Photo by Ellen Miller

Friday, December 30, 2011

Applaud, support bipartisan forest plan


and Allyn C. Ford

We applaud the action of U.S. Reps. Greg Walden, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader as they work to strike a much-needed balance in how our federal forests are managed — for those of us who live here.

It's hardly news that Oregon, particularly rural Oregon, is enduring crippling levels of unemployment, desperately needing jobs from our former economic base: natural resources. One key barometer of Oregon's economic condition is industrial electricity demand, and usage has dropped off severely because of wood products manufacturing decline and mills closing. But it's not just about running mills or selling kilowatts, which is why what our congressmen propose is heartening — a bipartisan plan to put Oregonians back to work in our own forests, in a sustainable way.

By setting aside the most sensitive areas under consideration for conservation and unlocking other areas for active management and harvest, the plan could provide what rural Oregonians — and local governments — need most right now: certainty. Today, there is no certainty for local communities that the federal government will continue providing the timber payments that currently fund even the most basic services — law enforcement, emergency response and other essential government functions most of us take for granted.

The congressmen's plan recognizes that as these federal payments dry up, the only sustainable solution for Oregon's natural resource dependent communities is to un-tether from the federal appropriations game and be allowed to meet their needs locally. Home-grown jobs and some certainty of locally generated revenue are crucial for the literal survival of many Oregon communities, which is an effort worth supporting.

We represent companies that have provided critical electric service for 100 years and a wood products company that has grown over a half century into one of the major innovators and suppliers of products internationally, while maintaining its roots here. Over the years, and by working together, we now have a partnership where Roseburg Forest Products generates most of its own electricity and even sells back to Pacific Power — sustainably. We know that Oregon can manage local resources and find creative ways to add value to our communities because we are doing it. We listened closely at the recent Oregon Business Leadership Summit and heard Governor Kitzhaber loud and clear when he said that we need a new and collaborative approach to forest management. OK, here you have it. We both see promise in Oregon's future and know that this kind of vision and plan can lead the way to realizing a sustainable forest-based industry with economic stability, jobs and support for critical public services.

To do that, though, these representatives of our great state need our full-throated support for seeking a path forward. We welcome other business, civic, natural resource and elected leaders to join us in moving this plan forward quickly to gain approval.

R. Patrick Reiten is president and CEO of Pacific Power. Allyn C. Ford is CEO of Roseburg Forest Products.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Down the center path on federal forests

Congress has to get cracking; time is running out on timber counties 
Published: Wednesday, December 28, 2011, 4:01 PM     Updated: Wednesday, December 28, 2011, 4:06 PM


Three Oregon congressmen recently described on these pages the outlines of a plan aimed at breaking the impasse on federal forests and preserving basic county services across timber country. It looks promising, and we're eager to see more.

Democrats Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader, and Republican Greg Walden, say they have worked through their differences and are preparing a bipartisan plan that would create thousands of new jobs by expediting harvest of previously logged forests, protect old-growth and critical wildlife areas and provide steady funding for rural schools, roads and law enforcement.

Of course, lawmakers have raised hopes for this sort of grand forest legislation before, only to have their best-laid plans go nowhere in the face of environmental opposition and congressional inattention. But now there's an unmistakable fiscal crisis looming across timber country, where federal payments to counties have expired and some local governments could plunge into insolvency in the coming year.

The prospect of failing local governments and families fleeing declining rural communities ought to focus minds both in Oregon and in Congress. The issues surrounding federal forests and rural counties simply can't be pushed off any longer.

The three Oregon congressmen seem to be headed down the right path. They describe a plan that would allow a steady and sustainable level of timber harvest primarily from younger second-growth forests. Sensitive areas and mature and old-growth forests would be set aside and protected. The forest lands open to harvest would remain under the ownership of the federal government, but be managed by a diverse, public board in trust for the counties.

Other elements of the proposal will appeal to those concerned with the future of the old-growth and other sensitive areas. The management of mature and old-growth forests would be transferred from the Bureau of Land Management to the U.S. Forest Service. The plan also proposes major new wilderness and wild and scenic river protections in key areas, such as the Rogue River area.

