Useful Fools

My uncle is a retired forest resources economist and a long-time outdoor enthusiast. He is also a determined opponent of the modern religion of environmentalism (which has replaced the more sane idea of conservationism).

He points out that the beautiful film, “Last of the Mohicans” was filmed in clear-cut private forest!

From The Wall Street Journal, March 30, 1993 (excerpted):

Remember the dramatic scenes when French and Indian soldiers laid siege to Fort William Henry? Amid a thick forest of loblolly pines and hardwoods (less thick to areas where artillery shells were supposed to have landed), the brightly uniformed Europeans and their war-painted allies fired on the British fort, or bivouacked in the brush, or chased the film’s heroes as they made their harrowing escape in canoes.

As director Michael Mann’s wonderful adaptation of the James Fenimore Cooper classic, the breathtaking scenery was as much a star as the Daniel Day-Lewis. Mr. Mann and his producers had searched the entire eastern half of the U.S. to find a suitable backdrop for their epic, and finally decided to shoot most of the movie in North Carolina’s mountains. Mr. Mann was aiming for realism, for an accurate depiction of what the virgin forests of the upper Hudson Valley looked like in 1757.

He found the stage for the siege of Fort Henry in a corporate-managed private forest on North Carolina’s Lake James. Every tree you see in those scenes is between nine and 22 years old. In addition, they were all the product of clear-cutting.

Free-market environmental-ists have arguing for years that private management of resources such as forests, generates better results than public management for the simple reason that private owners seek a maximum return on their investment.

In the long run, it’s crazy for a private owner to strip his land of every tree without replanting them. And indeed , the evidence shows that lumber companies and other private owners do replant millions of trees a year. In North Caroling alone, there are more acres of commercial forest than there were in 1938. Pine forests are growing in size, not shrinking, even as the state’s forest- related industries rank first or second in the country in virtually every kind of lumber, wood product or furniture.

Somehow, the notion that a relatively young forest could play the role of an old-growth forest of the 18th century frontier seems hard for people to buy. In North Carolina, the prominence of the beautiful mountain ranges and pine forests in “Last of the Mohicans” gave environmentalists an opportunity to crow. See, they said, forests don’t have to be cut down to be profitable. We can film them and bring tourists to them. If we allow greedy companies to clear-cut our precious tees, we’ll lose this all-important resource!

Yes, these environmentalists would flunk freshman economics, but their basic facts aren’t even right. George Moyers is a forester is a forester with Crescent Resources, a subsidiary of the Charlotte-based Duke Power Co. He’s managed Crescent forests like the Lake James property for 30 years. Mr. Moyers pointed out in an interview with Duke Power News that clear-cutting is an appropriate practice for trees that are “shade intolerant,” such as white and yellow pines. They grow best in open sunlight.

“The point I would make to opponents of clear-cutting is this,” he says. “These film producers selected one of the most intensively managed forests in the country to make this film—and they selected it for its scenic and natural beauty. When we harvested the old timber stands and planted the new ones, it changed the scenery, no doubt about it. But, the beauty of this site in the movie shows you just how quickly the new forest comes back, better than ever.”

Clear-cutting isn’t a good idea in other kinds of forests. But a blanket condemnation of the practice is silly. And employing the appropriate technique for harvesting trees in particular areas is something that private companies can do much better than some kind of state or federal planning regime. They have economic incentives to make the right decision, while public managers face either subsidy distortions of the market or pressure from the extreme antilogging lobby.

Note the subtleties here that environmentalists tend to miss: clear-cutting isn’t good for all forests, but is good for some; private industry has incentives that lead to good forest management (although I would point out that some amount of government oversight is needed to prevent a “tragedy of the commons” situation on public lands).

Outside of economics, but significantly different from the religious environmentalists, is the view of conservationists: forests are important for more than lumber protection, so we don’t want massive clearcutting everywhere. Some forests should be managed for aesthetic use by people, and for animal habitat, so that people can enjoy or use the critters.