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FAQs Myths and Facts about Forestry The issues that surround forestry and management are contentious and complicated to begin-with. Transpose this situation onto the management of public forests, such as the Black Hills National Forest, and you’ve got controversy coming out your ears. Regrettably, some people and organizations who participate in the debate about forest management have elected to use half-truth and, in some instances, complete myth in their attempts to influence public perceptions about forestry and the forest products industry. We’ll tell it to you straight, here: our treatise on some of the myths and facts about forestry. Myth 1: Forestry on National Forests amounts to a subsidy of the forest products industry. Facts: Ask anyone who works for a company that purchases federal timber, and this statement incites out-loud laughter. Firstly, any and all timber the Forest Service contemplates selling is appraised by the agency to establish its fair market value. This ensures that the federal government (and, you, the taxpayer) gets the same compensation for what it sells as would any other seller at the going market rate. Second, when timber is offered for sale, a competitive auction system is used to award the purchase; that is, prospective buyers (forest products companies, independent logging contractors, etc.) bid against each other based on their estimation of the timber's value, and the sale is awarded to the one who issues the highest bid above the minimum. The minimum, of course, is pre-established through the aforementioned appraisal system. Third, the Forest Service isn’t just proposing to harvest timber for the sake of feeding sawmills. Part of the legally recognized goal of harvesting timber from national forests is to provide timber to the nation's overall economy and to help satisfy the country's need for wood products in our everyday lives. Part-two of the equation is that many other land stewardship goals - such as habitat management, recreational improvements, road maintenance, forest health, and wildfire protection - are accomplished through the sale of timber on national forests. In other words, the sale of forest products is a means to accomplish several different objectives, and is also a means that is able to generate revenue along the way. Lastly, the legal management mandate under which the Forest Service operates is ‘multiple-use’; this means that national forests are to provide a balanced suite of beneficial uses to the public. Forests provide all kinds of benefits to all kinds of people - some are tangible economic benefits, some are socially and emotionally derived benefits, and some are a combination of the two. So, national forests were designed to provide service outputs like forest products and forage for livestock grazing alongside providing opportunities for hiking, fishing, camping, hunting, and other forms of recreation, all in an environmentally sensitive manner that conserves these areas for the enjoyment of future generations. In contrast, many millions of acres of other federally-administered lands (such as National Parks, National Monuments, and the Wilderness System) are set aside as no-use areas where human interference is minimal and nature is left to its own devices. The mission of the National Forest System, however, is to sustain "working landscapes." Most often the 'subsidy' argument is based upon the fact that the price the Forest Service receives for timber is insufficient to balance out all the costs incurred by the government during environmental review and documentation, sale preparation, and administration. Well, you'll notice that one of the things that went conspicuously unmentioned in the multiple-use discussion above was 'maximizing' dollar returns. Making the most money possible is not and has never been a mission of the Forest Service. Moreover, many of the administrative costs associated with Forest Service timber preparation aren't what could be considered "market forces." These include lengthy and over-lapping procedural and environmental documentation requirements, not the least of which are administrative appeals filed by the very groups making these subsidy allegations. Furthermore, national forests are not managed to maximize timber growth or timber quality, which means that a good portion of the forest products harvested from these lands are of relatively low commercial value. These are conscious ecological trade-offs, for which there are also conscious economic trade-offs - in this light the subsidy argument just doesn't pass the giggle test. Myth 2: The ‘big timber companies’ just run amok in the national forest and willy-nilly, as they please, cut down all the biggest, best and oldest trees. This one falls into the “maliciously false” category. Purchasers of national forest timber have no say whatsoever - none, nada, zip, zilch - in which trees are cut and which remain during a given timber sale. Long before a timber sale is ever bid upon by a purchaser, the Forest Service identifies an area in need of management, evaluates its environmental concerns, and decides what forestry