Features

The new forestryAn ecosystem approach to land management

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()resters on public lands oftenfind themselves in tug-of-warsituations. If they satisfy envi-

ronmentalists who want to keep theland pristine, lumber companies arealienated; when government forestersagree to increase timber cuts, environ-mentalists are angered.

Jerry Franklin, chief plant ecologistfor the US Forest Service and a pro-fessor at the University of Washing-ton's College of Forest Resources,suggests the alternative to this no-winsituation is what he calls "new forest-ry." It is a way to "manage land toaccommodate ecological values andallow for the extraction of commodi-ties," says the leader of the new for-estry movement. He says studies onforest ecosystems are indicating thatcommodity production and preserva-tion of ecological values are not com-pletely incompatible.

Proponents and critics of new for-estry call it by a number of names:alternative silviculture, hobby silvi-culture, gonzo forestry, ecologicalforestry, a unified field theory forforestry, and old-style German for-estry. Depending on who is talking, itis described as a science, an attitude,or a solution to touchy social andpolitical questions related to forestmanagement. Some foresters andecologists question whether new for-estry can meet its dual goals of com-modity production and maintenanceof ecological integrity. The consen-sus: much research is still needed.

What is new forestry?According to Franklin and FredSwanson, a researcher at the H. J.

by Anna Maria Gillis

Andrews Experimental Forest in Or-egon, the fundamental premise ofnew forestry is that forests must hemaintained as complex ecosystemsrather than as tree factories. Newforestry experts, many of whom con-duct their research at Andrews, saythe simplification of forests throughthe planting of single-species standsreduces the forest's resilience to cata-strophic events such as fires, wind-storms, and maybe even climatechange.

"Long-term site productivity is ul-timately dependent upon ecosystemresilience—an ability to absorb stressor change without significant loss offunction—not simply soil properties.... Foresters must manage to retaingreater ecological margins in order tosustain long-term productivity andbuffer against uncertainties," sayFranklin and his colleagues in Main-taining Long-term Productivity of Pa-cific Northwest Forest Ecosystems(Timber Press, 1989, Portland, OR).

Natural ecosystems are extremelycomplex, and those complexities haveto be incorporated into management,says Swanson. In studies during thelast two decades, researchers havefound that green trees, snags, boles,and woody debris in forests are im-portant to the maintenance of biodi-versity, particularly of invertebratesand fungi. This knowledge has ledproponents of new forestry to recom-mend that timber harvesting plansinclude stipulations that some snags,green and downed trees, and woodydebris be left on stands after trees areharvested. "In new forestry, what'sleft behind on the site is more impor-tant than what is taken out," saysFranklin.

On the landscape level, new-forestry managers determine whether

the arrangement of cutting patchesaffects the habitats of a forest's inte-rior dwellers, creates too many edge

`areas, and provides corridors forspecies to travel to new areas. Tomaintain or develop forests that areecologically diverse, Franklin recom-mends that clearcutting (where alltrees in a patch are harvested) andselective cutting (where only a fewtrees are cut from each patch) belargely replaced with a strategy calledpartial cutting.

Foresters employed clearcuttingheavily from the 1960s to the 1980s.Clearcutting, generally done in 20-to 40- acre patches and scatteredthrough an area, led to tremendousforest fragmentation. Selective cuttingwas the preferred cutting style beforethe 1960s. In selective cutting, a for-est is entered frequently so a largenumber of roads need to be main-tained. Erosion and root diseases of-ten occur on land managed this way,Franklin says.

Under partial cutting, the majority(typically 85-90%) of the trees on asite are harvested, Franklin estimates.After such a partial cut, the landmight be left alone for an extendedperiod, possibly decades. This proce-dure would cut down on the erosionproblems associated with selectivecutting, says Franklin, who also sug-gests that partially cut sites be aggre-gated to reduce fragmentation.

Although there is no simple for-mula to follow, Franklin and his col-leagues say the principles of new for-estry can be applied to all types offorests. In established forests, newforestry practices will maintain diver-sity; in plantation settings, diversitycould be added, they say.

Franklin acknowledges that, in abusiness sense, new forestry may re-

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After a fire in the Willamette National Forest in Oregon, scientists and managersharvested some of the fire-killed trees and left patches and corridors of live green trees andstanding and dead trees (foreground). The resulting forest is expected to contain moreecological structure and biotic diversity than the forests in the photos that follow. Photo:US Forest Service.

