Flying Finns
In This Issue
 Jim Petersen |
In the 12 years since the first printing of “The Truth” rolled off the press, more than 700,000 of you have ordered copies. From your thousands of letters we know that you use this reference book frequently. You cite it in Letters to the Editor and in speeches to local civic groups you support. Your school kids use it too, though they are more inclined to seek us out on our website.
We also know you trust this booklet implicitly because it is assembled from publicly funded databases and because the information we present is footnoted as to its source. We continue this tradition in this, our eighth printing. We are often asked how so much detailed information could be accurately gathered on such a large scale. To do its work the Forest Service maintains 3,112,000 aerial photography points, plus 124,463 inventory plots and 7,861 forest health plots. Although the agency’s monitoring program is far more advanced than it was when it was established in 1930 its accuracy still rests on a physical examination of public and privately owned forests that lie within selected plots from coast to coast [one plot per 6,000 acres of forestland]. Among the qualitative and quantitative measures taken on each of 124,463 inventory plots: tree diameter, tree quality, forest regeneration, site quality, forest type, stand age and evidence of natural or human disturbance.
Designated forest health plots undergo an even more rigorous examination. Tree crowns are inspected for signs of stress; soil chemical properties are measured for fertility; vegetation structure and composition are measured to evaluate habitat suitability, fuel loading, plant diversity and carbon cycling; lichen communities are examined for richness and abundance—indicators of climate change, air quality and biological diversity; down woody debris is evaluated to estimate carbon storage, wildfire risk and habitat characteristics; and ozone sensitive plant species are evaluated for the presence of late summer ozone injury.
Of course, the nation’s forests hold intrinsic values that are impossible to measure. How do you quantify beauty or solitude? What price does one put on a threatened or endangered species, or biological diversity? To add meaning and context to Forest Service statistics we asked several experts we respect to background you on issues that are currently driving the nation’s forest policy discussion. Among the issues: wildfire and forest health, habitat loss, third-party forest certification and the appropriateness of wood use in an environmentally conscious world.
Doug MacCleery sets the stage for you in “A Brief History of U.S. Forests: Does the Past Provide Lessons for the Future?” The ever-thoughtful Mr. MacCleery is the Forest Service’s Federal Forest and Rangeland Management Senior Policy Analyst and a frequent Evergreen contributor.
Two companion pieces accompany Mr. MacCleery’s reprise. “Softwood Resource Conditions and Management Implications” is a meticulously researched paper written by Jay O’Laughlin. Dr. O’Laughlin is director of the Policy Analysis Group at the University of Idaho, and has written widely on the declining condition of western federal forests. His well-documented assessment of the underlying causes of the West’s increasingly deadly wildfire crisis is affirmed in “Uncharacteristic Wildfire Risk and Fish Conservation in Oregon,” a peer-reviewed paper by Steve Mealey and Jack Ward Thomas. Their paper was presented at an October 2002 wildland fire seminar cosponsored by the Oregon State University College of Forestry and the Oregon Forest Resources Institute and is reprinted in its entirety with permission of the sponsors.
Several pages of charts—and two extensive bibliographies—accompany the O’Laughlin and Mealey-Thomas papers. They reaffirm what many fire ecologists have been saying for years: our national forests are in serious decline. Minus a major change in forest policy—something only Congress can divine—much of the progress in conservation Mr. MacCleery details will eventually be lost.
President Bush is quite right to be worried about the West’s national forests—and right on the mark with his Healthy Forests Initiative, outlined last August during his tour of fire lines in southern Oregon. There is a virtual mountain of scientific evidence supporting the need to modernize environmental laws that no longer serve their original purposes. Until these laws are updated wildfires will continue their deadly work in the West’s national forests.
Opinion polls conducted over the last three years confirm that most westerners, including most living in urban centers, understand that forest density and subsequent disease are the underlying causes of these fires—and that removing some trees is the only realistic long term solution. But equally clear is the fact that the public will not support programs perceived to be environmentally harmful. Further, there is a general distrust for the motives of sawmill owners who have sided with the President. But such distrust seems misplaced. We don’t know a single company that pines for a return to “the good old days” when nearly 20 percent of the nation’s annual harvest came from western national forests. Most companies that survived the collapse of the old federal timber sale program have secured new more stable sources of wood and no longer risk their capital on milling ventures tied to federal forests.
