Timberati » logging

Preserving California’s old growth

Timberati — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:00:52 +0000

On Wednesday you read that private landowners conduct the majority of timber harvesting in California. This is due to the de facto moratorium placed on timber harvesting within national forests (state and national parks do not allow harvesting except for reasons of public safety). And, perhaps you wondered if old-growth timber could be removed. Well, fear not. National and State governments own, and have placed 99.5 percent of California’s 2.56 million acres of old-growth timber in California off-limits to any harvesting.

Nat'l and state govts hold 99.5% of old-growth. Source: USDA Forest Service, "Area of old-growth forests in California, Oregon, and Washington" by Bolsinger and Waddell

If California’s timber industry falls, will anyone hear it?

Timberati — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:37:56 +0000

Lands owned by state and federal government now contribute little to California’s wood supply (see the graphic below). Private landowners (the green area) now carry nearly all the burden for California’s timber harvesting and its wood demand. (Source: California Forestry Association CA Timber Harvest Statistics 1978-2009.)

As previously noted on this site:

Our California forests have the capacity to produce all the wood we need and export some as well, yet we import 75% of our wood. You can bet the wood we import wasn’t harvested under restrictions as comprehensive as those within California’s Forest Practices Act. Did any of the harvests have a Timber Harvesting Plan that took water and wildlife into consideration?

And just how much wood do we Californians consume? According to a paper published by the University of California at Berkeley, Californians used somewhere around 8.5-9 billion board-feet in 1999. Given that CA’s consumption grew by ~3 to 4 BBF from 1990 to 1999, we may currently consume 11-12 BBF. How much do we harvest in California? According to data from the California Forestry Association, about 1.6 BBF, i.e., about 15 percent of what we use, leaving 85 percent to come from other places.

Ugly Duckling In The Woods By William Keye

Timberati — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:24:30 +0000

This is an op-ed piece that William Wade Keye* submitted to the Sacramento Bee at the beginning of July, in response to two articles (“State to assess Battle Creek logging activity and effect on salmon” and “Troubled waters of Battle Creek“) and an editorial (“Governor needs to keep pledge at Battle Creek”) they published highlighting purported environmental damage in the Battle Creek watershed. It is published here with his permission.

Recent Sacramento Bee articles pitting clearcut logging against salmon recovery efforts in the Battle Creek watershed whittle complex resource management issues down to a false, if convenient, dichotomy. Such eco-populism is understandable, but its assumptions need to be challenged.

To foresters, clearcutting is the dreaded “C word”. If there ever was a candidate to lose a sylvan popularity contest, that would be clearcutting. It’s ugly and widely viewed as environmentally destructive.

Even most loggers don’t like the look of a fresh clearcut, which typically appears as if a bomb just went off.

Clearcuts are disturbing. Hence, the “C word”.

Clearcuts disturb our landscape. (Image from Wikipedia)

Why would any landowner in their right mind choose this apparently abominable practice? Yes, I know the stock answer: greed, short-term profits and all that. Rape the land and leave nothing for the future.

I’m not going to argue that people who own working forests aren’t in it for the money, although I think there’s much more to it than that. But sure, they want to make the land pay.

Farmers don’t farm just for their health, or for somebody else’s aesthetic pleasure. They do it to live, to make the land pay.

Forest landowners are the same. Wood, like corn, soybeans or pork bellies, is a valuable commodity. We use forest products in almost countless ways, everyday. Our wood has to come from somewhere, which leads us to forest management and the pros and cons of various silvicultural practices.

The Bee articles critical of clearcutting contain implicit assumptions driven by aesthetics. Dominant is the view that more aesthetically pleasing practices, such as selection timber harvest, are preferable for fish habitat because they produce less sedimentation.

Evidence-based science does not uniformly back this intuitive belief. The reason is that even-age management (including clearcutting) impacts a given piece of forestland much less frequently than uneven-age systems (such as selection). Impacts are greater (KABOOM!) but less recurrent.

Forestry is a uniquely long term enterprise. If a clearcut is prescribed, the “bomb” goes off, seedlings are planted and the site may not be disturbed again for decades. Access roads and skid trails can be put to bed and remain so until the stand is ready to harvest again – typically in 50-80 years.

It is said that “nature abhors a vacuum”. Tree growth that follows successful (and legally required) reforestation after a clearcut illustrates this principle perfectly. Young trees reach for the sky, drinking up abundant sunlight and soil nutrients.

In contrast, the classic selection harvest requires the forest to be managed on a fairly continual basis. Periodic light harvests are generally spaced 10-15 years apart. During each entry, access roads and trails must be reopened – triggering new potential bursts of sediment delivery to aquatic systems.

Although counter-intuitive, it is possible that if even-age management were prohibited in the Battle Creek watershed, the cumulative effects as far as soil transport and sediment delivery would actually be greater. Uneven-age management would be considered more pleasing to the eye, but could mask impacts potentially more damaging to salmon recovery.

Finally, the Battle Creek articles did a disservice by pitting timber harvest against fish, a zero sum duality that ignores the many factors contributing to our difficulty in restoring anadromous salmonids. Those threats include dams and water diversions, in-stream habitat loss and degradation, polluted runoff, oceanic factors including predation, fishing, poaching – the list goes on.

I believe forestry belongs on that list, along with urbanization, agriculture, industry – all of us. It’s just too easy to single out clearcutting, ugly as it is.

