Over the years in Northern Woodlands, we have revisited the subject of “selective cutting.” When loggers advertise their services, they often use the phrase, selective harvesting or selective cutting. They do this to distinguish what they do from clearcutting, which has gotten such a bad rap over the years that everyone wants to disassociate himself from it.
When they claim they do selective cutting, this raises the hackles of foresters who complain that loggers are usurping terminology that is rightly attributed only to a particular form of harvesting. By taking umbrage at the misuse of terminology, foresters can make the dispute seems like it’s a matter of semantics. And I’ve seen from reader response to these discussions that they don’t understand what all the fuss is about. “Everyone is for selective cutting” they say. “Who cares what you call it?” The forester’s main point is lost in the scuffle: who has responsibility for making the selections? When a logger advertises that he does selective cutting, you can be assured that he himself is choosing what trees to cut.
Given that carte blanche, can the logger be blamed for selecting the trees to cut that work out best for him? If you were given a choice to harvest trees that require a lot of effort or a little effort, which would you choose? If the choice were between trees with great value and trees with little value, which would you choose? In each case, it’s a business decision: in the first case, you can expend less effort for the same amount of wood; in the second, you can expend the same amount of effort for something that will fetch a good price or a poor price. In other words, it’s hardly a choice at all.
But letting a logger make those choices will inevitably leave an impoverished woodlot. The choices are not based on silviculture, the art and science of how to grow trees. They are based on short-term business needs. You need a forester to make the choices. And further, you need a forester who has no financial stake in what gets cut.
The essence of silviculture is to provide conditions for the best trees to continue to put on growth. That way, the forest has an opportunity to steadily increase in value over the years. Done properly, growing conditions for the forest improve with each harvest. This is complex, and is not just science but an art. Most forestland owners would like to own a forest that is continually getting better and more valuable. This can happen under the guidance of someone who has no personal financial stake in the matter. Such a person, with academic training and practical experience in forestry, can hire a logger to make periodic harvests that provide a fair living for the logger, the landowner, and the forester.
If someone knocks on your door wanting to cut your trees, and he assures you he does selective harvesting, ask him who makes the selections. A logger who is happy to work under a forester’s supervision is a logger whose work you’ll probably be happy with.
More importantly, let that knock on the door from a logger be your wake-up call to contact a consulting forester.
A forester will charge you for his or her services. That investment in the future of your woods will be the best investment you’ll ever make.
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