The Decision to Cut- A Cautionary Tale From Forest Scientists About Diameter-Based Harvests

There's a story that goes something like this:

A guy owns a thriving piece of forestland and it's his pride and joy. It's part personal satisfaction, part personal investment, part personal legacy. His forest is ample and stocked with high-quality trees- valuable, beautiful, the whole works- problem is, the owner has decided that he's OK with some level of harvesting on his land, but he's not really sure which trees should stay or go.

He's had lump-sum cash offers from local loggers and timber buyers that sparkle with dollar signs; he's fielded other offers that seem lucrative but a little less clear about how much they'll pay him for his timber. The landowner's intuition tells him that maybe the lump-sum offer is on the low side and he'd have a better opportunity to track his trees and mill receipts if he opts to sign with the gentleman who offered him the mill-tally sale. Money aside for a moment, each offer the landowner considers seems to be based upon a technique called 'select cut' or 'ten inches and up' or some other reference to cutting all trees of a certain diameter or larger. Well, the landowner feels this language sounds reasonable. Doesn't logic say that the largest volume of wood available to go to the mill should result from the harvest of the largest trees? Indeed it does.

Moreover the operator has represented himself as a professional and appears to have a plan to take down the stems quickly, in accordance with the required or recommended standards to protect water quality. Things look great!

The landowner decides to work with the guy who recommended 'ten inches and up' and payment as a percentage of mill receipts. Contract signed. Logs at the landing. Wood trucked to the mill. A sense of pride for having supported the local forest products business. A lot of people in the area work there. And to boot- checks from the logger start to roll in. All is well.

But let's pause for a moment and ask a necessary question- what has the landowner actually done to his woodland? Is it better off? Or worse? Science suggests that if he owns non-plantation forest and uses diameter-limit cutting, like choosing only trees of a certain size or larger to cut, that he may be degrading the value of his woodland over time.

Another analogy to describe this sort of land-management decision: Imagine a table covered in quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. They represent good-quality large, medium, and small trees, respectively, within a property. Diameter-limit cutting is like taking all of the quarters and some of the dimes during the first harvest, leaving only some dimes, nickels and pennies to grow. A number of rejected stems are left behind because they have defects that mills won't pay much for, if anything at all. The best stems are taken. The worst-quality and smaller trees stay put and are reliable indicators of the probable quality of the future forest. If a second diameter-limit harvest occurs on the property, imagine that the remaining dimes and most of the nickels (on our hypothetical table) are removed- leaving the landowner with only pennies.

Landowners can avoid the pitfalls of vague, overly simplistic, or unscientific harvesting techniques by asking questions of their agent, operator, or offeror. Why have you picked this method of harvest? What methods are you using to select trees? What will comprise my future forest? It is useful to ask questions before any sale because it can take generations for forest restoration to blunt the effects of high-grading.

There are many different scientific methods available to landowners interested in managing their lands for occasional or sustained wood production. A professional forester can help woodland owners find the best paths forward which avoid long-term losses in forest value and productivity.

Scientists within and affiliated with the US Forest Service, the largest forest research agency in the world, have conducted multiple studies examining how diameter-limit cutting and other versions of 'high-grading' degrade forests. They've put some of their findings in a brief publication directed at woodland owners; it's recommended reading for anyone who already has or is considering harvesting timber on private land.

Click here to read 'Diameter-Limit Cutting and Silviculture in Northeastern Forests: A Primer for Landowners, Practitioners, and Policymakers'

Obama + Forest Policy = ?

In the latest issue of The Forestry Source, author Steve Wilent tries to suss out how the incoming President and his picks for Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior will affect forest policy, on-the-ground management, and the pressing environmental issues we face...


From the January 2009 issue of The Forestry Source:




Forest Policy under Obama: Practical or Ideological?

