Lousiana Debates Cutting Remaining Cypress Stands For Garden Mulch

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MANCHAC, La. – Bald cypress, Louisiana's state tree, has never been sacred. If anything, using the great wood has always been the Louisiana way. But that could change if Gov. Kathleen Blanco decides that Louisiana's sinking and disappearing coastline just can't take another culling of its majestic delta forests. The governor faces a difficult decision on whether some sections should be off-limits to logging.

A century after the first harvest of Louisiana's virgin cypress and water tupelo forests, Louisiana's swamps are again rich in second-growth stands. But a lot's changed since timber companies clear-cut Louisiana's swamps. The state has lost 1,900 square miles of coast – an area the size of Delaware. The reasons are many, and logging is among them. After the Civil War, the state's coastal forests extended out to the Gulf of Mexico. Early loggers cut those down and many areas never re-grew. Instead, low-lying parts of the coast were taken over by shrubs and grasses. Logging and other factors, ranging from oil and natural gas drilling to construction of levees, led to the degradation of soil and hydrology in many areas that were formerly an Amazon-like rain forest.

Nonetheless, there's still a lot of cypress swamp left. Louisiana now has 1,462 million cubic feet of cypress, second only to Florida. The abundance is both a blessing and a curse. This poor state needs the tax dollars that logging would bring but it also needs to save its coast, which would most likely lose even more land if logging is not restricted.

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Other forces are fueling the interest in logging the coast. Stocks are running low in Florida and other cypress-abundant states and gardeners are lapping up cypress mulch. "It's being sold at all the main retail stores, Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Lowes – that we know of," said Barry Kohl with the Louisiana Audubon Society. Environmentalists are now passing out brochures against cypress mulch at garden club meetings, he added. "Why should you take a 100-year-old cypress tree and put it on a plant," grumbled Rocky Rakocy, a 50-year-old crabber and catfisherman inManchac. "They're dying and there aren't many left. Leave 'em alone."

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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20050731-1008-cullingthecypress.html