Land clearing

[bach2yoga]

Remember when I mentioned the large tracts that Barry and I saw on Mother's Day that had been cleared?
Barry followed up with email to the Pinelands Commission and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.
Imagine you'll love this one, Jeff! But, imagine, someone from the Commission not knowing where Apple Pie Hill is!!!

response from Pinelands Commssion:

Thank you for your recent email regarding a potential vegetation clearing violation in Tabernacle Township. I am not familiar with the "Eagle Tavern Site" or "Apple Pie Hill". In order to investigate the matter, it would be helpful if you could provide us with a more definitive location of the concerned site (i.e. Tax Block and Lot, Street address, Township, etc.).
Please note that clearing of greater than 1,500 square feet of vegetation without application to the Commission may also be a violation of the local municipality's ordinance. I suggest that you contact the local Zoning Officer in the concerned municipality and notify him/her of the situation as well.
As for the "cedar swamp clearcut" in Mullica Township, please also provide our staff with a more definitive location of the concerned clearing (i.e. Tax Block and Lot, Street address, Township, etc.).
Upon receipt of more definitive locations, we would be happy to investigate the concerned clearings and contact you with our findings.
Thank you,
April Fijalkowski
Regulatory Programs Specialist
NJ Pinelands Commission
609-894-7300

Response from the PPA:
Thank you for your e-mail of May 27. I believe that the timber cut you are referring to could be part of the Lee Brothers forestry project. That project is being conducted on specific stands lying within approximately 1600 acres of land in Tabernacle, Woodland and Washington Townships. The cuts range in from under ten to over 500 acres in size. New markets for pulp have made large scale forestry projects in the Pinelands economically feasible. The projects may include clear-cutting the existing forest, chopping and tilling the ground, applying herbicides, and a dense replanting with hybrid crop wood. The current rules for forestry operations allow significant disruption of the ecosystem. The whole story is a bit more involved, but PPA is working on the forestry problem at this time. We will be including a discussion of the forestry problem in our upcoming issue of "Pinelands Watch." If you would like to receive a copy more information please provide your address so that we may include you in the mailing. We appreciate your observations and concern. Theodore J. Korth Project Manager for Law and Policy Pinelands Preservation Alliance 114 Hanover Street Pemberton, New Jersey 08068 telephone: 609-894-8000 facsimile: 609-894-9455 ted@pinelandsalliance.org

[bruset]

Obviously you don't have to know much about the Pinelands to work for the Pinelands Commission. :rolleyes:

[JeffD]

Yeah, Ben, it seems they are out of touch.

I think I get the drift of what the PPA is saying, in that foresty projects and harvesting, not necessarily done willy nilly as was done by the lumber barons in the 19th century. But there is that ecospeak: "The current rules for forestry operations allow significant disruption of the ecosystem." The "disruption" has connotations that harvesting trees is harming the environment, similar to the ecospeak in the trail guide at Wells Mill Park where old sand roads are example of having "impact on the environment."

I've been reading conservationist Aldo Leopold's A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC. In the beinning, for many pages, as he cuts a large old tree, he provides running commentary about what happened during the years as he saws through the annual rings (not every year). Later, he discusses how farming, swamps, farmhouses, animals and people live in ecological balance, and shows his appreciation for aethsetics. I'm at the part where Leopold talks about problems when the balance is upset. Leopold is evidently for forest management, but is just against the "monster ambition to make a great pinball machine of the world." Leopold joined the US Forest Serice in 1909, in 1924 he became Associate Director of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, and in 1933 the University of Wisconsin created a chair of game management for him. He died in 1948 fighting a grass fire on a neighbor's farm.

[bruset]

The "disruption" has connotations that harvesting trees is harming the environment, similar to the ecospeak in the trail guide at Wells Mill Park where old sand roads are example of having "impact on the environment."


However in the case of sand roads and trails, the impact is a positive one. :)

[bach2yoga]

Except that this is not being done for roads or trails.
If you could have seen the area, it was nothing short of a "rape".
It was disheartening.

[bruset]

I was just talking about sand roads, not clear cuts.

[bach2yoga]

Yeh, I know! :P

[JeffD]

I can understand the psychcological effect a large clearcut has when viewed from a road. Years ago, a guy who was a volunteer in the Pennsylvania Bluebird Program told me about clearcutting in north central Pennsyvania. He said that for public relations the clearcuts were done where you can't see it from the road and that the cuts were made at strategic spots and that the birds, etc. would reseed the areas and trees would grow back.

Clearcutting, in some instances, is beneficial to the forest. Before humans found back the naturally occurring fires, etc., there were natural clearings in the forests. Clearcutting creates a fire breaks, helps certain animals species, and helps trees that require alot of light and that grow in more or less pure stands, such as White Cedar.

I think that clearcutting is OK in very large areas. Done right, there is a cycle of clear patches iin the forest that grow back (the way it did around Martha's Furnace) and old forest sands that will someday be cut. By the time the clear cut forest grows back, an old, or one mature for harvest, may get cut. This is the way nature works, and foresters emulate nature in this way. Also, cutting trees after their fastest growing period and replanting new ones to replace them keeps the air cleaner. A growing tree absorbs more carbon dioxide and produces more oxygen than does an old growth forest.

Old growth forests, and just mature forests with big trees, are good. If land is designated as a park, it's good to have, as much as possible, a constant forest cover. The Macarthur Tract, for example, is a park-like tract, an island of trees in a sea of concrete, steel, and asphalt. But in these vast areas in the Pine Barrens where people are harvesting trees, it's not only OK to cut savahannas to create a mosiac of forest and open areas, it's desireable.

In the early 1900s, plans were made to care for the forests, driven by folks such as John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold. At one point, the forests were divided into Parks and Forests. Park areas were more or less left in their natural state. They were special places where people can enjoy nature. The Forests were the larger, more remote areas of land, where hundreds of thousands of acres of trees grew. These were managed for multiple use: timber production, fish and wildlife management, soil conservation, watersheds, and recreation. As a result of the forestry efforts, which Aldo Leopold was a part, over the years there was a net gain of forests. Just remember, clearcutting is not deforestation. Building developments is.

[bruset]

Just remember, clearcutting is not deforestation. Building developments is.


A truism if I have ever heard one!