The Effects of Deforestation

 Forests are crucial in maintaining the environmental conditions that make life possible.  Yet over 95
percent of the native forests of the United States have been logged.  The 5 percent that remains is almost entirely on federal public lands.
    The effects of logging go far beyond just the loss of trees.  Healthy forests are critical to ensuring clean water supplies, pure air, abundant fish stocks and wildlife  -  the diversity of species on which all life depends. Forests mitigate global warming by absorbing and storing carbon. Intact forests regulate regional and global hydrologic cycles insuring clean and adequate supplies of water.  In addition, intact forests hold soils in place, preserving fertility, and preventing floods, landslides and the destructive siltation of fish spawning streams.
    Communities have suffered from boom - and - bust cycles typical of logging, but unlogged and restored forests will serve the sustainable and growing tourism and outdoor recreation industries into the future.

 Cities Demand Watershed Protection: During the winter of 1996, siltation from excessive logging so badly damaged the watershed of Salem, Oregon, that its water supply was rendered unusable for a month.  Water treatment facilities were unable to process the tons of mud and debris washing down from clearcut slopes. Similarly, the city of Portland, Oregon,  population one million, has asked the Forest Service to stop logging  its water source - the Bull Run watershed - out of concern for the regions rapid growth, and the quality and quantity of the water available to
support it.  Among other considerations, the city does not wish to build an expensive water filtration plant specifically to cleanse logging sediment.

Damaged Fisheries Threaten the Loss of Thousands of Jobs: Logging threatens commercial and sports fishing by destroying fish habitat.  Sedimentation smothers spawning beds; erosion and landslides destroy trout streams; and clearcuts raise the temperature of previously shaded streams killing fish.  The Columbia River system once boasted yearly migrations of 20 million salmon.  The numbers are now down to less than 2 million and 60,000 jobs in the commercial fishing industry have been affected.

Recreation Far More Valuable than Logging:  Recreation, hunting and fishing in National Forests contribute vastly more income to the nation's economy - and generate far more jobs - than logging on National Forests.  In fact, an April 1996 Forest Service report predicts that, by the year 2000, recreation, hunting and fishing on National Forests will contribute 31.4 times more to the nation's economy and create 38.1 times the number of  jobs than the existing timber sale program. (USFS, "The Forest Service Program for Forest and Rangeland Resources: A Long-Term Strategic Plan," Draft 1995, RPA Program, Oct. 1995, pp.  IV-2 & IV-3.)

Logging Increases Fire Risk: The Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project summary states, "More than any other human activity, logging has increased the risk and severity of fires by removing the cooling shade of trees and leaving flammable debris." (Status of the Sierra Nevada, Vol I., Assessment of Summaries and Management Strategies, p. 62, Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project: Final Report to Congress, 1996.) Forest health requires restoring fire to ecosystems in the form of controlled burns, not logging the forests to save them.
 

Back to main page: