Clear-Cut Logging

[byronfry]

I'm sorry for posting a link, but I have this all laid out on my blog with a bit of a write-up to explain the pictures.

Let me know what you think. This was all shot on a MD-2 with CV 24/4

http://byronfryphoto.com/blog/?p=158

 

[foggie]

The style of the pictures is really fantastic. I wish there were more.

The extreme devastation that you wrote about didn't come across so strongly in the pictures. As I looked at them I thought "clear cut isn't nearly as bad as I thought".

 

[xxloverxx]

I didn't read the text but I did look at the photos, and I'll be very straightforward - while they are lovely, they didn't stir my emotions.

 

[oftheherd]

Sorry, I have to agree. While nice, the photos don't stir my emotions either. I wonder if the people seeming to enjoy the outdoors takes a little away from it. But that isn't all. Keep it up though, it's a worthwhile project.

 

[byronfry]

No need to be sorry guys, your comments are really helpful. I wonder about your perceptions and what they mean to how I approach the subject. I've always come at photography trying to pinpoint the moments that great an almost romantic view of a situation. Moments that are unique and beautiful I had hoped would contrast well with the destruction of these ancient ecosystems.

 

[robklurfield]

wonderful images of a profoundly disturbing process of ruin.

 

[sepiareverb]

Not quite clear-cuts as I know them. This is like the 'environmentally proper' logging that goes on in VT. The clear-cuts here are much bigger, then the logger pays a small fine and sells the land.

 

[Ronald M]

If they don`t disturb you, you are uninformed as to what this practice does to the envirnment, and I am NOT a big envirnmentalist.

It removes habitat for species, it allows soil to erode and polute streams, which in turn damages, no destroys, fish habitat.

Now go back and look again.

Not that the USA is better either, we clear cut and then leave a fringe of real forest along roads so people can`t see what is going on.

Does it disturb you now? Can you hear me now??

 

[byronfry]

Ronald, thanks for your comments. Clearcut logging in any form is devastating. And though these photographs don't show the sprawling mountainsides that many associate with historic clearcut logging, they show something very disturbing as well. I'd like to emphasize that these are clearcuts are in old-growth rainforest, an ecosystem that is becoming extremely endangered. Many of these trees are Western Red Cedar, most of which you can count ring patterns to suggest they are over 1000-years-old. Others that are targeted are the extremely valuable Douglas Fir, of which 99% of the old-growth have been logged on Vancouver Island. The second photograph looks across into a provincial park which houses many of the largest tree's reported in Canada. Maybe 25km from where I took that picture you can stand under the Cheewhat Giant, the largest tree in all of Canada, a Western Red Cedar that is 18 metres around the base.

 

[sepiareverb]

...It removes habitat for species, it allows soil to erode and polute streams, which in turn damages, no destroys, fish habitat.

Here it is spun as creating habitat for deer and bears. Too much of Vermont is forested nowadays as compared to 1850.

Not that the USA is better either, we clear cut and then leave a fringe of real forest along roads so people can`t see what is going on.

Maybe some places, but not up here. They go right to the road, right to and through the streams. I spent all of last winter hearing the drone of the buncher fellers on the 200 acre former dairy farm woodlot behind me, right up to the line. (Logging surveyors cleared lines of sight across my land). My land being downslope is now so wet that the trees are falling over in the wind.