practices ought to be applied in order to meet the management objectives. After the competitive bidding process earlier described, the successful bidder signs a contract with the Forest Service to perform the needed management activities; this is no different from any other contract, and the penalties for breaching the contract are severe, including being de-barred from ever bidding on another Forest Service timber sale. The average Forest Service contract is 200 pages long, including every last detail down to how and where roads are to be constructed, what kind of logging equipment should be used and under what conditions (such as prohibiting equipment use during times the soil is excessively wet), how purchasers should take care of leftover limbs and brush, and on, and on. Now is as appropriate a time as any to talk about which trees get cut and which don’t as it pertains to “old-growth” or other big trees. On the Black Hills National Forest, all sizes of trees are managed - big and small, old and young. As was discussed in our Forestry 101 article, ponderosa pine forests in the Black Hills are managed using a “shelterwood/seed-tree” system. This means that we begin with a young, crowded stand of trees, thin it out and wait for it to grow, then thin it again, and sometimes even a third time. Thinnings effectively redistribute the growth resources of the forest - the light, water, and soil nutrients trees need to grow - onto fewer trees each time, allowing them to grow up fast and healthy. After the second or third thinning, the cycle of the trees’ life begins anew; the forest is open enough that seedlings begin to grow up underneath the 'shelter' of large mature trees. Once seedlings have a firm hold, we harvest some of the remaining mature trees and the cycle of thinning begins again. So, it's absolutely correct to say we harvest big trees... But most of the time, it's only after we’ve first grown them to be that way by harvesting a whole lot of little ones. In general, the Forest Service’s goal is to perform this system across the Black Hills, such that a diversity of forest conditions (old, big, young, small, dense, open-grown, etc.) exists throughout the forest. They have done this with success; Forest Inventory and Analysis data from 1999 show that about 31 percent of ponderosa pine forests in the Black Hills are 100 years old or more, another 25 percent are in the 80 to 100 year-old range, with 28 percent in the under-80 category (the remaining 16 percent is made up of tree species other than ponderosa pine). Now, keep in mind that the Forest Service has, with the help of the forest products industry, been at the job of managing the Black Hills for over 100 years. Today - largely as a product of all that management - many, many more trees grow on the Black Hills than have ever in its history (over twice as much now than in 1948, for example). It's also important to note that the current growth rate of the forest exceeds the maximum allowable harvest rate by 225 percent. Those who would paint national forest management in an unsustainable, irresponsible, or slave-to-the-industry light aren’t telling you the whole story. Myth 3: All the so-called ‘forest health’ and wildfire problems on national forests are caused by irresponsible logging practices that cut all the biggest fire-resistant trees. This is a little redundant, given our discussion about ‘Myth 2’, but is worth addressing. Pictures are really worth a thousand words, here. In 1874, Gen. George Armstrong Custer led an expedition to the Black Hills. Along for the ride was a photographer named W.H. Illingworth, who documented their journey extensively. Recently, it was realized that Illingworth’s photos represent a great basis of comparison for the 100 years of management that have gone on here in the Black Hills. Present-day photographer Paul Horsted recently duplicated Illingworth’s photo points to demonstrate this century of change, and published a book called Exploring with Custer. Several of his comparison photo sets can be viewed at Mr. Horsted’s web site - have a look! Pretty dramatic, huh? Most historic accounts note the scarceness of "old forest" in the Black Hills; one in particular estimated forty percent of the area was meadow, another forty percent was small trees 'unfit for the sawmill', ten percent was damaged by weather or wildfire, and only the last ten percent was 'good lumber'. Myth 4: The delicate balance of forests is fragile and we as humans must not meddle in it. This statement is pretty loaded and emotionally charged. It implies, rightfully, that forests are something special and we ought to do our best to care for them. However, science tells us the statement above contains two purely false assertions; can you guess what they are? The first is that anything resembling a “delicate balance” has ever existed in nature, and the second is that forests are “fragile.” The idea of a ‘delicate balance’ came from scientists who thought, during the early 1970’s, that forests were always growing toward a mature state which, once reached, would exist in perpetuity. This concept has been called a number of things - stable-state, climax forest, old-growth - but science has since discovered that the idea of forests staying essentially the same for long periods of time is simply impossible. Think about it: were the 'delicate balance' theory of stable-state forests true, we would only have but a few tree species on earth. Like many common house and garden plants, different tree species are adapted to different light, moisture, soil, and climate conditions. In the idyllic stable-state, old-growth forest, one does not find fast-growing, short-lived tree species that need lots of sunlight to survive. If these forest conditions truly made up 100 percent of forested landscapes in the millennia before humans arrived, tree species dependent on full sunlight would be extinct! The reason we are blessed with such a diversity of tree species, then, is because forests are in a constant state of change - that is, constantly out of balance. The idea of 'fragile' forests is equally nonsensical. Nature is chaotic and ever-changing, as we've discussed. Therefore, the forests subject to nature's forces must be resilient and responsive. To understand this concept, it’s useful to think about the ‘forces of nature’ that shape forests; those being, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, floods, lightning, temperature and climate extremes, wind, snow, and ice storms, diseases, and insects. Hardly subtle means, wouldn’t you say? If forests were unable to resist or recover from such cataclysmic events, we simply wouldn't have forests. In response to this fact of life, forest systems have evolved to reproduce themselves abundantly, to grow in a manner that helps them guard against the continual onslaught of nature's disturbances - that is, forests are tough cookies. Mountain Pine BeetleThere is not an outbreak of mountain pine beetle; it's all snow damage. This is a half-truth. There has been a lot of snow damage in the Black Hills during the past couple years. The early and late season snow storms that have occurred resulted in a lot of branch breakage and snapped tops. However, these are also conditions that favorable for rapid expansion of mountain pine beetle populations. Trees that have a snapped top are especially vulnerable to mountain pine beetles, as their primary defense against such attacks – resin flow – is much reduced; yet the inner bark, the primary food source for the developing beetle, is still fresh. Beetle populations increase dramatically in such trees and the large broods that hatch from them are capable of successfully attacking nearby healthy trees. If you walk in the Forbes Gulch area, or any one of a number of areas in the northern Black Hills, you'll notice a lot of snow damage. But if you look closely, you'll find these same trees riddled with emergent holes of the mountain pine beetle. You'll also find that many of the apparently healthy nearby trees are covered with pitch masses, evidence of a successful attack. These trees will be killed before spring and the pocket of dead trees surrounding the snapped top trees will continue to expand. And expand, they have. Across the Black Hills, the number of beetle-killed trees increased 790 percent between 2000 and 2001 according to Forest Service data; almost 300,000 trees were killed in 2001. There is nothing to worry about; our winter will kill the beetles.Winter temperatures in the Black Hills, while often blustery, are rarely cold enough to result in significant beetle mortality. To kill beetles, we would need to experience sustained temperatures below -40 F during midwinter or temperatures below 0 F in the fall or spring. We did not experience these temperatures this fall, nor are we likely to see them this spring. Rarely can we rely on winter to solve a beetle problem. The beetles will not be a problem; the summer rains (or woodpeckers) will kill them. Rain does not stop the beetles from flying. We would need something of Biblical proportions to have any influence on flight behavior. Woodpeckers as well as a number of other bird and insect species feed on mountain pine beetles. Unfortunately, once the beetle populations start increasing rapidly, their natural enemies can't eat them fast enough to have much of an effect. Well, if the beetles are a problem, it is because of logging. In fact, silvicultural control measures are the most effective means of managing the mountain pine beetle; by this we mean regulating stand density. The beetle tends to prefer trees in dense stands. These trees are usually weaker due to the intense competition for light, moisture and nutrients, and so are easier to attack and kill. Beetle behavior is influenced by stand density in another way – it likes cooler, more shaded environments found in very dense forest. If a stand is held below a certain density (identified through research as around 80 square feet of basal are per acre), the beetle is rarely a problem. Below are three images illustrating the resistance of a thinned area against severe beetle infestation in surrounding dense stands.