The harvest in the foreground removed all standing trees and large woody debris fromthe site. Reforestation was with one tree species. This clearcut is typical of harvests fromthe 1960s through the 1980s on the western Cascade Range of Oregon. Photo: USForest Service.

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duce short-term income. "We're sell-ing the new forestry on its long-termenvironmental values."

New forestry and spotted owlsThe idea of ecosystem managementhas been around for a while, at leastsince 1976 when Congress passed theNational Forest Management Act,but the scientific basis for it and thesocial incentives to carry it out didnot exist until recently, says Franklin."The crisis associated with the spot-ted owl and timber production iswhat's bringing new forestry to ahead in the Pacific Northwest," hesays.

The either/or issue of whether tolog or preserve spotted-owl land be-gan around 1984, when the US ForestService published a management planfor the Pacific Northwest. Environ-mental groups claimed that the plandid not assure the conservation of thenorthern spotted owl, and timbercompanies argued that the Forest Ser-vice was protecting too much owlhabitat, which is generally old-growth forests. The old growth—characterized by multilayered cano-pies, many downed trees, muchdebris, and spectacularly tall trees,many aged 200 years or more—has ahigh degree of both biodiversity andvaluable lumber. In Oregon andWashington, an estimated 2.3 millionacres of old growth remain, much ofit fragmented and in edge zones.

In April, the Thomas Committee, afederally appointed scientific commis-sion studying the status of the owl,recommended that several millionacres of western forest land be setaside as habitat conservation areasfor the owl. It also said new forestry isstill experimental and recommendedthat it be studied outside owl-habitatconservation areas. In June, the USFish and Wildlife Service declared theowl to be a threatened species. Log-ging interests opposed that action.

The dissention about the spottedowls has been enough to make peoplestart thinking about options in man-aging old-growth forests. In May,

September 1990

Restoration after fires in the 1960s usually involved removing all trees from the site andreplanting with nursery stock of one species. The resulting stand had little structural orspecies diversity. Photo: US Forest Service.

Franklin told a joint session of Houseof Representative committees thatnew forestry practices could createmanaged forests suitable as habitatsfor spotted owls and other old-growth species. "I'm not proposingthat new forestry be used as a substi-tute for preservation, but I thinkwherever we make a decision to cuttimber, whether it's old-growth orother forests, we should consider newforestry," Franklin says.

Currently, legislation requiring thenew forestry practices on some spot-ted-owl land is being reviewed by thePacific Northwest congressional dele-gation. Rep. Jolene Unsoeld (D-WA),concerned that scientific recommen-dations to set aside large blocks ofnational forest for the owl wouldresult in a substantial reduction infederal timber harvests in Oregon andWashington, has proposed that newforestry be practiced on at least threespotted-owl habitat conservation ar-eas in Washington, Oregon, and Cal-ifornia and on an equal amount offederally managed land dedicated totimber harvesting.

That new forestry might be used inold-growth areas that are home tospotted owls makes ecologist PeterMorrison nervous. "Using new for-estry as a solution to the old-growthdilemma will not work," says Morri-son, who works for the WildernessSociety. The Seattle ecologist says thelittle research available indicatingthat the owls can live in youngerforests that retain some old-growthcharacteristics is not convincingenough to make it the basis of policy.

Morrison would prefer that newforestry management be prohibited inold-growth forests. He says he fullysupports new forestry outside the an-cient forests and thinks, if managedproperly, younger forests that were"barren of diversity" might benefitfrom the practices. In Oregon andWashington, approximately 90% ofthe commercial forest land is youngor mature forest, and Morrison saysthat is enough land on which to prac-tice new forestry.

Experimental work on new forestryis currently under way on federal,state, and private lands in Washing-

ton and Oregon. The WashingtonState Department of Natural Re-sources has designated 265,000 acresof its land as experimental area foralternative silviculture and will re-quire the practice of new forestrytechniques by holders of future tim-ber contracts.

