Let’s Talk Timber, Madame Governor!!!

Following President Barack Obama’s visit to Oregon last week, the Salem Statesman Journal published a letter to the President: Let's talk timber, Mr. President.

In the letter/editorial, the newspaper thanks the President for talking up Salem-based Oregon fruit products. However, the letter notes, “there's an even more important issue that cries for your help: increasing timber harvests on federal lands.”

Me, Too!

The same plea could be addressed to Governor Kate Brown for increasing timber harvests on State Forest land. Previously, the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources considered, House Bill 3210. HB3210 was a bill that increased timber production on the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests.

The Council of Forest Land Trust Counties in Northwest Oregon supported modifications to the original bill. The counties, who were the original owners of the forestland, sought to increase sustainable timber harvests from the State Forests.

The counties and several House Ag and Natural Resources Committee members are frustrated with the length of time it has taken the Board of Forestry and the Department of Forestry to craft a new plan that increases timber sales.

Died too soon…

As the Committee prepared to adopt the counties’ proposal, Chairman Rep. Brad Witt announced that he was pulling HB 3210 due to a letter he received from Board of Forestry Chair Tom Imeson and State Forester Doug Decker. The letter promised to keep the forest plan changes on a fast track.

Meanwhile, the counties are suffering financially from dwindling federal and state timber revenue. In fact, the Department of Forestry is seeking to replace timber receipts with scarce money from Oregon’s General Fund.

All State Forests

Northwest Oregon isn’t the only place the Governor could increase revenue from improved forest management. The State Land Board, Chaired by Governor Brown has over 80,000 acres of very productive forestland on the Elliott State Forest. These Common School Fund trust lands have seen a sharp decline in timber production following the settlement of an Endangered Species Act lawsuit filed by environemntalists upset with the new forest management plan to manage the ESF.

Madame Governor, it is not just the US Forest Service’s National Forests and the USDI Bureau of Land Management’s Oregon & California trust lands that need the President’s attention. State Forests in northwest and southwest Oregon could help produce County revenue, School funds and most importantly jobs!  Act now, while the 2015 legislature is still in session!!!

Quiet Board Meeting Turns Feisty

Quiet Board Meeting Turns Feisty

What started as a fairly routine Board of Forestry Meeting on June 5, 2013 turned passionate and intense as the BOF reviewed a report from the Subcommittee on State Forests Financial Viability.

Following Department of Forestry Staff’s recommendation to accept the subcommittee’s report, BOF Chair Tom Imeson opened the meeting for public testimony. Chuck Bennett from the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, COSA, and Mary Botkin from the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME, spoke to the vital need to increase timber harvests from all public forest lands, including State Forest lands.

Environmentalists from Northwest Oregon sought further restrictions on State Forest management. The timber industry responded with timber war veterans Jim Geisinger, Associated Oregon Loggers, Dave Ivanoff, Hampton Affiliates, and Chris Jarmer, Oregon Forest Industries Council.

Meanwhile, BOF member Sybil Ackerman tried in vain to get the presenter’s to focus on the narrow issue of State Forest Financial Viability. Mary Botkin responded with her long-time experience on the timber issue, including trips to Washington D.C. to encourage the Clinton Administration to try to solve the timber crisis that has decimated rural communities in Oregon.

Botkin reminded the BOF that the Clinton Administration’s Northwest Forest Plan was intended to solve the debate. Instead, the timber supply of the “compromise” has never been seen. Botkin also pointed out the most Oregonians that see dead, gray trees can’t decipher if the trees are on state, federal or private forests.

Eventually, the BOF accepted the subcommittee’s report and will continue to develop plans that will increase the financial viability of State Forests.

Ore. Forestry seeks more timber and more habitat

Ore. Forestry seeks more timber and more habitat

Capital Press

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon Board of Forestry has taken on a tough job: figuring out how to produce more logs as well as better fish and wildlife habitat through logging on state forests.

The board voted unanimously Wednesday in Salem to embark on a new management plan for three state forests in the northwest corner of the state -- the Tillamook, Clatsop and Santiam.

There has been widespread dissatisfaction with the current plan -- including from the governor -- for failing to meet the statutory goals of producing economic, environmental and social benefits through active management.

Board Chairman Tom Imeson said in a statement that the current plan, from 2001, was based on the best information of the time, and he believes they can do better.

But conservation groups are skeptical that the forests can produce more logs while improving fish and wildlife habitat.

After national forests in Oregon, Washington and Northern California cut logging by 90 percent to protect habitat for the northern spotted owl and salmon in 1994, Oregon adopted a new vision for state forests, where logging would be designed to crate forests with old growth characteristics. However, the new policy did not satisfy the timber industry, which depends on state forests for logs, local counties, which share in state forest timber revenues, or conservation groups, which felt the forests were being thinned too heavily, and too many roads were being built.

The board increased logging and cut goals for older forests in 2009, but the dissatisfaction continued. In 2001, Gov. John Kitzhaber spoke to the board, urging it to find a new approach that makes state forests a model for resolving the conflicts between logging and fish and wildlife habitat that have beset the region for 30 years.

In that spirit, the board also created a new system to make it easier for the public to see just which state forest lands are dedicated to fish and wildlife habitat and conservation, rather than logging.

"Commitments to conservation -- and to economic and social values - will all be important outputs of the future state forest management plan we must achieve," State Forester Doug Decker said in a statement.

Jim Geisinger of Associated Oregon Loggers said the forests in Oregon's northwest corner are highly productive, and should be managed more intensively for timber than national forests.

"There is absolutely no reason they shouldn't be turning a substantial profit for the state and in turn for the counties," he said. "They need to be selling more timber -- recognizing their growth potential-- and be more efficient about selling those timber sales."

Bob Van Dyk of the Wild Salmon Center said the financial structure, where the Department of Forestry is directly funded by the sale of timber, gives the state an incentive to cut trees rather than protect fish and wildlife habitat.

"It remains to be seen whether such a solution is out there," where state forests can produce more logs and more habitat, he said. "We think the governor is going to need to come to the table with assistance to diversity revenue sources to diminish the incentive to just cut more to pay the bills."

State forests look for financial answers

State forests look for financial answers

By Mark Hester, The Oregonian 
on February 21, 2013 at 12:13 PM, updated February 21, 2013 at 4:55 PM

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State Forester Doug Decker and Oregon Board of Forestry Chair Tom Imeson met with The Oregonian editorial board today to discuss issues facing state forests.

Decker and Imeson discussed the Department of Forestry's role in three areas: management of state forests, fire protection for forestlands

View full sizeTom Imeson is chair of the Oregon Board of Forestry.Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian 

and advocacy for Oregon in federal forest policy. But much of the discussion revolved around a common theme: money.

In short, Imeson and Decker said, the department needs to change its management approach to be economically viable. At the least, that means looking for new management strategies. At the most, and in the longer term, it could mean finding ways to "monetize" forest assets other than wood. One example would be trading carbon credits or other credits tied to the environment.

One possible change in management would be to zone forests for different uses -- wood, conservation or recreation, for example. 

Currently forest managers try to balance competing interest while managing the forest as a whole.

"We get push from both sides," Decker said. "We're looking for a scientifically based forest-management style that is economically viable," and achieves other desired outcomes, such as conservation.

The department is backing House Bill 2050 to shore up funding for fire protection in forests. The bill, among other ways, would change how financial responsibility for fire fighting is spread among the general fund, landowners and insurance.