Colorado Senator Ken Salazar Nominated for Secretary of the Interior

by Steve Wilent

In the brief interludes between news stories about the nation’s financial troubles and political corruption in Illinois, by mid-December President-Elect Barack Obama had announced more than half of his appointees to senior cabinet- level positions. Freshman senator Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat and member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was nominated for secretary of the interior. Salazar previously served as executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and as chief legal counsel to Governor Roy Romer. Salazar, a staunch Obama supporter during the campaign, has been an outspoken proponent of developing biofuels and other alternative forms of energy. In a June 2008 speech on energy policy, he said the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and the 2008 Farm Bill provide key incentives for biofuels development and production: “Why is this so important? Because cellulosic biofuels have the potential to displace three billion barrels of oil annually, equivalent to 60 percent of our country’s yearly consumption of oil in the transportation sector, without affecting our need for food, feed, or fiber. Three billion barrels of oil a year.” In December, Salazar urged President-Elect Obama to make the nation’s energy infrastructure a priority in the economic stimulus measures Obama has said the new administration will propose. “When Congress reconvenes in January, we must immediately pass a strong economic recovery package that gets our economy back on track in the near-term, while also taking advantage of new opportunities that will drive economic growth down the road,” said Salazar. “Investing in efforts to modernize our energy grid and develop new, clean energy technologies is a great way to accomplish both of these goals. By making these investments, we will create jobs, reduce energy costs for consumers, and lay the foundation for America’s economic future.”

Dave Tenny, president of the National Alliance of Forestland Owners (NAFO), said Salazar would be a good fit with the Interior Department. “NAFO is encouraged by the selection of Senator Salazar. He has already demonstrated his interest in issues that affect forest landowners and has been a leader in the development of renewable fuels and renewable energy. We have every reason to believe that we will be able to work well with him, and we are ready to roll up our sleeves and do just that,” he said. At the time of this writing, the Associated Press reported that Obama has selected former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack as secretary of agriculture. Political observers have suggested that, as a whole, some of Obama’s nominees are less ideological than practical, such as Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, for secretary of energy. As of this writing, no nominees for deputy secretary and other subcabinetand agency-level positions had been named; many of these positions may not be filled until well after President Obama takes office. What do we know about Obama’s and his nominees’ stands on issues related to forestry and natural resources? A handful of foresters who have their eyes on the political scene recently offered
their perspectives.


Jay O’Laughlin, 2008 policy chair for the Inland Empire SAF chapter and professor of forest resources at the University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources, notes that the Obama transition team has selected several previous Clinton administration officials, such as Carol Browner, former head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, who will serve as assistant to the president for energy and climate change, otherwise known as the energy and environment “czarina.” O’Laughlin, who also directs the college’s Policy Analysis Group, suggests that Obama might select James R. Lyons, who served in the Clinton administration as under secretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment, to serve once again in the same capacity. Mark Rey held the position in the Bush administration. Lyons, currently a lecturer and research scholar at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, helped draft the controversial Roadless Area Conservation Rule adopted in the waning days of the Clinton administration in 2001. The so-called Clinton roadless rule was repealed during the Bush administration, but sources within the Obama transition team have indicated that they may support the reinstatement of the rule. “Since the under secretary of agriculture position was created during the Reagan administration, my observation has been that the position has been used as a political football,” said O’Laughlin. “It’s gone from folks who came out of the timber industry to folks who came out of the environmental community, and back again. So if the ball bounces the same way, we can expect someone with an environmental background to take that position. That’s of some concern to us here in Idaho, as it is to every state that has national forests.” O’Laughlin said he is optimistic that the Obama administration will recognize the value of forests in carbon management. “I believe that energy and carbon management have the potential to change the way people view forests and forestry,” he said. “I think they’ll recognize that they don’t need to build a machine to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They already have one— it’s called a tree.”

