Get
Forestry-Informed
To help make things a little easier on everyone, our
discussions about forestry, management, and the forest products industry will be
generally confined to the context of the Black Hills National Forest.
As you may already know, the issues that frame national forest management
- especially here in the Black Hills - are complex enough on their own!
There are, however, many resources on the Web that can provide you with
information about all of forestry's myriad forms.
If you still have burning, unanswered questions after you’ve read
through the information on this page, please feel free to visit our directory of
forestry
links, or just send us an email
So, what is forestry?
In a few words, forestry is the science, art, business, and practice of
conserving and managing forests and forest lands to provide a sustained supply
of forest products, forest conditions, or other forest values desired by the
forest owner (cf. Ford-Robertson, 1971). More
specifically, forestry combines a functioning scientific knowledge of soils,
hydrology, wildlife and habitat, plant physiology and natural history,
biometrics, and ecosystem processes, with the application of land surveying,
timber harvest systems and operations, information technologies, and business.
In this sense, forestry is where the rubber of scientific knowledge meets
the road of achieving ecological, social, and economic land management
objectives.
As you might imagine from its extremely broad definition,
forestry is a tremendously diverse and internally specialized profession.
Each and every forest of the world is biologically unique; accordingly,
so is the practice of forestry therein. In
the western US alone, for example, one might find every forest type from
bottomland hardwoods and ponderosa pine in low elevations, to lodgepole pine,
aspen, and Douglas fir in middle elevations, to spruce-fir and hemlock-fir in
the upper-most elevations. Each of
these very distinct forests is managed in a different fashion, which is tailored
to fit the natural processes that shaped them and the physiological traits of
the tree species themselves. Adding
another lay of complexity, each forest landowner - be they private citizens,
state or federal government agencies, forest products companies, etc. - has a
unique set of objectives for managing their forestlands.
Forestry is the vehicle that carries forest land from its present-day
condition toward tomorrow's objectives, as defined by the landowner.
So, you may be asking yourself, "How exactly do foresters go about practicing their 'art and science?'" Well, once the stages of scientific forest assessment and management planning are completed, foresters turn to any number of things in their toolbox that can be used to reach a landowner’s desired objective. These include many forms of logging, thinning, and tree harvesting, tree planting, and controlled or 'prescribed' burning, to name a few. In the Black Hills, the most common tool of the trade uses ground-based logging and thinning systems to apply a scheme of harvests called a "shelterwood/seed tree". As you can see, this system involves several intermediate thinning treatments that open up the forest and allow trees to grow vigorously. These thinnings also make way for the next generation of trees, which grow up underneath the shelter of their elders (hence the name, shelterwood). Often, each shelterwood or seed tree harvest is followed by some form of prescribed fire; either 'jackpot' burning of piled logging debris or 'broadcast' burning of dispersed limbs and twigs across a larger area. When the trees have reached maturity, and the small regenerating trees beneath them have taken a firm hold, the mature trees are removed to allow their progeny to take over. The shelterwood/seed tree system is like many others in forestry -- it's a cycle, from beginning to end, of a tree's life. This ensures that we'll never run out of trees, that people will never run out of wood, and that the forest is maintained in a healthy and vigorous condition. For more information on how the system of forestry used in the Black Hills works, please see our brief primer on the Black Hills Ecosystem.
We refer to our neck of the woods as the 'Black Hills
National Forest'. The words
'national forest' have special meaning, a unique meaning among other kinds of
public lands, and a meaning very much apart from things like National Parks,
Wildlife Refuges, Wilderness, and State Parks and recreation areas.
The late 1800's were a time of rapid growth and expansion
for our Nation. We were pushing
back the western frontier, defining our national identity, and beginning to
build what was to become the largest economy in the world. Timber was one resource that fulfilled the needs of economic
growth. However, this period of
time was also characterized by unchecked exploitation of the forest resource,
and concern arose surrounding the prediction that the United States would run
out of timber in the near future.
In response to this concern, several policy leaders of the
time came together to ensure that all future generations would be able to enjoy
the natural and economic benefits of our Country's abundant forests. The most
famous of these men was President Theodore Roosevelt; other names you might
recognize include John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold.
Though not always in complete agreement, together, they forged the way
for the creation of a system of federally-administered forest reserves.
The reserves, over time, came to form the National Forest System; the
Black Hills, having been designated a forest reserve in 1897, were transferred
to formal National Forest status in 1905. Much
has changed since then, but today these lands under balanced management that
provides benefits to society and the economy, while maintaining their beauty for
generations to come.
“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 (Founder
of the Sierra Club), 1895
Here are some additional FAQ's to help better frame the
nature of national forests:
What
defines a national forest?
