The End of Sawmills In NJ

Interesting article Scott. Thanks for posting it. I was under the impression that the massive cut near speedwell and more recently, near jones mill road were for lumber. It seems like a lot of lumber would have been harvested. I am also surprised by how quickly that area in Speedwell has rebounded.

Jeff
 
I have mixed feelings on this. I assume that the Pinelands Commission is who "regulates people and an industry out of existence"? I guess I'd have to know a lot more about the specifics of where they are cutting and how it's managed to understand the issue. But generally speaking, it doesn't seem like there's enough land in southern NJ to support much of a lumber industry.

Just look at those 1930 aerial photos and you can see the results of lax regulation - looks like much of the areas we know and love today were stripped clean back then. Wouldn't want to return to those "good old days" myself.

And this attitude bothers me just a bit:

"So what we're driving through right now is owned by Egg Harbor City, and they're just sitting on it, not doing much with it."

Why do we have to "do something" with the forests in a protected area? It's really a shame that there aren't any old growth forests left in Southern NJ. I was wandering around Belleplain last week and there are some impressive old cedars in there. I really wish I could have seen what it looked like before logging began here, must have been amazing with huge pines and cedars.

I recently went on a trip to Pennsylvania and some some nice old forests there (http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/FORESTRY/oldgrowth/index.aspx), which are mainly the result of their inaccessibility and the impracticality of logging them.
 
I'm in the same frame of mind as Boyd, and was going to post something similar before the db crash. His message prompted me to get back to it.

I'm just congenitally mistrustful of people who make their living harvesting natural resources, when it comes to their advice on how to best manage those resources. My only direct experience is with the fishing industry, and while I wouldn't want to slam all fisherman, the majority of the operators in the communities I worked in had far more interest in getting the next dollar out of the water than any environmental concern.

I have wandered around the northwest a little, and much of what I saw in the woods out there, I would not want to see in the barrens.
 
I’ve known a few loggers who were very good land stewards. Cliff Frazee would be the first that came to mind. While some loggers indeed do have the “cut and run” mentality, others have a long family history of managing a particular tract and do it in a responsible way, with concern for the future. I do agree that a certain degree of regulation is necessary however. While loggers, commercial fishermen, etc. may be more intimately familiar with the natural resource than the average citizen or even regulator, they still have their own best interests at heart first and foremost. The agencies doing the regulating are doing a balancing act of regulating them for the public good, which always results in someone not being happy.

One thing I wanted to take note of was regarding the management of Atlantic White Cedar. Clear cutting has developed very negative connotations in the general environmental community, and is often given as an example of private industry gone wild. But clear cutting is the only sensible way to manage this particular species. White Cedar is an early successional tree species. New stands require full sunlight to develop. While hardwoods can be selectively cut, such logging in a cedar stand would result in the gaps being filled by maple, gum and magnolia. Ugly as it may be in the aftermath of the logging, clear cutting is the only way to perpetuate new stands. In the years after the logging, these sites will be the perfect habitat for orchids, carnivorous and other rare and interesting plants to grow. They require a habitat created by such a severe disturbance. Sorry for getting sidetracked. I just wanted to point out that ugly isn’t always bad!
 
Boyd said:
I
And this attitude bothers me just a bit:

"So what we're driving through right now is owned by Egg Harbor City, and they're just sitting on it, not doing much with it."
Click to expand...

That line bothered me a bit also. The pine barrens are historically characteristic new growth forests due to fire, but i agree I would never want to see the forest harvested to the extent that it was in the earlier part of the 1900's.

Jeff
 
GermanG said:
But clear cutting is the only sensible way to manage this particular species. White Cedar is an early successional tree species. New stands require full sunlight to develop. While hardwoods can be selectively cut, such logging in a cedar stand would result in the gaps being filled by maple, gum and magnolia. Ugly as it may be in the aftermath of the logging, clear cutting is the only way to perpetuate new stands. In the years after the logging, these sites will be the perfect habitat for orchids, carnivorous and other rare and interesting plants to grow. They require a habitat created by such a severe disturbance. Sorry for getting sidetracked. I just wanted to point out that ugly isn’t always bad!
Click to expand...

Many cedar clear cuts in the pines prove you to be correct German.
 
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