How would privatized forests work?
I was on another forum and a poster asked about this regarding deforestation.
Thanks,
Kaju
If I were the owner of a forest, wouldn’t I want to prevent deforestation?
Edit: I’m not sure what you are asking.
Presumably, a lumber company is going to want to be in business in the future, and thus will have an incentive to keep most of the trees growing. However, the government has no such incentive, and will lead to more deforestation when forest fires start.
Forests could be grown and cut down just like other agricultural products are. It would be a longer process but that is a techinal matter.
Well, I already included the part about forests possibly being regrown and “harvested.” However, wouldn’t companies try to buy as much forest as possible and “deforestate” it? I also talked about ecotourism and how cities might find it profitable to plant trees around them to prevent mudslides, hurricanes, etc.
Also, aren’t older trees more valuable than younger trees though?
Dunno.
Well, lets make ourselves clear first.
If the forest is virgin forest, that has been growing naturally untouched buy human hands, then it would not be bought from anyone, since it would be unowned. In this case the first people to cut down the lumber would be the owners of that lumber and (depending if they replanted or simply abondoned the land) owners of the plot as well.
It would be profitable to sell as much lumber and chop down as much trees as one can only to a point. As more lumber is brough to the market and prices fall, marginal costs would eventually equal marginal profit and any further cutting down would bring about an entrepreneurial loss.
EDIT: What about old trees?
Private owners of forests own the present value of future streams of income from the forest. They have every incentive to keep it in good condition. Moreover, one can also fence off a forest and put it to use as a nature conserve, for instance. Private reserves of this sort are much more efficient than state-managed ventures.
The issue that the poster on another forum brought up was keeping sustainable ecosystems and not just cutting them down and replacing them with planned forests.
Ecotourism and keeping old forests were the only two answers I could think of, but I’m afraid they wouldn’t be enough to keep most woodland.
The question that should first be asked is this; do people consider keeping sustainable ecosystems to be a good worth giving up other goods?
We have private forests all over the south. We always have had.
How has that worked out? Are those forests used somehow for commercial ventures or are they just left alone?
The timber industry is huge in the south. I read somewhere that the American south produces more timber and wood products than any other region on earth, including Canada and Siberia. You never hear about the timber industry in the south though because it doesn’t have to deal with the “public lands” issues. Paper somehow just appears in the stores and the lumber just appears at Home Depot.
What about this entire “deforestation” issue?
Most logging companies recognize that if they don’t replace the trees they’ve cut down then latter on down the road they’ll run out of produce. Not only that reforestation can and does occur naturally. Nature has this odd habit of restoring itself if we leave it alone.
There is no issue. If you own land and you make money by selling trees then obviously you will replant after harvesting just like any other farmer. If a private forest does get harvested without replanting it’s because the owner found some more productive use for the land; but that’s a good thing.
Deforestation is an example of the tragedy of the commons. It happens on public lands because no one owns that land and so no one has an interest in preserving its future potential. The problem doesn’t happen on private land.
Thanks for the replies, but the poster I was talking to on the other forum was really concerned with “old growth” forests with complex ecosystems, blah, blah, blah.
Wouldn’t replanting trees just create a boring “planned” forest with a bunch of new trees and bad ecosystems?
Please understand I’m not the environmental hippie here, I’m just trying to give the best and fullest answer possible to those questioning me. Thanks.
I inherited a very small plot of forest land from my grandfather when he passed away. I am by no means involved full time in the lumber industry but when I contracted with a lumber company to take some trees from the land I asked how it is normally done in a way to sustain the forest and hence keep the long term value of the forest land up since I plan on contracting with them in the future as well as I want to be able to one day camp out on that land.
What they do is they check out the age of the trees and how to keep the forest growing. They only took older trees in certain areas, ones that would end up blocking the sunlight from other younger trees and vegetation. The more modern knowledge of forest ecosystems now works to the advantage of the lumber industry and the environment.
“Older” forests can lead to poor and undynamic ecosystem since they tend to inhibit the ability of new vegetation growth which hurts all sorts of animals and what not. All in all forests vary amongst different types and the local lumber company is not going to want to diregard the science of the local ecosystem. Trees as flowers need a proper ecosystem to be healthy and essentially be good lumber. I dont think that the lumber companies would ignore this.
If you are taking only the oldest trees there really isn’t even a need to replant. Nature has this annoying habit of restoring itself. Those trees that are harvested will be naturally replaced by new seedlings. Man can replant the trees and there are ways of making it look more “natural” such as not planting them all in a row like you would in a tree farm. I’ve seen entire mountains in Colorado completely stripped away and rebuilt. They look like the step pyramids of South America but as time goes by nature will erode the land and make the mountain look natural again. The same thing will happen with forest.
Exactly it saves manpower and energy and if people are worried about carbon in the air it is great since it helps capture more carbon while releasing less emissions in the process.