Red Lodge Clearinghouse

Depending on where you find these trees on a map, however, you will find one of two very different sets of laws and mandates that guide their management: You might find the U.S. Forest Service, with its mandate to protect the nation's most ecologically valuable forest lands, or you could encounter the Bureau of Land Management's charge to protect forests while making them economically viable.

Within that dichotomy emerges a fierce debate over how to manage the country's millions of acres of old-growth forests, and after a litany of lawsuits and accusations, some say Congress may soon need to step in.

"The agencies absolutely need guidance from Congress on restoration efforts and what should be protected," said Randi Spivak of the American Lands Alliance. "Without that kind of guidance we'll continue to see the same kind of abuse that has gotten us to where we are now."

Senate Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is attempting to craft a broader forest policy measure by the end of the year that will include more comprehensive policies for old-growth forests. But before he does, critics say some serious questions will have to be addressed, including the extent that old growth needs to be cleared to maintain it.

During a Senate hearing last week on old-growth forests, David Perry, a professor emeritus of Oregon State University's Department of Forest Science, suggested an ideal balance on federal lands would be 30 percent for old-growth preserve, 30 percent for replacement against catastrophic events such as fires and 40 percent for management purposes including logging.

Both federal witnesses and experts at the hearing said a major part of the debate over old-growth management is rooted in how to define what an old-growth forest is.

Some definitions classify old-growth forests as those greater than 200 years old, but Pacific Northwest regional forester Linda Goodman urged lawmakers not to use age as the measure for defining old growth.

Spivak said that old growth can be defined by using the culmination of mean annual increment, or when a tree's growth peaks and old-growth characteristics begin to emerge.

Research suggests that periodic thinning of old-growth forests can delay culmination, creating more old growth, but critics say the Bush administration has used this fact as an excuse to expand logging.

Forest Service: manage to preserve

Both BLM and the Forest Service approaches start from the same place, the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. A landmark agreement forged between the Clinton administration, timber companies and environmentalists to oversee 24 million acres of public land, the plan was designed to provide a steady supply of timber while protecting old-growth stands and habitat for threatened and endangered species like the spotted owl.

About 7.4 million acres of the land in the forest plan were set aside as late-successional reserves meant to protect and enhance old-growth forests for plant and animal species dependent on these forests' unique characteristics.

As the federal agency responsible for protecting the country's most ecologically valuable forests, the Forest Service's primary mission is preserving not just old-growth trees themselves but also their functions as habitats, holders of carbon dioxide and cleaners of water.

"It's an entire system rather than just trees," said Forest Service spokesperson Tom Knappenberger.

With the growing threats of insects, drought and wildfires, the agency has begun undertaking treatment projects to protect old-growth forests.

No treatment is or should be the same, Forest Service officials said, because each forest has unique conditions that prohibit a "one-size-fits-all" approach to management.

"The ideal solution does not exist," Goodman said last week.

The wetter Douglas fir and western hemlock forests west of the Cascade Range, for example, have different treatment requirements than the drier old-growth forests in eastern and southwest Oregon would.

Goodman said the eastern forests would require site-specific fires and mechanical removal of biomass to protect against catastrophic fires and insect infestations that could ravage the forests.

In the coastal range of Oregon, active management projects like the Five Rivers Landscape Management Project are testing alternative treatment options for developing old-growth characteristics in the wetter western forests, including thinnings and dead wood management.

"The Forest Service has, over time, been learning that the common ground is in restoration," said Spivak, adding that she would like to see more projects like these come in the future.

Protection vs. production

BLM has faced far more controversy over its management of old-growth forests. Its adherence to the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) has landed it in trouble with not only environmentalists but also the timber industry, which claims the agency is faltering on its mission to generate productive forest stands.

BLM's original mission was to manage federal lands for timber production, but with the NWFP, the agency rewrote its management plans to manage productive tree plantations while protecting old-growth forests to maintain habitat for the spotted owl.

But timber outputs have been just 49 percent of the timber harvest levels called for in the NWFP, in part because the agency has struggled with balancing the requirements of the plan with the Endangered Species Act and a 1937 act meant to manage Oregon and California Railroad grant lands, or O&C lands.

"We also realize that we have to manage these stands and make them better habitat," said BLM spokesman Alan Hoffmeister.

The American Forest Resource Council sued, claiming the Northwest Forest Plan's creation of forest reserves on O&C lands illegally took those lands out of production. About 2.2 million acres of BLM land in Oregon were inherited from the O&C Railroad in 1937 and managed for "permanent forest production," per federal law.

To settle the lawsuit, BLM agreed to revisit how it manages its forests in the Pacific Northwest.

Last August, the agency released its draft environmental impact statement that would open more of Oregon's western forests, including some old-growth forests, for increased logging. The Western Oregon Plan Revision, or WOPR, seeks to redefine how BLM manages more than 2.5 million acres of public lands in western Oregon.

"Because they know they violated the O&C Act, they committed themselves to revising the management plan," said American Forest Resource Council's Vice President Chris West.

The plan devotes more than half the O&C lands in western Oregon to logging, with a goal of selling 727 million board feet (mmbf) of timber annually. Currently, about 203 mmbf are sold from BLM lands.

Criticism over the plan has once again come from both conservationists and the timber industry, with groups like Oregon Wild calling the plan an attempt to strip away the environmental protections of the NWFP and the American Forest Resource Council saying it still does not meet the intent of the O&C Act.

Hoffmeister said the plan has already generated tens of thousands of comments, the vast majority saying the plan allows for the cutting of too much or too little timber.

"It's not going to be easy, there's a lot of controversy around this," Hoffmeister said.

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