LIGHTER TOUCH: Oregon logger benefits from programs designed to improve public forest health

摘要

Logging south central Oregon's high country is tough work. There's ice and snow in the winter and blazing temperatures, fire danger and dust during the summer. Rugged, rocky terrain and timber durable enough to survive in the arid region make the jobeven more challenging. Logger Richard Lawson, 68, a partner with his brother Eugene in T.A. Lawson & Sons Logging (known locally as Lawson Logging) near Lakeview, has seen it all since he began working in the woods decades ago. The biggest changes are nodoubt in timber supply and management. Located along the Oregon-California line, the region is dominated by public land and a few major private landowners, such as Collins Companies and Jeld-Wen. Lawson worked through the large-scale public land logging projects of decades past and remembers the big timber and clear-cuts.