From: jhurst@amb4.ese.ogi.edu (James Hurst)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Demonstration Forests
Summary: General expounding and pontification
Keywords: Stop the Orygun Chainsaw Massacre, etc, etc.
Date: 23 Jul 92 17:22:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.40448
Organization: Just me and the Dogs

Sudha Neelakantan writes:
> Josh Rovero writes:
>> 
>>Yeah, farther up in OR I saw clearcut areas that were obviously a lot
>>younger than 70 years old.  They are ugly.  But I'd be willing to bet
>>that 50 years from now most will be reforested with native species with
>>or without intervention by man.

I mostly agree with Josh.  On forgiving terrain, it would be hard to STOP
trees from growing in our area.  Of course, most of the forgiving terrain 
was logged of its native forests decades ago.  The current round of logging
plans calls for logging on steep slopes at high altitudes.  Not in all 
cases, but certainly in many, clearcutting these sites will degrade the 
productive capacity of the land - and it's public land we're talking about.
Industy is essentially being subsidized to wreck public resources, just 
another example of double-dipping at the public trough.

Reforestation by and large does occur with native species, but, at least in
the currently favored industrial forestry paradigm, not in native proportions.
Forests in the Douglas fir region take 15 to 25 decades to mature and to
gain the ability to support the full complement of species endemic to the area.
A 70 year old industrial forest has a closed canopy, meaning limited forage 
for vertebrates, and it lacks the structural legacy of flattops, snags, and
downed wood that perform a variety of valuable ecological functions.  Some
examples with human economic benefit include mitigation of pest infestation,
protection of fisheries, and regulation and storage of water.  

Most people fail to realize that the current "spotted owl crisis" was forseen
over two decades ago, and is the result of persistent efforts of the federal
land management agencies to violate environmental laws to benefit the timber
industry.  I believe in looking at incentives to understand institutional 
behavior, and the agency incentives, provided by Congress, were to cut as 
much as fast as possible, with little or no regard to environmental impact,
sustainability, or existing law.  

So forgive me if I am skeptical that "demonstration forests" represent a major
factor in the fight over the fate of the public's remaining ancient forests.
I find in them an encouraging symbol, but insignificant acreage. 

>New forest is not the same as old growth forest.  

Absolutely.  Industrial tree farms are biological deserts for most of their 
life cycle, with little human amentity value except as fiber farms.  And even 
as fiber farms, in the Northwest they are decidedly inferior to the fiber 
farms of the Southeast US.

>Further especially in
>Southwestern Oregon, Rainfall patterns have changed so that natural
>regeneration does not occur as claimed.  

Well, I'm not so sure of this.  I'm a believer that "climate" represents a
25 year average or longer, and I don't think the evidence warrants this 
statement.  SW Oregon climate records leave a bit to be desired.  Clearcutting
has drastically changed microclimates, but rainfall patterns I have my doubts
about.

Still, there is good evidence that the agencies have done a rather poor job
at forest regeneration in southern Oregon.  One nasty trick the BLM uses is
to *overstock* their better sites (a waste of money at best, since the trees
either die or must be thinned before achieving commercial value), and then
averaging these overstocked acres with areas where regen failed, get good 
stocking averages, which they then trumpet with pride.  Even cooking the books 
like this, they only achieve 95% compliance with state law requiring
reforestation.  A couple of years ago, their failed regeneration acreage was
250,000 acres, 10% of their holdings in the state.  This is *deforestation*,
not industrial forestry.  With enough money, I imagine they can reforest 80%
or better.  But don't kid yourself, this type of reforestation will never be
economic:

	On site III land (average for the feds) with 85% stocking (good regen),
	in 70 years (shortish rotation), we can expect a yield of ~38 thousand 
	board feet per acre.  But to recoup this, we expose an investment of 
	$500/acre or better to the discount rate for 70 years.  Not likely to 
	be a good investment.  The value of fiber has more or less kept pace
	with inflation the last few decades, btw.

Regeneration on hostile sites is tough after you clearcut:  when the soil temp
goes above 90 degrees, seedlings begin to die.  If the soil fauna is so damaged
that the seedlings can't link up with fungal symbiotes, they usually die of 
drought the first year (just another reason to RISE UP FOR MYCORRHIZAE!  8^).
At altitude, full exposure to UV sometimes bakes them, and midsummer frosts
take out more.

>A lot of the "new forestry
>management techniqes" are window dressing that use new jargon for the
>same 2 stage clearcuts.  

I think what Sudha is referring to by 2 stage clearcuts is the shelterwood 
system, where enough large trees are left to reseed.  This works well on sites
where brush won't overrun the area immediately, since conifers only have a good
seed crop every 7 years.  The leave trees provide a protective influence on the
microclimate, moderating soil temps, soil fauna, insolation, and air temps.
After a good cone year, the agency comes back for the leave trees, leaving a
triumph of modern forestry, an industrial forest on land unsuited for such in
both economic and ecologic terms.

An even worse aspect of the "new forestry" the Forest Service is trying to sell
is that they use "new forestry" as an excuse to punch roads into pristine 
roadless areas they want to log anyway.  We want to see new forestry proved on
the ground, not as an excuse for more road building and welfare logging.

>Also, destroying large areas of oldgrowth
>forest completely attacks  biodiversity.  Much of the variety that
>survives under close canopy old growth forest will be destroyed as well

In northwest forests, the early and late successional stages of these forests
contains the largest number of species, and the highest intensity of 
individuals.  There are species that do prefer the clearcuts (weed species,
IMHO, but species nonetheless), remember.  Another large group of species 
require the moderate microclimates of old growth forests for forage, winter
cover, or specialized habitat.

What the industrial forestry paradigm proposes is to eliminate the late 
successional stages on nearly all public forests (some 20 MILLION acres of 
public land).  This is NOT legal, since it violates a variety of federal 
statues, nor is it in the public interest, since the public expects and 
deserves a much richer variety of amenities from their forests.

The canopies of old growth forests are NOT closed, btw, they are partially 
closed.  The tightly closed canopies of the industrial forests (from ages of
~15 to ~100 or 150 years old) are the main reason they lack diversity.  The
old growth forests have multilayered canopies that allow significant light to
reach the ground, which seems to be a critical structural feature for 
supporting a variety of plant and animal life.

>N.B.  I'm no forrester either.  but this is what I heard from someone
>who had been for years

I'm no forester either.  I know a few, and work to keep a few others on their
toes.

					Jim
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10217 sci.physics:11881