WHAT ARE the REASONS to not harvest a dieing FOREST?

Question

WHAT ARE the REASONS to not harvest a dieing FOREST?

Answer 1

Well - I think you're defining the question wrong.

A lot of timber companies who are making money from cutting down "Old Growth" forests in the US will make the case that "hey, these trees are dying, so why shouldn't we be allowed to cut them down?  Not to cut them down is just pure waste."

And this literally confuses the "forest for the trees."

In natural Old Growth forests, where individual trees may live to be 500 years to 1100 years old or even older, a very complex ecosystem develops in which dead and dying trees are mixed in with living ones.  

The FOREST is healthy, and the FOREST provides natural habitats for a much greater diversity of plants and animals than you would see, say, in a "managed forest" where trees are only allowed to grow to 100 years old, or even less, before they're cut down for timber.

But within the FOREST, which is healthy and biologically rich, there will be individual trees that are completely dead or that are dying from insect infestations, disease, lightning strikes, etc.

Those dead and dying trees, however, will have holes and hollows inside them that provide homes for birds, squirrels and other mammals.  The rotting stumps and rotting trunks that are lying along the ground probably will provide homes for various kinds of frogs and salamanders, too.  

Some of the fungus growths that appear on the sides of the dead and dying trees also may be important in collecting nutrients and cycling them more efficiently through the forest ecosystem.  

Also even a "dying forest," because of the way it traps rain water in its roots and leaves, may be essential in regulating the rate at which rain rolls off a mountain side in say, western Oregon or western Washington or northern California.  

With the "dying" forest in place, a lot of the heavy rains up in the mountains will be absorbed by the ground and released very slowly, and this will avoid destructive erosion on the mountain side and destructive flooding downstream.  If the local timber company is allowed to clear-cut the "dying" forest to make money from the trees before they rot, on the other hand, the complex vegetative cover that the forest provides to the landscape may be destroyed, and destructive erosion and floods will follow.

Answer 2

You'd be interrupting the cycle of life.  Death and decay lead to new life, yadda yadda.

Answer 3

There is no good reason to not harvest any forest.  Remove the old, and make way for the new.  It's wasteful to let forests grow too thick, and become nothing more than a fire hazard - especially if  trees are dieing- like from bark beetles.  The "let it burn " idiots should be airlifted in front of forest fires with axes and shovels.

Answer 4

Maybe this information on how important dead trees are will help:

http://www.thenatureinus.com/2008/05/imp...

Answer 5

which one is it?? #1 has a great answer...