a "proper" clear cut leaves nothing. They take everything and kill all they can. When they are done they turn the land over leaving a thoroughly savage landscape behind. It is soul crushing to see such brutality. I truly hope we will make such crime against life a punishable offence comparable to mass murder.
Google the images or go look at some sites of such carnage.
Tree farms are no different than other farms in that respect, except for much longer harvest cycles. A corn field is a mono-culture with very little animal life, but most people don't have a problem with them.
Clear-cutting old-growth forests—yes, that's terrible and should never happen. But clear-cutting forests that were planted specifically to be harvested? That's fine, good even.
I'm appalled by this attitude. Monoculture plantations are the very reason we are losing biodiversity at a rate that is going to collapse the food chain we depend upon. Animals and plants do not know boundaries, they try their damned hardest to live and repair the network of organisms we are tearing apart.
In the time it takes a forest to grow it will be home to many species which we utterly fuck up when harvesting the forest, once again putting one more nail in the coffin of our own food supply.
The forest tending of Scandinavia is a good example. The "plantations" are not entirely monoculture and can never be in fact. Healthy forests are anything but only trees, there are so many other species required for a healthy forest.
