Remember the Timber Wars?

chris_girard

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Gilmanton, N.H.
I'm sure a lot of you guys/gals here remember how bad it got in the 1980s and 1990s with the protests over logging. Even though I'm from the East coast and have only logged in New Hampshire (without any protesters), I still remember what happened on the West coast and always felt bad for the loggers and the small mill towns that once dotted the areas out west.

So with all the crap that is on TV these days, I decided to just spend a little time searching YouTube to find something interesting to watch, but was also educational to my ongoing studies of our logging/tree work and came upon this classic documentary of what is what like during those turbulent times. Enjoy!

(25) ‘Timber Wars’ reach Mill City - YouTube
 
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I bet that you've seen a lot over the years there in Oregon Burnham and not all of it good!

Do you ever think Oregon will regain what they've lost in logging operations, and I don't mean old growth, but maybe 2nd and 3rd growth cutting?
 
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Timber protests are still going on here. A revival actually. Some of the old protesters from the 80s and 90s are making a comeback. Ah, life goes on.

Didn't you have to deal with the protesters a few times in your career too Jer with some of the logging sites that you were on?
 
This name ring any bells?

“In 1993, Stone-Manning received legal immunity in exchange for her testimony that she retyped and sent an anonymous letter to the U.S. Forest Service on behalf of John P. Blount, her former roommate and friend. The letter told the Forest Service that 500 pounds of “spikes measuring 8 to 10 inches in length” had been jammed into the trees of an Idaho forest.”

 
They were like pesky flies during the 80s and 90s, Chris. and they still are today.

Their goal, as with most protestors, is to end something they really don't understand. In the meantime they don't care who they hurt. So long as their welfare checks and pot money keeps rolling in 'F' all the rest of the world.

Lazy bastards, the lot.
 
I bet that you've seen a lot over the years there in Oregon Burnham and not all of it good!

Do you ever think Oregon will regain what they've lost in logging operations, and I don't mean old growth, but maybe 2nd and 3rd growth cutting?

That's a great question. Hard to say, especially in the long run, as in many decades into the future. Private industrial timberlands are seeing pretty high levels of extraction, but state and federal lands are seeing very low cuts.

Technology/mechanization will surely mean there will never be the level of employment there once was, but that's not the same as volume harvested of course. It could change as demand continues to rise, as it almost certainly will.

Politics around how logging is viewed by many citizens would have to change for harvest levels to rise much, I expect.

There sure as hell is a lot of volume out there, and those young stands are gaining more every year.
 
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These things do not get any better. This year so far I have been spat at and verbally abused for felling dying ash trees in a woodland block & then threatened with physical harm for removing a dead macrocarpa.
This age of instant media does not encourage considered or rational thought, just reaction. Irrespective, when Monday morning comes, I will be harvesting more dying ash trees……..
 
These things do not get any better. This year so far I have been spat at and verbally abused for felling dying ash trees in a woodland block & then threatened with physical harm for removing a dead macrocarpa.
This age of instant media does not encourage considered or rational thought, just reaction. Irrespective, when Monday morning comes, I will be harvesting more dying ash trees……..


Blimey Pete!
Re. The dying ash, are you near housing? Tell us more about it please.
 
It is a rural woodland job removing ash die back infected trees & I ran into them by the timber stack, which is roadside. There was about a hundred tonnes of ash I had felled and I guess they did not appreciate my work. Just an ignorant couple of women with vocabulary that would make a sailor blush and were incapable of having a rational argument.
 
I actually cut the beginning of this year where all the timber wars took place, guess what? The protesters came back hard. Luckily my side of the project had a hard closure, the Detroit lake side not so much. We were contracted to help cut all the roadside trees that burned from the fires for O-Dot. Yes we cut some old growth firs but they needed to come down. The roots were all burned and the trees were going to fall down on the high way in a matter of time. I didn’t like that area too much and I’m not sure if I’d ever go back up that way to work again.
 
Hats off to The Mick for that bangin thread title linked above! :dude: ;):drink:
 
The only protesters I get are when we cut trees by apartment buildings in Copenhagen.
I always tell the directors to inform the inhabitants of what is going on, and they never do, so all the little green big city dwellers come out and yell at us.
If they love trees so much, why do they live in inner city?

Years ago, I came up with the right answer.

Richard was dismantling a dying, hazardous maple, I was on ground with another guy, when this lady comes out and asks: " Are you felling ALL our trees", arms akimbo!
So I said, didn't you get the memo, maintainence is getting too expensive, they are going to blacktop the whole green area and turn it into a parking lot.
She went totally purple, and just as she was going to screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeam at me, it hit her.
He's jerking my rope.

That was a hard come down for her.

Been using that one ever since.

Once while logging big Beech, 2 ladies came up and asked why we were felling the lovely trees.
My partner looked at them and said, totally deadpan: " We're being paid to".
That ended that conversation.
 
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So I guess the protesters are worldwide?

Does anyone here know of anyone that has been hurt from spiking trees? I've read that that used to be a big thing back in the Timber War Days.
 
I was there for the last part of it.
As a logger from a country that started sustained logging practices in 1773, I was like WTF.
Smart enough to keep my mouth shut, though.

Grew out of that in later in life.

Love the comments.
Goddamned greenies, their fault that all the trees are gone.
 
" Goddamned greenies, their fault that all the trees are gone. "

There's more truth in that than most people know. The protests accelerated logging on the west coast faster than doubling the market price.

I know many private owners that logged only because they feared the time would come that they couldn't.

Kind of like guns. You know?
 
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