I received this message from Fish Alaska. What do you Alaska guys think about the issue?

http://www.americansalmonforest.org/take-action.html

America's Salmon Forest

KC

Preservation always bothers me. But then again I think some areas should remain roadless. And in Alaska should be ATVless for sure. They and the laziness or get a moose etc.. at any cost just bothers me. But I like peace and quiet. Never would hunt anything other than wilderness in CO after the first trip

rost:

For as long as I can remember, I have been a proponent of conservation (wise use) rather than preservation (no use). But clear cutting just seems to go too far. All over the states of Washington and Oregon there are clear cuts on private land owned by the big lumber companies. Ugly scars that are cleverly hidden just over the ridge, so that most people don't know that they exist.

My state of Colorado seems to be less eager to allow clear cuts. Yes there is an occasional clear cut but they are small, isolated and intended to create a meadow where none existied before. Most of the logging in Colorado is selective cutting which takes only the oldest trees and allows younger trees to thrive. Fire mitigation is also a part of the selective cutting here.

I hope that the Tongas and Chugas don't suffer the fate of Washington and Oregon.

All over the states of Washington and Oregon, there are huge forested areas that were once clear cuts.

All I can say is there is no food for the animals we desire in a forest.

Nature rebounds so easily.

Personally I'd worry much more about not allowing road/trail access after a cutting than the cutting itself.

Watching em roller chop large sections for grouse habitat I'm just always amazed how quickly nature revives herself.

Shut the [bleep] up.

Oregon has tree farms, mono-culture, everywhere there used to be a clearcut. Nothing grows on the ground in the shade of a tree farm.

I have been hearing saws and trees hitting the ground all hunting season. Lots of cutting going on right now.

boy howdy. Texan go home

I’ll never understand why people think like this. Alaska is the size of 4 western states. If you want to hike where there are no people just close your eyes and stick your finger on a map and go for it. But to say that people shouldn’t be able to use atv’s to access hundreds of sq miles of land because you don’t like atv’s blows my mind. Just don’t hike at trailheads that allow access to atv’s and you’ll never hear them. Hunting animals that are huge and saying that if you can’t backpack it out you aren’t a hunter is just [bleep] stupid. Especially when the animal will go bad or get eaten by predators before you can complete the job.

Access isn’t as tough to find here as Texas (95% private). It’s not hard to find area where you won’t bump into those ATV guys if you don’t want to bump into them. I don’t begrudge them for recreating how they wish to recreate.

To the OP- Those cuts recover faster than you think and properly cut they don’t bother those streams. I believe (obviously could be wrong) the stream issue came up in the past when the corporations cut all the way to the water.....I don’t believe that is kosher anymore.

Death by a thousand cuts.......that's what is happening to our public lands.

Logging if done properly can benefit more than hurt--but it is NEVER all or nothing. Problem is, rarely does the federal agencies require it be done properly. And it may not be cost effective for the private firm buying the timber sale if required to do it properly.

When forests grow back from logging--even select cuts--they grow back differently. Is that better or worse? Often we don't know because these things play out over centuries or millenniums.

The single biggest impact of logging?--the roads that are left when the loggers leave. Logging is a temporary impact, constant use of roads is permanent.

Not to mention even today most timber sales on federal lands are break even at best for the taxpayer, more often than not the taxpayer loses money. Nothing like the huge losses of the timber program during the Reagan/Watt/Hodel era, whose policies engendered such a backlash it effectively ended logging for large and mid size timber sales in the lower 48.

Biggest problem I see here? Well meaning but ignorant people from everywhere but Southeastern, telling the people in Southeastern how to manage their homeland. That includes the [bleep] Sierra Club and US Forest Service especially. On the Pacific Coast, including the Cascades, Sierras, Coast range, together they have ruined forest, soil stabilization, fisheries, diverse plant and animal species, and done more damage with the catastrophic fuel loads than nature EVER did. An inconvenient statistical fact is, clearcutting in areas that receive upwards of 50 inches of rain annually, enhances animal habitat and diversity of plant life. Good luck Alaskans, the life sciences professors that taught the global climate hoax are the ones now guiding policy in government and the Sierra Club, and the radical environmentalists have got their stooges in the 9th Circuit to enforce it.

