Deforestation of Northern California

many studies, many headlines might be available about this sad process, taking place in Northern California, here I only attach two simple placemarks:

1. Placemark is set to higher altitude and imagery time stamp 1995. Use GE Time Slider to travel in time back to present day and notice dramatic forest cover changes in view. (Turn all GE layers off viewing this one!)
deforestation of Northern California.kmz (910 B)


figure 1.: woodland cover changes 1995/2016  - click thumb to open full image (268KB JPEG)
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2. One step back in time with GE Time Slider tool and you also get 5000 hectares of plant cover back!
clear cut Northern California.kmz (891 B)based on irregular shape, I thought it might be related to recent wildfires, zoomed in and seen that I was right.
ash and hundreds of thousands of dead trees all around with wheel tracks everywhere. - any closer info on this?

so besides man does their "duty", even nature does not take a rest while working on deforestation of Northern California...

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related from oldBoard:
sustainable forestry

related from this Board:
"wind safe" forestry

In theory it goes like this> They clearcut the forest selectively, taking patches of second growth trees, and replacing them with seedling trees which become second growth, roughly 40 years, thus perpetuating the forest over time, and keeping a steady supply of wood products like paper, lumber and furniture. 

In reality it goes like this> An expansive area clearcut, it looks bad enough up close or from the sky.  Yet they {"they" being big government, big business } continue cutting into old-growth virgin forests and this is quite contravercial with environmentalists.

was quite sure you won't let this thread sit cowboy! (;
you are the same clod-bound-bone, having such deep feelings for your motherland that I have for sweet home Hungary.

contradiction you have mentioned become visible using time-slider tool.

I am not sure anymore, that what we see is 'sustainable' as it said to be... 

Eminent botanist and legendary Yosemite naturalist Dr Carl Sharsmith joined a logging outfit near Mount Lassen in 1921. He joined not because he wanted to cut down trees, but because he wanted to be among trees and study them. 

Carl started up the trail. When he topped the hill he found himself in an upland covered by a virgin forest of majestic sugar pines rising over two hundred feet above him. It was early spring and although the ground was still snowy, hermit thrushes were singing. His heart was happy....
Alongside the meadow stood a huge douglas fir with a snow-free space where he spread his sugans and made camp. Sweet fresh water ran in the nearby creek, and there was plenty of wood for a cozy fire. For three days he lived under the douglas fir roasting potatoes, listening to the wind in the trees, and curled up snugly at night.

Elizabeth Stone O'Neill. Mountain Sage, The Life Story of Carl Sharsmith, Yosemite's Famous Ranger/Naturalist. Albicaulis Press, Groveland, California. 1996, p. 53.