Letter to the Editor, Richard Stafursky | The Recorder | December 3, 2021
https://www.recorder.com/my-turn-starfursky-NotOneMoreAcre-43807986
Massachusetts must shut all State Forests for tree cutting now.
A few years ago I spent an entire year in Massachusetts State Forests with state foresters who were planning management of those forests. In each case the plan was to inventory and mark trees to be cut by contractors. At the end of that year I told the foresters that I had not seen any need to cut any of the trees.
Contrarily, in each location they had a plan to convert the state forests into even-age forests using silviculture practices. Silviculture converts a deep woods forest rating of zero on the NLATS scale to a 6. This is over half way to total natural landscape destruction which is NLATS 10.
Silviculture is simply another name for forestry. Even-age is just another forestry word for forest agriculture; management for the continued cutting of trees. Management is the opposite of “Just let it be” or “Leave it alone.” Management is akin to the built landscape which is the opposite of the natural landscape.
Management is not conservation of a species’ forest and conservation of a species’ forest is not management. Forestry interests and their helpers use terms like carbon credits, harvest of “dead” or diseased trees, clean biomass, silviculture, and nature services, to impress landowners. Read clear-cut for biomass; forest agriculture for silviculture; game management for habitat restoration; and tree farms for forestry.
The complaint that Massachusetts EEA (Energy and Environmental Affairs) cares only about forest management is accurate; otherwise each and every DCR (Department of Conservation & Recreation) forester would say “not one more acre of nature to be taken.”
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