Thus, what was once a harvesting debate is now an environmental debate with social and cultural underpinnings. And suburban folks who’ve never worked in the woods are now the ones doing most of the out loud worrying. We share their newfound concern, but the fact is the Forest Service will remain powerless to protect publicly revered old growth forests from catastrophic wildfire—to say nothing of rural and urban neighborhoods that lie in harm’s way—until failing environmental laws are updated to reflect today’s realities. In a perfect world, the agency would pay its own way with revenues derived from a perpetual thinning program, and forests in federal care would be independently certified at ten-year intervals to make certain the public’s conservation goals were being met.
 Twenty-eight percent of the nation’s forests lie in counties containing urban centers with populations greater than 20,000. While these areas are politically influential, knowledge of forests and their role in American life is minimal. Source: USFS 2000 Resources Planning Act [RPA] Assessment. www.fs.fed.us/pl/rpa/list.htm |
America’s private forest landowners are testing some innovative management approaches that bridge the perceived commodity-conservation gap. For perspective read John Olson’s insightful story [page 52] concerning Potlatch Corporation’s forest certification and conservation reserve programs. Mr. Olson is resource vice president for the company. Conservation reserves are becoming increasingly common in privately owned forests in the U.S., underscoring their smooth fit with adjacent timber producing areas.
We hope you’ll also take a moment to read “Think Globally, Act Locally: Use More Wood!” We showcase the Wood Promotion Network, an educational program that touts the scientifically documented environmental advantages of wood use in forums frequented by building contractors and their customers. WPN was formed two years ago after it was discovered that U.S. lumber manufacturers had lost nearly $1 billion in market share to competitors in the steel framing and concrete industries in just three years. Worse, television and print advertisements sponsored by the two industries were hyping environmentalist claims that forests were not being sustainably managed. As you will learn in this issue, there is no truth to these claims. A nation as environmentally engaged as ours is should be using more wood, not less.
Our WPN feature is accompanied by a series of charts titled, “A Graphic Perspective on the U.S. Forest Products Industry.” Despite the worst pulp and paper markets in anyone’s memory—and the mergers, consolidations and layoffs fierce global competition has wrought—the nation’s lumber and paper industries still employ 1.5 million Americans in high paying jobs.
While pondering the future of high paying jobs in America be sure to read Bruce Vincent’s uplifting profile on “Provider Pals,” a cultural exchange program he pioneered that pairs junior-high age students with their Providers: farmers, ranchers, loggers, miners, commercial fishermen and oil field workers. As part of the yearlong exchange, rural kids journey to cities, visit factories and take in cultural events while city kids visit farms, ranches, commercial fishing operations, sawmills, mines and logging jobs. The Ford Motor Company thought so much of the program they provided $1.5 million in startup funding. We’ve seen many fine educational programs over the years, but never one that excites kids so much. We’re pleased to have played a small role in its formation.
It’s clear we have a very long way to go in our quest to improve the public’s understanding of forests and forestry. To find out just how far go to our website www.evergreenmagazine.com [click on “Analysis & Perspective] and read “Fact and Perception,” Dr. Jim Bowyer’s troubling report. Dr. Bowyer is Director of the Forest Products Management Development Institute in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Minnesota. Since the early 1990s he’s been testing students and industry employees to see what they know about forests and forestry. The news is not good. You can take his test on page 40 and check your answers on our website. While there be sure to read “Policy Conflicts Relative to Managing Fire-Adapted Forests on Federal Lands: The Case of the Northern Spotted Owl,” by Drs. Larry Irwin and Jack Ward Thomas. It’s the companion to the Mealey-Thomas piece that begins on page 41.
We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our many sponsors, especially the Lematta Foundation, without whose ongoing support the Evergreen Foundation could not survive. Thanks also to Doug MacCleery, Jay O’Laughlin, Jack Ward Thomas, John Olson, Steve Mealey and Bruce Vincent for their writings. The latter two are Evergreen Foundation board members whose contributions to forestry education we value highly.
Onward we go,
Jim Petersen, Editor
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."