Official Luthiers Forum!

From NYT this morning:
Trump Administration to End Protections for 58 Million Acres of National Forests.
Maybe Brent Cole can put is into context for us.
This is not meant to be an inflammatory political rant.
Please, let's stick to the issues of what this will mean to the forest.

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Tom is being serious and wants to avoid politics and I respect both his intent and him. I'd genuinely be interested in an informed discussion as well that does not get political.

So please let's not let this thread become a severed head that Col. Kurtz tosses in our laps....

Thanks

Good luck with this discussion... it's been politically contentious in all aspects since the last few days of the Clinton Administration when the Roadless Rule was amended to add 58 million acres (about 5% of the total land area of the US, and just a little less than the land area of California) to the lands which fall under the management and use restrictions of the rule.

Perhaps the way forward should be for the OP to:

1) Identify the elements of the issue that are inherently non-political and suitable for discussion here

2) Identify the elements of the issue which have some demonstrable impact on luthiers

3) Identify the common elements between 1) and 2), which bound what might be discussed here per rule

To reiterate, good luck with that.

_________________
A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I was hoping Brent would comment since this is in his back yard.

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

I look forward to Brent's perspective as well. Bob Taylor may also be on top of this and it could be worth looking for any info that he is posting somewhere on the interwebs.

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jw ( o)===:::

I don't drop in here much these days.
Yes this policy does include our backyard, and our source of old growth timber.
There are a couple of Hysterical, "USA demolishing policies" being activated or proposed regarding Public Lands.
This roadless rule is one.
I'm not in favor of clearcutting every old growth tree in The Tongass National Forest. as the Alaska Native Corporations have done to their lands. That is until the government stepped in and offered to pay them with our tax $, to not log anymore. So it wasn't the natives corps. good will or concern of the forest that moved them to make the decision to cease all logging operations in 2022, once again, Corporate greed and taxpayer funding/fleecing wins again.
But at the same time I know there needs to be some profitable timber industry in SE Alaska for there to be any timber industry. We at Alaska Specialty Woods Inc needs there to be a timber industry here. I want responsible Management of the forest for multiple uses. The fish, wildlife, recreation, timber etc. You guys do not get guitar tops unless there is some timber industry here.
Central planning from DC doesn't work. Roadless rule may work in lower 48 national forests where there is already an infrastructure of road system, But not SE Alaska. The stupid rule maintained a road density i.e. "x miles of road". Road is ACCESS! Here in order to harvest anything, road needs to be constructed. Because there is no road. So roads that we paid for and gave us access to salvage or recreation or whatever had to get closed in order to build a new road over there. Thousands of sq miles of access was closed by the stupid rule. all the subsistence hunting and other food gathering is now limited to mainline access, as well as all the sport hunters from out of state and other islands and towns in Alaska that come here. So everyone including us and other wood products people has just this little bit of forest to access. Forest here is not like forest south. You don't go off roading in this forest , you don't access by horse. O you can't even keep a horse here unless you are very wealthy because there is no pasture lands and hay fields. It's forest and any livestock food except for goats that eat anything and everything, has to be barged in. So I am VERY much in favor of eliminating the roadless rule for the Tongass. But again I want there to be responsible harvest and management. It's certainly a difficult and complicated task. And I see a lot of college educated idiots. I've been in the woods since 1978 with only a 6 yr absence in the oil field drilling 3 mile deep oil wells. So I've been in and very connected to this temperate Rainforest since 1987. I know it better than loggers and timber managers, or at least in a much more detailed way. I believe that knowledge comes from paying attention to what we harvest, where we harvest, each tree/log "form". And as we dissect each tree into logs, rounds, blocks and boards, we get to "read" the history.

There's more to this timber issue unique to SE Alaska. I could talk about it, but I don't have time to write about by pecking on a keyboard.
So Back to grading guitar tops for you guys and thousands of others, I go.

The other issue I see "oh no" about is selling off public lands. Prolly not a discussion for here. And It doesn't even affect me/us here, despite what "news" agencies claim.

Funny. Pretty much why I stopped coming to this dying forum though I do check in once in a while just to see and nah, still the same.

"And I see a lot of college educated idiots."

Like JD Vance said, they [achedemics] are the, "enemy of the people". My wife, a PHD in Forestry, who has worked so hard in helping us maintain these lands is a 'college idiot.' A college idiot who, no doubt, foresters depend on data from. What a narcissistic arrogant prick.

New York Times = lies and BS.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Secretary Rollins of the Trump administration did announce that they intend to revoke a 2001 rule designed to protect 58.5 million acres of virgin forest from road construction. It is neither a lie nor BS, and has been reported in multiple sources and on the USDA’s website.

Do you ever check your preferred news source for accuracy? You may be surprised.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Wow. This conversation curdled quickly.
I sadly have to agree with Mr McKenna that this forum shows all signs of dying.

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Nah, this forum is great, when you have specific questions about building guitars. There’s a whole host of folks that know exactly what they’re doing from broad and diverse backgrounds to help with any guitar making questions you might have.

Hate to say I told you so, but...

