I support some logging. You need to go look over the toutle river drainage
and see the total wipeout of timber. ( every tree for miles!!! ) Most my town
were loggers growing up with mills in all small towns close by. The big
cutoff in the late 70's and 80's wiped out all company timber around and
closed most mills as as timber was sold export to Japan. Mills were closed as
these logs were ship raw. The big guys didn't care about closing mills, they
just wanted the quick buck. The small buffer of timber left around creeks is
quickly blown over by our winter storms within a few years as is any little
island patches surrounded by clearcuts. Forest degrees are a dime a dozen
here as many unemployed loggers went back to school to study the only thing
they knew. Like you, there were no jobs when finished. The alder that pops up
is sprayed to be killed in our clearcuts. This practice has some bad
shortterm and unseen longterm effects. Shortterm is all the grouse eggs are
killed when sprayed. In Japan, you will always have a market for timber that
exceeds ours. This is why our forest were cut at such a high rate and yes,
greed. People with forest degrees and loggers are not less of people, but
some are brainwashed. The currect school of thinking isn't cutting it and
forest service are hard to change. ( bottom line is current is a sham ) Come
check out the roads on the east side of the Olympic National Forest. Roads
are nice for easy access, but the roads here look like a strip mine with
small trees. Logging is good ,but not at the rate they have been doing over
the last 20 years.