There's a lot to like in this broad outline, but Oregonians ought to reserve judgment until the lawmakers fill in the details early next year. But something has got to change on the federal forests that cover half or more of many Oregon counties.

The status quo -- the administrative gridlock and legal appeals, the drip, drip, drip of mill closures, the failing counties -- threatens to hollow out rural Oregon. Already, falling school enrollments across timber country indicate that many families don't see a future in these communities.

Of course, this congressional plan will trigger all the usual suspicion and reflexive opposition from those who have spent their lives fighting over activities in federal forests. But we still hope there is a place where most people can meet in the middle on federal forests, where timber harvest is carried out in a sustainable manner, where ancient trees are preserved, where rural counties can survive on stable federal timber revenues and fair contributions from local property taxpayers.

DeFazio, Walden, Schrader say they have put aside their differences and found that place in the middle. That's good. Now they must lead the rest of us there.


Tuesday, December 20, 2011

In Curry County, Oregon's financial dependence on federal forest policy brings ruin in sight


Curry County's financial woes
Gold Beach, Oregon--12/01/2011-- Looking from the court house in Gold Beach. 
 
Curry County, and other Oregon counties, will cease to function if Congress does not renew federal funding intended to replace decades of timber harvest revenue. The county funding problem stems from the steep reduction in timber harvests on federal forests, which makes up 53 percent of the land in Oregon. Jamie Francis/The Oregonian Curry County could go broke in 2013 gallery (12 photos) 
 
GOLD BEACH -- On any given day, there may be no place in Oregon prettier than Curry County. Broad flat beaches, many littered with agate and quartz. The Rogue, Elk, Illinois and Chetco rivers rushing from forest to sea. The Kalmiopsis Wilderness.

And on any given day, in winter, at least 10 degrees warmer than where you're at. The far southwest corner is Oregon's banana belt.

On this given day, however, in a chilly, unadorned room at the Curry County Fairgrounds, 24 people sit at bare tables shaped into a U. Powerpoint presentations flash up front. A pair of mediators bustle a cordless microphone here and there, because you have to take turns speaking.

It's the end of November. Curry County government may fold next summer. The federal faucet that poured $230 million a year into Oregon counties is shut off. The political stalemate in Washington stymies a restoration.

Curry's not alone, just the first. Coos, Josephine, Klamath and Lane counties -- all deeply dependent on federally owned natural resource land -- are bunched up to follow Curry off the cliff.

The 24 people meeting at the fairgrounds are supposed to figure out a solution.

The dissolution of an Oregon county hasn't happened before. It may not be legally possible. Questions outnumber answers.

If there's no county government, who runs the jail, issues marriage licenses, records deeds, adjusts lot lines, inspects restaurants, counsels juvenile delinquents and assesses property? Who sends out the tax bills? Where do you send the payments?

Curry knew this day was coming but didn't do anything. About 61 percent of its general fund and 65 percent of its road fund revenues came from federal payments.

Without timber payments, Curry's expenses will exceed general fund revenue by more than $350,000 in 2012-13. The deficit grows to more than $3 million the next year, the county projects.

"It's anybody's guess," Commissioner Dave Itzen says, "how long we last."
 
Sheriff John Bishop grabs the microphone. He's a big man with a shaved head, wearing a coat and tie. Beneath his jovial persona is a no-nonsense coastal cop.

"I don't know how many more rabbits I can pull out of the hat," he tells the committee.

His patrol division has five deputies and a lieutenant to cover 80-some miles from Langlois to the California border south of Brookings; once there were as many as 16. Two jailers per shift watch more than two dozen prisoners. Two 911 dispatchers per shift, sometimes one, handle calls for deputies, two city police departments, eight fire districts and four ambulance companies.

Bishop says the jail is a lawsuit waiting to happen. "An absolute disaster," he says. Its fire suppression system doesn't meet standards; heating and ventilation are inadequate. The annual budget for inmate food, clothing and medicine is $147,600. If an inmate gets hurt, as when one attempted suicide a couple years ago, the hospital bill could exceed the budget.

