Timber Teams With Conservation on Beaverhead-Deerlodge Proposal

By Tad Sooter, 4-25-06

Three conservation groups and four timber companies have allied to submit a proposal they hope to have included in Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest’s new forest plan. Their proposal would double the amount of proposed wilderness suggested in the Forest Service’s draft plan and open up 700,000 acres for timber harvest. But the heart of their plan is the forest using stewardship contracting as a way to put timber revenue to work and keep the money local. Some environmentalists, however, see "stewardship management" as just another fancy term for timber sales on public lands, and doubt the ecological motives.

Stewardship management allows timber companies to essentially trade services, like work on public projects, in exchange for timber harvest. With the traditional auction-style sale of public timber, a big chunk of money is shipped off to D.C. while only about 25 percent stays in the forest. Stewardship contracting is often done by small, local companies and can create jobs in the timber industry.

“Stewardship programs allow the government to decide what they want the end result to be, not how its done, but how they want it in the end, then local contractors can submit proposals for achieving that end,” said Gordon Sanders of Pyramid Lumber, a partner in the agreement.

The coalition’s environmental groups, Montana Trout Unlimited, Montana Wilderness Association and the National Wildlife Federation want to see 573,000 acres of Beaverhead added to the proposed wilderness area, as opposed to the 250,000 outlined by the National Forest Service. They also want to see more timber money funneled toward conservation work like road removal and fish habitat restoration to make up for the shortcomings of the under-funded Forest Service. Their plan still allows for motorized use in almost half of the forest.

The timber industry representatives, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Roseburg Forest Products, and Smurfit-Stone Container, hope to ensure a steady flow of logs to their mills and see stewardship contracting as a way to adapt and survive in a declining timber market.

Dissatisfaction with the Beaverhead’s forest plan united the groups, and when they started discussing their visions of the forest management, they realized that they shared a lot of interests, Bruce Farling, director of Montana Trout Unlimited said.

“We’ve got a new timber industry out there and they are willing to do things differently. I’m confident that these guys are being honest and straightforward with us,” Farling said.

Having a diverse group adds strength to their proposal said Sherm Anderson of Sun Mountain Lumber.

“We’re trying to put a group together that we think has a lot of clout in the state, both on the industry side and on the side of conservation,” Anderson said.

The coalition sees its stewardship plan as a way environmental groups and the timber industry can finally work together to aid conservation while bolstering the local economy.

But Matthew Koehler, director of the Native Forest Network, said the agreement was anything but inclusive.

“Like most conservation groups in Montana and across the country, we were completely blindsided by this agreement. The agreement was made by a very select bunch of groups,” Koehler said adding that he has not been contacted by anyone from the coalition yet.

Koehler said his group would not support the plan as it was written now. His concerns are that 200,000 acres of roadless lands would be made available for logging and logging will bring roads and damaging development. He isn’t sold on stewardship management either.

“It’s a nice name, but that doesn’t mean every project done under stewardship is a good program, Koehler said. “Were not going to be able to fund the ecological restoration of our forest through industrial logging.”

Stewardship programs can also shift the emphasis of forest management toward maximizing commodities rather than ecology says Adam Rissien, chair the Sierra Club’s Bitterroot/Mission group.

“There are elements of stewardship contracting that are good, it gets good work done and keeps the work local. Unfortunately it’s a self funded mechanism -- you can only restore as much bull trout habitat as you are willing to cut down trees,” Rissien said.

He said he fears the proposal will be using stewardship contracting to do conservation work the federal government should be funding anyway, and continuing to put the focus on timber sales. Congress allocates the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest $1,457,000 annually for timber management, which dwarfs the amount spent on wildlife habitat, Rissien said. He said the Forest Service should be careful not to view this proposal as voicing the concerns of the environmental community, since only a few groups took part in forging the agreement.

The Beaverhead-Deerlodge National forest is Montana’s largest chunk of public land, bigger than Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks combined. It is home to several key fisheries including the Big Hole River, Rock Creek and the Wise River as well as important elk habitat.

Public comment on the forest plan ended in October.
[End of article]