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Eastern Old Growth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003May22.html
Headline: The Last Stand Very old trees offer a glimpse into our past and clues to our future. But are they worth saving? By Steve Nash Sunday, May 25, 2003; Page W14 Jesse Overcash holds an old aerial photo up to the light -- a few square miles of southwestern Virginia mountains, circa 1935. His finger traces an upfold in the blanket of forest, near a place called Griffith Knob. "You can look at the different textures here, and the density of those crowns of trees -- they're part of a continuum," he says. The rarest part of it, in fact. A darker stretch near the bottom of the image suggests the canopies of big, and very old, trees. A career biologist at the Blacksburg outpost of the U.S. Forest Service, Overcash has a professional interest in these relic forests, whittled over the last couple of centuries to wisps of habitat for a rich variety of wildlife. He knows their value to science, and to the lumber mill. In the khaki uniform of federal forestry, with a country-western twang and a taste for fresh venison, Overcash is no stereotypical tree-hugger. But he is not immune to the mystery and the melancholy of the lost forests of the mid-Atlantic, where trees were 10 stories tall and as wide as two men lying head to toe. "The first thing is, I just like big trees," says Overcash. "If I could come back, I would like to come back when there were forests of them. Imagine seeing a 12-foot-diameter white oak!" When Overcash's career with the Forest Service began in the '80s, there was little official reverence for old growth, often referred to as "decadent" -- past its prime as marketable timber and overdue for harvest. Two events nudged him out of the mainstream. The first was the agency's approval of a logging operation in an old grove. "I tell you what," he begins. "We cut a stand here just because we could back in '89 that irritated me to death. It was some beautiful white oak. I said, let's don't cut this, and we did anyway. And from that day on, it was -- all right, I'm not going to relent on this issue." Around that time, Overcash came across boxes full of Depression-era aerial photos ... (cont) |
#2
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Eastern Old Growth
You should take a visit to Joyce Kilmer memorial forest in w.NC sometime. Some
nice old growth back in there! GK Aozotorp wrote: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003May22.html Headline: The Last Stand Very old trees offer a glimpse into our past and clues to our future. But are they worth saving? By Steve Nash Sunday, May 25, 2003; Page W14 Jesse Overcash holds an old aerial photo up to the light -- a few square miles of southwestern Virginia mountains, circa 1935. His finger traces an upfold in the blanket of forest, near a place called Griffith Knob. "You can look at the different textures here, and the density of those crowns of trees -- they're part of a continuum," he says. The rarest part of it, in fact. A darker stretch near the bottom of the image suggests the canopies of big, and very old, trees. A career biologist at the Blacksburg outpost of the U.S. Forest Service, Overcash has a professional interest in these relic forests, whittled over the last couple of centuries to wisps of habitat for a rich variety of wildlife. He knows their value to science, and to the lumber mill. In the khaki uniform of federal forestry, with a country-western twang and a taste for fresh venison, Overcash is no stereotypical tree-hugger. But he is not immune to the mystery and the melancholy of the lost forests of the mid-Atlantic, where trees were 10 stories tall and as wide as two men lying head to toe. "The first thing is, I just like big trees," says Overcash. "If I could come back, I would like to come back when there were forests of them. Imagine seeing a 12-foot-diameter white oak!" When Overcash's career with the Forest Service began in the '80s, there was little official reverence for old growth, often referred to as "decadent" -- past its prime as marketable timber and overdue for harvest. Two events nudged him out of the mainstream. The first was the agency's approval of a logging operation in an old grove. "I tell you what," he begins. "We cut a stand here just because we could back in '89 that irritated me to death. It was some beautiful white oak. I said, let's don't cut this, and we did anyway. And from that day on, it was -- all right, I'm not going to relent on this issue." Around that time, Overcash came across boxes full of Depression-era aerial photos ... (cont) |
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