Editor's Column
Guest Columns
Forest Facts
Some 1.5 billion trees are planted in the U.S. every year, about 5 trees for every American.
Annually, U.S. forestland owners plant about 6 trees for every tree harvested.
About one-third of America's original forest - some 300 million acres - have been converted to other uses, principally agriculture.
There are 26 million more acres of forestland in the Northeast than there were in 1900.
Today, forests blanket about one-third of the U.S. land base and about half the U.S. East.
U.S. annual growth rates have exceeded harvest rates since the 1940's.
Timber harvesting is forbidden on 50% of all National Forest lands in the U.S.
National Forests account for 20% of the nation's forestlands and 19% of its timberlands.
National Forests hold 46% of the nation's softwood timber inventory but only provide 6% of the annual harvest.
Since 1986, the harvest of timber from America's national forests has declined 70%.
In the West, 34% of all forestland and 54% of all timberlands are in national forests.
National forests in the Pacific Coast and Intermountain West regions hold 68% of the nation's softwood timber inventory, but provide less than 28% of annual harvest.
Forest density has increased 40% in the U.S. over the last 50 years.
Flying Finns
Home->Mid-Spring 2006
The planning team will need to meet several goals as laid out in the Forest Service Strategic Plan: Reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire; reduce the impacts of invasive species; provide outdoor recreation opportunities; help meet energy resource needs; improve watershed conditions; and other work that “supports agency goals.”
“The forest supervisors are very interested in having a plan that can be implemented and has broad support by the public,” says Mr. Schmitt. “Oregonians can help by being willing to get together with others who may not agree with their management philosophy and coming to agreement on how to manage the forest. There are many challenges and very divergent views among the public that the Forest Service must listen to and respond to in creating a forest plan. If people can work together to come up with a common vision, that would be very helpful.”
As for what he thinks will be the easiest and hardest parts of filling a very tall order, Mr. Schmitt feels the easy part will be “getting people excited about how the forest is managed.” And the hardest? “Getting people to recognize and honor the legitimate values held by others and being willing to find common ground in how to best manage the many opportunities the National Forests have to offer.”
Observes Oregon State Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli of John Day: “Part of the opportunity of this planning process is to reconnect the community to their government, and to demand these resources be managed for the public good.”
Matters of Trust
Whether Mr. Schmitt and his team are able to “reconnect” is an open question. And he’s facing a tough go on the ‘excitement’ front. There is a palpable lack of confidence in the Forest Service’s ability to create an executable, effective plan.
In Canyon City, Grant County Judge Dennis Reynolds (a forester and former mill manager) sounds almost fatalistic: “Those mills will be here if something happens. They will not be here if nothing happens. I’m afraid that if Congress doesn’t wake up, they’ll have to put up large-scale projects to attract someone here, with a long-term commitment to amortize the massive investment it would take. But I don’t see the Forest Service ever being able to do that under the current litigation blanket.”
Kinzua Resources recently tried commitment, and got burnt. “In the late 1990’s, we went into small log processing based on what the Forest Service told us,” Andy Munsey explains. “We spent $8.1 million on it, and you can see the amount of timber I get to supply that investment...1% or less for a facility I can only run half the time. Our lesson was you can’t spend money based on what they tell you they’re going to do. One stamp on one letter, it’s over, we don’t get any wood. People are just not going to invest money under those conditions.”
Radical environmentalists aren’t the only ones licking stamps. In November of 2004, the League of Wilderness Defenders (an Earth First! spin-off) sued against the High Roberts fire salvage on the south edge of the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness on the Malheur. At issue were 2.6 million board feet off 209 acres from a 13,535-acre fire in summer 2002. But the League was joined in litigation by the so-called Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics on behalf of a Malheur NF assistant fire management officer who objected to the logging of live trees over 21 inches. Such an action by agency staff has many wondering about accountability and leadership. “If we’re not performing around here at Boise,” observes Mr. Fullerton, “pretty soon you send people home. When the Forest Service doesn’t perform...well, I agree there’s no accountability for performance. The problem with that is it doesn’t drive people to meet their targets. If there’s no consequence for not meeting targets, why sweat it?”
