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A coalition of the nation's most powerful environmental organizations has asked Congress to approve legislation that would outlaw logging in National Forests. Their proposal appears to turn on two assertions. First, logging"destroys" forests, and second, the best way to "save" National Forests is toleave them alone.

We have sifted through hundreds of government-funded studies and canfind no peer-reviewed scientific evidence that supports these claims. Butthere is compelling evidence that about half of the West's National forestland base is in big trouble. Not because of logging or livestock grazing,which have both altered the character of western forests, but more significantlybecause of an absence fire-a direct result of the nation's well-intended

The timing of the “Zero Cut” proposal appears to underscore a
disagreement in principle involving at least two environmental factions.

policy of excluding fire from forests. More than any other natural agent-wind, insects, diseases or flooding-it was fire that energized the West's plant and animal communities for eons. Minus fire, millions of forested acres are dying. Worse yet, the low-intensity fires that sustained that helped maintain species diversity have given way to stand replacing fires that burn so hot they destroy everything, including nutrient rich topsoil, which is melted into a wax-like substance that water cannot penetrate.

The so-called "Zero Cut" proposal underscores a looming debate between environmentalists over what to do about this situation. Environmental groups that are heavily invested in the no-harvest campaign say the best thing to do is leave these troubled forests to nature. But new environmental coalitions are taking shape in western communities. Remarkably, they see harvesting-in this case a less intrusive refinement called "restoration forestry"-as a way to circumvent the disastrous environmental impacts associated with increasingly destructive forest fires. Reducing the risk of suchfires is-in turn-seen as the first step in the long process of restoring forest conditions and natural disturbance patterns that were prevalent before white settlement began.

For perspective, we asked forest scientists most familiar with western National Forests to explain why these forestsare dying and burning up in increasingly destructive fires, what will happen if nothing is done, and what could be done to alleviate the underlying causes of these conflagrations. Their answers punctuate this issue. Absent is any discussion of the "forest health debate." There is no agreed upon definition for what constitutes a healthy forest, though most scientists agree it is one in which desired future conditions (e.g. more old trees) are not threatened by current conditions (e.g. the increasing risk of catastrophic fire). After reading this report, you can make your subjective judgement as to the health of the West's National Forests.

It is easy to be cynical about the very nature of this debate. Environmentalists despair over the lossof forests; timber families mourn the loss of hope; and the Forest Service is vilified from all sides.But judging from what we learned in the course of this investigation, moderate voices representing timber and environmental interests could really help each other if they can learn to trust oneanother. We hope they can because the future of the West's forests is riding on their ability toconvince skeptical publics that restoration forestry is not simply the latest disguise for perceived logging excesses.

Jim Petersen, Editor
Evergreen Magazine

Declining harvests—Since 1989, the amount of National Forest timber harvested has declined 72 percent, from 12.0 to 3.5 billion board feet. annually. (USDA Forest Service timber sale reports)

 

Smoldering ruin—the aftermath of the 100,000-acre Silver Fire, a 1987 conflagration on the southern Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest.

The deer was hairless and purple. Where the skin had broken, the flesh was in patches. For a time, the deer did not look up. It must have been
especially like Joe Sylvia, who was burned so deeply that he was euphoric. However, when a tree exploded and was thrown as a victim to the foot of a nearby cliff, the deer finally raised its head and slowly saw us. Its eyes were red bulbs that illuminated long hairs around its eyelids.

Since it was August, we had not thought of taking a rifle with us, so we could not treat it as a living thing and destroy it. While it completed
the process of recognizing us, it bent down and continued drinking. Then either it finally recognized us, or became sick at the stomach again. It tottered to the bank, steadied itself, and then bounded off euphorically. If it could have, it probably would have said, like Joe Sylvia, "I'm feeling just fine." Probably its sensory apparatus, like Joe Sylvia's, had been dumped into its bloodstream and was beginning to clog its kidneys. Then, instead of jumping, it ran straight into the first fallen log.

My brother-in-law said, loathing himself, "I forgot to throw a rifle into the cab of the truck." The deer lay there and looked back looking for us, but, shocked by its collision with the log, it probably did not see us. It probably did not see anything-it moved its head back and forth, as if trying to remember at what angle it had last seen us. Suddenly, its eyes were like electric light bulbs burning out- with a flash, too much light burned out the filaments in the bulbs, and then the red faded slowly to black. In the fading, there came a point where the long hairs on the eyelids were no longer illuminated. Then the deer put its head down on the log it had not seen and could not jump.

Young Men and Fire, Norman Maclean,
University of Chicago Press, 1992