Importance of Sustainable Logging

Importance of Sustainable Logging

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
With California Ag Today, I’m Tim Hammerich.

Balance is so important in agriculture, and nowhere is that more evident than in California’s logging industry. We are experiencing what happens when land stewards aren’t allowed to fully manage our natural resources.

Shaun Crook is a 2nd generation logger in Tuolumne County and the 2nd Vice President of California Farm Bureau.

Crook… “What we did is we essentially legislated man and the logger out of the woods and we took that management component out of it. And now we have to greatly increase the pace of scale of getting back to managing the forest and what we refer to as a sustained yield matter. And all that means is that we harvest as much as the forest is growing every year to keep that in equilibrium.”

And the management is not just for fire risk but also for pest, diseases, and water.

Crook… “What we also get out of that as, as a great by-product is clean water coming off of the Sierras. And what a lot of folks don't realize is that 60% of all of the water in the state of California starts in the Sierra Nevadas. And so when we have a healthy in-balance watershed, we not only have the healthy forest, but we get all that additional water running off of the forest and down to the other uses. So we can have agriculture, so we can have residential, so we can have commercial and industrial development.”

California needs farmers, ranchers, and loggers to help manage our state’s precious natural resources.

Previous ReportStrawberry Breeders Target Disease Resistance
Next ReportThe Modern Acre