If a governor cuts down 20 years of forest mismanagement and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound -- or more importantly, a difference?
We'll see. Gov. John Kitzhaber recently delivered a powerful but little noticed speech to the Oregon Board of Forestry in which he argued that current policies across the sweep of federal, state and privately owned forests that cover over 30 million acres of Oregon conspire to hurt rural communities, the economy, fish and wildlife and the forests themselves.
Harvest numbers prove his point: The federal government owns and manages nearly 60 percent of Oregon forest lands, but these lands produce only about 12 percent of the annual timber harvest. Oregon's relatively tiny state forests, at 3 percent of forest lands, produce nearly as much timber.
Meanwhile, Oregon's private and industrial forests, which total 19 percent of Oregon forest lands, produce 75 percent of the harvest. Here's the kicker: Nearly a billion dollars' worth of private logs are not going to feed the Oregon sawmills struggling to survive; they're being exported to China. "This amounts to nothing more than exporting our natural capital and our jobs," Kitzhaber said. "We are at risk of becoming a timber colony for Asia."
Kitzhaber describes current policies as "de facto forest zoning" that harms forests and puts pressure in the wrong places. Timber exports force sawmills to seek more logs from public forests. The failure of federal management shifts more demand onto state forests. But adjusting the timber harvest on 3 percent of Oregon forest lands solves little.
But Oregon can demonstrate a way forward. Kitzhaber urged the forestry board to "break the mold of conflict and polarization" by adopting truly sustainable policies for state forests. He urged the board to adopt a land allocation system that explicitly protects high-value conservation and recreation areas while also delineating areas for commercial logging.
This is more or less the same philosophy that Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Peter DeFazio and other members of Oregon's congressional delegation have embraced and are pursuing for federal lands. Wyden's eastside forest compromise, which has idled for more than a year in Congress, would protect remaining old-growth forests while allowing more commercial logging in other areas. DeFazio's idea of carving out conservation and logging "trusts" on some westside forests is a variation of the same theme.
The word is that DeFazio and other Oregon members of Congress may be poised to roll out a serious plan to spur more activity in federal forest lands in Southwest Oregon. It would take a big push to move something through this Congress. Meanwhile, we keep hearing that the state wants to be a player in the federal forest debate. It can start by getting its own forests in order.
The Board of Forestry should get cracking on a land allocation system, and it shouldn't take forever -- the agency knows where salmon and spotted owl strongholds and other key conservation and recreation areas lie in its forests. The agency already is protecting many of these areas; formally setting them apart from commercial logging would give recognition to their stewardship. The board also should be unafraid to dig into the controversial issue of log exports, and explore ways to keep logs here by making them more valuable to Oregonians than to the Chinese.
Meanwhile, Kitzhaber, the entire congressional delegation and leaders of the timber industry and environmental groups must keep pressing for thoughtful, collaborative change in the management of federal forests. If Oregon is ever going to get the most out of its forests, the governor has to deliver a lot more than one great speech.
Here is what I posted to Oregonlive on this topic:
ReplyDeleteThe devil is in the details. In this editorial it is in the definition of the word "protect." To protect something is not the same thing as avoiding it. Protecting something means to care for it -- carefully. To tend to the things which directly threaten it.
Our old-growth is being threatened by wildfire, bugs, and competition from younger trees; not logging, as many of the posters to this blog seem to want us to believe. Lawyers are a far bigger problem than loggers these days.
It is obvious that many of the more strident anti-logging posters to Oregonlive have little or no actual experience in our forests. Nor do many of them -- and maybe particularly those that keep invoking "science" to support their agenda -- have much more than a rudimentary idea of forest ecology, fire history, or evolutionary biology.
There are hundreds of thousands of acres of old-growth trees (large trees in excess of 200-years of age) remaining in the forests of the Pacific Northwest; Douglas-fir, myrtle, Ponderosa pine, Sitka spruce, redcedar, white oak, true fir, yew, and a few other species. These trees are being "protected" to death through neglect and mismanagement.
These trees -- and the forests and grasslands in which they exist -- need to be carefully managed in order to be preserved for future generations, not neglected. Passive management policies from Wilderness, to the Clinton Plan, to roadless areas are a proven failure, and the evidence is everywhere you look on federal lands in the western United States. Our rural economies, our healthy forests, and our forest industries have been greatly damaged and even ruined by these regulations during the past 30 years. The evidence is everywhere you look.
Here is a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation I gave at Utah State last month. It contains actual photographs of old-growth trees in Oregon whose continued existence is severely threatened by wildfires, bugs, and overcrowding (and could be greatly improved via selective logging and other active management methods): https://forestry.usu.edu/files/uploads/RTW2011Media/ZybachRTW10-19-11.mp4
Something needs to be done, and the best thing for our public forests and rural economies would be to have our current passive management policies undone first.