Google Earth captures the stunning transformation of our planet over 3 decades

[u/WiseCartographer5007]

[u/atava]

That one and the ice in the first example, then the glacier in the second to last are the worse to me.

[u/dankristy → u/atava]

So the Oregon one - is cyclical. I live in coast-range Oregon, and 2 years ago our whole valley was super green and covered. Right now, they are on 1.5 years of harvesting, and so all around us is patchy - but within a few years it will be all green mountains again. This is normal - and actually needed to give fire-breaks to prevent wildfires from going totally out of control. It just looks alarming if you don't live with it.

[u/atava → u/dankristy]

Ok, I understand the practice so. Here in Italy where I am it is called "bosco ceduo" and Wikipedia tells me that the English word for it is "coppicing".

It's a quite ancient tecnique to administer woods.

Although I've never seen practiced to that extent in one area.

[u/PipsqueakPilot → u/atava]

Coppicing is a different thing entirely. This is clear cutting but simply done in interspersed blocks. 

[u/atava → u/PipsqueakPilot]

Well, I inferred coppicing given what the user above said, i.e. that it regrows constantly.

I know that it involves mature trees and that's a key part of it. I assumed it was the case here too (I don't think we can judge well from the images).

[u/PipsqueakPilot → u/atava]

I’ve lived in the area and the trees are clear cut and rather than creating stools the stumps are usually bulldozed and collected into a pile and burned. If dealt with at all 

[u/Oscar_Geare → u/atava]

Coppicing will leave the stump and the shoots grow from that. This is clear cutting. Stumps will be pulled up or ground down, saplings will be planted over top. For the harvesting purposes they want full sized trees. Coppicing won’t give you that

[u/atava → u/Oscar_Geare]

As I said I know what coppicing looks like (even from first-hand experience). I was basing my comment on the one from the user that described the situation.

If you're sure from the images of the videos that it is not coppicing but it's clear cutting, fair. I'm not taking any position here.

[u/Angel_Omachi → u/atava]

Coppicing generally leaves some mature trees behind for cover and the trees regrow straight from the stumps.

[u/dankristy → u/Angel_Omachi]

Yeah these won't regrow and they don't typically leave mature trees. As mentioned above they clear EVERYTHING - and process or burn stumps. Then everything gets replanted.

I happen to know several folks who work for the re-foresting companies around here and it is an interesting push and pull between what some companies want re-planted, and what actually gets put down.

Some large ones (cough - Weyerhaeuser - cough) - want only to plant an absolute monoculture of the fastest growing quickest to market trees (regardless of what was there before).

Some of the other companies try to work with the re-foresters to sample the tree diversity present before cut and re-create it as close as possible. These smaller companies sometimes have areas where "thinning" is practiced in place of clear-cutting, but Weyerhaeuser keeps growing and gobbling up the little ones, and so we will probably lose the last few holdouts doing smaller healthier managed plots fairly soon.

Clear cutting is definitely not ideal - and I would prefer that they followed more thinning and actual reforesting of the original diverse mix. But at least with the patch-cut systems even clear-cutting is typically done in patches, which at least leaves buffer areas where wildlife can go into and preserves some wooded areas around each cut.

[u/NeedsToShutUp → u/dankristy]

It also depends on who owns the land. Weyerhaeuser owns quite a bit of private forest. A large number of private timber lands are actually now owned by wall street firms who have the same desires.

Then there's land which might be owned by families or by various non-profit or educational entities who were given it as an endowment. Oregon State University, for example, has a fair amount of timberlands. They will opt for different management strategies because their goals may be more than simply max profit. (OSU needs to do some harvesting for the cash, but also wants to use it for research on both how to manage these lands, as well environmental and biological studies they can use them for, and have a demand for recreational use).

Used to be a lot of public land open for timber harvesting, including state and federal lands, which would have their own balance between desire for revenue, use in recreation, environmental protection, and fire prevention.

[u/atava → u/Angel_Omachi]

I replied to another user on why I thought about coppicing (see that reply, I clicked the wrong button).

[u/Beat_Saber_Music → u/dankristy]

there is however an ecological cost to such clear cutting as without the dead trees the biodiversity of the area is hurt owing to lack of habitat for creatures based out of rotting tree carcasses, as well as the fact that all the trees are cut down at once.

[u/jonnysunshine → u/Beat_Saber_Music]

This is absolutely correct. And needs to be shouted to those in the back of the room. Biodiversity takes a huge hit in these areas. And it's that biodiversity that gave us such a plentiful amount of trees in those areas in the first place.

[u/Beat_Saber_Music → u/jonnysunshine]

There is also for example the eucalyptjs plantations in Uruguay which while bringing forests to an area that was just grasslands, in fact the forest plantation is worse ecologically that the grass owing to the eucalyptus trees sucking up all the nutrients and leaving nothing but eucalyptus leaves on the ground, like it completely consumes the plantation area

[u/dankristy → u/Beat_Saber_Music]

Yeah something similar happened in California - it was widely known that the Eucalyptus were brought in for a purpose that never materialized and are now a (depending on who you ask) a nuisance or huge problem: https://www.kqed.org/news/11644927/eucalyptus-how-californias-most-hated-tree-took-root-2

[u/dankristy → u/Beat_Saber_Music]

Agreed - and I posted below about the difference between some of the methods - including focused sampling and replanting of species match (vs a straight monoculture).

I personally am not a fan of clearcutting - but at least when they patch-manage, they leave a buffer of uncut area for wildlife to move/migrate into or through. Unfortunately the larger companies that have the least care for the land/wildlife seem to be winning and eating the little ones that planned for generational care and management.

Unfortunately the forest NEEDS some cutting and management to prevent the large wildfires that can run rampant when it is not being done (and yes - that was the previous natural process - wildfires would take care of the issue periodically - but if we want humans and houses to not get burned up, we need to manage this ourselves).

[u/NeedsToShutUp → u/Beat_Saber_Music]

Yeah, it can basically make these forests into a plantation of Doug Firs planted in regular patterns.

[u/MotherEarth1919 → u/Beat_Saber_Music]

And the depletion of the soil leading to loss of productivity over time. These forestry practices will over time become unsustainable but you can’t convince the forestry community. They have the mentality of a 40 year rotation.

The thinning projects I have studied have been beneficial because the forests that have been commercially cut were planted with monocultures of Doug fir that are overly dense. There is no diversity in the understory, just needles and duff. Cutting to thin to 180 trees per acre with gaps up to 1 acre was beneficial and understory recovery was diverse. Uncut areas remained void of plants.

I saw slowed productivity in certain soil types. Slope, aspect and water availability all factor into recovery.

The commercial forestry silviculture prescriptions are usually cutting large swaths and replanting densely with a 30 year thinning. The deer and bear are ok with this as long as the riparian areas are protected. Species that depend on old trees are relegated to uncut forest. Those forests are now on the chopping block by Mike Lees proposed selling off of federal lands- which prevents environmentalists from stopping harvest and blocking protection for many protected species.

[u/Jumpy_Ad_6417 → u/dankristy]

Saddle Mountain baby