In a letter to Bishop last August, an Oregon State Police lieutenant said troopers based in Gold Beach can't help except in life-threatening emergencies.

Two community corrections officers supervise 160 people on parole or probation. The sheriff's office gives a sex offender a bus ticket to travel unaccompanied to Coos Bay for treatment.

Bishop gives a knock-on-wood grimace and says it's worked, "so far."
                                                          
                                                      *

GS.31TIMB120.jpgView full size
 
The federal and state governments own 60 percent of Curry County, much in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Sometimes, county residents approach Alan Vandiver on the street and let him know things would be better if the U.S. Forest Service just opened up the woods for more logging.

Vandiver, the Gold Beach district ranger, is a patient man with a mustache. He hears them out, then asks, "Are you aware we sold 20 million board feet off the Powers and Gold Beach ranger districts last year?"

He acknowledges the districts might have produced 80 million board feet of timber annually, back in the old unsustainable days. Today, logging is part of a puzzle that includes jobs, owls, fish, recreation, watersheds.

"Could we responsibly cut more for the right reason?" he asks. "Yes."

He believes balance is necessary and possible. That means a healthy forest and still allowing people to make a living on public land: guides and outfitters, loggers, brushcutters and truck drivers, mushroom pickers.

"It's not an either-or situation," he says.
                                                     
                                                      *   

It is gospel in Curry County that Mike Keiser, developer of the internationally acclaimed Bandon Dunes golf courses and resort, first wanted to build near Gold Beach. True or not, missed economic opportunity is a sour spot in the community memory. Bo Schindler,  general manager of Freeman Marine Equipment recalls attending a meeting at Bandon Dunes and stepping outside to count 110 golf bags at the first tee.

"At $225 a pop!" he exclaims.

Imagine that tourism money here, the grumblers say, not to mention property taxes. Instead, Keiser built in Coos County, just north.

When the commissioners tried to jump into golf course development last summer, the deal fell apart. It required a land swap of more than 600 acres in the state-owned Floras Lake State Natural Area, and the state wasn't interested.

The commissioners approved another golf course and destination resort development at Crook Point, between Gold Beach and Brookings, but environmental groups appealed. The state Land Use Board of Appeals sided with them and sent it back to the county.

Schindler, thick-set and bearded, doesn't know what to say. He's no fan of government or property taxes, but he voted for 2010 levies for law enforcement and schools, neither of which passed. "If you don't care about kids and public safety..." he begins.

Freeman Marine, where's he's worked 36 years, is a homegrown success. Founded in 1975, it manufactures doors, windows, hatches and portlights for ocean-going vessels all over the world. Schindler partnered with Dugie Freeman and his family, impressed by their work ethic and ambition.

He doesn't know the solution for county government.

"Curry County is just the tip of the iceberg," he says. "It's just the first one."
                                                          
                                                           *

Suspicion and pessimism cut through the conversation.

Curry hasn't shown any "bounce back" from the recession, says Guy Tauer, an economist with the state. The unemployment rate in September: 12.2 percent. Payroll figures for July, the most recent available, showed employment declined to about 6,300 jobs.

"That continues a streak of job losses that goes back to 2006," Tauer says. Five years.

Some are quick to blame environmentalists or "socialists" for blocking development. Others complain about perceived waste, salaries and benfits of public employees.

At the county committee meeting, the power blinks off twice. In the audience, resident Maggie Runyan leans over and stage-whispers, "Didn't pay the bill."

Runyan describes herself as a child of the Depression who made do with less.

"Don't tell me the county can't cut expenses."

In an ongoing poll by the Curry Coastal Pilot newspaper, 53 percent of 1,200 respondents say they'll vote no on any new taxes. About 27 percent would; the rest are wait and see.

                                                           *

At Riley Creek School, Principal Tom Denning displays a "snack pack" sent home with students on Fridays. Juice boxes, granola bars, pudding and beef jerky in a brown paper sack. Teachers noticed kids dragging, Denning says, and realized they hadn't eaten. The packs get them through weekends. If they have brothers or sisters, students can take extra.

Denning says 210 of the 317 students go home with snack packs. Two-thirds.

