One method of "forestry" that I have not seen mentioned here and may only be a southern custom, is the one in which timber companies purchase the timber rights on a piece of property. The company, after installation of totally ineffective "best management practices - BMP's" clear cut the land for the most part and replant nothing. Land so forested looks much like the no-man's land of WWI trench warfare. Not only does the land look to be blasted to smithereens, the runoff from the cleared areas, filtered only by rock check dams in natural water runoff swales, fills natural streams and rivers with tons of sediment. As many of these forestry companies are selling the products to chipboard manufactures, they take almost everything above ground. That's a sight that is far worse than tree plantations, but eventually may lead to a more mixed second growth forest.

In addition, these operations damage the road systems typically found in rural areas and which are not designed to carry the heavy loads generated by dozens of logging trucks. The cost of the repair of the roads naturally falls to the government, funded by taxpayer dollars. As an "agricultural" practice or industry, the timber companies benefit from a lowered standard of environmental protection intended to benefit family farm level of agriculture. And even family farms are more environmentally stable or friendly through the efforts of the Natural Resources Conservation System (formally the Soil Conservation System), a Federal agency created in the 1930's to help stymie the lost of topsoils from agricultural fields.

It's amazing, from an environmental perspective, how we make progress in one area only to lose ground elsewhere. It's also amazing how the federal government allows timbering in the national forests (not parks) for only a few dollars on the acre. That's why you can still buy redwood timber. Not much cultivation of redwood plantations, at least to the best of my knowledge. Sustainability is a concept that has not reached very far into the consciousness of the forestry industry.