Sometime back I ran a thread on timber. Going back fishing but as one who retired from 39 years in timber some of these post are somewhat fantasy land.

Export of raw logs began to San Fran after the earthquake way back when. I recent times it was the Columbus day storm that flattened things and the Japs bought it cheap, timber companies then started selling the best to them which killed off most local saw mills. Export rapidly increased the rate of harvest ( acreage ) as the money was in raw logs not a finished product. As to mechanization yes it had impacts. Once a side ( spar tree, crew, ect ) had over 50 men associated with it. Then came trucks, less. Steel towers, less jobs again, on and on. The mechanization was and is driven by timber size primarily, enviromental laws next, and tree farms on 40 year rotations. In other words you build lots of road ( about 6 miles to a section now with new rules ) so you can use cable shovels and shovels themselves to log as the giant Skagit slacklines and GT5 grapples are long gone. It is radio chokers, feller buncher, short yarding for fiber that is not measured in bd feet but Cunits which is squared chunk of wood fiber.

The treefarms, began by Weyco at Montesano with the Clemons farm, are on 40 year rotations ( or less ) so the impact are greater now than in the old days. Lot to this part but the R map stuff is going to get a 5 year extension and they want it to 2030. Oh, R Map are the new rules to save fish.

The logging on Forest Service land began with Gifford Pinchot and was to supply timber for jobs as the privately owned timber holdings were nearly gone. It was intended to be temporary until private holdings matured and never at the level it was done. The owl thing was bs as the argument was the harvest of old growth which had been moved well past where it should.

Put it this way, in my 62 years I have been in a forest only twice. Otherwise I worked in the woods for 40 years on tree farms. They are not forest, not intended to be forest, and will never be forest again. What they are is large scale, long term, commercial agriculture on a 35 to 40 year crop rotation.