Faced with the corporate logging propaganda promoting the idea that "trees are America's renewable resource," I wondered: with hundreds of tons of trees harvested per acre in one week from soils that have been built in the last 10,000 years, how could this loss of biomass be called renewable in our lifetime? This philosophy defies common sense. Carbon cycles that fuel the food chain and build the forest soils move at much slower pace than logging companies. With each generation of trees we cut, soils increasingly shallow and we further jeopardize the health of forests. The richness and depth of soil is our legacy from centuries of mycelial activity. And with each harvesting and replanting, the soil loses nutrients and gradually becomes overtaxed, no longer able to support the growth of healthy trees. Trees prematurely climax, falling over as the root wads can't hold the trees upright. Current "sustainable" logging practices strive to balance the impact of overharvesting with ecological restoration, potentially irreconcilable objectives. The bottom line is that we need to focus on carbon cycles and raise the nutritional plateau in timberlands by accelerating decomposition of wood debris and restarting plant cycles.

Paul Stamets