The Blue River Ranger District inthe Willamette National Forest alsohas new forestry stipulations in itstimber contracts and is doing someaggregated cutting studies, says dis-trict ranger Lynn Burditt. "We'reworking closely with scientists fromthe Pacific Northwest Research Sta-tion and Oregon State University todetermine what we need to cut andwhat we need to leave," she says.Managers at Mt. Baker, Siuslaw, andSiskiyou National Forests also plan tochange harvesting styles in these for-ests.

Plum Creek Timber Company andWeyerhaeuser Corporation, two ofthe largest timber companies in thePacific Northwest, are evaluating newforestry practices on portions of theirholdings. Plum Creek, which ownsapproximately 1.5 million acresacross Montana, Idaho, and Wash-ington, is under fire from environ-mental groups for the speed of itsPacific Northwest cutting. The com-pany is adjusting its cutting patternsin the Cascades to retain green treesand is looking at how the alteredpractice affects the establishment ofnew trees. "We're also looking for theeconomic and environmental balance[for these practices]," says LorinHicks, Plum Creek's wildlife biolo-gist.

Weyerhaeuser's manager of envi-ronmental forestry research, JimRochelle, says there is much to belearned about ways to provide habitatin strictly managed systems. Morebasic research is needed on topicssuch as corridors for species, the ef-fects of aggregated cutting on interiorspecies, and natural regeneration.

Although the data available suggestthe possibility of protecting ecosys-tem values, industry questionswhether new forestry is a relevant

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NRC committee calls for betterforestry research

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xisting knowledge about forests is inadequate to develop soundforest-management policies, says the National Research CouncilCommittee on Forestry Research in its report, Forestry Research:

A Mandate for Change, released this July. The committee called for moreresearch in five areas: the biology of forest organisms; ecosystem functionand management; human-forest interactions; trade, competition, andcooperation; and wood as a raw material. One of the goals of thatresearch should be creation of forest management systems that producecommodities while maintaining ecological values, says the committee,which also suggested that alternative silvicultural practices be developedthat take into account recent ecosystem studies.

According to the committee, forestry research has not kept pace withthe needs of forestry professionals. "While resource managers have beenstruggling with new [societal] views and values, forestry research hasconcentrated primarily on technical forestry or production-based forest-ry," the report says.

To meet society's needs for an environmentally based forestry, thefinancial commitment to research has to increase, the committee said. Itestimates the combined government and private research budget forforestry is only $350 million. It suggested that over the next five years theresearch budgets for the USDA Forest Service and the Cooperative StateResearch Service increase to $218 million (up from $135 million in 1988)and $109 million (up from $17.5 million in 1988), respectively. TheUSDA also should fund competitive grants totaling $100 million for thefive major research areas.

Beyond the money, the committee is particularly concerned that "theforest science community does not now have the human resources to dothe research our nation requires." The committee says more people areneeded who have received an interdisciplinary science education, alongwith courses in decision making and conflict resolution.

alternative in terms of wood produc-tion, given the current land situation,says Mark Rey of the American For-est Resource Alliance, a consortiumof forest product companies inter-ested in timber supply issues. Inten-sive management, where the idea is toget the most timber possible from anarea, became particularly popular inthe past 25 years. Its use has acceler-ated since 1980 as more land has beenset aside in preserves and other pro-tected areas, Rey says.

Under new forestry, less wood fiberis harvested per unit area than inintensively managed systems. To getthe same amount of timber that couldbe harvested from an intensively man-aged area, the harvest has to be ex-tended over a larger area, Rey says.For the US Forest Service to meet itstimber production goals using newforestry, it may have to make cutsover larger areas than it may haveavailable. Rey sees two options: de-termine which lands should be setaside as preserved areas and then in-tensively manage the remaining land,or review the land set aside since1970 and determine whether the eco-logical values of those sites would bepreserved if new forestry was prac-ticed on them. If the ecological valueson those lands would be protectedusing new forestry, change the desig-nations on those lands so they couldbe harvested. Under current land-availability conditions, new forestrymay not provide a middle ground,says Rey.

What needs to be done?There is consensus that forestry prac-tices must be more ecologically based,but some people fear that the practiceof new forestry may move tooquickly. "In the Pacific Northwest,it's jumping from experimental scaleto large-scale application withouthaving gone through a pilot phasewhere operational bugs can beworked out," says William Atkinson,a forest engineer from Oregon StateUniversity. Atkinson and others havesaid the US Forest Service and other

agencies are looking at new forestryas a quick political solution.