Still, like Mr. Fullerton, Dan Bishop feels “we have a good forest supervisor here, some good forest rangers here: good people. But the rules and regulations they are under today—a large number self-imposed—have created a problem, and we’re going down.”
For Jack Boyd, “the Forest Service has become so politically correct, there’s no leadership. And below the leaders, the staff knows they can just ride the tide and the current bunch will eventually go away.”
“During the Clinton Administration, Jim Lyons [Under Secretary of Agriculture over the Forest Service] did a marvelous job of destroying the Forest Service,” remarks Mr. Evans. “I don’t know how anyone could take a big, strong organization with such an outstanding history behind it, and do it so fast. With [Agriculture Undersecretary] Mark Rey’s background, I was hopeful he would show some active management leadership. Now I’m concerned that he has not; and has not given [USFS Chief] Dale Bosworth a push toward active management.”
Pride in Performance
Randy Burgess explains: “We’ve gone above and beyond the call here. We put back what we take, we recover all we can.” The high rate of “capture” is a point of pride for Burgess and others.
At the Boise Elgin mill where Burgess works as safety manager, the stack gas from the wood boiler that powers the plywood drying line was clear the day Evergreen visited, and the ashes from the stack scrubber are spread as fertilizer on Forest Capital (formerly Boise Cascade) holdings around the plant. “We get more out of a log than we ever did, and we’re proud of that. It’s been a good living in that way, besides the money. I think every one of us is an environmentalist.”
“You know, when I first started in the woods in 1956 at $2.58 an hour, there was a lot of waste. Probably 60% of a tree was being used,” Melvern Bauck recalls, but “Right now, it’s probably 95% of the tree. When I started, a teninch top was standard. Then we went to a six-inch top and guys were complaining, ‘if I can’t stand on it, how can I limb it?’ Now, all that small stuff is being utilized.”
Burned Out
Few hold out much hope for a return to common sense, at least not until, as Jack Boyd put it, “after all the other resources of the world have been pillaged. Then the government will start harvesting our timber again.” Kevin Tracy: “Twenty years from now, some Congressman from Oregon is going to stand up in Congress and say: ‘I know how we can pay off the debt! Let’s log the national forests.’ And everyone will think: ‘that guy is the smartest guy in the world. Why didn’t we think of that? We could log instead of putting fires out all the time’.”
Of course, there is a Congressman from Oregon standing up in Congress: Greg Walden of Hood River. “As a lifelong Oregonian, I prefer our forests green, not black, a preference which I feel most Americans share,” Walden tells Evergreen. “Many expert witnesses, and many of my constituents, have told me and my subcommittee, the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, about the need for timely and responsible management in federal forests. Experiences and what we’ve seen in the Blue Mountains and our national forests make it clear that we can’t just wait around for future wildfire and insect infestations to happen,” Congressman Walden says. “Nor should Americans passively accept losing the economic value that not only creates jobs
for local communities, but for all Americans. I’m hopeful I can continue to work closely with representatives from both sides of the aisle to educate our colleagues in the House and Senate about the vital need for reform and timely action.”
Congressman Walden and Mr. Schmitt will have to do without Melvern Bauck’s help. “Definitely not. I have no interest in it. It serves no purpose. They can talk all they want, but when it gets all done and said, you have got to have the guts to actually do something.” One man who did go to many, many meetings is Larry Cribbs: “Jack Ward Thomas, Tom Quigley and Larry Bryant, myself, a whole list of people within the Forest Service when it was still trying to do progressive management, decided, as Jack put it, ‘all the stars and planets were lined up and this was the time to get people cooperating.’ So we lined up the politicians, had meetings at the Sciences Lab,” forming the Blue Mountains Natural Resources Institute.
“We had a whole bunch of people who agreed we needed to agree on some things, about 125 to 130 ‘cooperators.’ We put on a whole series of meetings across the Northwest, on the issues, and possible solutions. We had a tremendous thing rolling, to the point we were an official Congressional committee.
Mr. Cribbs’s dedication earned him a “Chief’s Award” for outstanding service, presented him by Jack Ward Thomas, as well as an official Forest Service belt buckle, items almost never awarded to outsiders. But he hasn’t looked at an Environmental Impact Statement or gone to a meeting in at least 18 months. “At some point you realize you need to fight the wars you can win,” he explains. “In these instances, meetings have turned from input on what ought to be done, into input on what they are going to do. Anything you do is after the fact. There’s no point in wasting your time.”
