Forest2Market’s own Gordon Culbertson was recently featured in a very thorough and informative article published in The Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon.
The article, penned by Adam Duvernay and titled The Oregon Timber Worker’s Truth, provides historical context and an accurate depiction of the ever-changing political and economic environment in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), and how these components create new challenges for modern Oregon timbermen.
As a private timberland owner with a lifetime of service in the forest industry, Gordon understands that real environmentalism begins not with a bullhorn and a protest sign, but with an understanding of the life cycle of forests and long-term management and conservation of the precious natural resources dependent on them: clean air, water and soil, wildlife stability, and sustainable wildlife habitats.
“Gordon Culbertson will tell you 100 years of his forest’s history in a cluster of three stumps,” Duvernay said. "Culbertson has been harvesting trees his whole life. He belongs to a diminished class of environmentalists, one of Oregon’s oldest.
“He and his wife, Gail, have planted trees in their forest the couple will never see full grown or cut down. But they will be cut down.”
Duvernay added: “Those trees now are a little taller than he is. They line each side of a road into his family-owned forest in Walton, half an hour west of Eugene and nestled in the hills where he got his start in logging. The Culbertson’s grandchildren play in that forest, their inheritance.
“Culbertson looks at his forest and sees a resource that will last forever so long as timber crews keep up the work they’ve always done.”
Read the full article by Duvernay here. Culbertson can be reached by email at gordon.culbertson@forest2market.com.
Forest2Market: July 14, 2023