Denning has been principal since 1999, when he moved his family from Phoenix, Ariz. He and his wife wanted a small, safe community for their two daughters, now in college.

At the end of that first school year, the superintendent told Denning and the high school principal to cut.

"It seems like we've had that same meeting every year since."

Timber receipts once gave small rural school districts top-notch music, P.E., art and science programs. The school district hit the wall ahead of county government, Denning says. Parent volunteers keep the band alive but the science club is dead. Riley Creek, K-8, has two janitors who clean two hours a night. Building maintenance is a matter of "defer, defer, defer," he says.

The school had about 500 students at one time.

"The parents who can move are moving," says Denning, who was appointed to the citizen's committee.

He says loss of county services will be more reasons for parents to leave.

                                                            *

Jeff Griffin approaches the microphone. He's tall and slender, with a reserved bearing. He's from the governor's office, assigned to find intergovernmental and regional solutions. He doesn't have good news.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden sponsored a bill to restore federal funding four more years, at reduced amounts. The bill has a chance in the Senate, but not in the House, Griffin says.

Meanwhile, a bill in the House to restructure federal resource land management and designate land for harvests might pass the House, Griffin says, but not the Senate. Even if either passed, counties wouldn't immediately see more money.

Finally, the state has no money to cover county losses. Sorry.

                                                          *

Dewey Powers appears tableside in his shirt and tie and with deferential manner. He's the owner of Spinner's, a steak, seafood and chops restaurant along Highway 101. One reason he enjoys winter: Business slows enough that he can take a shift waiting tables and chat up guests. During summer tourists flock to eat and there's sometimes an hour wait for a table.

As a business owner, Powers says he's had to cut, cut, cut. His friends and customers include managers with the county's leading industries -- Freeman Marine Equipment and South Coast Lumber -- so he knows they've done the same.

But Powers knows enough county employees, including his sister, to keep his budget opinions to himelf. He'll say this: It's disheartening to think Curry County could dissolve. "We hope not."

                                                       *

On any given day, people carry on.

The day after the first citizen's committee meeting was sunny, 60 degrees and not a breath of wind. Dewey Powers drove to Bandon Dunes to play. Shot in the mid-80s.

About the same time, a Canadian conglomerate called Advanced Marine Technologies was wrapping up the purchase of Freeman Marine. The new owners said Freeman Marine will stay in Gold Beach, and Bo Schindler and Dugie Freeman will remain with the company.

The following Saturday, the Gold Beach Panthers beat the Scio Loggers 30-0 to win the state Class 2A football championship, a reversal of last year. John Bishop, the sheriff, was one of the Panthers' assistant coaches.

Denning, the Riley Creek principal, cheered the result.

"That is good, really good. The community really takes it to heart, stuff like that."

--Eric Mortenson

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Oregon's forested communities: Congressmen offer bipartisan solution to fiscal crisis

By Greg Walden, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader 
Published: Saturday, December 17, 2011, 10:00 AM The Oregonian
Oregon's rural communities cannot afford another 20 years of gridlock in our federal forests. Without a new path forward, mills will continue to disappear, forest jobs will be outsourced, and counties will be pushed off the budgetary cliff. 
During a time when it's particularly hard to find common ground in public policy, we think we have achieved a balanced forest health and jobs plan -- in a uniquely Oregon way.
As a bipartisan coalition, we have worked through our differences to forge a plan that would create thousands of new jobs in Oregon's forested communities, ensure the health of federal forests for future generations, and provide long-term funding certainty for Oregon's rural schools, roads, and law enforcement agencies.

Federal support payments to rural and forested communities, commonly known as "county payments," that helped support rural Oregon counties for over a decade expired on Oct. 1.

Absent a long-term solution, diminishing county payments will have serious consequences for Oregon families and businesses. A recent Oregon State University study found that without county payments, Oregon's rural counties will shed between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs. Oregon business sales will drop an estimated $385 million to $400 million. And counties will lose $250 million to $300 million in revenues.

For counties already near the financial cliff and facing depression-like unemployment, this could be the final blow. In fact, a few counties in our districts may soon call for a public safety emergency and will be forced to eliminate most state-mandated services -- including services that help the neediest citizens in our communities.