Ring of Fire - Part Three
By: Dave Skinner
Continued from part two
The Next Step
The three forests are in the midst of a joint forest plan revision, a process that revision team leader David Schmitt hopes to complete by the scheduled October 2007 deadline. Mr. Schmitt, holder of a bachelor’s degree in Range-Forest Management from Colorado State University, worked all over the USFS system in silvicultural and timber management positions, then came to eastern Oregon and the Fremont National Forest as Forest Environmental Coordinator. Most recently, he was District Ranger for the Pine Ranger District of the Wallowa-Whitman. As the Forest Service point man on the plan revision, Mr. Schmitt looks forward to his latest challenge: “It is satisfying to work with all the resources to design management that protects important values present on the national forests while providing benefits, both commodity and other, the American public wants from their public lands.”
 COLLEEN MACLEOD “If people understood the issues better, they wouldn’t do what they do.” |
“The forest supervisors are very interested in having a plan that can be implemented and has broad support by the public,” says Mr. Schmitt. “Oregonians can help by being willing to get together with others who may not agree with their management philosophy and coming to agreement on how to manage the forest. There are many challenges and very divergent views among the public that the Forest Service must listen to and respond to in creating a forest plan. If people can work together to come up with a common vision, that would be very helpful.”
As for what he thinks will be the easiest and hardest parts of filling a very tall order, Mr. Schmitt feels the easy part will be “getting people excited about how the forest is managed.” And the hardest? “Getting people to recognize and honor the legitimate values held by others and being willing to find common ground in how to best manage the many opportunities the National Forests have to offer.”
Observes Oregon State Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli of John Day: “Part of the opportunity of this planning process is to reconnect the community to their government, and to demand these resources be managed for the public good.”
Matters of Trust
Whether Mr. Schmitt and his team are able to “reconnect” is an open question. And he’s facing a tough go on the ‘excitement’ front. There is a palpable lack of confidence in the Forest Service’s ability to create an executable, effective plan.
In Canyon City, Grant County Judge Dennis Reynolds (a forester and former mill manager) sounds almost fatalistic: “Those mills will be here if something happens. They will not be here if nothing happens. I’m afraid that if Congress doesn’t wake up, they’ll have to put up large-scale projects to attract someone here, with a long-term commitment to amortize the massive investment it would take. But I don’t see the Forest Service ever being able to do that under the current litigation blanket.”
Kinzua Resources recently tried commitment, and got burnt. “In the late 1990’s, we went into small log processing based on what the Forest Service told us,” Andy Munsey explains. “We spent $8.1 million on it, and you can see the amount of timber I get to supply that investment...1% or less for a facility I can only run half the time. Our lesson was you can’t spend money based on what they tell you they’re going to do. One stamp on one letter, it’s over, we don’t get any wood. People are just not going to invest money under those conditions.”
Radical environmentalists aren’t the only ones licking stamps. In November of 2004, the League of Wilderness Defenders (an Earth First! spin-off) sued against the High Roberts fire salvage on the south edge of the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness on the Malheur. At issue were 2.6 million board feet off 209 acres from a 13,535-acre fire in summer 2002. But the League was joined in litigation by the so-called Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics on behalf of a Malheur NF assistant fire management officer who objected to the logging of live trees over 21 inches. Such an action by agency staff has many wondering about accountability and leadership. “If we’re not performing around here at Boise,” observes Mr. Fullerton, “pretty soon you send people home. When the Forest Service doesn’t perform...well, I agree there’s no accountability for performance. The problem with that is it doesn’t drive people to meet their targets. If there’s no consequence for not meeting targets, why sweat it?”
Still, like Mr. Fullerton, Dan Bishop feels “we have a good forest supervisor here, some good forest rangers here: good people. But the rules and regulations they are under today—a large number self-imposed—have created a problem, and we’re going down.”
For Jack Boyd, “the Forest Service has become so politically correct, there’s no leadership. And below the leaders, the staff knows they can just ride the tide and the current bunch will eventually go away.”
