A firestorm in Idaho’ s Boise National Forest. Compare this to the small photograph nearby taken on Boise Cascade timberland in the same area. The difference: a 25 year-long thinning program.

If we stop managing National Forests, they will decline and die, just as they've done at least 16 times since the last Ice Age. As they move toward death, they consume less carbon dioxide, which means atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise, which means more air pollution and maybe global warming.

I'm fairly certain society has no interest in sitting around while this happens, so we must ask ourselves, "What's the alternative?" The one-word answer is "Management." Management-periodic harvesting followed by long periods of re-growth and renewal-provides humankind with the The future meets the past in this Boise Cascade forest in southwest Idaho. only known tool for arresting inevitable decline in forests. What's more, by using the wood we harvest, rather than fossil-fuel intensive substitutes like steel and concrete, we store carbon indefinitely thereby preventing its return to the atmosphere. These are global environmental considerations meriting serious discussion before lawmakers vote to ban harvesting in National Forests.

Benjamin Stout, Ph.D., retired dean, School of Forestry, University of Montana, Missoula, unpublished Evergreen interview, October 1998

In the course of researching this report, we worked closely with severalscientists whose contributions to conservation  we admire—Jack Ward Thomas, Steve Arno, Chad Oliver, Tom Bonnicksen, Ben Stout, Lauren Fins and Jim Bowyer. Although their disciplines vary widely, each stressed the need for the nation to embrace a more global environmental ethic.

Dr. Bowyer,a University of Minnesota Professor of Forestry, first broached the subject in a 1993 Evergreen interview. “Most of the raw materials consumed in the U.S. come from impoverished Third World countries that lack the money, technology and political will needed to regulate their own extractive industries,” he said. “A nation that consumes more than it produces is in effect exporting its environmental impacts to other nations that provide what is consumed. It is like shipping your garbage to a town that needs the money and is willing to put up with the stench.

”For an everyday perspective on what Dr. Bowyer is talking about, visit a supermarket, shopping mall or home building center. In the entire history of civilization, no nation has ever been better fed, better clothed or more comfortably housed. Living in such abundance, we seem to have lost the ability to think critically about the sources of our myriad comforts and conveniences. We oppose logging, but insist on living in bigger houses. We oppose oil drilling, but prefer the safety of big, gasguzzling vehicles. We oppose mining, but can’t imagine a world without computers which run on circuits of gold, copper and platinum. We oppose the use of fertilizers and pesticides, but demand a safe and abundant food supply.

Even worse, we seem unaware of the global environmental consequences of our own political actions. The government’s 1996 decision to reduce National Forest harvest levels in Oregon and Washington by 43 million cubic meters was seen as good news in most quarters.

What went unreported was that the demand-driven shift to nonrenewable wood substitutes (mainly steel and concrete) boosted oil consumption by 12.9 billion liters in that year alone—enough oil to power six million cars for an entire year. Nothing adds carbon dioxide to the Earth’s atmosphere faster than burning coal or oil.

“In the emerging global economy,” Dr. Bowyer advised, “nations should be increasing, not decreasing, their dependence on wood fiber because wood is renewable, recyclable, biodegradable and far more energy efficient in its manufacture and use than are products made from steel, aluminum, plastic or concrete. Furthermore, growing forests and the lumber they provide store large amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere, adding to the potential for global warming.”

It would be nice if such a global perspective became part of a more scholarly discussion about what to do about the West’s ailing National Forests. We aren’t suggesting that these forests become wood factories, but there ought to be some consideration of the global impacts associated with allowing the West’s National Forests to burn to the ground as a first step in their centuries long natural recovery. How much will air quality suffer in the meantime? Who will answer for the sharp rise in pulmonary disease? Where will western communities get their municipal water after forest watersheds burn? And what about lost fish and wildlife habitat? Can western states clamoring to diversify their resource-based economies expect that technology and tourist-based businesses will want relocate to communities engulfed in smoke all summer? Will courts hold taxpayers liable for fires that spread from untended federal lands to neighboring privately owned forests? And as more and more timberland is set aside in no-harvest reserves will builders switch from renewable wood to nonrenewable steel, fashioning the nation’s homes from junk cars as the steel industry urges?

We hope journalists will demand that “Zero Cut” proponents answer these questions. And if they answer, the follow-up question should be “Where is the peerreviewed science that supports your position?” Peer reviews are important for two reasons. First, science is not perfect. The credibility of a particular study often rests on the scrutiny of qualified third-party scientists whose work is consistently accurate and reliable. There is no better defense against junk science. Second, we know a few scientists out there now who make their living traveling between press conferences and courtrooms saying whatever their clients want them to say. Journalists thus need to make the distinction between peer reviewed  science and public relations stunts staged by special interest groups.

We also hope the press will contact Ted Turner for his views on forest restoration. Though he frequently contributes money to environmental groups, Mr. Turner has approved an impressive multi-year thinning project at Vermejo, his New Mexico ranch. A local sawmill is buying the logs, and neighboring landowners are said to be so pleased by what they see that they want to join in next year. Why can’t similar programs be implemented in western National Forests? Even if diseased trees aren’t sold (many environmentalists think no one should be permitted to profit from the sale of publicly owned natural resources) the timber must still be removed from forests, presumably at taxpayer expense. Otherwise it remains a fire hazard, undermining any hope for forest recovery.

Finally, we hope the national press will seek out the West’s new environmentalists. Their desire to link science and technology with so many public interests embodies a far more certain and more hopeful outcome than anything we discern from the worn out rhetoric established environmental groups are still dispensing daily. Saving forests by first allowing them to burn to the ground—all the while enduring long years under smoke-filled skies—makes absolutely no sense. The nation does not need to wait 200 years for the next forest to appear in the West. It is already in the ground and growing, but it needs some help. Restoration forestry is the answer.

The past as prologue: Sixty years ago, the government paid loggers to remove rocks and logjams from Oregon stream channels. Back then, biologists believed such obstructions impeded fish passage. Now biologists and loggers are again working side by side—only this time they are putting rocks and logs back into stream channels, where they provide hiding cover and spawning habitat for fish. A similar irony will soon unfold in western National Forests. Faced with unstoppable wildfires, the government will hire loggers to do the thinning and pruning work necessary to create and protect publicly desired old growth forests. The public will side with the West’s new environmentalists and the old environmental movement will simply fade away.