Biggest Issues Facing Sierra Forests and Forest Communities

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Having lived and worked in the Sierra for more than 35 years, I've watched as regulations have expanded while the economic viability of harvesting trees on smaller forest ownerships has deteriorated. This has been exacerbated in the last few years with the substantial increase in prices paid for undeveloped forest land. So if a person who owns 40 acres of forest land with average productivity harvests timber on a sustainable basis, they may generate $15,000 to $25,000 every 15 years before income taxes. In the interim between harvests, the landowner pays property taxes and maybe, insurance. On the other hand, a 40-acre property where I live (Susanville) with decent access will sell these days for $100,000 or more. Thus, the economic incentive is for the owner or their heirs to eventually sell to somebody who wants to build a house. In my experience, residences in the forest tend to have greater negative impacts on water quality, soil erosion and wildlife, and activities are regulated far less than timber harvesting. The west side of the Sierra is facing this threat much more than on the east side where I live, but in my opinion, it is one of the biggest threats to long-term conservation of our private forests.

Phil Nemir

The statement that "there are few viable markets for small diameter trees" is not entirely accurate. It depends on the region of the Sierra where a project is located. As one moves north, there are sawmills that have power plants that utilize wood chips, as well as straight biomass power plants (i.e. Westwood, Burney, Wendel).

With the high cost of fuel, most biomass mechanical thinning projects now require a subsidy from the landowner, because the revenue from the chips does not cover all of the logging/hauling costs. The viability of these biomass and/or co-generation plants is dependent upon the cost of power. When the price of fuel and energy goes up, these biomass power plants become more viable if there is a sufficient supply of raw material.

Phil Nemir

As a long-time Forest Service firefighter before I left the agency to start our non-profit organization, I personally dealt for 13 years with the many fuel, fire, and ecological problems that have resulted from forest management on both private and public lands.

Most discussions about logging, clearcutting, or fuels all focus on the risk of destructive wildfires or about what people do or don't want, but in reality, forest management actions on both public and private forest lands cause very direct effects to an incredibly complex web of life -- a delicate ecosystem that has already been altered significantly by past actions.

On the national forests, for many decades the agency repeatedly targeted the biggest and finest stands of old growth groves and aggressively clearcut them in individual blocks up to 40 acres in size. Due to the CASPO guidelines in 1993, the agency finally changed its logging practices to leave the largest trees by switching to thinning logging and a greater focus on treating fuels. The Forest Service since that time has done an even better job of adjusting its logging practices to be more sensitive to ecological concerns, so that in the local Stanislaus National Forest, for example, the majority of timber sale/fuels projects are generally acceptable to the conservation community, recreational visitors, and wildlife advocates.

The intensive clearcutting on private timberlands, however, has swung forest management in the opposite direction. Since SPI took over from previous landowners in the 1990's, tens of thousands of acres have been converted not only into tree plantations, but also into barren hillsides that bulldozing and herbicides have mostly denuded. Even if evenage forestry can be justified in terms of wood production, sterile tree farms greatly diminish habitat values for many at-risk wildlife species. The private clearcuts also force the Forest Service to do less intensive treatments on their adjacent lands to compensate for the cumulative impacts caused by SPI's aggressive treatments.

When the Forest Service's own specialists recommended far lower logging levels in the Framework policies of 2000, many in the timber industry began pressing even harder for logging as the fuel treatment answer to combat destructive wildfires. I'm on our local Fire Safe Council and certainly recognize the need for a broad range of fuel reduction treatments. Logging of small to mid-size trees can certainly be one of those fuel reduction tools, but over and over scientists have proven that it is the SURFACE fuels and ladder fuels that pose the main risk for destructive fires -- not mid-size or large trees.

At the current time, the Forest Service believes that it does need to sell a percentage of larger trees (near 30"dbh) to make most timber sales profitable enough for the timber industry to bid on the projects. Yet in our local region of the Sierra Nevada, the timber industry refused to even bid on two recent Forest Service "fuel project" timber sales that included lots of large trees as part of the more than 8 million board feet of wood that was offered. Thus, even when the Forest Service sweetens the sale with lots of large sawlog trees, it may not be desirable enough.

What all of this underscores is that our society faces extremely complex challenges when it comes to forest management. Even when the Forest Service openly caters to the timber industry to boost its profitability, existing market conditions may lead the industry to spurn offered sales. No one wants the timber industry to disappear. Without a local timber industry to remove small to mid-size trees, there is simply no economic way to get rid of dense thickets of shade tolerant trees on public forest lands. Yet even with the Forest Service's "better than the old days" forest management strategies, the truth is that bulldozing and logging impacts continue to degrade essential habitat for some at-risk wildlife species on the national forests of the Sierra Nevada. Some important species may completely disappear if current trends continue.

My personal view is that our society has an responsibility and obligation to protect and nurture all the puzzle pieces of the forest ecosystem... not just for the short term, but as a legacy for future distant generations. If intensive treatments of surface fuels and thinning logging on national forest lands can be done by consistently avoiding most of the critical habitat needed by closed canopy dependent species, then it may be that such public land management can end up as "sustainable." And if the State of California will markedly adjust its forest practice regulations to reduce the extent of allowable clearcutting, and require a broader retention of large trees, oaks, and habitat diversity in cutover forest stands, then that "variable retention" type of management may also move closer towards the goal of sustainable foresty.

The challenge for all of us who debate forest policies is to develop personal positions that we believe are wise and accurate, and then to be open-minded and respectful when others put forward differing or opposing views. In the long term, the shift of global warming and likely prolonged drought, the often-terrible air pollution that blows into the mountains, and the intensive demands from so many people for so many forest uses -- all may combine to significantly degrade the forest ecosystem, even if forest management practices are benign.

That may the best reason of all to error on the side of protecting the forest web of life, rather than utilizing it to the highest level possible.

John Buckley, executive director
Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center
Box 396
Twain Harte, CA 95383

I don't have a degree in forestry, but I think I know ugly when I see it. Even SPI owner Red Emmerson and his PR person admit that the current clearcuts in the Sierra are ugly. But they reassure us that they will replant a new forest in place of the clearcuts.

What replaces clearcuts, however, is not a forest but a tree plantation: Ground that has been cleared of all oaks, pines, cedars, and brush, ripped, and sprayed with weed killers is replanted with a single species, all growing at the same rate to be cut down at the same time (ca. 70 years) and replanted again and again and again until the land loses its fertility, at which time the land can be "developed." If that's what's known as "sustainability" in the timber industry then I despair of having a productive exchange with the owners.