Because nature really does abhor a vacuum, one really should visit a forest plantation a few years, or a few decades, after a clearcut “bomb” has gone off. It’s impossible to deny how impressive a vigorously growing young forest can be, how amazingly regenerative nature really is especially after a clearcut – which in some ways mimics the effect of a wildfire.

These kinds of images don’t seem to show up in the media when the “C Word” comes up.

And remember, regardless of the aesthetics of any given silvicultural system, we get to use the wood fiber that flows off a managed forest, creating homegrown wealth, jobs, tax receipts, energy and valuable products.

^*William Wade Keye is a California Registered Professional Forester and former Chair of the Northern California Society of American Foresters

The silence of the limbs

Timberati — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:01:43 +0000

My name is Norm, I love trees, and I’m a forester.

This is a picture of a stand on Mountain Home State Forest after it was logged

Foresters love all the types of forests that exist, young, old, and in between. Trees are awesome. We love all the stuff they provide, such as shade, habitat, cleaner air, clean water, and yes, wood.

We are not Romantics. We don’t confer pastoral scenery with transcendental qualities. Though we passionately love trees, we don’t wax poetic about them in the way Thoreau does. To you perhaps, we have an odd way to show our love for the forest: we cut trees down. That detail may remind you of Hannibal Lecter saying he likes people with “fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

A group of us non-Romantic types got together at the California Licensed Foresters Association (CLFA) convention, March 4-6 in Sacramento. The Arden Hilton’s parking lot held more pickup trucks than a Hollywood gala has Prius sedans.

It’s easy to spot the working forester’s pickup. And, don’t let the patina of dirt and mud-caked splashes around the wheel wells fool you, you’ll see that on the trucks of people who merely ‘play’ in the mud for fun. Foresters don’t play in the mud; they work in the mud during winter. And they work in ankle-deep dust in the summer. The giveaway to the pickup is found in the back. Along with bits of tree bark, leaves, and more dirt, you’re apt to see the tools of the trade: chainsaws, handsaws, double-bit axes, loppers, shovels, tow straps, plastic flagging, and some odd looking stuff with even odder names like hoedad, dibble, McLeod, and Pulaski.

Inside the Hilton, it was just as easy to recognize the foresters. We wouldn’t know couture from a coat rack and so we stand out like bib overalls at a black tie affair. Carhartt jeans and plaid-flannel shirts are common. We didn’t don our normal footwear, our caulked (pronounced “corked”) boots, which was fortunate for the floors since caulked boots have spiked soles. By the way, do you know how to recognize an extroverted forester? He (or she, yes, there are women in the woods) is the one looking at the other person’s boots.

We were at the Hilton to recognize our achievements, share knowledge, and celebrate surviving what had been the worst season in anyone’s memory. Foresters work in the only net carbon-positive industry. Yet, we’re in an industry struggling to stay alive. Due to lawsuits, additional fees, and regulations, the costs of producing a Timber Harvesting Plan have risen 1200 percent over the past 30 years. It’s a formula squeezing some of the greenest jobs out of the state.

Forestry’s survival has been through adaptation in the face of a public disinclined to what we do. We cut trees. Yet, we’re not your grandfather’s clearcutter. No more “Cut it flat, burn it black, plant it back,” said Jim Ostrowski. New awareness and new science leads to new goals and practices. Now, “We cut trees to grow trees,” says Steve Butler, a forester from Santa Cruz, “because what is left is the important part.” You cut bad trees, leave good trees.

Industrial forest management has changed with the times. Still, harvesting can look awful. Stumps, logging slash of bark and branches, and skidding trails can look like devastation. It takes time, training, and a willingness to learn. My training has ingrained in me the need to monitor progress and see what has and hasn’t worked. Not everyone sees harvesting as I do. Remember, trees are grown. And if it’s not grown, it’s mined.

Foresters use silvicultural treatments to maintain, protect, and manage biodiversity. Forests have evolved over millennia with fire, flood, insects, and wind. ‘Protecting’ forests from disturbances they count on for rejuvenation can be detrimental to their long-term health. Harvesting can mimic natural disturbance by creating openings for new plants and wildlife. So, if you look decades beyond the present, you’ll see a biologically healthy forest, teeming with life.

You may not like logging but I bet you love trees—and wood. Why, even people living in San Francisco have to admit that they use wood. You and I have tree-hugging in common. If you hug trees, perhaps it’s to tactilely become one with the tree and totally grok its nature. I hug trees to throw a D-tape around them to measure diameters for volume calculations. That’s my nature.

I love trees, sometimes with pine nuts and a nice Chianti, admit it, you do too.

IPCC 4th Assessment Report doesn’t agree with the Center for Biological Diversity

Timberati — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:01:54 +0000

Apparently, the Center for Biological Diversity doesn’t agree with the Mitigation Working Group Report [PDF] in IPCC’s 4th Assessment as to the best strategy for mitigating CO2.

Photo from south island on New Zealand.

“Biomass clearing and site preparation prior to afforestation [i.e. planting] may lead to short-term carbon losses on that site… Accumulation of carbon in biomass after [planting ] varies greatly by tree species and site, and ranges globally between 1 and 35 t CO2/ha.yr (Richards and Stokes, 2004).” — Forestry. In Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (page 550)