But the increase in smaller diameter trees – since they cut all the big ones – is increasing the beetle population, so logging is the problem. No, while it is true there has been an increase in smaller diameter trees (i.e., less than 8 inches in diameter) from 120 years ago and a decrease in larger trees (i.e., those over 16 inches in diameter), the beetle tends to attack large diameter trees, not small ones. Stands with an average tree diameter of more than 10 inches and extremely dense stocking (> 150 square feet per acre) are at highest risk of attack. As the average diameter decreases and density decreases, the potential risk also decreases. It is the bigger trees, not the smaller ones that are vulnerable to attack. The beetles are a natural part of the Black Hills, there is nothing we can do about it. Again, this one is half-correct. The beetle is native to the Black Hills and probably has been here as long as there have been pines. Outbreaks have been reported in the Black Hills many times during the past one hundred years. Perhaps the most famous was the outbreak that occurred about 100 years ago. That one resulted in approximately 150 to 200 square miles of beetle-killed forest. While none of the outbreaks that have followed have even come close to the same losses, they can still result in significant tree losses. The statement, “we cannot do anything about it”, is dead wrong. No, we can't eliminate the beetle, but we can manage it. Maintaining healthy stands is the best, but not the only means of managing the beetle. As an example, we can also employ such tactics as using the beetles' own complex chemical communication system against them through pheromone trapping.
Have something to add? A burning question you’d like us to answer? Send us and email and we’ll post it here. Healthy Forest Bill | Beaver Park Legislation | Fire Debate Fallacies | Allegorical Smokescreen Healthy Forests bill would help ease Black Hills’ wildfires Published 6/2/03 by Aaron Everett Forest Programs Manager Black Hills Forest Resource Association The US House of Representatives recently inked a piece of legislation which, should it survive the Senate, will greatly benefit your favorite vacation spot - the Black Hills National Forest. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HR 1904), seeks to help stem the growing tide of catastrophic wildfires on national forests by allowing the US Forest Service to conduct more projects that reduce what are called ‘hazardous fuels’ for such conflagrations. Across the national forests of the West, 7 million acres - an area larger than the State of Maryland - burned in 2002 alone. The Black Hills has experienced its own share of such episodes. Since the summer of 2000, over 280,000 acres have either been scorched by wildfire or seriously infested with forest insects. Despite their efforts to address the situation, the Forest Service finds itself hamstrung in a state of ‘paralysis by analysis.’ They estimate that 40% of their time is spent fulfilling mundane procedural requirements, many associated with challenges brought by environmental interest groups. On the Black Hills, 100 percent of the significant forest management projects that are proposed receive at least one appeal. The realization of this ‘paralysis’ is that, on average, forest projects take at least two years and $150,000-$1 million worth of analysis before work can even begin. The Forest Service is doing too little, too slowly, to get ahead of the problem. HR 1904 is the right first-step down the road to a solution. The bill:
While the bill received a significant bipartisan vote in the House, it has been the subject of some fiery criticism as well. Allegations seem to range from ‘there is no problem’, to ‘the bill doesn’t solve the right problem’, to ‘it’s just an excuse to allow more logging’. Suffice it to say, these are perfidious red herrings to the last. The problem is real, the losses of human life, private property, wildlife habitat, key watersheds, and other resource values are real, and the solution ought to be crafted using the best expertise of on-the-ground professional resource managers - not in the paper chase and not in the Courtroom. One half of Congress has made an important step toward protecting the Black Hills and all other national forests. Given the benefits to the Black Hills National Forest and to South Dakota, I hope the Senate issues the bill its full approval and does so swiftly - time runs short. Beaver Park Legislation: A Teachable Moment Published 11/26/03; 730 words by Aaron Everett Everett is forest programs manager for the Black Hills Forest Resource Association. It’s over now. The legal rigmarole has run its obligatory course. On November 26th we all got an early Christmas gift when District Judge Nottingham dismissed the baseless legal claim brought against the well-supported, well-intentioned (and well, exhausting, if I do say so myself) “Black Hills Fire Prevention Agreement.” Time for the Forest Service to get on with their business - doing what’s right for the people and the environment. But let us not, as we so often do, hasten on without first looking back through our 20/20 hindsight binoculars. The issues of bugs, fire, and forest health will not soon go away - never, in fact - and as changes in forest policies are proposed in response, we’re better-equipped, having