This comment is being downvoted, however it seems sensible to me? Can someone who is downvoting offer a counter argument instead?
The following is an uncharitable take but here goes: the stereotypical social media conservationist will be 100% anti-logging because there's no room for nuance - you either love the planet or you're a corporate money grubber - while people who recognize that complex problems typically aren't black and white and who genuinely care enough about the environment to become informed on the topic generally agree that some amount of controlled logging is a very good thing.
Anti-logging activism is a holdover from a specific time in the 80s when we had no other environmental concerns other than to superficially preserve the beauty of nature.
Anyone who tied themselves to a tree to stop a logger is now in their 50s and 60s. A minority, but at a peak age to influence policy.
Here in Germany, it's routine. 2021 had the Forst Kasten in Munich occupied to protest against a gravel strip-mining operation [1], and the Hambacher Forst adjacent to a lignite strip-mining operation is still occupied [2].
[1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-forst-kasten-k...
Basically you would want to leave the most profitable trees (big/old ones) and cut down all the small ones. This is because big trees don't really burn down and survive the fires for the most part. After a fire they provide a canopy stopping the forest from growing to be as dense in the future. With the less dense forest the fires after that won't be as intense.
All the more reason to have logging happen on publicly managed lands than private ones where "controlled wildfire burns" might not be a consideration.
Once you allow a significant number of people to live there, the easiest political thing is just to make the costs of insurance/rebuilding/maintenance so high that people move out.
> Numerous interrelated factors, including statutory, administrative, biological, and market influences, may have contributed to the decline in timber harvesting on NFS lands. The effect of each individual factor is not settled, as is the effect of each factor over time. These factors occurred at varying points in time and may not coincide directly with observed harvest level changes. Some sources have noted that statutory changes added complexity to forest management and increasing litigation frequency, while also increasing transparency and public participation.48 Other sources have noted changing management priorities. Others have noted decreasing domestic demand, volatile prices, and the prevalence of less valuable timber due to high harvest levels in previous decades. The listing of the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) under the Endangered Species Act in 1990 is often discussed in regard to declining timber harvest levels.
So, the declining demand for wood probably means the industry is probably pretty happy to use the tree farms they have developed over the years. But it still seems like they would be happy to log public lands if it was made more convenient.