This should alarm all Oregonians, even those who do not live in rural communities. Failing counties will have both budgetary and quality of life consequences for the entire state. Vital county services would be severely restricted or altogether disappear. Counties will continue to release offenders and close jail beds. Pot-holed roads and structurally deficient bridges will be neglected. And already underfunded rural schools will be devastated.

Given the serious fiscal crisis our forested communities face, we believe a new approach is necessary to create jobs, help stabilize Oregon's rural communities, and better manage our forests.

We hope to release the full details of our plan early next year. But, given the importance and enormous amount of public interest in this issue, we wanted to update Oregonians on the broad outlines of our work:

Our plan would create an estimated 12,000 new jobs throughout Oregon. In order to preserve and expand Oregon's manufacturing base, our plan would continue the ban on exporting unprocessed logs from federal lands and impose penalties on businesses that violate the law and send family-wage jobs overseas.

Our plan would allow sustainable timber harvest primarily on lands that have been previously harvested. It sets aside sensitive areas and mature and old-growth forests. The timber harvest lands would remain under the ownership of the federal government but be managed by a diverse, public board in trust for the counties and under strict guidelines to ensure sustained yield and to protect and improve clean water and terrestrial and aquatic values. The mature and old-growth forests would be transferred from the Bureau of Land Management to the U.S. Forest Service.

Our plan would provide counties in western Oregon with a predictable level of revenues in perpetuity to support essential county services like law enforcement, health care, education, and transportation. It would reduce counties' dependence on uncertain federal support payments in favor of a long-term solution that allows them to return to the tradition of self-reliance that embodies the best traditions of our state.

Our plan is expected to save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars by reducing the annual federal management costs associated with the management of western Oregon timberlands and making Oregon counties self-sufficient and not dependent upon federal county payments.

Our plan proposes major wilderness and wild and scenic designations to protect some of Oregon's most incredible natural treasures, like the iconic Rogue River.

Our plan is a moderate approach. It will not appease those who insist on returning to the days of unsustainable logging and clear-cutting old growth on public lands.

It will not win the support of those who are content with the status quo -- administrative gridlock and endless legal appeals that have led to unhealthy forests, failing rural counties, and a deteriorating timber industry.

And, like all legislation in Congress, our plan is still subject to the legislative process. While we believe the plan we have crafted is a reasonable compromise that serves the best interests of Oregon, we must work with the House Committee on Natural Resources and our colleagues in the greater U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and the Obama administration.

Fortunately, the most persuasive arguments are on our side. Our balanced, bipartisan plan would create thousands of jobs in our forests, mills and communities, stabilize rural communities, save taxpayers money, protect old growth and ensure the health of federal forests for future generations.

It's a solution that Oregonians deserve. We look forward to working with those who want to make this long-term vision a reality.

All three authors are members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Oregon. Walden is a Republican from the 2nd District, in eastern Oregon; DeFazio is a Democrat from the 4th District, in southern Oregon; and Schrader is from the 5th District, in the Willamette Valley, Portland-area suburbs and the central coas
t.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Call it a deep-forest case of can't win for losing.

Thinning Oregon forests develops spotted owl habitat, chases away flying squirrels -- the owls' chief prey 
Published: Saturday, December 17, 2011, 6:54 AM     Updated: Saturday, December 17, 2011, 10:07 AM
Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian


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Researchers found that thinning forests improves spotted owl habitat but chases away their primary prey - flying squirrels.

A new study by Oregon State University researchers indicates that thinning Douglas firs, which gives them more room to grow and develop the old forest characteristics favored by northern spotted owls, is bad news for the threatened bird's primary prey.

A study of four tracts in the Willamette National Forest showed the number of flying squirrels declined in areas that were commercially thinned. Not died, necessarily, but departed, vamoosed or otherwise didn't live there anymore.

The more thinning that took place, the fewer squirrels there were, the researchers found. It's clear, they concluded, that "densities of northern flying squirrels are particularly sensitive to thinning in young Douglas fir forests, for at least 12 years after treatment."