learned our lessons, to make sound decisions. The overlying and critically important moral of our story is this: we shouldn’t have needed special legislation to begin with. With the Beaver Park problem so glaring, the danger to people and the environment so evident, a remedy so obvious, and support for implementing it so deafeningly loud - needing an Act of Congress to bring about what is really a small drop in the Black Hills’ forest health bucket is just plain ridiculous. To the credit of the parties involved with crafting that legislation, all of us worked long and hard, wearing a lot of enamel from our teeth in fashioning an agreeable solution. But we must realize that it shouldn’t have had to be that way. More than anything else, the “Black Hills Fire Prevention Agreement” was an acknowledgement, direct or indirect, by all participants that the Forest Service’s legal and regulatory processes are simply broken. The day after the Judge’s Beaver Park ruling, that same theme of brokenness echoed even louder as the US Forest Service released a draft revision of their forest planning regulations for public comment. The special interest uproar was ear-splitting. Every false accusation from ‘gutting bedrock environmental laws’ to ‘eliminating all protections for wildlife’ to (the inevitable) ‘destroying forests to feed the timber industry’ was tossed about like apocalyptic confetti. Well, let’s cut the crap. Our system of government is designed to ensure that everyone has a voice. It’s also supposed to bring about the greatest good for the majority in the long run; to prevent the whim of the few from governing the best interests of the many. Beaver Park is only one close-to-home example of the situation that confounds the Forest Service every single day, on every single National Forest. The environmental laws that frame the management of our National Forests were visionary pieces of legislation. In the thirty years since their passage, however, nobody can deny that times have changed. Public interests have changed. Biological concerns have changed. Advocacy groups have emerged. Bureaucracy has ballooned. The law’s principles - foresighted planning, safeguarding of wildlife habitat, provision of public benefits and services, and an over-arching mandate of sustainable management - remain cornerstone principles, as unimpeachably venerable now as they were the day of its passage. So be absolutely clear; this latest reform proposal has nothing to do with changing the law. Instead proposed for face-lifting - mercifully - is the manner in which the Forest Service goes about ensuring and implementing those same principles. One vehicle for this implementation is called a Forest Plan. Forest Plans serve as programmatic frameworks of management goals and parameters for the long-term - not to be confused (as some have tried to do) with individual on-the-ground projects. Every Forest has a plan; by legal mandate, they are revised every 10 to 15 years. The Black Hills National Forest has, because of the current system’s faults, been continuously working on their Forest Plan Revision for 14 years. Yes, that’s right - 14 years working on a 15-year plan. The reality has come to be that plans are obsolete before they’re even finished. See the problem? The at-all-cost opponents of forest management obviously do not; it’s called victory by attrition. Hence, all the sanctimonious outcry about new regulations that would actually enable the Forest Service to do its job. So which version of the Forest Service would you prefer? Your choices are: one bound from progress in procedural shackles and chains, or one empowered by your support to protect and manage our forest. Your opportunity to comment on these new rules ends in 90 days; let yourself be heard. Top Three Fire Debate Fallacies Published 7/13/02; 838 Words by Aaron Everett Aaron Everett has a Bachelor of Science in Forestry and serves as forest programs manager for the Black Hills Forest Resource Association. The BHFRA is an association of forest products manufacturers in the Black Hills. I’ve listened intently to the forest management debate surrounding wildland fire. Notice I said “listened”, as in, refrained from speaking to this point. As much as I’d like to keep it that way, some consistently stated falsities have arisen that do nothing more than cloud the search for a solution. There are many, but here’s my top three. Drum roll, please… 3. The timber industry should stop playing the vicious “blame-game” against environmental groups for opposing management projects that would reduce fire risk. You all obviously read this paper. Can you remember reading anyone from the ever-vilified local forest industry saying such things in the press? The last time I remember being in print personally was back in January. Our elected officials and the Forest Service leadership seem to be the ones offering the most pointed remarks. Why, oh why, would elected officials say such “hateful” things? Perhaps their constituencies have identified a problem and are a little upset! These issues really transcend the profit vs. environmental purism context in which they are so typically framed. The forest isn’t healthy in a lot of regards, and the public doesn’t like what they see, period. 