tpo14

In the reading passage, salvage logging is considered a beneficial way of forest recovering after a severe damage, while in the listening passage, the professor uses examples to illustrate that salvage logging may do more harm than good for both the forest eco-system and the economy.

Firstly, the reading article indicates that it would take years for the dead trees to decompose, which would leave no room for new plants. However, the presenter argues that decomposition would be helpful to bring nutrients to the earth in devastated areas, which could actually be beneficial to future trees. So without the procedure of decaying, the soil would be lack of nutrients and unhelpful for the growth of trees later.

Moreover, in the reading part, it is worried that the harmful insects, such as the spruce bark beetle, would take the advantage of suitable living habitat and invade other healthy alive trees. Whereas the lecturer suggests that the bark beetle has been living in that place for one hundred years and still cause serious trouble, in addition there are also some birds and insects which do no damage are relying on the environment. And salvage logging would totally deplete their home and destroy the whole system.

Finally, the economic benefits are mentioned in the reading, which means that salvage logging would clean up the wood that has been burned and make usage of the left one, as well as create new job opportunities for local residents. In fact, some work of cleaning up the damaged forests is technology required, for example, hiring helicopters, so that it would spend plenty of money in salvage logging. Additionally, some work has to be finished by professionals, thus the number of extra working positions would be limited.