Squirrels evenutally may come back to thinned areas, but the findings "argue for caution" in thinning across large sections of the landscape, they said. "Especially if one eventual goal is to sustain the primary prey of the northern spotted owl."

Researchers caught and counted flying squirrels by setting live-capture traps in thinned areas of the Willamette's Oakridge and McKenzie Bridge ranger districts, east and southeast of Eugene-Springfield. Each of the four study areas had a control section that wasn't thinned and sections on which light to heavy thinning took place.

The report was written by Tom Manning and Brenda McComb, with OSU's Department of Forest Ecosystems & Society, and Joan Hagar, a U.S. Geological Survey employee who collaborates with OSU researchers and advises grad students.

Commercial thinning is done for multiple reasons: to reduce fire danger, provide small logs for mills, make room for remaining trees to grow larger and to aid eventual development of old-growth habitat characteristics.

Hagar said it's fairly common for such "restoration ecology" work to result in "winners and losers." Foresters should maintain connected areas of "dense, closed canopy" forest for flying squirrels when thinning is done, she said.

"It's good to leave some areas unthinned; we don't know how much," she said.

"The good thing to take away is that conundrum idea," Hagar said. "Everything we do out there affects some organisms positively and some adversely."

The lesson, she said, is "Don't do the same thing everywhere across the landscape."

--Eric Mortenson

Monday, December 5, 2011

Climate Contrarians Ignore Overwhelming Evidence

The Wall Street Journal
Monday, December 5, 2011 

Every snowflake is unique, but attacks on climate science all seem the same. I should know. I've been one of the climate contrarians' preferred targets for years.

A recent op-ed on this page by blogger and climate-change denier James Delingpole attacked the "hockey stick" graph my co-authors and I published more than a decade ago with well-worn, discredited arguments ("Climategate 2.0," Nov. 28).

Our original work showed that average temperatures today are higher than they have been for at least the past 1,000 years. Since then, dozens of analyses from other scientists based on different data and methods have all affirmed and extended our original findings.

Contrarians have nonetheless painted a misleading picture of climate science as a house of cards teetering on the edge of a hockey stick. In reality, my research is just one piece in a vast puzzle scientists have painstakingly assembled over the past 200 years establishing the reality of human-caused climate change.

Does that mean that everyone should have to drive an electric car and adopt a polar bear? Of course not. Policy decisions must balance matters of economics, international diplomacy and ethics in a way that is informed, rather than prescribed, by science.

In 2006, then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R., N.Y.) asked the National Academy of Sciences to look into studies like the hockey stick. It affirmed our conclusions.

In recent years, attacks on climate science have become personal. After my colleagues and I had our emails stolen and posted online in November 2009, attacks from climate contrarians were subsequently shot down by investigations from two universities, the National Science Foundation, two federal agencies and several media outlets. Contrarians declared that those institutions were part of an imagined global-warming conspiracy.

In April 2010, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli demanded emails I sent or received from other scientists while at the University of Virginia. A judge concluded Mr. Cuccinelli hadn't demonstrated any good reason to see that correspondence. Shortly after that, the American Tradition Institute, a group with ties to fossil-fuel interests, asked for the same emails under the state's open records laws. The university rightly asserted that much of my private correspondence is just that and not subject to release.

Many fossil-fuel interests and their allies are following the same attack-the-science strategy that tobacco companies adopted to delay smoking regulation. Climate scientists can also find kinship with Dr. Herbert Needleman, who identified a link between lead contamination and impaired childhood brain development in the 1970s. The lead industry accused him of misconduct. Later, the National Institutes of Health exonerated him.

Mr. Delingpole ends his piece by saying the anonymous hacker or hackers who stole emails from me and my colleagues deserve thanks. What they deserve is to be brought to justice. But British police have not determined who stole the emails. Recent reports of police expenditures suggest they may be devoting far fewer resources to it than other similar investigations.

Celebrating theft is silly. We should respect the role science and scientists play in society, especially when scientists identify new risks. Whether those risks stem from smoking, lead exposure or the increasing use of fossil fuels, scientists will always work to increase knowledge and reduce uncertainty. And we all benefit from that work.

