December 18, 2009
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Many of us who live in the redwoods have deep and detailed knowledge of our redwood forests--and the history of issues surrounding forest management in the region. Yet, we can no longer see our region through the eyes of the world. And, in many cases we cannot see ourselves through the eyes of others in our own region.
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Significant changes occurred in the region over the course of the transect: the market for wood products collapsed along with a serious recession in the national and global economy. And, Pacific Lumber Company went bankrupt and the assets of the company were reorganized under new ownership. Humboldt Redwood Company formed and offered a new vision for the management of Palco and Scopac timberlands. Both of these events offer evidence that forest management in the region is undergoing a significant transition--a transition in part due to market changes, in part due to a necessary focus on managing second growth forests, and in part due to a changing understanding of how to optimize both conservation values and the production of wood products on the working forest landscape.
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For Mike the forests of the redwood region are a planetary resource: globally significant. Not just because ancient redwoods are the tallest living beings in the world. Not just because ancient redwoods inspire a kind of primeval awe in human beings. Not just because an ancient grove can cause us to rethink our place in the natural order of the universe. But because local forest management expertise coupled with an emerging and historic regional stewardship ethic can set a resource management example for the world.
Mike emphasizes what you can see on the *footprintnetwork.org* website: to continue consuming resources at the rate we consume them today will require the resources of 1.3 planet earths. And, if everyone on the planet reaches a standard of living comparable to the US we will need 4.7 planets. Of course we hope that technological innovations will help us to lower the amount of resources necessary to maintain a comfortable standard of living. And we hope that people will be able to realign their habits to consume fewer resources. But there can be no doubt that managing the world's natural resources to maximize biological productivity is critical to the success and survival of many of the people of the world.
As Mike puts it: "The time to argue about the wisdom of liquidating the resource base of the planet is over."
This excerpt from the recent National Geographic article includes quotes from HSU professor Steve Sillett:
"The mantra of industrial foresters has long been to grow trees as fast as possible to maximize the return on investment and provide a steady flow of wood products to market. For them, the most profitable time to cut redwoods is at 40 to 50 years, even though such young trees contain mostly soft, low-quality sapwood, with little of the redwoods' legendary resistance to rot. But after coring and measuring two dozen trees--95 feet to 370 feet tall--from canopy to base in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Sillett discovered that a tree's annual rate of wood production increases with age for at least 1,500 years. More important, the older it gets, the more high-quality, rot-resistant heartwood it puts on. The bottom line: Redwoods produce more wood, and better wood, as they age...
"If it's all about short-term yield, there's not an effective argument for big trees," Sillett says. "But if it's about long-term yield, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem services, then you've got an effective argument for old trees. What do we need to remove and keep lots of carbon out of the atmosphere? Massive amounts of decay-resistant wood." "
Jim Able has brought his forest management experience to generations of foresters and landowners on the north coast. As one of the first local foresters to become a certified sustainable forest manager through Smartwood and the Forest Stewardship Council, Jim's experience has helped to inform realistic standards and criteria for sustainable forest management since the early nineties.
According to the National Geographic article:
"My idea is to cut less trees and make more money per tree," says Jim Able, a former industrial forester for Louisiana Pacific who now manages small private timberlands, most fewer than a thousand acres. Wearing his trademark straw hat, Able leads Fay through the Howe Creek tract, a timber plot he's managed for nearly three decades and is thinning for the third time. Douglas firs and large second-generation redwoods, three or more feet thick and up to 200 feet tall, rise from the steep hillside straight as arrows. Here and there a few trees lie on the ground, waiting to be yarded, creating a mosaic of shadow and sun. The key, Able says, is form. He and his foresters mark every tree they want cut, aiming never to exceed 30 to 35 percent of the volume of the stand. Unlike high-grading, a form of selective logging that Able considers worse than clear-cutting because it takes the best and leaves the rest, Able cuts weak and poorly formed trees, leaving the straightest and strongest to thrive in the newly available light. And unlike timbermen who harvest clear-cuts every few decades, Able comes back once a decade to evaluate whether to cut again. He never takes more wood than the forest has grown over that time, which means that the remaining trees--what he calls his principal--continue to increase in height, volume, and quality.