Also, since you are going to advise Alaskans on how to manage their state...you may want to bone up on the names of the forests of concern. Tongass and Chugach will give your opinion more weight.

I'd much rather have Jeff here than WaddaDickHead, if she actually is a resident.

Is ironbender your grinder profile name? Hahahahaha. Lay that iron to Jeff!

If you look at the final approved plan, specific to the project, there’s been hearing after hearing, public input after public input and court case after court case. These logging projects have been reduced and reduced, studied and studied again.....to death. There’s a mixture of clear cutting in areas deemed best for clear cutting, selective logging in other portions, heli-logging and thinning in other areas. It’s also stipulated that the wood (all or a substantial portion) had to be milled locally.

Let it rot away or harvest a renewable resource? Logging can hopefully be a viable option for the local communities once again. Logging, when done responsibly, can be a long term, self-sustaining economic driver in areas with little economy. 👍

This is so much more complicated than a simple Hell Yes!!! or No Way!

And the Tongass and the Chugach are not even on the same planet in terms of logging prospects. In SE clearcuts work on paper and heal fairly fast. The wide range of trees popping up at their own speeds will do all sorts of things to accelerate healing (intentionally using terms designed to not trigger) and maximize returns.

The lack of diversity in the vast majority of the Chugach along with the far slower growth rates make it a horrible choice for clear cutting. Kodiak (Afognak) is an even worse example of truly bad clear cuts. And they are returning next to nothing on the timber.

I am 100% for logging, but there are too many places that have been hammered by irresponsible logging here.

Really? less than 3,000 miles of main roads in all of AK... By far the biggest state and and about #45 on the list of total roads and you want to squeeze off the whole frigging state to protect your ears? After bringing a POS airboat to AK? You do realize that strapping that thing to your ass makes you a FAR bigger noise-maker than any regular ATV, no? My personal experiences with airboats leaves me thinking you have some serious misconceptions of how Alaskans think about noise. I am just shaking my head at your comments...

True, but the farther north the clearcuts moved they always pointed to the areas south and how well and quickly they reprodded. And at each turn things slowed.

Most true forest in AK has deer in it. In areas like Kodiak and PWS the deer have very different dynamics in the different habitat types. In the old growth forest the deer do very especially when over-wintering, but the record books show very few seriously big deer in the old growth. In the more open country on Kodiak the deer do much better, size-wise and in productivity... in good years. A bad winter will set them way, way back.

When do "you" decide "we" have enough roads and make "us" stop accessing our land?

Alaska is about 5.5x the size of Colorado, yet you have 6x the road mileage. Why can you get to your lands and we cannot? Why not "let" us build an equal number of miles per square mile as Colorado before giving us garbage about your sensitivities?

I understand LWD and a few other forestry acronyms... I also have seen 30-year-old clearcuts that have NO reprod of any kind. The slash is hardly rotting away. The biodiversity runs mighty thin in the aftermath of a Sitka spruce monoculture clearcuut.

The issue isn’t the newer cuts. It’s second growth that has the canopy so thick that it doesn’t allow for good deer browse. Carrying capacity for second growth is 6-7 deer per sq mile. 16-20 for old growth.

Forest service has tried cutting mini clear cuts in second growth to try to increase deer population. I personally think they need a more aggressive thin at the right time.

Sitka and Alpine get it. And I didn't mean to come off all for cut and run policy. NOBODY knows everything about harvesting timber, fish, or animals. Unfortunately we learn by our mistakes. And some bad mistakes were made. I worked for Thorne Bay Logging, in SE back in the day, and we daily drove through clear cuts made in the '40's (spruce for aircraft?) and they were thick with reprod, recovering nicely. But who knows what damage we did to the salmon. Maybe it couldn't get any worse than the plunder of the salmon in the 1890's-1900's. As far as the Sitka Blacktail, I guess they predominantly feed in reprod, but they need old growth for hard winter survival, so you might surmise that a light checkerboard or strip clearcutting is the best of both worlds. Hopefully they have quit logging in the Chugach, smarter people than I (that ain't hard to find) finally figured it wasn't reproducing. In the early 70's I've seen the huge dock at Haines loaded with export cants, 30 acres?, stacked as high as a big forklift could reach. That can't be sustained.

