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Comment by llbeansandrice | Hacker News Reader

> Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging?

Because the main purpose of replanting trees to is be able to harvest them again in the next few decades. Private land owners generally aren't interested in creating old-growth forests, they're trying to make money.

It's not exactly ideal, but ending up with more biodiversity is likely a good thing even if it will be logged again later.

If you want more old-growth forests there's going to have to be a _lot_ more subsidies to private owners to literally pay them to not log their land.

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> Private land owners generally aren't interested in creating old-growth forests, they're trying to make money.

To be clear, in the western US this is by design. Large swaths of private land are zoned for forest. Aside from a few niche instances of grandfathering, you cannot build on them. They're useful for recreation and logging, and that's all that's allowed.

The gov't wants them to be logged regularly. If they really wanted old growth forests they'd make it public land (it's not especially expensive land, either, right after a patch gets logged it's not uncommon for the owner to put it on the market fairly cheap).

> Private land owners generally aren't interested in creating old-growth forests, they're trying to make money.

In Canada the vast majority of logging is on crown land.

Why do we want old growth forests over harvestable forests? Is there an ecological advantage

Old growth forward have a range of incredible ecosystem benefits, including a big effect on river health.

The 'Timber Wars' podcast was a six part story on the Pacific Northwest, including a lot of the history of the science on logging and forest health, as it evolved from the eighties through to today.

https://www.opb.org/show/timberwars/

Actually I've heard that the best ecological and economic outcome is to manage an old growth forest and log it selectively using patterns that mimic tree loss from non-human activity.

Maximizing ecological advantage also maximizes economic advantage, even in the short-medium term.

> I've heard that the best ecological and economic outcome is to manage an old growth forest and log it selectively using patterns that mimic tree loss from non-human activity

I don't see how this is supposed to be accomplished. For that concept to make any sense, you'd need to prevent the tree loss from non-human activity, which is all but impossible to do.

If you can't do that, then the existing pattern of loss already looks like "loss from non-human activity", and any logging you do will look like "a lot more loss than typical of non-human activity".

> I don't see how this is supposed to be accomplished

Peter Wohlleben has written about this approach. The Menominee tribe also practices a similar method; they only log sick or weak trees. However, because these are from old growth forests, the wood quality is superior to that of trees from monoculture forests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wohlleben

https://e360.yale.edu/features/menominee-forest-management-l...

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