According to Atkinson, Rochelle,and others, the following areasshould be studied before putting newforestry practices into widespreaduse:

Define new forestry more clearly.New forestry is still so ill-definedthat people may reinterpret or mis-interpret what is known. Practition-ers may do more harm than goodout of ignorance. Some environ-mentalists fear that, when it comesto actual application, some compa-nies may leave only a scattering of

trees across the landscape and call it"new forestry."Identify the personnel needs. Alter-native silviculture is complex andlabor-intensive. It requires landmanagers with an interdisciplinarybackground. Some people say gov-ernment agencies would have to in-crease and upgrade their staffs tomanage forests using new forestrytechniques. Even if the money wereavailable, the talent may not be.Look at the social and economiccosts of new forestry. Profits fromtimber sales from Forest Service—managed land go to local countiesand the federal treasury. Those tim-

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Foresters to try ecosystem approachlternative silviculture, also known as new forestry, is only a partof a new US Forest Service program called New Perspectives, saysHal Salwasser, director of the program. Under New Perspectives,

which focuses on ecosystems management, the US Forest Service plans todo research related to ecosystem management; develop a public educa-tion program; conduct continuing education and training sessions;involve scientists, the public, and industry in natural resource manage-ment planning; and encourage the use of alternative silviculture.

The research agenda includes plans to study ecosystem management atthe stand level, forest systems at the landscape level, forest dynamics andmechanisms of ecosystem recovery after disturbance, research and man-agement methods, and the effects of applying new management tech-niques. The research program is supposed to be in effect by fiscal year1992.

According to Salwasser, the move toward an ecosystem approach tomanagement is being driven by a number of factors: the public's valuesare changing, new knowledge about ecosystems is available, and the USForest Service's scientific makeup has become more diverse. A problemhe foresees in carrying out this management style is that few people havethe interdisciplinary training suited to ecosystems management. "We'resetting out to do something in land and resource management withouteducational resources. Our [forestry] educational system was fine whenwe were teaching students to plan yields in fish, trees, or whatever. Wehave to see what can be done to bring [forestry] education in line withecosystem management needs."

ber sales help pay for roads andschools. If timber sales diminishand management costs increase,there is less money for local andnational coffers.Work on production issues of com-mercial concern. New forestry doesnot address what will happen towood yield and timber quality, agreat concern as land availabilityshrinks and lumber demand in-creases. If new forestry is practiced,many foresters expect that yield, atleast in the short run, will decreasebecause some of the best timber willbe left behind. The emphasis onnatural regeneration at some sitesmay mean that the trees that growback may not provide the wood ingreatest demand.Determine whether firefightingpractices should change. Leavingdebris and dead trees behind over alarge landscape may increase therisk of forest fires.Determine what safety proceduresare needed, and reevaluate safetylaws that were designed for a dif-ferent forestry style. When usingnew forestry practices, loggers maybe working in tighter areas filledwith green trees and snags that canget caught in equipment.Conduct more basic research, espe-cially at the landscape level, to en-sure that new forestry is meeting itsecological objectives.

It is understandable that environ-mental groups and logging interestshave many concerns about alterna-tive silvicultural practices and viewthem with a mixture of optimism,skepticism, and fear, says Hal Sal-wasser, who directs the Forest Serv-ice's New Perspectives Program (seebox this page). "It does not give eachgroup completely what it wants:

complete preservation or all thewood fiber." Salwasser expects in-dustry will accept the practices "be-cause it is their best hope for contin-ued use of public land," and heanticipates some litigation from en-vironmental groups.

Regardless of problems still to heresolved, James Woodman of theUniversity of North Carolina expectsthat some form of new forestry willbe standard practice in 30 or 40years. As the world faces the possi-bilities of global warming, the reality

of a growing population, and thequestion of whether land should beused for forests or food, people willexpect more than lumber from for-ests. "Forests will be valued for theireffects on microclimates. Manage-ment will be performed with the in-tention of maintaining the canopyand diversity, clearcutting could beoutlawed, and the privilege and lux-ury of growing forests for timber willbe gone. A new forestry is the onlyway we can go, given societal de-mands," he says. ^

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