2. The timber industry loots the forest of its fire-resistant trees and leaves flammable slash behind, making fire risk worse after commercial harvest. First, the holistic fire-resistance of a forest is just a tad more complicated than the thickness or thinness of tree bark. The forest itself, leaves, limbs, litter, and all, is potential fuel for a wildfire. Ask yourself: what overriding characteristics of these fires do we consistently hear described as making them so uncontrollable? Answer: they’re “crown” fires that burn with unnatural intensity over unnaturally large areas with unnatural fuel loads and low moisture conditions. Break that statement down. “Crown” fires; meaning that such a fire requires substantial amounts of fuel in the form of a contiguous, dense canopy of trees to spread across the landscape. But how can this be? I thought the timber trolls came and took all our big trees away in the night! We also hear a lot about “ladder” fuels, and how they make it easier for fire to climb into the crowns of trees. The problem with this analogy is that trying to take away the “ladder” will not eradicate fire potential. The Forest Service cannot, and for ecological reasons should not, take away the “ladder” on every acre of forest. So, fire is inevitably going find a “ladder” to climb somewhere. While we need to address how often it has a “ladder” to climb, we also need to address what it sees when it gets to the top. Right now, it sees a big green buffet. We ought to use management to put some stuff on the menu that it has a hard time choking down. A word about logging slash -- when a mill successfully bids upon and purchases a timber sale from the Forest Service, the purchaser signs a contract. This contract, which is typically a couple hundred pages, stipulates everything imaginable about how the timber sale is to be conducted; from price, to which trees are harvested and which are left, to roads, and everything in between, including slash treatment. These requirements are based upon the Forest Service’s analysis of the area, not upon what aspect of the forest the evil timber empire prefers to “burglarize”. Depending on the machinery used, a finished timber sale is so clean that the purchaser is actually instructed to put slash back on the forest floor for wildlife purposes. These aren’t your father’s timber sales, folks. 1. And the number-one Fire Fallacy: Science will tell us how to manage our forests. Science doesn’t really go out and do anything of its own accord. Looking for the “truth” about forest management in Science is, as anthropologist Matt Cartmill put it, “like becoming an archbishop to meet girls.” Truth is subjective; Science is not. Don’t misunderstand; I am a scientist and I love pursuing knowledge about the natural world. The fact remains that we must ask questions of Science so it can tell us the consequences of doing or not doing certain things, not ask it what is “right” and what is “wrong”. National Forests are an unknown destination, and we’re riding shotgun in a car with our policy makers at the wheel. Science is like one of those AAA tour guide books that tells us the attractions, distances, and likely costs (subject to rate change, of course) of visiting somewhere. The public needs to decide where we want to go and what we’re willing to pay for it. We’re also the ones who tell the politicians and the Forest Service it’s OK to get on the gas, and if we don’t like where we are at the moment, we had better empower them to step on it. National Forests: Cutting through the allegorical smokescreen Published 1/22/02; 999 words by Aaron Everett Black Hills Forest Resource Association Much escalation has taken place on the editorial scene throughout past months regarding what course should most wisely be set for the management of our Black Hills. Upon closer examination of the debate, one is assailed by bewildering accusatory assortments, too numerous (and ridiculous) to recount here. While I find these falsified indictments thoroughly insulting to the last, one cannot hope to address the depths of their abstruse misconstruction in a single sitting. Therefore, permit me to examine what is the most personally spiteful of them; an infuriatingly regular assertion that we of the “insatiable and bloated ” Black Hills forest products industry have historically perpetrated no uncertain amount of wanton resource pillaging. Malevolent and slanderous incriminations of this sort are simply defiant of all measured reasoning; in making this determination one need only look to the astounding body of existing evidence: Firstly, the oft-spun tale depicting the Black Hills’ presettlement state as some sort of resplendent “old growth” utopia, while imaginative, is far detached from reality. Upon his return from a lengthy Black Hills expedition in 1875, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Irving Dodge reported that, “The very large mass of these pine forests…are yet composed of trees the very large majority of which are less than eight inches in diameter,” proceeding to clarify the point that, “There