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There's a growing awareness that the article both highlights and exemplifies: careful stewardship will not only improve conservation values in the forest, but also increase the quality and quantity of wood produced per acre per year. The necessary forest management skills are available. It's not necessarily about developing new forest management techniques, it about encouraging greater adoption of existing techniques across the redwood region. According to Mike: "It's about growing bigger, older trees."
Mike's essay in the October issue of National Geographic is a challenge to all of us in the redwood region to use the forest management knowledge we have gained and the restoration capacity we have built to take action. After walking the length and breadth of the redwood region talking to foresters, landowners, mill owners, restorationists and activists Mike believes: "The time is right to embrace a systematic plan of recovery for the entire redwood forest--all the pieces are now in place."
But what would such a plan look like? What are the key elements? What issues need to be addressed?
The recent Redwood Futures event hosted by Humboldt State University (HSU) featured presentations by Mike Fay, Mike Nichols the National Geographic photographer, and HSU professor Steve Sillett. While fascinating in it's own right this event also served as catalyst and host to an initial conversation about the elements of a redwood regional recovery and revitalization plan by a broad cross-section of over 170 key stakeholders and advocates in forest management from throughout the region.
In response to Mike's call to action the Redwood Forest Foundation (RFFI) and Redwood Coast Rural Action used this opportunity to develop and facilitate more than dozen small group breakout discussions. These small group discussions enabled face to face conversations among participants on a range of issues including:
* Alleviating threats to redwood forest ecosystems
* Restoring forest conditions
* Increasing the value of redwood products
* Improving the regulatory process for better outcomes
* Creating revenue for ecosystem services
* Improving management on public lands
* Capitalizing on bio-energy opportunities
* Supporting ongoing conservation and restoration efforts
* Increasing revenues from tourism
* Increasing regional collaboration
Notes and suggestions of actionable ideas emerging from these discussions have been gathered and collated. A broader case statement for the Redwood Futures regional planning effort will be forthcoming along with a set of principles for engaging in the discussion. An opportunity to participate in these discussions, an opportunity to bring your concerns, suggestions and support for this process to the table will be coming to a town or city near you.
The Institute for Sustainable Forestry (ISF), a co-sponsor of the HSU event, suggests that one key element in this process is a common understanding of how economic incentives align and/or conflict with optimal biological productivity and ecosystem integrity. More on this to follow...
Art Harwood, executive director of RFFI sees this process and this discussion as critical to future health of both forests and communities in the region. According to Art "this is not just about the forest, this is about our communities as a whole, how they are connected to the forest and how the forest is connected to them. This conversation is about rehabilitating the redwood region from both an ecological and an economic viewpoint." For Art, "restoration is not an end in itself--restoration is the means by which we create a vibrant resource-based economy."
The attention that Mike and Lindsey have brought to our region, our successes and our potential, represents a significant opportunity.
As Kathy Moxon of Redwood Coast Rural Action states:
Redwood Futures is a call to action--a gauntlet thrown down--challenging diverse interests and perspectives to come together to craft a strategy for action that will restore the health of forest ecosystems, protect species and legacy stands, sustain viable working forest landscapes and rebuild the social and economic well-being of communities located throughout the region.
For more information about this and other events and initiatives sign up for the newforestry mailing list on the ISF home page: www.newforestry.org
John Rogers is a 35 year resident of Southern Humboldt whose involvement with forestry issues emerged through his role as a woodworker and sustainability advocate. A member of the founding Institute for Sustainable Forestry board in 1991 John's writing focuses on the economic nuts and bolts of walking the talk of long-term sustainable forest management.
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TOC for Forest & River News, Winter 2009