

> 1) He says that it was the old veteran loggers who first became concerned
> about newer logging practices after World War II. (I don't know exactly how
> practices changed; more clear cutting and less recovery management? ....)

Widespread introduction of the chainsaw, which greatly increased the
volume of harvest of big trees for reasons that is obvious anyone
who's ever tried out one of those big old two-person crosscut saws
you see hanging in museums. We had one at our place to cut rounds
of deadfall for splitting into firewood - had several doug firs for
this purpose after the Columbus Day Storm, a REAL storm for all you
weenies impressed by last December's. Believe me, those saws are hard
work and much, much slower than the chainsaw.

> 2) The biggest mistake made by the environmental movement, in his view, is that
> they did not court the rank-and-file loggers, who were at odds with the timber
> owners. Instead, the industry was able to convince its workers that
> environmentalists are yuppie scum who want to destroy their way of life.

Yes, there is a lot of truth in this and I think conservationists are at
least partially responsible. Check out the alliance with commercial
fishermen over salmon conservation, for instance.

> Food for thought, and future, corrective action.

The problem now is that conservation means fewer jobs today. At the
time your retired logger was speaking of, conservation meant a slower
pace of growth of the industry. A lot of mills got built in this
era, and a lot of small towns in the woods of Oregon had a lot of
new faces arrive from the piney forests of the Southeast United
States. Thus, conservation at the time wouldn't so directly
threatened those already here.

Remember that the 40s or 50s was when Georgia-Pacific (get the connection?)
moved their headquarters here. Now that their second-growth slash pine
cornrow forests have reached harvestable age in the Southeast, they've
moved their HQ back there...back and forth, back and forth, every
40 or 50 years.

Hindsight. Sigh.

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>