Editor's Column

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Forest Facts

By: India Simmons

In the early 1970s, Sealaska Corporation was an unlikely source of advice on matters concerning management of forest resources. The Southeast Alaska corporation was then in its infancy, along with a dozen others created by Congress in 1971 to satisfy land claims made by Alaska’s Native people.

Under terms of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Sealaska and its 16,000 shareholders won the right to select more than 300,000 acres of land. This makes the corporation the largest private landowner in Southeast Alaska, the panhandle of America’s largest state. Commercial forests blanketed more than half the land base Sealaska selected. Today, these forests produce a harvest of between 75 and 100 million board feet of timber annually, sufficient to employ an average of 500 loggers, truckers and stevedores.

Sealaska’s forests differ significantly from other Pacific Northwest forests. The corporation had to spend several years researching harvest and reforestation regimes to determine which ones would work best. Now, 26 years later, the corporation is a recognized leader in Alaska in developing new research and technology leading to improvements in forestry, fish and wildlife habitat management and environmental protection. “We are proud of our accomplishments and the results of our management program,” says Richard P. Harris, Sealaska Corporation senior vice president.

Sealaska’s stream monitoring research program is attracting the attention of agencies and land managers from the lower 48 states. In particular, the corporation has been answering questions about its largescale aerial photography program, used to monitor the effectiveness of buffer zones that protect coastal streams where they pass through harvest areas. Riparian buffer zones are important in Alaska, not just because they satisfy requirement of state and federal environmental laws and regulations, but also because Sealaska’s shareholders regard fish and wildlife resources as irreplaceable.

“Stewardship means taking responsibility for our timber, our lands, our wildlife and our shareholders,” says Sealaska President and CEO, Robert W. Loescher. “Our culture and our heritage require that we are responsible for our practices. Our heritage requires that we are responsible to the next generation.”

Alaska law requires 60-foot buffers on both sides of coastal streams to protect water quality and salmon habitat. Trees in buffer zones help stabilize stream banks, while nutrient-rich woody debris—in the form of fallen trees—interrupts the water flow, creating pools and other physical features that provide hiding and rearing habitat for fish.

Mr. Harris recalls Sealaska wanting to find a watershed-scale method for accurately measuring the effectiveness of its buffer zones. The corporation initiated a standard in-stream monitoring program in 1992, while simultaneously searching for a way to more accurately account for the diverse range of forest conditions found in watersheds and along stream banks on Sealaska lands. An alternative was found in—of all things—whale studies.

Scientists interested in cataloging whale populations needed a way to measure whales without actually capturing them. Aerial photography gave them some idea of the whales’ size, but taking photos with two cameras at once gave them a “stereoscopic” view, a three-dimensional image allowing highly accurate measurements. To turn the cameras from whales to trees, Sealaska worked with a pioneer in the technology, Richard Grotenfendt of Grotenfendt Photogrammetric Services.

Sitka black-tailed deer in Sealaska forest. The corporation recently won a $400,000 grant to study the effects of thinning and brush control on tree growth and deer habitat.

Sealaska employee replants a harvest site

Using in-channel fish habitat survey data developed by fisheries scientist Douglas Martin, Mr. Grotenfendt mounted 70 mm cameras on each end of a 40-foot boom. When viewed through an AP190 Analytical Plotter, the dual images give a threedimensional effect that makes landscapes appear as scale models. Using the plotter, Mr. Grotenfendt found he could accurately measure anything visible in the photograph, including trees, which can be measured within a few inches of actual height.

Sealaska’s Mr. Harris saw the Forest Service use the technology as a timber cruising tool, and he quickly envisioned its further use in measuring buffer zones and everything in them. After completing a promising pilot program, the corporation began photographing buffer zones in 1996. To date, more than ten miles of streams have been photographed, and more than six miles have been analyzed completely. Matching photographs to Mr. Martin’s ground surveys Sealaska is cataloging conditions in old growth areas and buffer zones within harvest areas.

The technology is not cheap. Mr. Harris estimates the combined cost of photography and analysis at $10,000 per mile. But he and others at Sealaska believe the cost is justified by resulting data showing that Alaska’s forest practice standards are effective in protecting fish habitat and water quality.

Sealaska is also involved in research aimed at improving tree growth and wildlife habitat quality in its forests. This year the corporation received a $400,000 grant from the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation to investigate how tree thinning and brush control affect tree growth and Sitka black-tailed deer habitat.

Sealaska’s forest management program is also breaking with conventional Southeast Alaska wisdom. The traditional view in coastal Alaska is that natural regeneration is adequate to ensure new forests, but the corporation believes replanting can significantly improve the health and growth of young forests, enabling them to overtop fast-growing brush that otherwise retards tree growth. This year about 25,000 seedlings will be planted, but more than 150,000 are scheduled for planting next year.

The corporation is also taking an aggressive approach to thinning young second growth stands to improve the quality of both trees and wildlife habitat. Thinning, pruning and planting an estimated 2,000 acres takes more than 30,000 hours and costs Sealaska about $600,000 a year. About 60 people are involved in the work.

In an effort to stay well ahead of state environmental standards, Sealaska is also doing the unusual. For example, in its log sort yard operation, it is converting from petroleum-based hydraulic and chain saw fluids to biodegradable vegetable-based lubricants. Though costly, the transition is consistent with environmental standards Sealaska has set for itself.

“It’s challenging finding the right balance between the objectives of achieving economic benefit and protecting the land for future generations,” says Sealaska CEO Loescher. “We’ve only been at this for two decades and there were certainly initial growing pains, but our dedication to the tenets of stewardship and sustainability continue to guide us.”

Oil Fueled Formation of Native Corporations Sealaska Corporation is Alaska’s major player in the timber industry, but it was America’s desire for oil that led to the formation of the corporation and other Alaska Native regional corporations. Throughout this century, Alaska’s Native people presented the federal government with numerous requests for protection of their land rights. Though attempts were made to settle the issue, the situation did not come to a head until the State of Alaska, major oil companies and congressional representatives from other states became interested in using the vast oils reserves discovered on Alaska’s North Slope. Native land claims threatened to hold up construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. To settle the claims, Congress in 1971 passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, granting 44 million acres and $1 billion to 13 regional corporations, village corporations and individual shareholders. Shareholders were U.S. citizens with one-fourth or more Alaska Indian, Eskimo or Aleut blood. Sealaska Corporation, based in Juneau, has more shareholders than any other Alaska Native Oil Fueled Formation of Native Corporations corporation. Sealaska’s 16,000 shareholders include Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Natives whose ancestry is rooted in Southeast Alaska. Almost half the shareholders live in the region, ten percent live elsewhere in Alaska and the remainder live out of state. Today, Sealaska is the fifth largest Alaska-owned, Alaska-based corporation and Southeast Alaska’s largest private landowner. Present and future holdings include 530 square miles of the 42,000 square mile Southeast Alaska region. Timber management, harvesting and marketing are mainstays of its current business operation, but the corporation’s investment portfolio also provides an important revenue source. Counting corporate spending, payroll and shareholder dividends, Sealaska contributes $40 million annually to the Southeast Alaska economy. It has also begun to diversify its holdings. SEACAL, a wholly owned subsidiary, is developing a calcium carbonate mine at Calder, on Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island. More recently, the corporation purchased a precision plastics operation based in Washington State.

"We must always consider the environment and people together, as though they are one, because the
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."