This topic came up a couple of years ago when researchers with scientific integrity requested a delay in publishing a politically-motivated piece of second-rate research on salvage logging. Oh boy, did the academic freedom card get played! There were special emergency legislative hearings then, and all those who requested the delay were excoriated in the national press.
Now we have a case where our extreme left-wing pisspoor excuse for a Governor hounded a nationally recognized and respected researcher out of OSU. Didn’t merely request a delay in publishing a paper, but cost a great researcher his job! Is that of any interest to the academic freedom alarmists?
Are there any other academics who the Gov disapproves of? Do you have list, Stinky Ted? Can we see it? Will you be doing all the hiring and firing at OSU from now on? What’s your political litmus test for employment at OSU?
Oh well, the subject is no longer hot, I guess. The constraint of academic freedom at OSU was a false alarm. It’s okay to screw the screws down when the academic in question is not PC. The knife doesn’t cut both ways, evidently. Fire at will, Teddy. OSU is yours to mold in your political image. The hysterics have crawled under their rocks, and the academic community is as silent as the dead.
February 26, 2008 | 2 Comments | Topic: Forestry education, Politics and politicians
For your edification and pleasure, please check out the latest title in the W.I.S.E. Library:
Blackburn, Thomas C. and Kat Anderson, eds. Before The Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians. 1993. Malki Press - Ballena Press [here]
Before the Wilderness is one of the best and most important works ever published in the field of Western landscape natural/cultural history.
The title is not a joke. Wilderness is a modern concept. Before Euro-American mythical glosses and ugh! racist and destructive laws were enacted to codify “wilderness,” the land was home to people and animals. Wilderness is a myth. This book is a fascinating and scholarly exploration of the facts.
What else is there to say? A must read.
February 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Forestry education
Today’s (Feb. 8th) Snow-Precipitation Update for Oregon from the Natural Resources Conservation Service [here] indicates that this year’s snowpack and precipitation are far above average. Basins from Owyhee to the Coast Range report snow pack is currently 115 to 490 percent above average, and precipitation statewide is about 120 percent above average, to date for the winter season beginning last October 1st.
Mt. Hood Meadows ski area reports a snow base over 15 feet deep, and Hoodoo reports a base over 10 feet deep. Over 40 feet of snow have fallen at Timberline on Mt. Hood this winter.
Regionally the NRCS reports [here]:
The snowpack across the West is near to well above average in almost all areas. Cold weather and continued stormy weather have created an extensive snowpack in many regions. Heavy snow and dangerous avalanche conditions are delaying many monthly snow surveys for the NRCS and our cooperating agencies. Flood concerns are rising with the continued building of low elevation snowpack. This transient snowpack is vulnerable to rain-on-snow events and have the potential of adding water to any flooding that may occur.
February 8, 2008 | 12 Comments | Topic: Forestry education
James D. Petersen, Executive Director, The Evergreen Foundation [here] and 2007 President, Pacific Logging Congress, gave a great speech at the 65th Annual Truck Loggers Association Convention in Vancouver, B.C. last month.
The speech was entitled Imagine and the text has been posted in full in the W.I.S.E. Rural Culture Colloquia [here].
Please enjoy.
February 3, 2008 | 4 Comments | Topic: Forestry education
I have received a small amount of negative feedback (polite, indirect, but still negative) regarding the term “restoration forestry.” The negativity expressed has some validity; words are tricky things. I am not all that enamored with the term myself.
To be honest, I have been searching for the right buzzword or meme (an idea that spreads from person to person within a culture). Restoration forestry, or forest restoration, are examples of pregnant phrases that might (or might not) resonate politically but actually have no precise definition, and/or mean very different things to different people.
Memes are idea viruses. Every marketer searches for memes to infect the public with notions about his or her product. Things go better with Coke. Not your father’s Oldsmobile. Forests: Tend Them Or Lose Them. Warmer Is Better. Etc.
Our forest problems will not be solved with memes, though. A better approach is to advance the discourse, which is the intention of W.I.S.E.
Forestry does have major conceptual (abstract structure) problems, and “forestry” itself is a meme that means different things to different people. Some folks, like Sen. Ron Wyden the other night, think that thinning is not logging, but of course it is. The conceptual problem here is that too many see forestry as commercial extraction of resources and not as stewardship of ecosystems.
To some foresters, at least to me, the task is the latter, not the former. Unless we are talking about private tree farm land, in which case the idea is to grow and harvest profitable crops, as in any farm business. This is an important distinction. Private tree farming and public forestland stewardship are two completely different land uses. Forestry ought to be adept at both; sadly, in its current manifestations, it is adept at neither.
January 13, 2008 | 4 Comments | Topic: Forestry education
There are two main branches to professional forestry: the care and maintenance of commercial tree farms and the care and maintenance of native forests.
Tree farms and native forests are two different land uses. Forests and tree farms differ structurally, biologically, ecologically, in their uses, and in their management.
Forests are vast tracts of native vegetation with an abundance of trees; tree farms are agricultural businesses. Forests have natural histories; tree farms have artificial histories. Forests are mostly publicly-owned; tree farms are mostly privately-owned.
Commercial forestry
Commercial forestry is tree farming. It is an agricultural business that produces commodities for sale and profit. Like any business, tree farming must show a profit or face bankruptcy and loss of equity (i.e. without profits the landowner loses the land). The objective of commercial forestry then is to make a profit growing tree-derived commodities.
January 9, 2008 | 2 Comments | Topic: Forestry education
