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The cypress is our state tree. Do we still have plenty of cypress in Louisiana? |
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The cypress is our state tree. Do we still have plenty of cypress in Louisiana?
Logged Cypress Swamp
(Butte La Rose, LA)
At the turn of the last century, it is estimated that Louisiana had over 2.2 million acres of cypress forests.[6] Those forests were effectively logged out, and many of them have not regenerated. Today, only 800,000 acres of cypress forests remain. The US Global Change Program sums it up: “In Louisiana in 1948, bald cypress provided 49 million board feet but only four million board feet in 1977. Most of this reduction was the result of logging, but of greater concern today is that many cypress swamps logged 30 to 100 years ago have not regenerated”.[7]
Logging advocates often
cite US Forest Service FIA data that shows massive recent growth, but
the same plots were not sampled in 1991 and 2005; therefore,
comparisons are difficult to make.[8] Also, data presented by the logging industry can be misleading. Gary
Shaffer, a cypress expert at Southeast Louisiana University, points
out that the US Forest Service measures cypress in board feet. That
means young trees don't count until they grow large enough to be
marketable. So, a second-growth forest that suddenly shows up in the
count in 2005 may have actually been there for years and doesn't
really represent net growth of cypress trees.[9]
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