Re: the Roadless Rule:

It's interesting to read the contemporaneous record of the 2001 rule expansion, which was done in the closing days of the second Clinton Administration, and largely attributed to the usual petty, partisan bickering engaged in by outgoing administrations with change of party. The rule affects about 30% of the land currently in the National Forest System, prohibiting not only road creation and logging, but also many of the fire management practices which we see in areas where it does not apply (e.g., controlled burns, fuel clearing, etc. - these are either prohibited or simply infeasible due to lack of roads or other safe access).

This last is important. Since the rule's inception in 2001, the Forest Service says that National Forest System acreage lost to fire has doubled re: prior to rule enactment, while the usual suspects on the other side of the discussion claim that unmanaged forests allow wildfires to occur in a more natural fashion with less in the way of consequences to adjacent communities, wildlife, etc. And contrary to much of the discussion I've seen online, there are significant impacts to the National Forest System outside of Alaska, with nearly 60% of Forest Service land in Utah and 58% in Montana impacted by the 2001 rule change. That said, the Tongas - the nation's largest designated National Forest - seems the most affected, with 92% impacted in terms of development, fire management, etc.

We will see how this plays out, particularly with regard to the recent(ish) SCOTUS rulings on both administrative procedures (with elimination of the Chevron Deference doctrine) and the now largely impermissible practice of the lower federal courts authoring universal injunctions (i.e., injunctions which have applicability beyond the actual parties present in the courtroom) to quickly intervene on a national basis to stymie Executive authority under Article II.

So much fun to live in interesting times.

Luthiery Content: Despite assurances to the contrary, there are Southern(er) Jumbos out there that were assembled with soundboard over the neck dovetail. Ask me how I know that.

_________________
A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I think you have to go a lot deeper than a NYT article to get to the truth.

To start getting up to date on the issue you can read the 2001 rule here - https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2001/01/12/01-726/special-areas-roadless-area-conservation

And the new USDA proposal here - https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/06/23/secretary-rollins-rescinds-roadless-rule-eliminating-impediment-responsible-forest-management

All the NYT would let me see is the title without jumping a pay wall - "Trump Administration to End Protections for 58 Million Acres of National Forests".

I don't know what the article says but in NYT form, the title is probably intentionally misleading. Are all USDA/Forest Service logging rules being eliminated? I think not. A couple things that stuck out to me were -- The 2001 rule talks about cost of road maintenance almost as much as protecting forests. It also makes some blanket claims about water and wildlife that are not clearly or well substantiated. At the same time saying they are protecting forests for future generations. But without roads, there won't be much enjoyment by the people going on if you can't get to the forests.

I suspect the original rule was put in place to appease the tree-hugger lobbyists and political donors at the time while providing some blanket protections to forests. And I'd call myself a common sense tree hugger too, so nothing bad implied by using the name. The work of the 2001 rule would have been a lot harder in a case be case structure but that's a lot harder to do and politicians don't work much. When you read the new proposal it does point out some real problems with the 2001 rule and it does so without pages and pages of bureaucratic BS that seemed rampant in the 2001 rule IMO.

I worked and lived in a wilderness National Park for almost 40 years. Ran water and wastewater treatment plants and utilities to protect visitors and the resource. I own, love and thereby protect forest land. If my life in the woods has taught me anything it has been the absolute and unstoppable resilience of nature. We've built and maintain a couple miles of 2 track roads and trails for walking, hunting and firewood. It is a constant vigil keeping them open and walk-able. Even hay fields on land we have been stewards of for the last 50 years are overgrown with trees and almost indistinguishable from surrounding forests.

I love the woods, I love wood, I've bought land to protect it. Roads and trails help me do that. To be useful, science needs to be applied with common sense, and degrees don't always make you smart or give you common sense. I've seen it in action in our national park system both when it works and when it doesn't and I'd make the odds of a good outcome 50:50 at best in agency decision making. All too often politically charged, virtue signalling to score points with upper mgmt.

My wife who also worked in a national wilderness park for 40 years said she'd give me an "A" for AXEcellence when I read this to her.

My sincere 2 cents.

I'm heading out now to do a little timber stand improvement and cut down some dead trees to maintain my forest, and that's the truth!

ps --- If this forum is dying, who's fault is that? I love it here.

Good post Woodie, I was out taking pictures and splitting some!

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

There, I fixed it for you

Have a care, sir. Time spent throwing shade at a largely irrelevant media organ to all appearances intent on serial acts of self-immolation is hardly well spent, given other more productive pursuits await. Perhaps another contentious 193 versus 315 gram strength hot hide glue thread, or a frisky debate on whether Ovations are in fact musical instruments or merely badly-designed paddles for small watercraft?

I too enjoyed your post, Mr. Rbuddy. You appear to live in a forest paradise... I envy you your wood stand. My own home backs to the wooded hills and hollows of West Virginia, but I lack my own 100 acre wood. What I do share with other forest or edge dwellers is that evening quiet and - most important - birds in abundance. The presence of birdsong is translated by our unconscious as a lack of stalking predators; our bodies respond to that signal with reduced production of stress hormones, slowing heart and respiration rates, and an induced sense of relaxation and well-being. While I enjoy the challenges of the working day, the forest that wraps my own backyard is an effective evening anodyne.

_________________
A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower