Health of Federal Forests in Oregon and Washington

Testimony before the Senate

Committee on

Energy and Natural Resources,

Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests

By Russell Hoeflich

Vice President and Oregon Director

The Nature Conservancy

December 13, 2007

My name is Russell Hoeflich, and I am Vice President and Oregon Director
of The Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy is an international,
nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of biological
diversity. Our mission is to preserve the plants, animals and natural
communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting
the lands and waters they need to survive. Our on-the-ground
conservation work is carried out in all 50 states and in more than 30
foreign countries and is supported by approximately one million
individual members. The Nature Conservancy has protected more than 117
million acres of land and 5,000 miles of river around the world.

The Conservancy owns and manages approximately 1,400 preserves
throughout the United States -- the largest private system of nature
sanctuaries in the world. We recognize, however, that our mission cannot
be achieved by establishing and maintaining protected areas alone.
Therefore, we increasingly form partnerships with individuals,
businesses, and governments to seek compatible human uses over large
landscapes that benefit both biological diversity and sustain human
well-being in a changing world.

I'm honored to testify before the committee about the health of federal
forest lands in Washington and Oregon. My testimony focuses on a
specific aspect of public forest management -- namely, the challenges
coming from changes in forest structure, fuel loads, and fire regimes.

The Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools Rapid
Assessment (LANDFIRE) tells us that 80% of the lower 48 states have
vegetation that is moderately to highly departed from reference
conditions. In forests, this means they are overly-dense, have lost old
growth structure, lack diversity of age classes, and are in danger of
losing key ecological components to wildfire, insects, or lack of
successional processes.

Northwest forest management stands at a crossroads. After decades of
controversy over management of forests in the Pacific Northwest, a
consensus is emerging that offers an unprecedented opportunity to meet
the challenge with strategies that restore habitats while improving
local economic conditions at the same time. We believe it is time to
move beyond this controversy by building a restoration economy around
Oregon and Washington forests. Conservation-based treatments, and the
reintroduction of fire where it is needed, will build an economy that
will not only create jobs, but will also benefit fish, wildlife, and
water quality and could be part of the solution to mitigating the
impacts of climate change.

[Condition of Dry-Site Pacific Northwestern Forests]{.underline}

While we believe this new restoration economy can be applied across the
state today, I am going to focus on the challenges and opportunities in
the dry public land forest in eastern Washington, Oregon, and portions
of southwestern Oregon. Here, past management practices, including
timber harvest, livestock grazing, and fire suppression have helped to
create unnaturally dense forests, spurred the removal of large dead and
live old structures, changed the composition of forest species, and
caused a decrease in landscape resiliency. Dry, fire-prone forest stands
which historically had 50 to 100 large trees per acre now have as many
as 500 or 1,000 small trees per acre. Fire-sensitive species such as
Douglas-, grand and white fir have encroached into ponderosa pine and
mixed conifer forests, changing species composition. Similarly,
high-elevation stands of whitebark pine are being replaced by subalpine
fir and spruce due to fire exclusion.

Subsequent high tree mortality and fuels build-ups have altered how
wildfire, insects, disease and invasive species interact with forests,
ultimately modifying forest resiliency. These overly-dense forest stands
are more susceptible to damage from insects. Crowded trees lack the
water and vigor to fend off insects such as bark beetles. During drought
conditions in the late 1990s and from 2002 through 2005, Eastern Oregon
insect activity was at epidemic levels. In 2004, the unusual abundance
of mountain pine beetle affected over 415,000 acres in Eastern
Washington, resulting in mortality to over four million pine trees,
about 20 times the average mortality rate for the previous 20 years.
Aerial detection surveys show an almost eight-fold epidemic increase in
tree death along the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains during
2004.[^1]

When fires ignite in these overly-dense stands, they are much more
likely to develop into uncharacteristic stand-replacing crown fires.
Historically, fires in these stands maintained healthy forests by
thinning the forest from below and removing fuels that accumulated on
the forest floor. The current forest conditions constitute an extremely
large problem that continues to get worse with time.

Besides promoting uncharacteristically severe fires, the changes to
forest structure and composition outlined above also affect wildlife
species composition and distribution by altering hiding and thermal
cover and impeding movement. The *Oregon Conservation Strategy* and
Washington's *Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy* identify
altered fire regimes as one of the six (Oregon) and nine (Washington)
key statewide issues that present the greatest threats to fish and
wildlife populations and their habitat. Too much, too little, or the
wrong kind of fire in these fire-prone forests was identified as a
limiting factor or threat to a number of species, including golden
eagles and the northern spotted owl. The Washington strategy described
suppression of natural fires as one of the most severe long-term
problems for wildlife and habitat in Eastern Washington forests on
public and private lands.[^2]

To assess the scope of this problem in Oregon, we analyzed the LANDFIRE
2006 Rapid Assessment data to map the forest and woodlands with low and
mixed severity fire regimes (Fire Regime Condition Class I and III).[^3]
Of Oregon's 34.1 million acres of forests and woodlands, 21.1 million
acres are moderately or highly modified from historic conditions due to
fire suppression, grazing, logging, and other land uses. Thirteen
million four hundred thousand acres are on Bureau of Land Management and
U.S. Forest Service lands. While we did not conduct a similar analysis
for Washington, we anticipate a similar result for that state. Using
National LANDFIRE data for both Oregon and Washington, we are updating
this analysis; upon completion, we will submit our findings as
supplemental testimony.

[Current Treatments Are Not Enough]{.underline}

Federal forest management officials are aware of this crisis and are
trying to respond. Forest restoration projects are underway throughout
the West, and the people doing this work should be proud. But the
problem is growing at a rate faster than federal agencies can respond.
Instead of getting ahead of the problem, we're falling further behind.

In 2007, the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of
Land Management treated about 188,000 acres in Oregon and 44,000 in
Washington. Based on our analysis, over the next 25 years we will need
to treat at least 550,000 acres annually in Oregon -- more than three
times previous levels of treatments.

Today, nearly 46 percent of the Forest Service's budget is spent on fire
suppression, compared to 13 percent in 1991. Funding needed to put fires
out takes away from funding needed for other programs, including
restoration, recreation, wildlife management, and facilities. It is
essential to find a way to put more resources into forest restoration
and agency budgets now so we can save money on fire suppression in the
years to come.

No matter what values or interests we defend personally or in our
affiliations, the crisis facing federal forests described above demands
immediate attention. I am convinced we all share a strong enough desire
-- and even a passion -- to pass on a legacy of healthy forests to
future generations. But we must act now to save forests from continued
deterioration and loss from unnaturally severe and frequent fire.

[Identifying the Obstacles Preventing Progress]{.underline}

There are a number of barriers to increasing forest management
treatments to address this problem.

1.  Longstanding disagreements over the management of our public forest
    lands have eroded trust and led to extensive legal battles over the
    past three decades. Trust between the various stakeholders is an
    essential element in any effort to restore health to our federal
    forests.

2.  Controversies surrounding forest management compel federal agencies
    to plan restoration projects at very small scales. To meet their
    action goals, federal agencies have to consider what is doable in
    addition to considering what is most important. As a result, they
    often propose relatively small and narrowly-focused management
    actions. On the other hand, ecosystems and the species they support
    interact in complex ways and at relatively large scales on the
    landscape. The magnitude of the forest health problem demands
    working at vastly larger scales if we are to get ahead of the
    problem.

3.  Successful restoration efforts link protection and restoration.
    Sound forest management practices, such as the restoration program
    underway in the Colville National Forest in Washington and the
    Lakeview Stewardship Unit in Oregon define both the forests in need
    of restoration and those portions of the forest that require
    protection. Efforts that solve only a part of the problem make
    collaboration among stakeholders more difficult, time-consuming and
    costly.

4.  Lack of sufficient funding for forest restoration treatments is a
    huge barrier to success. The 2007 fuels treatment budget for Region
    6 was approximately \$25.3 million; when applied to the more than 13
    million acres in Oregon alone in need of treatment, the budget falls
    well short of meeting the needs of the entire region. Inadequate
    funding for treatments and the growing number of people living
    within 30 miles of federal forest land affects what and how
    treatments are proposed. We need to revisit how and where money is
    currently spent in the agencies, increase agency budgets, and find
    outside sources of funding, while ensuring that the wood products
    industry has sufficient incentives to invest in new equipment and
    infrastructure.

    [POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS]{.underline}

Despite the problems outlined above, there is growing consensus among
stakeholders that our fire-prone forests need active management to
restore stand structure and composition and improve resilience to
natural disturbance and climate change. We appreciate your efforts to
seek solutions that would expand protections for older trees while
simultaneously promoting a new forest restoration economy across the
West. This approach holds promise for increasing the certainty of supply
while achieving desired future ecological conditions. In our opinion,
the ideal solution for Oregon and Washington would balance increased
legislative protections for mature and old-growth stands with efficient
planning and management flexibility to address the diversity of
conditions in our forests, the effects of climate change, and an
improving knowledge base.

In Oregon, Governor Ted Kulongoski has created the Federal Forestland
Advisory Committee to draft goals that highlight the following roles for
federal forest lands: protecting and restoring ecosystems, providing
predictable, sustainable supply of the full suite of goods and services,
and contributing to the creation of jobs and economic well-being for
local communities. One of the pressing problems identified by the
committee is the alteration of natural processes in our native forests.
To address this problem, legislation should consider 20-30 year
timeframes, and focus on the following:

[Put the ecological needs of the forest first.]{.underline}

While we believe forest restoration should be a source of jobs and
opportunity, scientifically credible ecological restoration goals must
provide the foundation on which these jobs are created. We must be
honest with ourselves; there's a residue of mistrust among stakeholders
based on the fact that ecological health hasn't always been the prime
objective of federal forest policy or management. We need to rebuild
that trust, and scientific credibility is the way to do it. That means
all the pieces of this complex puzzle -- including the technologies of
biomass utilization, mill retooling, harvest equipment design and
minimum-impact road building -- must to be guided by what the science
says these forests need to be healthy.

As our goal is to return these forests to a healthy state, we must agree
to a number of science-based "environmental sideboards" to guide our
work. First, we target all timber management on restoration of
late-successional and old-growth characteristics at the tree level and
the landscape level. Except under extraordinary circumstances, we should
eliminate post-fire or insect salvage logging, except in areas
previously designated for thinning. As a general policy, dry-site trees
in excess of 125 years should be protected and encouraged to mature into
stands reflecting traditional forest characteristics.[^4] It also means
restoring fire as an integral part of forest management. Thinning may
reduce stocking density, but by itself doesn't restore ecosystem
function; restoring fire in dry forest types is typically necessary to
restore forest function.

This approach is essential to ensure that restoration projects are not
undermined or delayed by being linked to controversial mature and
old-growth timber sales. In conversations with conservationists across
the West, we are beginning to find common ground for
scientifically-driven forest restoration efforts. But, without
considerations for some protections, many projects will become mired in
contention and litigation, and our forests will continue to suffer.

[Plan for restoration at a significantly larger scale.]{.underline}

Currently, conflicting direction from senior federal officials and the
threat of litigation makes it risky for land managers to spend limited
planning budgets on large-scale restoration. If a large-scale plan is
litigated, our federal partners are less likely to meet their
performance targets than if they focus on a few small projects.

As a result, most of the restoration planning is being done at a scale
of a few hundred to a few thousand acres at a time. These treatments
aren't achieving restoration at scale, and they aren't large enough to
support biomass utilization businesses. Unless we begin planning at the
watershed, landscape or larger scale, the problems facing the dry
forests of the Pacific Northwest forests will not be solved.

Not only is planning across larger scales better for addressing
biodiversity issues, it's also critical to ensuring a predictable supply
of local materials to stimulate business investments. So, it's critical
that we find ways to allow the agencies to take the risk to invest in
large-scale planning. To achieve large scale restoration, federal
agencies must be given the direction and resources necessary to carry
out their objectives. As a start, this could mean increasing agency
budgets, updating forest plans, modifying performance targets, and
creating incentives for identifying large landscapes as restoration
priorities.

[Bring the full diversity of stakeholders into the conversation and give
them a seat at the table.]{.underline}

In communities throughout the West, stakeholders are coming together and
creating consensus around forest management. Examples of effective
collaboration include the Front Range Roundtable in Colorado, the
Ashland Forest Resiliency Project and Lakeview Stewardship Collaboration
in Oregon, and the Tapash Sustainable Forests Collaborative in
Washington.

The divergent interests and values of stakeholders are not barriers to
progress. Actually, this diversity is key to success. In our view, the
best way to avoid litigation and conflict over forest management is
through collaboration. Successful collaboration begins by asking
stakeholders to develop a shared vision of the desired future conditions
for the forest in question. With grounding in good science about past
and present ecological conditions, these groups can, and are, creating
consensus around the best steps to restoring healthy forests.

We aren't naïve. While early engagement with diverse stakeholders can't
eliminate the risk of a lawsuit, we have seen it reduce the odds. And
while the process takes time, it builds trust. And that's what's needed
to take active forest restoration to larger scales.

[Incentivize private investment]{.underline}

Finally, we need to examine policies and programs to make sure the
appropriate incentives are in place to spur private investments in new
equipment and infrastructure.

For this conservation approach to work, local industries must be able to
utilize woody biomass to produce merchantable products and services. But
while market forces have begun to signal a transition away from reliance
upon large diameter trees for commercial timber production, investment
in new technology logging and small diameter milling equipment is
costly. Electricity produced from woody biomass is approximately double
the price of electricity produced with coal, so to operate within an
acceptable cost range biomass generation facilities must locate close to
woody biomass supply; most experts recommend sourcing biomass no more
than 50 miles from the facility. To make the forest restoration economy
work, policymakers should consider offering incentives to help bring
woody biomass to the mills for conversion into commercial products and
clean energy, incentives designed to facilitate ecological restoration
on federal public forestlands while creating a restoration economy.[^5]
Additionally, Congress should address federal contracting barriers that
hinder private investment, for example the contingent liability coupled
to service contracts.

I don't want to oversimplify. There are plenty of complex scientific,
technical, economic and political challenges that lie ahead. To realize
the goals I've outlined in my testimony will require a commitment from
all of us to agree to set aside our differences and work together to
realize the vision we share -- a legacy of healthy forests, understood
and managed at the landscape scale, and well-stewarded by thriving local
communities.

At The Nature Conservancy, we're passionate about joining with you to
meet the challenge of a generation. We look forward to working with you.

[^1]: Elaine O'Neil, Bruce Lippke, Larry Mason. July, 2007. *Eastside
    Climate Change, Forest Health, Fire and Carbon Accounting Initial
    Report: The Future of Washington's Forests and Forestry Industries.*
    College of Forest Resources, University of Washington.

[^2]: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. 2006. *Washington's
    Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy*. Washington Department
    of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia, Washington. Oregon Department of Fish
    and Wildlife. 2006. *Oregon Conservation Strategy*. Oregon
    Department of Fish and Wildlife, Salem, Oregon.

[^3]: **Catherine Macdonald, Steven Buttrick, and Michael Schindel.
    March 2006. *The Condition of Oregon's Forests and Woodlands:
    Implications for the Effective Conservation of Biodiversity*. The
    Nature Conservancy in Oregon white paper. For copies, please go to
    [http://conserveonline.org/docs/2006/03/Forest%20Restoration%20White%20Paper.pdf](http://conserveonline.org/docs/2006/03/Forest Restoration White Paper.pdf)**

[^4]: Our recommendation sits well with public opinion; according to
    research conducted in 2002 by Davis, Hibbits, & McCaig, over seventy
    percent of Oregonians and Washingtonians believe that trees over 100
    years are "old growth." Polling was done on behalf of The Northwest
    Old Growth Campaign, World Wildlife Fund, and the Wilderness
    Society.

[^5]: The Oregon Forest Resource Institute (OFRI) offers a set of policy
    recommendations designed to promote biomass energy development and
    forest restoration. See Chapter 6 of their report, *Biomass Energy
    and Biofuels from Oregon's Forests*. June 30, 2006.
    [www.oregonforests.org](http://www.oregonforests.org/).