"This makes sense."
I'm glad to see someone speaking out against the myth that clearcuts increase biodiversity. Yes, there are stand-replacing disturbances in nature like large wildfires, landslides, etc. But they don't happen as frequently or on as large a scale as clearcuts. And even a lot of large wildfires still display mosaic burn patterns, in which there are patches of relatively untouched forest amid the burned areas that help repopulate the whole region.
A clearcut, on the other hand, involved bulldozing all the plants beneath the trees to make the trees easier to access, and then cutting down all the trees, or leaving a few sickly specimens behind. Then the land is replanted with a monoculture of whatever cash crop tree the timber companies prefers. That's why the Pacific Northwest is covered in closely-planted stands of <60 year old Douglas fir. Those aren't forests--they're just glorified tree farms.
While there is an increasing number of foresters trying to promote more sustainable and ecologically sound forestry practices, your larger timber interests are generally going to be spouting myths that make themselves look better (if they bother to try for better P.R. at all.) They're also busy lobbying against any conservation measures that could affect their bottom line.
And, for the record, they are directly responsible for the closure of lumber mills and loss of jobs here in the United States because it's cheaper for them to just ship logs across the Pacific to Asia to be processed into lumber. It was never about the spotted owls and old growth forests--that was a puppet show to distract people from corporate decisions that ultimately hurt both nature and workers alike.
