Plantation grown timber is a very different proposition compared to logging an old-growth forest.
Frankly you don't have as many trees around you as you think you do (and you're probably a lot more dependent on them then you realize since local forests are usually performing an important ground support function in preventing hillsides washing away in the rain).
No environmentalist is opposing sustainable plantation timber operations, and there's plenty of those going on everywhere.
If they live in the US they probably don't live near much old growth forest.
For instance, nearly all of Michigan was logged. Someone driving through the state might not think so, but most of the trees here grew back after that.
Frankly, you shouldn't assume you know how many trees are around me.
Plantation grown and old growth are very different. Just because it is a forest doesn't mean it is old growth.
I have a lot of trees and the State land next to me has even more that need thinned. I've thinned out my land for better forest health, better wildlife habitat and to reduce fire danger. The State would do well to do the same, but I is very hard to log anything but private land around here.
What happened to my logs? They went to a mill and some for pulp. They weren't old growth, that was gone long ago, but new products like CLT can make use of smaller trees.
Plantations are great, but this whole county grows trees like crazy. It isn't hard to look around and find something that can be logged in a response way, but getting approval is near impossible.
An industrial logging operation fells and transports about 4 trees an hour. Let's assume about 5 productive hours in a day which is on the conservative side. So 20 trees per day. 100 per week. 1200 every 3 months.
So a single commercial logging operation is going to be able to clear cut 2 acres of dense forest every 3 months - which will then be just gone and not coming back with any type of biodiversity or wild life for at least 10 years probably longer if ever since we're not talking plantation growth here.
It is out out of touch arguments like this that prevent good management of many of our forests. We can have healthy forests, jobs and resources to build with, but when people too far away sit around with a calculator and make a decision, we don't get any of them.
All your math doesn't change the fact that there are too many* trees in my area.
1 square mile is 640 acres. At 8 acres per year, this is 80 years to get back to the beginning! I would have expected that commercial logging is much faster because 8 acres is not much!
They go much faster than 1 tree every 15 minutes. It will of course vary based on the terrain and size of the trees, but watch how modern operations work:
Frankly you don't have as many trees around you as you think you do (and you're probably a lot more dependent on them then you realize since local forests are usually performing an important ground support function in preventing hillsides washing away in the rain).
No environmentalist is opposing sustainable plantation timber operations, and there's plenty of those going on everywhere.