Logging

Logging has been a way of life for many New Hampshire residents, past and present. Some of the first industrial uses of the forests were as wood sources to make charcoal (for iron smelting) and then potash (for fertilizer). These were often relatively small operations, often family-run. Timber that goes to mills and becomes lumber has been an important forest product from colonial times to the present. Before the American Revolution, some of New Hampshire's timber was shipped back to England for use as masts in the King's Navy!

Lack of precipitation is not the only weather threat to the timber industry. Ice storms can have devastating effects on the region. Not only do ice storms affect human activity by making roads treacherous and causing power outages, they can do significant damage to trees, reducing the productivity of forest land. The ice storm of January 5-10, 1998 had widespread damaging effects throughout northern New England.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the paper industry began to utilize New Hampshire's forests, too, but it wasn't until WWI that machines began to be used to harvest industrial forests. Trains began to be used to transport some timber, chainsaws came into use in the 1950s, and the skidder machine replaced the use of horses to move timber in the 1960s. Today bulldozers push logging roads deep into forests, giant harvesting machines provide a consistently large volume of wood, and diesel trucks haul tree-length timber. There are even huge machines that mechanically remove limbs from felled whole trees before the wood is transported to mills.

Logging is dangerous work. Although you might think that it is safer today than it was 200 years ago, that isn't necessarily the case. The powerful machines used today, such as chainsaws, skidders and loaders, continue to make logging a hazardous occupation. Logging has one of the highest accident rates of any industry.

Effect of Logging on the Environment

Logging, like just about any human activity, has an impact on the environment. In the early years of the timber industry in the Connecticut River Watershed, procedures were often wasteful and inefficient, but the volume of wood being removed from the forests did not exceed the ability of the forests to grow back. Today, forests need to be managed so that they don't become non-renewable resources.

Mechanization has made it possible for people to deplete forest resources faster than they are replenished. Now there are laws and regulations that help to insure that forest resources will be available in the future, and the timber industry itself works hard to manage and maintain forests as an economic resource.