Forest Policy
Senator Scrutinizes Public Land Management
By Kirk Siegler, 12-02-05
Forest management decisions need to be made at the local level, with input from locals who will be affected, U.S. Senator Conrad Burns told an audience packed with government officials, industry leaders and environmentalists at a hearing in Missoula today.The Republican Montana Senator called for a more unified approach by the U.S. Forest Service as it conducts forest management plan revisions across the Northern Region.
“The problem is, you’ve got people in the Forest Service with different agendas,� Burns said at the hearing for the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies, of which he chairs. “There should be one philosophy, and everyone should be working toward that philosophy.�
The trouble, however, seems to be in finding one philosophy that can work in an increasingly polarized arena.
Conservationists or timber or off-road vehicle proponents who testified at the hearing couldn’t find much common ground on many of the issues facing forests -- which are now in the midst of revising management plans, the documents that will ultimately guide how the land gets used.
Some think the more uses the better, like Russ Ehnes, the head of the Great Falls-based Montana Trail Vehicle Riders Association.
“We’ve seen the people that promote more wilderness change the nomenclature of the debate,� Ehnes said.
Ehens was among six witnesses handpicked by the Senator’s staffers to present testimony at the hearing.
“I can tell you that since my father began trail riding in the fifties, he can no longer ride to Bighorn Lake or Heart Lake, which are now in the Scapegoat Wilderness. The trail he used to ride from Rogers Pass to Stemple Pass is now closed for grizzly habitat,� Ehnes said.
Ehnes argued more roads and trails might alleviate conflict between his group’s members and so-called traditional forest users, like backpackers and horseback riders.
Conservationists, on the other hand, said that kind of plan would have detrimental impacts on the ecosystem.
“Why not transform existing logging roads into trails, so that we’re fighting less?� asked John Gatchell, conservation director for the Montana Wilderness Association, who also testified.
Gatchell noted his group has partnered with off-road vehicle interests, namely snowmobile clubs on the Helena and Lewis and Clark National forests, where he said four consecutive winter recreation agreements had been reached between the USFS, his group and OHV users. Gatchell also praised the Pyramid Lumber Company in the Swan Valley -- an organization he said was committed to sustainable timber forestry.
“After twenty years of fighting in every arena (in the Seeley Lake District),� Gatchell said, “We’re working as partners committed to a single management plan, and believe me, that’s an accomplishment.�
Whether a similar compromise can be reached among conservation groups like the MWA and logging interests next door on the Beaverhead-Deer Lodge National Forest remains to be seen. For his part, Senator Burns didn’t shy away from criticizing some of the decisions recently made there by forest planners, particularly regarding proposed wilderness designations.
“When wilderness recommendations are made in a plan, the Forest Service then manages these areas as if they were wilderness,� the Senator said, “So we get de facto wilderness without any act of Congress at all.�
The Beaverhead-Deer Lodge Forest’s management plan is among a list of eight forests in the Northern Region with plans currently up for review. But unlike its counterparts, officials on the Beaverhead are following guidelines from old regulations. That’s because the new regulations handed down by the Bush Administration were adopted after managers on the Beaverhead started the planning process.
The new regulations are designed to make the public process less polarized, said Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, the former Region One supervisor in Missoula who also testified today.
Like Senator Burns, Bosworth was critical of certain parts of national environmental laws, chiefly NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969), that he said were passed at a time when the Forest Service was “focused on extraction.�
“Now that the agency is focused on restoration, NEPA laws are actually preventing forests from being restored,� Bosworth argued. “There are groups that are litigating virtually every project.�
In particular, Senator Burns expressed frustration of lawsuits surrounding timber harvests that the Forest Service says are necessary to deal with trees killed by the white bark pine beetle.
Bosworth agreed, but acknowledged the abundance of beetle-killed trees in recent years is natural. Warmer winters have created more lush forests, and thus more habitat for the beetle.
“They’re a natural species reacting to a natural problem,� Bosworth said, “There’s too many trees.�
Add that timber issue to the issue of how to manage recreation and you’ve got two of the most hotly contested debates in the West.
Missoula didn’t buck any stereotypes today on its prominent image around the state as a town bursting with environmental activists. After the hearing, handmade signs with phrases like “Defend our Forests,� dotted the crowd of some 250 people. The dozens of activists holding them mingled in with people who traveled to Missoula from many timber-dependent communities across the state. In the crowd, the division was readily heard and seen.
“As a state representative, I’m just appalled by what groups like yours are doing to our community,� said one state legislator from Superior.
“Why don’t you stop cutting all the trees?� responded the activist, holding the “Defend our Forests� sign. [End of article]
I guess I am not really sure what Bosworth is saying. Is he mixxing apples with oranges—since bettle kill is a natural process why not extract the trees with machanical force. Sure why not harvest tooth-picks when the gov't will "naturally" subsidize the harvest. Why not make a craft out of the tooth-picks it seems more logical.
Comment By Sen. Ed Butcher, 12-03-05It critcal for the habitat as well as the state economy that sustainable timber harvesting programs be implimented. Too many "empty hats" hold signs which simply identify their total ignorance about true forest management. Public lands need to be managed for multiple use. Animals do not need issolation to survive--look at the bears and deer living in towns--they thrive with human support!