“During the Clinton Administration, Jim Lyons [Under Secretary of Agriculture over the Forest Service] did a marvelous job of destroying the Forest Service,” remarks Mr. Evans. “I don’t know how anyone could take a big, strong organization with such an outstanding history behind it, and do it so fast. With [Agriculture Undersecretary] Mark Rey’s background, I was hopeful he would show some active management leadership. Now I’m concerned that he has not; and has not given [USFS Chief] Dale Bosworth a push toward active management.”
 RANDY BURGESS “Some of these guys are 55 and worked here all their lives. It would devastate them. Who’s going to hire a 55 year old millwright? And they can’t go in the woods to fight fire, they can’t move fast enough. They’ll have nothing. They are so dependent on this mill.” |
Randy Burgess explains: “We’ve gone above and beyond the call here. We put back what we take, we recover all we can.” The high rate of “capture” is a point of pride for Burgess and others.
At the Boise Elgin mill where Burgess works as safety manager, the stack gas from the wood boiler that powers the plywood drying line was clear the day Evergreen visited, and the ashes from the stack scrubber are spread as fertilizer on Forest Capital (formerly Boise Cascade) holdings around the plant. “We get more out of a log than we ever did, and we’re proud of that. It’s been a good living in that way, besides the money. I think every one of us is an environmentalist.”
“You know, when I first started in the woods in 1956 at $2.58 an hour, there was a lot of waste. Probably 60% of a tree was being used,” Melvern Bauck recalls, but “Right now, it’s probably 95% of the tree. When I started, a teninch top was standard. Then we went to a six-inch top and guys were complaining, ‘if I can’t stand on it, how can I limb it?’ Now, all that small stuff is being utilized.”
Burned Out
Few hold out much hope for a return to common sense, at least not until, as Jack Boyd put it, “after all the other resources of the world have been pillaged. Then the government will start harvesting our timber again.” Kevin Tracy: “Twenty years from now, some Congressman from Oregon is going to stand up in Congress and say: ‘I know how we can pay off the debt! Let’s log the national forests.’ And everyone will think: ‘that guy is the smartest guy in the world. Why didn’t we think of that? We could log instead of putting fires out all the time’.”
Of course, there is a Congressman from Oregon standing up in Congress: Greg Walden of Hood River. “As a lifelong Oregonian, I prefer our forests green, not black, a preference which I feel most Americans share,” Walden tells Evergreen. “Many expert witnesses, and many of my constituents, have told me and my subcommittee, the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, about the need for timely and responsible management in federal forests. Experiences and what we’ve seen in the Blue Mountains and our national forests make it clear that we can’t just wait around for future wildfire and insect infestations to happen,” Congressman Walden says. “Nor should Americans passively accept losing the economic value that not only creates jobs
for local communities, but for all Americans. I’m hopeful I can continue to work closely with representatives from both sides of the aisle to educate our colleagues in the House and Senate about the vital need for reform and timely action.”
Congressman Walden and Mr. Schmitt will have to do without Melvern Bauck’s help. “Definitely not. I have no interest in it. It serves no purpose. They can talk all they want, but when it gets all done and said, you have got to have the guts to actually do something.” One man who did go to many, many meetings is Larry Cribbs: “Jack Ward Thomas, Tom Quigley and Larry Bryant, myself, a whole list of people within the Forest Service when it was still trying to do progressive management, decided, as Jack put it, ‘all the stars and planets were lined up and this was the time to get people cooperating.’ So we lined up the politicians, had meetings at the Sciences Lab,” forming the Blue Mountains Natural Resources Institute.
“We had a whole bunch of people who agreed we needed to agree on some things, about 125 to 130 ‘cooperators.’ We put on a whole series of meetings across the Northwest, on the issues, and possible solutions. We had a tremendous thing rolling, to the point we were an official Congressional committee.
Mr. Cribbs’s dedication earned him a “Chief’s Award” for outstanding service, presented him by Jack Ward Thomas, as well as an official Forest Service belt buckle, items almost never awarded to outsiders. But he hasn’t looked at an Environmental Impact Statement or gone to a meeting in at least 18 months. “At some point you realize you need to fight the wars you can win,” he explains. “In these instances, meetings have turned from input on what ought to be done, into input on what they are going to do. Anything you do is after the fact. There’s no point in wasting your time.”
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human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."
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human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."