Evergreen Magazine

Posted: 2010-02-20

This Is Embarrassing III

Posted: 2009-08-10

This is Embarrassing II

Posted: 2009-07-24

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Guest Columns

More Junk Forest Science from OSU

Posted: 2010-03-09

Nicholas Dennis: Put National Forests To Work For Community

Posted: 2010-02-22

Jim Erickson & Gary Morishima: Indian Forestry - Imagine the Possibilities

Posted: 2010-01-26

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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

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Bob Devlin: Deplorable Conditions in Umpqua National Forest Deserve Active Management

By: Bob Devlin

Editor's Note:

We have admired Bob Devlin from the moment we first met, not long after he was named Forest Supervisor on the Umpqua National Forest, based at Roseburg, Oregon. He was refreshingly candid - even when we didn't like his answers to our questions - which only added to the respect he had for him.

On Nov. 10, the Oregonian, Oregon's largest daily newspaper, published a column Mr. Devlin wrote concerning what he called "forest conditions as bad as they get in our national forests. Although he editorial concerns the Umpqua National Forest, he could just as easily written about dead and dying timber in any of the West's national forests. All of them are being overtaken by insects and diseases for which the only safe and reliable remedy is thinning.

We have been writing about the deplorable state of the West's federally-owned forests for more than 20 years. In that time, woefully little has been done to arrest the spread of insects, diseases or inevitable wildfire. Although most of the damage has occurred in dry site, mixed conifer forests in the Intermountain West, Mr. Devlin reports that almost 40 percent of Oregon's forests are now in what fire ecologists call "Condition Class 3," meaning they are ready to burn.

Mr. Devlin is a New Jersey native and a Penn State forestry school graduate, class of 1958. He worked for the Forest Service in Regions 5 and 6 until his retirement in 2000. At the time of his retirement, he was Director of Natural Resources for Region 6.

Click below to read Mr. Devlin's thoughtful and well-written editorial.

Devlin-Umpqua National Forest

"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."

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