National forests are a nationwide system of publicly owned,
federally-administered lands that are actively managed for public benefit under
a set of objectives called 'multiple-use'.
Since its inception, the National
Forest System
has grown to include 175 national forests and grasslands, encompassing 191
million acres (or an area the size of Texas).
A complex suite of laws and regulations govern the management on these
lands today, but they have their beginnings in a very simple tenet: “wise,
scientific use” (1905 Transfer Act). The
operable word being, ‘use’ - not ‘preserve it as though it was a trinket
to admire in a display case’ - but ‘use’.
National forests, by their definition, are public lands that work for a
living.
What is multiple-use?
Multiple-use is a set of objectives for land management
based upon the idea that the forest provides all sorts of benefits to all sorts
of people. Although the concept has
evolved considerably over time, multiple-use's primary components are clean air
and water, abundant wildlife and habitat, forest products, scenic beauty,
minerals, livestock range, and the many forms of recreation. The origins of this concept date back to the Multiple-Use
Sustained-Yield Act of 1960. However,
multiple-use has persisted through the many other pieces of legislation that
have since come to pass, and it remains the key fixture in the direction of
national forest management.
What other laws and
regulations are involved in the management of national forests?
Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act (MUSYA, 1960): we’ve briefly
discussed this topic already, but, in essence, the MUSYA obligates the Forest
Service to give equal consideration to all the myriad benefits the public can
derive from national forests. MUSYA’s
other component is its mandate that yields of timber and forage from national
forests shall be sustained and non-declining in perpetuity; this ensures that
we’ll never over-harvest or run out of trees.
To read the text of this law, go to the Library
of Congress and search for 16 USC Secs. 528-531, or Public Law
86–517.
National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA, 1969):
despite the arduous and lengthy procedural requirements NEPA has grown to entail
for the Forest Service, the roots of this law were sensible and concise.
Essentially, NEPA says that the Federal government must fully disclose
the potential environmental impacts of any actions it may propose to carry out,
and must also consider input from the general public on its proposals.
To read the text of this law, go to the Library
of Congress and search for 42 USC Sec. 4321-4347, or Public Law
91-190.
Endangered
Species Act (ESA, 1973):
the ESA, again, was a piece of legislation enacted with well-meaning and
honorable intentions. The goal is to identify wildlife species whose existence is
genuinely threatened, and implement a plan that sees those species through to
recovery. Most often,
unfortunately, neither of those goals are satisfied.
Species are commonly petitioned for ESA protection on poor scientific
grounds and with less-than-honorable objectives on the part of the petitioners.
Worse, few species that gain “protected” status ever show tangible
recovery, and “recovery efforts” invariably revolve around causing families,
communities, and businesses untold suffering and hardship.
Many in Congress and among the public favor a major overhaul of this law.
To read the text of this law, go to the Library
of Congress and search for 16 USC Secs. 1531-1544, or Public Law
93-205.
Forest
& Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA, 1974): the RPA arose
from the idea that, in order to ensure sustainable management and flows of
resources from the national forests, the Forest Service needed a centralized way
to regularly assess the state of natural resources on all their lands.
RPA requires the agency to compile data on things like forestland
ownership, forest growth, forest harvests, etc, etc, and make this information
available to the public. To read the text of this law, go to the Library of Congress and
search for 16 U.S.C. Sec. 1671, or Public Law 93-378 (Amended PL 94-588, and PL
106–580).
National
Forest Management Act (NFMA, 1976):
in the late 1970’s, it was decided that each national forest ought to produce
a plan, commonly referred to as a Forest Plan, to provide its management
direction over the long-term. Each
individual project (be it a new road, a timber sale, a grazing permit, or a
recreation improvement) that a given national forest undertook would then be
directed at achieving the goals and objectives set out as the long-term
“vision” for the forest in the Forest Plan.
The NFMA established the cornerstone components of forest planning, and
provided the basic framework of scientific analysis that a national forest was
required to complete as part of constructing its Plan.
To read the text of this law, go to the Library
of Congress and search for 16 USC Secs. 1600-1614 (amended 1978,
1980, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1988 and 1990), or Public Law 94-588.
Internal
implementing procedures, policies, and rulemakings: The Forest Service has
many, many, many internal regulations and policies; too many to begin to discuss
here. Essentially, for each piece
of federal legislation that may be applicable to management on the National
Forest System, there exist regulations. There
are still more regulations as you get past the Washington, D.C. level of the
Forest Service and down to the Regional- and Forest-level.
Is a national forest
different from a national park?