Its pretty easy to see the economics of old growth logging don't add up anymore, those trees benefit a greater number of people and the ecosystem when left standing. But existing roads should be maintained for recreation access and second growth logging. Perhaps the greatest joke of all is native corporations raping and trashing their holdings and then being allowed to trade the feds for more land to do it all over again while leaving the mess of habitat restoration to the taxpayer.

You NAILED it.

In SE, yeah, it may be a heavy young canopy problem, but not on Afognak.

Another huge problem there is the lines drawn on a map to protect salmon streams. First puff of wind and the whole mess gets blown into the creek.

There was a crew doing just that a few years ago near where I was working. Spent at least 2 summers I was there working through the cuts doing selective thinning.

The less the roads the better the hunting, it's that simple. When the roads and human pressure--hunting or otherwise-- reduces or drives the critters out then they will blame the federal government for "mismanaging" the lands, and the state for "mismanaging" the wildlife. If there aren't enough roads for you in Alaska, we can do a property and residency swap as soon as you would like--then you can spend the rest of your life driving the Colorado back roads and trails, and probably wear out an ATV every couple years.

Spent three years of my life on the Uncompahgre and then the Montrose District BLM travel management plans dealing with the motorized vehicle crowd. I swear, if they couldn't drive to every friggin' tree on public land they would scream "You're denying us access!" If you let 'em, they would be driving up the steps on their ATV's and into the meeting room......

Remember that thing called "Seward's Folly"? Who paid for that in 1867? The hordes of Alaskans that were living there? Who bought and fought for most of the current federally owned public lands in the western U.S.?

Americans did--with their money and their blood. And it was almost EXCLUSIVELY the Americans "Back East", because there were almost no European-Americans living on those lands at the time.

I'm the first one to say states should have a fair amount of influence in what takes place on federal lands located within their borders. I'm the first to bioitch about the Yuppie Snowflake invasion that is happening throughout the intermountain west. But all federally owned public lands belong to all Americans. Period.

I knew it; an office boy

try not to be a dumbazz tonight

So road density in your state is roughly 33 times AK's road density and you think it would be wrong for us to poke some long roads out there? Stuff that would not come close to putting us within an order of magnitude of CO's road density. Get real...

As to monies paid for AK you may want to look a bit shorter term. Back a century or so ago the federal government had a thriving industry in AK with fur seals, making far more just on seal skins than we paid for the State. There are a number of gold mines which individually made more money than the cost... and yes, the Feds get a small piece of mining.

How about WWII? Thinking AK had a lot to do with our success...

Then there are those little oilfields all over the place which the Feds have made billions of dollars on. From Katalla with its Wire-wrapped wooden pipe all the way through many parts of Alaska and finally to Prudhoe Bay and ANWR... oh wait, we have not been able to access the oil because of people outside AK that believe we should not be able to build roads or develop our own lands and resources. AK actually sends more money to Federal coffers than we take in and by a considerable margin.

If I promise to NGAF what you do to CO, how about you promising to leave AK alone?

Tell us of your extensive degree, post some certificates of training, list awards, and post picture of desk and chair.

And speaking of Katalla, I believe it was doing mostly fine until Taft decided to shut it down to further development in 1910 (the year Anchorage was founded) which was one of the many reasons Teddy got pissed at his hand-picked successor.

Spot on!

+2

I"m still learning, you'll have to give me that. But where I see ATV access, it gets worse and worse. Trails get closer and closer until you can almost wave at each other as they pass. Where we used to walk in and never see or barely hear, it looks more like a checkerboard

But trust me I'm working my way away from those areas.

And I constantly forget that folks are out there getting their meat, not hunting, so don't care about the experience. Sarcasm still says you know that spike fork is so cheap to harvest... LOL.

Anyway I can't help but learn as I go.

