Its a complex matter. The timber industry has hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated poplar plantations along the Columbia River that are clearcut on 10-15 year rotations. It makes no sense, ecologically, aesthetically or otherwise to managed these selectively. They are truly tree farms and nothing more.

It also has vast areas of Douglas fir plantations in the coast and Cascade Mountain ranges. Most industrial timber companies manage these on 35-50 year clearcut rotations, creating the type of ugliness (and other ecological problems) Eagle Eye points to. They use clearcutting because it is far cheaper operationally. Other forest owners, mostly smaller scale, manage the same types of forests selectively, with periodic small clearcuts (2-5 acres) that are not obtrusive aesthetically and help diversify things ecologically. Selective harvesting is just as productive as clearcutting, but is less economical due to operational costs.

Paying timber companies to not clearcut has been done through conservation easements. The Cascade Forest Trust has done a lot of this near Seattle.

We don't have to imagine it. That ethic exists. a lot of forest land owners manage their forests in that way, including the Collins Company as just one example. The problem is the publicly traded timber companies, from Weyerhaueser on down, who pretty much have to maximize short term revenues at the expense of anything that does not turn a profit. They are not bad people, and most that I know work responsibly, but lets face it. Capitalism compels private companies who answer to stockholders to continuously improve productivity and profitability or be left behind. And if Oregon regulates private forests to the extent that they become unprofitable, well there goes what is left of the industry.

Its a conundrum we have not been able to even talk about rationally let alone solve. But there is a growing movement among private timber land owners, those not publicly traded, to manage forests for a wider set of values. There are also alternative investment strategies and land trusts who are gaining title to forest land and managing them more the way you and I would like them to be.

Question. When you go to the lumber yard, will you pay a bit more for a 2x4 with an FSC label on it? That is the key.

Comparing timber production on private forests with federal is misleading. Private forests are mostly low elevation, better soils, longer growing season, and managed with only timber in mind. Federal forests are higher elevation, lower quality soils, shorter growing season, and managed for lots of things other than timber.

As Eagle Eye points out, if we did not go back to the high timber production days under 8 years of Bush and 12 years of a Republican Congress that cared nothing for the environment, what makes Cascade Policy Institute think they are going to get a better deal than the Wyden plan?

Doghair thickets on private timber land burn as hot or hotter than forests on federal lands. But most private forest land in oregon is in the Coast range, which is not as prone to burning as are federal forests in southern or eastern Oregon. The Siuslaw National Forest in the Coast range has had no fires of any size in the past several decades.

Forest fires do generate carbon, but when the forests grow back they re-sequester the same carbon, so nothing is added to atmospheric CO2 unless the forest is not allowed to grow back.

"Proper management" is in the eye of the beholder. In the past the Forest Service all but gave timber away to private companies. Yes this created jobs, but heavily subsidized ones. They still do that in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska by the way.