Absolutely. Where
national forests are actively managed to produce multiple benefits, national
parks are managed as leave-alone preserves, maintaining the natural character of
the area within the park's boundaries. Nationwide,
the National Parks System includes 379 parks, refuges, and monuments covering
83.6 million acres.
What about State
parks?
State parks are managed under a tremendously varying suite of objectives. Some are recreation-only, some are wildlife preserve areas, and still others produce resources such as livestock forage and forest products. Their management is, of course, set at the state level.
(more
photos coming soon!)
The Black Hills are an emerald-green oasis towering above the endless sea of high-plains prairie that surrounds them. The Lakota Nation refers to this area as “paha sapa,” which literally means “hills that are black.” Ponderosa pine dominates these forests, although Black Hills spruce (South Dakota’s State Tree), trembling aspen, paper birch, and other bottomland hardwood trees are present on moist sites. Elevations reach as high as 7300 feet, and while the geography and terrain is tremendously varied, it is invariably breathtaking. Wildlife is diverse and abundant, ranging from impressive trout fisheries to big game species like elk, bison, whitetail and mule deer, and bighorn sheep. In many ways, the Black Hills are a mixing ground of east and west, of mountains and plains, and of moist and arid climates.
Authors and scientists Wayne Shepperd and Michael Battaglia1
describe the Black Hills ecosystem this way:
“The Black Hills is a forested refuge on the Missouri
Plateau of the Great Plains Province1. This refuge spans 125 miles from north to south and 60 miles
from east to west2. The
total land base is nearly 6,000 square miles, with two-thirds of the area in
southwest South Dakota and one third in northeast Wyoming3.
The Black Hills and neighboring Bear Lodge Mountains to the
west were formed by a regional uplift of the Earth’s surface during the
Laramide mountain-building episodes that produced most of the ranges of the
Rocky Mountains several million years ago.
Granites pushing up beneath overlying sedimentary formations formed this
maturely dissected domed uplift4.
The uplift is elliptical in shape, with a crystalline (granite) core,
which occupies about 20 percent of the Black Hills area.
The core is encircled by steeply dipping sedimentary deposits.
As a general rule, the closer a (rock) formation is to the center of the
Black Hills, the older its age5.
These distinct differences in geology across the Black Hills affect
vegetation distribution and growth.”
The resilient, bountiful forests of this land and the
promise of rare mineral exploration moved the political leaders of the time to
commission George Armstrong Custer on an expedition here in 1874.
Custer’s expedition paved the way for rapid European settlement, so the
Black Hills have experienced forest management in some form or another for over
100 years. Bear in mind, as you
drive through our oasis of the high plains, that the beauty of the Black Hills
has in part been shaped by the hand of forest managers - long have we lived in
harmony with the forest, and with the support of people like you, we will
continue to do so long after today.
In the many eons before we got here, however, three
discrete forces of nature were chiefly responsible for how the Black Hills’
forests developed: climate, wildfire, and insects.
Wildfire: The historic fire regime of the Black Hills is thought to
have been two-tiered. One component
consisted of frequent (as often as once a year), low-intensity ground fires
which served to thin the forest of seedlings, saplings and woody debris.
These fires were prevalent in the more arid portions of the forest, and
served to generate and maintain sparse, open, park-like forest conditions with mature
‘yellow-bark’ or ‘yellow-bellied’ pines. The
second fire regime component was considerably less subtle; it was characterized
by relatively large fire events that burned down entire stands of trees at a
time. This type of fire is thought
to have been common in areas with higher annual precipitation, but burned much
with less frequency, perhaps occurring on one hundred-year intervals or more.
These events generated continuous patches of younger trees, growing up in
dense conditions from the ashes of the forest that preceded them.
As a result of these to very different wildfire scenarios, the Black
Hills were characterized by widely varying forest conditions.
Over time, and as a result of fire suppression policies, this system
seems to have skewed toward the latter component, and the fires of today are
larger, more frequent, and more destructive than those of days past.
Forest insects: Insects are ever-present catalysts of change in every
forest system. In the Black Hills,
a small native insect called the mountain pine beetle serves this role.
Mountain pine beetles prey on trees growing under stressed conditions,
such as the intense competition for light, nutrients, and water that develops
when trees are allowed to grow too closely together.
Historically, mountain pine beetles in the Black Hills have oscillated
between small, confined, or ‘endemic’
populations and large outbreaks, or ‘epidemics’. General
Land Office and Forest Service accounts dating back to the late 1800s tell us of
large mountain pine beetle events in several parts of the Black Hills, and on
what appears to be a recurring ten-year cycle, beetles have reared their head to
devour several thousand acres at a time. Since
this time, science has learned much about managing the negative effects that
large beetle outbreaks can incur upon the forest.
