You're driving on your favorite stretch of Michigan road. The sun is shining, the windows are rolled down, and you're singing along to that catchy song drifting out of the speakers. As you round a familiar curve in the road, you know you're approaching a special place, near the campground you
r family used to frequent when you were a kid.
You turn your gaze to the left to take in the sight of that beloved stand of trees you've admired for years. When you see it, your eyes go wide and your foot jerks away from the gas pedal to the brakes.
The space where your cherished gentle giants once stood is now bare. Branches, logs and other debris are strewn around an opening where aspen once grew tall. A few individual trees remain, looking small and sad amid the ruin.
Your treasured forest land has been clear-cut.
OK, maybe this is a slightly dramatic example, but if you ask Bill O'Neill – Michigan's state forester – about clear-cuts, the first thing he'll tell you is this: "They're ugly."
"There's no sugar-coating it, clear-cuts aren't pretty," said O'Neill, who also serves as chief of the Forest Resources Division in the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
"We understand that folks don't like seeing harvesting, especially near the places that served as the backdrop for the camping trips and hunting seasons of their memories," he said. "But it's important to remember that any activity that takes place on state-managed forest land is driven by science and by what is, in the long term, best for the resource. Clear-cutting is an essential and proven forest management tool.
"We know it's hard to believe. Just because a recently harvested area is unsightly now, that it doesn't mean it will be ugly forever. In fact, that area grows back even faster than you'd probably believe," O'Neill said.
Forest regeneration is the practice of establishing young trees after the previous stand has been removed. It is part of a process that begins with planning and coordinating timber harvests, and is just another part of a DNR forester's day-to-day job – they're planning the makeup of the new forest long before a single tree is cut.
"We can plan the type of timber harvest so the harvest itself is the tool to regenerate. We use artificial regeneration as a supplement," said Jason Hartman, a DNR silviculturalist. A silviculturalist is responsible for the development and care of the trees in a forest.
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