But then again I see quite a bit of AK, and find that anywhere a decent size plane can land these days ATVs are all over the place.

I should just get used to progress. And be thankful I"m even allowed to play in AK.

Maybe one of these days my opinions will be correct.

And I hear you on size and packing. limits how far we'll hike on moose for sure.

+1, I have seen the devastating effects of clear cuts in Canada. That's part of the reason for the Quebec-Labrador Caribou crash ( big drop in winter food source, easier road access etc) and now the hunting is closed. Plus, no matter how you cut it, streams and rivers are affected and I have seen fishing completely end on some lakes and streams, taking decades to recover, if ever....

You do realize that forcing everybody to use the few trails available forces everybody into very small areas and leads to exactly what you seem to dislike... what about spreading them out a bit? A single road through the Alaska Range from Talkeetna, say to Dillingham would be a great start...

Someone’s drinking earlier than normal. The guys at the fly shop are right. You’re [bleep] crazy.

If the decision is made to log it should be with the provision that any timber sale must be made at a net profit to we owners. To subsidize on any level is pure corporate welfare.

I think we need a few nuclear power plants spread out around the state to help these people from the lesser 48 that want to bring their misguided ideas to settle our state. I don't care if they f***up their own state, just leave us alone!

Clear cutting followed with some proven reclamation efforts can be just fine and provide forage/diversity etc in expansive and heavily canopied landscapes. Western Oregon's black tail deer and elk hunting has fallen off considerably with the reductions in cuts over the last couple decades. They can also become enduring and devastated, impassible, slash covered sites with soil slips and serious erosion issues if not properly engineered and reclaimed. Nothing wrong at all if interested parties keep an eye on things and insist on proper management.

Same applies for landscape level wildfires, as they generate large even age stands as well. With some species Mother Nature comes through with near instantaneous regeneration on her own (like lodge pole pine around here). Ponderosa pine, however, might need some replanting for a quick start. Not too familiar though with the boreal forest species up there.

As a grouse hunter and sometimes deer hunter anymore I don't mind checkerboard clear cutting. It opens sterile forest to become wildlife-thriving areas full of forbs, grasses, and shrubs for feed. The un-logged adjacent areas provide essential cover.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Which is why you're such a dumbazz........

Art,
Roads hurt hunting more than help it in the long run.

Federal land is federal land--everybody gets a say. That's like saying only the residents in San Diego can say how to operate the USS Reagan. Or only the residents in Anchorage can dictate deployment and operations at Elmendorf--which is where I was stationed in the late 70's before most of the "Alaskans" on this thread moved to the Great White North.

Speaking in absolutes is absolutely wrong.

The Federal gov promised to turn over many millions of acres to the State under the 1959 Statehood compact. They have given us a tiny fraction of that land. They allowed Native groups to cut the heart out of the promised land and the State still has not gotten much. They allowed the largest conversion of Federal lands to Parks and untouchable units before we got lands promised decades earlier. There is zero reason to allow others to tell us how to manage State lands and until we get our promised lands.

Like it or not, being unable to access AK without significant expense, risk, time investment, and effort has left us chewing up a fair amount of AK by overuse while vast tracts see virtually no use. It is absolutely a quality issue and we do not care how it is done outside.

Log Colorado first, then we'll worry about AK.

W4B must be a tree planter. no wonder he's grumpy, his back hurts!

Earth 1st ..we will clear cut the other planets later!

That was mean.

I just meant the federal lands in Colorado. We all get a vote.

And mostly I'm just messing with alpine as I know he means well and we just disagree on this point. I also get it, that it is flip-flopped from most places.

You're so sensitive these days.

That was much better. Kind and compassionate.

Both of ya GFY.

That's more like what I've come to expect from you Alaska assh*les.

Too much kindness might cause a disruption in the space/time continuum.

I was being sarcastic, ya jackwagon!

I knew the guy who started that bumper sticker in the 80’s—I still have one.
And I don’t care who you are, it is funny......

I saw the last part of your post first hand, I cut timber on Long Island in 1989.

Jackwagon?? Is that an Alaskan colloquialism? (you can look that up on google, I checked)