Managing The Forest

 

Often American companies are taken to task for lack of corporate responsibility and citizenship. As an outsider, I will be the first to admit a lack of knowledge concerning the logging industry except what I have seen on Discovery Channel’s American Loggers.

 

However, on a recent visit to the Pacific Northwest and Mount St Helens, I am impressed with the huge tree farms along Highway 504.

 

 

 

 

 

Managed Area

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although only the gift shop is opened at the Mount St. Helens Forest Learning Center, I do learn that the local government has a good working relationship the Weyerhaeuser Company.

 

 

In the aftermath of Mount St. Helens eruption which destroyed thousand of trees, Weyerhaeuser became very active in restoring the area.

Within months after the 1980 eruption they hand-planted over 18 million seedlings.

 

 

 

 

New Growth

 

 

 

Today, I witness some of the results of those efforts in the hills around me and by the occasional logging truck that I pass by.

 

 

 

 

Besides actively managing the forest through thinning and other mean, Weyerhaeuser has also contributed some of it's end products to good causes like Habitat for Humanity.

 

 

Unmanaged Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the lobby area a simple display shows one of the benefits of forest management which can yield an almost a 50% increase in diameter of a typical tree compared to an unmanaged one.

 

Managed trees mean better yields which translates into more products like wood which maybe a good thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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