Official Luthiers Forum!

From NYT this morning:
Trump Administration to End Protections for 58 Million Acres of National Forests.
Maybe Brent Cole can put is into context for us.
This is not meant to be an inflammatory political rant.
Please, let's stick to the issues of what this will mean to the forest.

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Tom is being serious and wants to avoid politics and I respect both his intent and him. I'd genuinely be interested in an informed discussion as well that does not get political.

So please let's not let this thread become a severed head that Col. Kurtz tosses in our laps....

Thanks

Good luck with this discussion... it's been politically contentious in all aspects since the last few days of the Clinton Administration when the Roadless Rule was amended to add 58 million acres (about 5% of the total land area of the US, and just a little less than the land area of California) to the lands which fall under the management and use restrictions of the rule.

Perhaps the way forward should be for the OP to:

1) Identify the elements of the issue that are inherently non-political and suitable for discussion here

2) Identify the elements of the issue which have some demonstrable impact on luthiers

3) Identify the common elements between 1) and 2), which bound what might be discussed here per rule

To reiterate, good luck with that.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I was hoping Brent would comment since this is in his back yard.

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

I look forward to Brent's perspective as well. Bob Taylor may also be on top of this and it could be worth looking for any info that he is posting somewhere on the interwebs.

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jw ( o)===:::

I don't drop in here much these days.
Yes this policy does include our backyard, and our source of old growth timber.
There are a couple of Hysterical, "USA demolishing policies" being activated or proposed regarding Public Lands.
This roadless rule is one.
I'm not in favor of clearcutting every old growth tree in The Tongass National Forest. as the Alaska Native Corporations have done to their lands. That is until the government stepped in and offered to pay them with our tax $, to not log anymore. So it wasn't the natives corps. good will or concern of the forest that moved them to make the decision to cease all logging operations in 2022, once again, Corporate greed and taxpayer funding/fleecing wins again.
But at the same time I know there needs to be some profitable timber industry in SE Alaska for there to be any timber industry. We at Alaska Specialty Woods Inc needs there to be a timber industry here. I want responsible Management of the forest for multiple uses. The fish, wildlife, recreation, timber etc. You guys do not get guitar tops unless there is some timber industry here.
Central planning from DC doesn't work. Roadless rule may work in lower 48 national forests where there is already an infrastructure of road system, But not SE Alaska. The stupid rule maintained a road density i.e. "x miles of road". Road is ACCESS! Here in order to harvest anything, road needs to be constructed. Because there is no road. So roads that we paid for and gave us access to salvage or recreation or whatever had to get closed in order to build a new road over there. Thousands of sq miles of access was closed by the stupid rule. all the subsistence hunting and other food gathering is now limited to mainline access, as well as all the sport hunters from out of state and other islands and towns in Alaska that come here. So everyone including us and other wood products people has just this little bit of forest to access. Forest here is not like forest south. You don't go off roading in this forest , you don't access by horse. O you can't even keep a horse here unless you are very wealthy because there is no pasture lands and hay fields. It's forest and any livestock food except for goats that eat anything and everything, has to be barged in. So I am VERY much in favor of eliminating the roadless rule for the Tongass. But again I want there to be responsible harvest and management. It's certainly a difficult and complicated task. And I see a lot of college educated idiots. I've been in the woods since 1978 with only a 6 yr absence in the oil field drilling 3 mile deep oil wells. So I've been in and very connected to this temperate Rainforest since 1987. I know it better than loggers and timber managers, or at least in a much more detailed way. I believe that knowledge comes from paying attention to what we harvest, where we harvest, each tree/log "form". And as we dissect each tree into logs, rounds, blocks and boards, we get to "read" the history.

There's more to this timber issue unique to SE Alaska. I could talk about it, but I don't have time to write about by pecking on a keyboard.
So Back to grading guitar tops for you guys and thousands of others, I go.

The other issue I see "oh no" about is selling off public lands. Prolly not a discussion for here. And It doesn't even affect me/us here, despite what "news" agencies claim.