Prof. Michael E. Mann
Meteorology Department
Penn State University
Director, Penn State Earth System Science Center
University Park, Pa.

Another perspective on managing fire-prone forests

Odion and DellaSala (Guest Opinion, Nov 20) shared some opinions about fire and thinning policy in federal forests of Southwest Oregon. Their message to the public was that fire is the natural feature of the Rogue River Valley landscape, and that action to suppress fire, in part by thinning, is contrary to the natural development of vegetation there. They imply that expending resources to suppress fires near houses and forest plantations is acceptable, but that natural forests, in general, benefit from the periodic fires of the region. I question the definition of "benefit" in this context, hence justification of the message.

The Forestry Intensified Research program at Medford facilities of Oregon State University focused a decade of intensive efforts on reforestation of public lands nearby. Their focus was on reforestation or afforestation (including fuel management) on areas that exhibit a repeated-fire tendency. This research was concentrated on potentially productive land where the federal government had abandoned efforts to maintain conifers.

The question of whether fire-promoted shrub/hardwood cover is the "natural" cover is worthy of examination. I refer that question to those, including Dr. Bob Zybach, whose work at Oregon State University reconstructed the use of fire in the livelihood of Native Americans. If those natives used fire to clear land for food crops hundreds and thousands of years ago, does that make it "natural"? What happens if the evergreen brush does not burn?

The FIR program discovered a number of low-impact practices that would restore conifers on the fire-prone landscapes. I have maintained the only FIR studies that continue to this day more than 30 years later. Our findings indicated that controlling manzanita, buckbrush and other fire-prone shrubs and hardwoods is relatively easy. Moreover, selective removal of the shrubs reveals that planted ponderosa pine grows very well on sites the feds had written off! After clearing and planting pines, there still are some ceanothus, manzanita, madrone and poison oak clumps out there, plus many herbs that disappear under dense brush cover within a few years. Let's follow this idea a bit more to get back to thinning as the primary forest practice.

Odion and DellaSalla and I agree on the point that thousands of acres of thinning are not likely to create the condition they prefer. (Note: it is not a scientist's responsibility to choose any particular outcome. They described their preference as what grows after repeated fires).

There are those advocating selective harvest only, including at least one or more from Oregon State University and elsewhere, who promote this approach as the salvation of public opinion in forest management.

The concern here is not biology, it is public protest over clearcutting; they postulate that "people" will allow "some" harvest if it is selective. It is a politically positive approach. So do it? This is a vote for process, not outcome.

Thinning is useful in long-term management. It takes far more than thinning to maintain all objectives. The fire-prone forests under discussion can maintain complete mixes of native species with "even-aged-wthin-stands" management on a landscape scale.

In this system, clearing existing vegetation (clearcutting or site preparation) in patches of 20 to hundreds of acres, yields some timber and prepares for planting local conifers. After 30 or so years, thinning every 10-20 years is continued until the stand is about 80-100 years old and has 30-50 big trees per acre. Then the stand is allowed to grow 50-plus more years in near-old-growth condition to create habitat. Harvesting by clearcutting then begins the cycle again.

This kind of management maintains forest cover in all stages and provides protection for all species, and fuel management. Within each cycle are all the stages with habitats for all species that come and go with time. Each is always present somewhere when the cycles are all in different phases. The research that I continue to lead after more than 50 years suggests that controlled disturbance is a part of keeping the long-term objective in sight.

Many of our mature forests in the area are now living because fires have been suppressed. It is hard to satisfy everyone. Helping people understand long-term consequences of breaking the fire cycle, as we approach in our research, is a part of our job as professors at public institutions.

Part of that story is that clearcutting is a relatively low-impact alternative to wildfire, and manages fuel and habitat within specified boundaries. If we allow random fires to manage our vegetation, fires will run until they threaten houses and forests that are doing their jobs well. Do we fight them only after thousands of acres have been made into snags? At what price? The Biscuit fire sure did a number on a lot of species. And how much old-growth habitat is left there?

Mike Newton is professor emeritus at the Oregon State University College of Forestry.