TIMBER!!!!

"ITS GOING DOWN, I'M YELLING TIMBER..."  Kesha

Today we stopped and photographed, with the driver's permission, a logging truck. It contained imperfect logs that were going to a paper mill. The perfect ones go to make building products. He said that three people have photographed his truck,( that got me wondering whether they were tourists, or ?  We get many tourists in our district.) He told us that it takes 40 years to grow the trees, and they have new ones ready to replace them. 

Recently in the pub I spoke to backpackers that were staying there, from America. A nice couple , they said they were working at the big tree nursery. I also know a local that works there seasonally, and many that work at a timber mill. Without this industry there would be much more unemployment. When someone in the city builds a house and buys pine products from Australia, or buys Australian made paper, they are supporting their fellow citizens in country towns. I like paper with recycled content, so we buy toilet paper and paper towel made in Australia that has that. 

 

 

 

This video below is not shot in Australia. We drive on the left hand side of the road. When we get stuck behind a logging truck in our hills, they go slower than this. However, it gives you a taste of what it is like behind a logging truck in our ranges:

"I learned a man's gotta be alot tougher than the timber he's cutting."  Johnny Cash.

Our greater area has a number of timber plantations, mostly softwood, eg pine. There is some hardwood also being grown. Locally there are two mills, a pine cutting mill that makes fence palings, posts, rails, decking, and sleepers; the other one is a radial cutting mill that is expanding to use hardwood and difficult logs. The first one also generates waste such as woodchips that go to the papermill, sawdust and pine bark, that get sold for mulch. 

 

Plantations of pine can be seen from the roads through the ranges. Nothing seems to grow beneath them. Sometimes there is a cleared area where they have been cut. The branches are stripped off right there by machinery. 

I am opposed to clearscale logging of old growth native forest. There are national park areas here where the mighty mountain ash trees have been preserved. These are supposed to be the best storers of carbon in the world. In our area there are wild areas of ferns, and other plants, in the native forests, plus streams and waterfalls. Living there are native animals and birds. Here is a link to the Australian mountain ash. I don't buy furniture made from this, though I might if it were plantation grown for that purpose, but not from old growth forests. It's amazing walking through our local forests looking up at these majestic trees. I'm spiritual, and can always feel the presence of indigenous people from ancient times, in those forests. 

mountain ash