Through years of rigorous study, it was determined that keeping beetles
at low levels is as simple as thinning the forest
to more open conditions.
This open forest condition creates unfavorable “habitat” for the
beetles, mostly because the trees are growing vigorously and can defend
themselves against attack.
It should be noted that the Black Hills are in the midst of
a terribly serious beetle outbreak, but something is different this time than in
years past - the bugs aren’t stopping their march at several thousand acres.
Current data on mountain pine beetle activity
shows that
something more like tens of thousands of acres could be affected, if forest
managers cannot step in soon. Insect
experts on the forest have described the situation as having the potential to
turn into ‘Beetle-geddon’, largely due to the presence of very contiguous,
over-dense stands of trees that are prime “food” for mountain pine beetles.
For more about mountain pine beetles, see our article
later in this section.
References:
1.
RMRS-GTR-97, 2002
1.
Hoffman, G.R.; Alexander, R. R. 1987. Forest vegetation of the Black Hills
National Forest of South Dakota and Wyoming: a habitat type classification. Res.
Pap. RM-276. Ft. Collins, CO: USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mt. Research
Station. 48p.
2.
Fenneman, N. M.; 1931. Physiography of Western United States.
New York: McGraw-Hill book company, Inc. 534p.
3.
Froiland, S. G. 1990.
Natural History of the Black Hills and Badlands.
Sioux Falls, SD: Center for Western Studies, Augustana College.
225p.
4.
Orr, H. K. 1975.
Watershed management in the Black Hills: the status of our knowledge. Res.
Pap. RM-141. Ft. Collins, COL USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mt. Research
Station. 7p.
5. Raventon, E. 1994. Island in the plains: a Black Hills natural history. Boulder, CO: Johnson Books, 272p.
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 profession and industry has
been outright and intentionally vilified, slandered, defamed, and altogether
smeared. It makes us mad. Mad
because we’re made out to be money-hungry heathen assailants of nature, mad
because it’s some seem to think it’s a social crime to be the ones providing
the resources that house and shelter our Nation, but mostly mad because we love
and take pride in what we do and where we do it. So, here it is: 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 will arouse laughter of the uproarious variety.
First, any and all timber the Forest Service offers for sale is done so
through competitive auction; that is, prospective buyers (forest products
companies) bid against each other based on the fair market value of the timber,
and the sale is awarded to the one who issues the highest bid.
Quite the contrary to the ‘subsidy’ scenario, Forest Service timber
is consistently more expensive than the market would indicate in terms of lumber
pricing.
Second, Forest Service timber sales typically involve
between two and ten times the operational headaches (such as road construction
and maintenance requirements, restrictions on when logging can be done, etc)
that a company would experience, were they harvesting timber from their own
lands or buying it from a private land owner.
Third, the Forest Service isn’t just proposing to harvest
timber for the sake of feeding sawmills. Many
other things - 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 an end, and happens to be
one that generates 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.
This concept originated because the US Constitution forbids the federal
government from owning property, but a trade-off was made for national forests:
federal ownership was allowed so long as the lands were managed for public
benefit (social, cultural, and economic benefit, that is).
...So, a subsidy? I
think not.
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 old trees.
This one falls into the “maliciously false” category.
The forest products industry has no say whatsoever - none, nada,
zip, zilch - in which trees are cut and which remain during a given forest
management project. 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.
Now we enter the competitive bidding situation we talked about earlier.
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 breach are severe. The
average Forest Service contract is 200 pages long, including every last detail
down to which roads to construct and how, what kind of logging equipment should
be used and under what conditions, how purchasers should take care of leftover
limbs and brush, and on, and on. It’s
commonly said that “loggers are doing such-and-such awful thing to our
national forests” - well, no, loggers and foresters do what’s in the
contract.
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 NF, all
size classes 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 - light, water, and soil
nutrients - 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 begins anew. So,
absolutely, we harvest big trees... But
only after we’ve first grown them to be that way by harvesting a whole
lot of little ones first.
In general, the Forest Service’s goal is to perform this
system on a thoroughgoing scale across the Black Hills, such that a diversity of
forest conditions (old, big, young, small, dense, sparse, etc.) exists
throughout the land. 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), and the current growth rate 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 truth.
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?
The intense wildfires that have occurred on the Black Hills in recent
years are, in part, a product of the enormous increase in the number of trees
that grow on the forest today.
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.
Nature is chaotic and dynamic, and therefore the forests subject to its
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, wildfire, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods,
lightning, temperature/climate extremes, wind, snow, and ice storms, and
disease. Hardly subtle means,
wouldn’t you say?
Have something to add?
A burning question you’d like us to answer? Send us and email
and we’ll post it here.
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