A Question of Active Management

Paul Adams, professor of forest engineering at Oregon State University and Oregon SAF policy chair, notes that several Obama appointees are from western states, but wonders about the priorities
of a president with roots in urban Chicago. “From a West Coast perspective, so much hinges on whether or not the Obama appointees are going to have sensitivity or even awareness of western concerns,” Adams said. “However, the appointments so far seem to be more moderate than some people expected. That may carry over into the agriculture appointment.” On the other hand, said Adams, former Clinton administration officials may favor passive, rather than active forest management. “Clinton’s appointees had a major impact [on forest management]— some had little interest in active management of federal forests, as shown by their public statements and agency policies,” he said. “It’s definitely on our radar screen.” Marlin Johnson, recently retired as assistant director of forestry for the Forest Service’s Southwestern Region, is now an independent consultant based in New Mexico. He is a member of the board
of directors of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees. “I haven’t heard anything to indicate that an Obama administration will be that much different in public land management than was the Clinton administration,” said Johnson. “I think they are going to get some fresh faces and take a fresh look, but I’m anticipating that they will move back toward a more ‘leave it alone’ approach or a ‘use prescribed fire only’ approach to maintaining good vegetative conditions in forests. For the last eight years, we’ve had a little bit more opportunity to look at what’s best for the land and society in terms of mechanical treatments or prescribed fire or both. I’m sure there are some environmental groups that will be listened to more closely by the coming administration.”


Bill Imbergamo, forest policy director at the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), also views ties to the Clinton administration as noteworthy. “In terms of the appointments we have seen so far, they have been people who tend to take a regulatory approach [to forest management], and many have a history from the Clinton administration, such as Browner, who will apparently have quite a bit of influence with the White House. We don’t know a lot about Nancy Sutley, who was named to head the CEQ,” Imbergamo said. Sutley, who will lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), currently serves as the deputy mayor for energy and environment for the City of Los Angeles.
She previously served as the deputy secretary for policy and intergovernmental relations within the California Environmental Protection Agency and, in the Clinton administration, served in senior positions within the US Environmental Protection Agency. “It’s certainly our hope that we won’t spend the next four to eight years in a reprise of all of the controversies that have occupied us for the last eight years,” said Imbergamo. “Replaying the golden oldies of controversies isn’t going to get the agencies very far, when there’s actually a fair amount of consensus that the biggest problems facing the agency are fire suppression and how it’s paid for, and taking care of a road system that was largely built with timber dollars but now is carrying recreational traffic. If were going to fight over the last 2.8 billion board feet of the timber sale program, well, that’s not a lot to fight over. There are larger, more expensive problems that the agency is facing, and I think all of the constituencies agree that they need to be fixed.”

Brett Smith, government affairs director at AF&PA, said Browner is likely to play a leading role in setting and implementing natural resources policy. “I think what you’ll see is that the people appointed at Energy and Interior will focus on specific tasks within those agencies, leaving Browner as the public face for the administration—as the organizer and coordinator of its climate and energy policies,”
Smith said. “Rather than leaving those policies to individual departments, the White House will have much more of a public role in these areas than we’ve seen with the current administration or even past administrations.” Imbergamo and Nadine Block, also a forest policy director at AF&PA, said they have met with members of the Obama transition team. “I was struck by the transition team’s openness,” said Imbergamo. “They said repeatedly that they are in listening mode, that they can’t move forward with anything concrete about what they plan to do, and that’s understandable. But they showed a willingness to hear what all stakeholders involved in the process have to say.” Block, who served as chair of SAF’s national Forest Policy Committee in 2008 said that AF&PA has highlighted the role forests can play in climate and energy initiatives, as well as in economic recovery.
“Of course, forestry fits with Obama’s focus on green jobs,” Block said. “There’s a lot that we can do, both in terms of the traditional forestry markets as well as new markets, such as biofuels and bioenergy, that can create jobs and help the economy.” SAF Executive Vice-President Michael Goergen said SAF would send information on a range of topics to key members of Obama administration. “Our nation’s forests not only provide solutions to some of our most pressing environmental concerns, but their sustainable management will also contribute to the creation of green jobs and add wealth to our nation,” he said.