Comment By brettferre, 12-04-05I've never seen a bears living amongst us. They are either transfered back to their natural habitat or they are put to rest if they pose a threat to humans. Have you asked the deer how the feed is on our finely manacured lawns. Your hat is just as empty senetor, show us how timber harvesting is sustainable. Does it sustain our economy with federal subsidies? The difference between man and beetle, the dead fall from the beetle kill leaves dead fall and replenishes the soil. Yes my stance is one sided because I haven't seen in the repore that I have read how the harvesting programs are sustainable. I am not saying that humans can't be a part of the solution. Sustainability means earth and man—I think. If it is subsidy driven, I do not see how that is benificial in the long run it seems that it only further indebts our forests and the federal bank. I am just a bistandard trying to make sense of it all. What is true forest management? Too may agendas make it difficult to see, I guess.
Comment By Rod Cole, 12-04-05I'm not sure what Mr.Ferre is considering tooth picks. I'm a private land manager with a few thousand acres of timber under our care. We have a sustainable forest plan, by sustainable I mean we remove the dead, dying, deformed, and deseased trees (4D trees)from our forests. The result of this sustainable harvest is a healthy forest. It removes the competition of sunlight and moisture from the 4D trees and allows the forest to burst in life. In 1997 we harvested an area which was full of 4D trees, in 2002 we went back to the same area and randomily bored several of the remaining trees to see what was happening to their growth. This was 5 years after the harvest and 3 years into the worse drought in recent history. The results were stunning, prior to the harvest the growth rings of the trees we bored were almost to small to see with the naked eye, after the harvest the growth rings were anywhere from 1/16" to 3/16" diameter in size. In addition to this growth of the remaining trees, there are several new trees beginning to emerge and become harvestable in the future as we continue to harvest the 4D trees as they occur. Tooth picks in my mind are the result of poor forest management, the resource is a renewable product if it is not used it will die. A case in point is "our finely manacured lawns" I'm just guessing that Mr. Ferre has a lawn and with his obvious concern for the environment takes great pride in his care of the lawn. We have all seen lawns which have been neglected, that is not mowed, watered, weeded, etc. Grass is a renewable resouce just as trees the reason the mowed yards flourish is because we keep it harvested and it continues to grow and stay healthy. Trees are no different. This is the same reason wildlife are more concentraed on private lands than on federal lands.
Comment By brettferre, 12-04-05Thanks for the clarification.
Comment By K. Stachowski, 12-04-05Regardless of how I feel about forest management, I find it ludicrous to compare a mature, biologically-diverse forest with an annual crop like a field of Iowa corn (as Burns did), or an intensively-managed lawn; both are monocultures saturated with pesticides, herbicides, and water. By the way, MY lawn is native bunch grass....no mowing, no water. It's healthy and thriving...year after year.
Comment By Eric, 12-04-05This is an aside, and I do not have the scientific data, but it does seem that in many western forests, a pretty high % of the total biomass is in a few species, managed forest of course but also natural. There is a rich diversity present in small numbers and small % of total biomass that need respect and protection and I would support doing so, but when I hike in western Montana or the cascades of Oregon, most of the living mass I see is fir and pine of different types. 80-90% of the total biomass? Just observing on the relative amount of diversity, not diminshing its importance.
A corn field also has weeds, snakes, rats, bugs, micobiotic life. Lawns usually have some hidden, unplanned diversity.
But on another, more important, issue raised, I think there should be some level of rethinking of the roads issue as it relates to wilderness. I think only a road with a certain level of development and traffic really causes major disruption to the wild character of the land. Perhaps existing low intensity logging/recreation roads should be viewed more like trails and not hurt chances for wilderness designation. Never any roads of any kind has always seem too absolutist a criteria for wilderness consideration or elimination from consideration. (It ignores that much of the land was traversed, used and influenced in various ways for thousands of years, albeit without roads.)
I could live with continued minor road usage after wilderness designation because I think the wilderness designation adds more value than the damage of most lightly used roads. I know any roads have numerous damaging effects but in striking a political balance I would try to remove a fair amount of the objection from sportsman/backroad motor vehicle users. This doesnt mean free roaming form off-road vehicles, it is an attempt to do the opposite and to provide the minimum level of access and perhaps control the level of damage. But many folks will abuse the forest no matter what the rules are.
A person that drives up 20 miles of forest road and then hikes ten miles may cause less damage then a person that drives up the same 20 miles then rides 30 miles on an ATV by a factor of 5 or 10 or more but both have had an impact on the woods, both have benefited from the experience, both should support funding for wilderness and for usage damage mitigation, and in my mind both should have places that are reasonably suited to accomodate their usage. Often separate, doesnt have to be exactly equal or overly broad, but some access.
Building more consensus seems a wiser long run strategy than seeing past gains repeatedly undercut by the other side that feels unfairly treated and perhaps pushes even a further rollback than they might accept in a compromise solution if offered out of spite and revenge. Of course you have to consider who really wants consensus and who is never going to stop trying to win on everything for alltime. The former can be said for many even if they are listed on the two different sides but the latter can also be said of many on both sides. The folks nearer the middle have to keep control or get control back from the wings, in my opinion.