is scarcely to be found in the Black Hills a forest of old trees.” Hardly the “old, fire-proof forest” free from its alleged present-day logging-induced plague of “neoteny” that some groups seem to believe is an accurate characterization. A second preposterous sub-claim alludes to conventional timber harvest as the unbridled removal of large, mature trees. Later in his report Dodge recorded that within the area he explored, estimated at “something over four thousand square miles” (2,559,990 acres), “…four-tenths are entirely without timber. Another four-tenths is composed of young forests…not yet fit for the sawmill. One-tenth is wind-shaken, or injured by lightning or fire, and one tenth is good lumber.” Present-day Forest Service data indicate, however, that there grow 795,887 acres of “mature” (dominated by trees greater than 9” in diameter ) pine and spruce on the Hills today. Let’s do the math; Dodge’s estimate of “pristine” Black Hills conditions placed mature forested acres at 255,990, where more than triple that amount of comparably structured forest stands today. The photographic record of Custer’s expedition further illustrates that far more trees fill the modern Hills than ever stood historically. There you have it; truly a landscape bearing the hideous scars of a century’s “on-demand logging”… Don’t be ridiculous. Since the creation of the “Black Hills Forest Reserve” in 1887, the Forest Service has sold five billion board-feet of timber. Some form of harvest limit, now referred to as a decadal “allowable sale quantity”, has governed harvest volume since the reserve’s very inception6. A cornerstone principle within the practice of forestry is not harvesting at levels above annual growth; it just doesn’t make ecological or business sense to do so. This amount includes harvesting some of the natural tree mortality that would ordinarily occur from things like bugs, fire, and over-crowding before it actually happens. At no point subsequent to the establishment of the Black Hills National Forest has practice been made of leaving harvest sites denuded of vegetation, and all harvests are overridingly premised upon leaving good trees in place to disperse healthy seeds and promote regeneration. Black Hills forest management successes are most resoundingly evidenced by the simple act of driving from Hot Springs to Spearfish – the most healthy and aesthetically pleasing places on the forest are the very same which have received sufficient management. Conversely, should one venture into the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve, Black Elk Wilderness, or Beaver Park, where a “let the resource wither, die, and incinerate itself” management agenda has been allowed to fester, you will discover such wondrous outcomes as unnaturally high fuel loading and wildfire risk, stagnant growth, massive insect-induced mortality, and conspicuously lacking wildlife abundance. Within the grand scheme, harvesting has manufactured a forestwide increase in tree growth. As I intently type, across my desk sits a mounting of two tree “cookies”. One 45 year-old tree slice from a thinned stand measures 14 inches in diameter, a same-aged sample from a nearby unthinned stand measures 6 inches. When the harvesting cycle is halted by, for example, a concerted filibuster of frivolous appeals and litigation (which ultimately circumvents the public input process), over-crowding and decreased vigor ensue across the forest because too many trees are competing for resources in finite supply. Trees are physiologically weakened under these conditions, increasing susceptibility to attack from beetles and other diseases. Research and observation have lent an understanding of the role beetle populations would ordinarily fulfill in a “natural” system. We’ve learned that preventing the issue from reaching epidemic proportions is as rudimentary an operation as keeping the forest adequately thinned. Beetle-kill plainly increases fire risk; to infer otherwise is just silly. Also plain is the simplicity of reaching into the management toolbox and fixing unnatural beetle problems (those outside the range of normal variability), thereby decreasing current and potential fire risk. The forest products industry, which is among the most efficient and effective management tools, has been forced to stand behind the regulatory fence and listen while ‘the Hills are alive, with the sound of chewing.’ If interest groups genuinely want to champion the preservation of our National Forests, dare I suggest the following: stop appealing timber sales. From forestry’s very genesis as a scientific discipline in the United States, people like Aldo Leopold, Gifford Pinchot, and yes, John Muir (Sierra Club founder) professed such visionary concepts of balanced management as the following: “The forests, like perennial fountains, may be made to yield a sure harvest of timber, while at the same time all of their far reaching beneficent uses may be maintained unimpaired.” (John Muir, 1895) John Muir knew it in 1895; no greater truth could be spoken of natural resource management today. ©2012 Black Hills Forest Resource Association. Website Design by Wyoming Network, Inc. |
