What are some pros and cons of logging?

Question

I mostly need the cons of logging. I could also use something about logging in Oregon.

Answer 1

Pros:

The House you live in

the paper you write on

the Jobs Created.. ...Both from Logging and those created when Replanting

the economy.

Cons:

There are really no Cons if done properly you get what is needed and then you reinvest in your renewable resource (Trees) then it becomes a win win situation. the biggest problem that this country actually faces is the loss of the logging industry caused by people looking at one thing and not the other. You get large stands of trees that get insect infested and nothing done with them it creates large fires that devastate large areas and reduce your habituates for wild animals.

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Answer 2

fires consume millions of acres of trees each year.

Why not log that many trees each year?

Fires have been taking habitat for ever and animals survive.

After Mt ST Helens blew, the only forest we see  was replanted by Weyerhouser co in order to have a supply of logs for sale

Answer 3

Logging is a very renewable resource.  There is more forrest and trees now than in 1604, when Europeans came here.  When persons say cutting down a tree is a waste, they are wrong.  I'd bet that for every tree cut down, 100 are planted to take its place.

The only issue I see is with some old growth forrest, like the redwoods, that could never be replaced.  When I see a picture of a redwood or bristle cone pine, that was alive before Jesus, it moves me.

Answer 4

Pro's: jobs, raw materials for building and export, raw materials for paper industries, increased economic activity in logged area.

Con's: Temporarily reduces forrests ability to asorb carbon and give off oxygen.  Increases ground tempertures.  Provides increased opportunity for erosion.  Requires carbon fuel for equipment and transportation and therefore increases pollution.  Reduces habitat for many species.  Removes biologically valuable surface minerals that are in the removed trees from the local life cycle that would remain if they die and decompose.  May reduce turism appeal in a logged area.

Answer 5

The Bush Administration has made several proposals to dismantle our National forests by selling off thousands of acres – a move that would only benefit the administration's friends in the timber industry, coal interests and Big Oil. Adding insult to injury, YOU – the American taxpayer – are being forced to fund the destruction! Go to this petition site and see what there up to all over America.

Answer 6

Logging Cons: forests are some of the only habitats left for animals, and many are dying out becaus eof logging, being a birder, let me throw this TRUE FACT OUT, the American Birding assoctiation classifies over half of he bird population (species) to be threatened or endangered, 2/3, of them because of logging decreasing habitat. Its cruel, Animal rights are huge, these lgging companies are 1,000 times worse then michael vick.

Pros: MONEY MONEY MONEY< THE ROOt OF ALL EVIL< NO PROS AT ALL

Answer 7

The previous answers are both partly right.  There's problems in Oregon with logging after forest fires, since the loggers take everything.  Even dead trees are beneficial in the forest: they provide shade so that young saplings don't cook in the summer sun, they provide nutrients for new trees and they funnel water into small areas to increase the amount available for these new trees.

Standing dead treed also provide habitat and shelter for birds and other small animals that eat the bugs that feed on the dead trees.

The dead trees also reduce the soil erosion.  It is crucial that most of the burned forest be left as it is. Careful selection of removing the dead trees is necessary, but usually doesn't happen.

As far as jobs in the forest - Technology has depleted most of them.  There are machines operated by one person that fell entire trees, de-limb, and cut into sections in less then a minute for each tree.  Another machine gathers them and places them onto a waiting truck.  That's three man-days to take an entire mountainside in a couple days.  Compare that with probably a hundred man-days a couple of decades ago.  

Once they hit the mill, almost the entire operation is automated.  A couple of people load in and load out, and a couple more operate computers.   There are few jobs in the forest outside the recreation industry, which has exploded in the past decade.

That doesn't mean that we don't need and use the products that come from the forests.   But there are few careers there, and (like they always have been) they are usually subject to layoffs and market cycles.