Standing up for Oregon’s Ancient Forests: Our members are making a difference!
In mid-November, we asked our Wild Alert subscribers to let the Bush Administration know that its last-minute plan to sell off some of our last ancient forests in Oregon to the timber industry is unacceptable.
And the response was overwhelming!
In less than 48 hours, more than 30,000 letters had been written in opposition to the Bush Administration’s long-term plan. The proposed plan, known as the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, or WOPR, threatens to increase logging by over three times the current amount and add more than 1,000 miles of damaging logging roads to Oregon’s western forests.
Home to some of the most spectacular forests in the country, the low mountains of the coast and southwest Oregon are covered by rain-drenched coniferous forests that offer scenic views and provide some of the most productive salmon habitat in the lower 48 states.
Interspersed in the landscape in a checkerboard fashion, these public forests provide clean drinking water, boundless recreational opportunities for families, and places for wildlife, such as the imperiled northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet, to thrive.
For the past 10 years, the Bureau of Land Management has managed public forests in western Oregon under the Northwest Forest Plan, which provides protections for much of the remaining old-growth forests, salmon streams and wildlife habitats.
Yet over the past few years, the federal government and the timber industry have been chipping away at the protections in the plan and their latest attempt to weaken the plan is occurring on over two million acres of BLM land within the mountains stretching along the coast of Oregon and the foothills of the Cascades. If the flawed Western Oregon Plan Revisions is implemented, it will have a lasting effect, changing the landscape of western Oregon forests for generations to come.
With the public challenging the Bureau of Land Management to put together a more conservation-oriented plan, there is a chance that the decision for the Western Orgeon Plan Revisions could be delayed. If delayed, the new Administration could require the BLM to produce a plan developed on sound science.
To stay updated on Oregon’s ancient forests and other important TWS issues, subscribe to our RSS feed and our Wild Alerts.
Wilderness Experts View All >
Sam Goldman
Sam has been with The Wilderness Society since Fall 2007. He came most recently from M+R Strategic Services in Washington, DC where he worked with national environmental groups to improve their online campaign work and field organizing capacity. Before that, Sam was the Assistant National Field Director for U.S. PIRG where he covered a variety of issues including the fight to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Comments
Increasing Logging
Timber companies and pulp users are not the only problem. County governments have long been dependent on payments from the Federal government in lieu of taxes. After logging virtually ended on the Siuslaw National Forest (the spotted owl is blamed, but it was really overcutting in the 80's and 90's). The payments were a function of the number of board feet cut. When logging virtually ceased, special legislation passed to grant money for several years. It was recently extended, but is due to end in two years. Coastal county governments have never taxed themselves as other government do. They were up to their elbows in the public trough. They are very very vocal about how they need this money to pay for services, and they looked to the BLM to provide. With that source probably being cut off, they are now looking at the state forests. The Tillamook State Forest is the size of Rhode Island. Replanted after wildfires in the 1930's by the State Dept. of Forestry and multitudes of volunteers, the counties were promised a harvest in due time. It was never understood at that time that the federal forests would be decimated; everyone thought it would go on forever. Now the State forests are the refugium of plants and animals, provide the only coastal streams that have abundant anadromous fish and recreation within 45 minutes of the city of Portland. A death struggle is about to begin, with the counties wanting to convert the forest to a tree farm.
Forest Managment vs. Commercial Intersts
I am not an expert on forest management issues, just a citizen who cares about our diminishing natural areas and wildlife. As I see it, our forests and other wild areas are already under threat from encroaching development, noisy and polluting off trail vehicles, drought, and illigal activities of various kinds. Due to budgetary cuts, etc., the rangers/wardens are hard pressed to monitor all of this. Then timber cos. want to do ever more clear cutting, sometimes replacing with a sterile monoculture of single species substitute tree, which does little to support the species that formerly lived in the area.
What I find absolutely maddening is the waste of our forest resources, with unneccessary packaging of products, junk mail advertising, and the mounds of advertising sheets stuffed into newspapers. I, (while gritting my teeth) and most people immediately discard this useless junk. And, even though one can stop some of it by joining a "do not mail" list, still we are inundated with it.
It seems like corporate advertising, paper and timber industries, (like most others) again put profit over the long-term survival of life on this planet.
Clearcut Logging in Oregon
It is essential to prevent clearcut logging. It is EQUALLY important to implement a BALANCE policy toward forest management. Such balanced policy includes 1) combustion reduction (remove slash, dead trees, low lying limbs, brush - either burn or, better, use for chips etc at nearby saw mill); 2) prescribed burning (once combustion level is low enough, maintain the floor of the forest through prescribed burns); 3) RESTORATIVE logging (logging of up to 40% of large trees and of small trees down to 4 inch diameter, no new roads - restore the forest conditions of the 19th century - see the book "Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests" by Gruell for "before and after" photos). An excellent example of the benefits of such forest management can be found in the Balch Park - Mountain Home State Park housing the Mountain Home Giant Sequoia Grove northeast of Bakersfield, CA, in the southern Sierra; this forest management effort is well described in the excellent book "The History of a Giant Sequoia Forest: The Story of Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest", by Otter and Dulitz.
Oregan Logging
Clearcut logging is not necessarily bad. Many ecosystems are are built around natures way of clearcutting -- large wildfires. Other ecosystems have different types of natural disturbance patterns that one can try a mimic using various non-clearcut silvicultural systems.
I am a Forester working in British Columbia and I use a range of silvicultural systems -- clearcut, clearcut with reserves, shelterwood, group selection, single tree selection -- depending on the circumstance.
Please do not fall into the "all clearcutting" is bad trap.
I am amazed that a forester
I am amazed that a forester would compare the disturbance of clear-cut logging to the disturbance of a wildfire. The largest difference I can see is that of the damage to the soil. Most clear cuts that I know of use roads and heavy machinery (please let me know if I'm wrong on this). Fires don't make roads. Also, ecosystems have evolved with fires. Ecosystems have not evolved with clear-cutting and all that goes along with it. The ecological differences between these two very different disturbances are many, and I'm sorry that a forester such as yourself is not aware of them.
cleaarcutting
Clearcutting is not equivalent to wildfire cleaning unless it is followed by salvage logging, which makes the same kind of mess that clearcutting does. Natural fires, with logs left on the ground and standing snags is a whole different ecosystem.The logs hold water and release it over time, and provide shade for natural reproduction. The standing snags are fine habitat, and abslutely necessary for certain woodpeckers.