Reflections on Forestry When Confronted With the First Timber Harvest Plan of the Year in My Watershed

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By NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA - 2016 Top Images from NASA Goddard, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69017600

By NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA – 2016 Top Images from NASA Goddard, Public Domain, via Wiki Commons.

This is an expanded version of essay that appeared in the Times Standard’s My Word section.

Timber Harvest Plans (THPs) are like demure invitations to dance. A timber company sidles up to Cal Fire, which extends its soft hand. The music is an ancient minuet, its steps designed almost fifty years ago. The cadences repeat themselves, harmoniously, as the Agencies partner up and take their places, stately, in the still, ethereal atmosphere. Then, after a few fleurets and some courtesies exchanged, the logs start rolling out of the forest.

The minuet, made famous by Louis XIV of France, used to have meaning: it was metaphor for the serene, hierarchical architecture of society, where every character played a discrete part in time and place. In the modern world, however, timber harvest plans are an oxymoronic metaphor for chaos. Outside the ballroom, chunks of Antarctica the size of New York are falling into the sea. The Gulf Stream vacillates uncertainly. Scientists grasp at fantastically expensive and risky schemes to sprinkle the stratosphere with sunlight-reflecting particles. And, as Earth warms, a quarter of its people face dying of thirst while others are swept away by floods or freezes.

The skies are emptying, one third fewer birds now than when the California Forest Practice Rules were written almost 50 years ago. According to the World Wildlife Fund, taken together, mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined 70%. The insect apocalypse is hurtling along 8 times faster.

The agent of this chaos is the still-increasing concentration of carbon-dioxide in earth’s atmosphere, caused by human activity. We have returned the carbon, sequestered by ancient vegetation, in oil and coal, to the atmosphere. As for the contemporary, still-actively sequestering vegetation, we destroyed 80% of it before 1990.

Amidst the wreckage the minuet, choreographed by the revered California Forest Practice Rules, proceeds with inviolate composure. Biomass of all sorts is conveyed to the mills: the US is by far the largest wood exporter in the world. Slash and small trees are made into wood pellets, the rest for lumber. “Old growth” is now extremely rare. Trees such as doug firs and redwoods, which can live thousands of years, are now harvested at 40 to 70 years old, leaving no generation to replace their falling elders.

Any concern about global warming is finessed with phrases such as “there is a natural variability in earth’s climate” and “considerable debate regarding its causes”. Fear of catastrophic fire, founded on rising temperature and wind velocity, and loss of moisture in logged-over areas, is met with the entrenched dogma that fuel load reduction is critical for fire protection. Cal Fire asserts this despite comprehensive studies that “timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure and local microclimate, has increased fire severity more than any other human activity”(US Fish & Wildlife Service:1996).

In fact it makes no sense to combine commercial timber harvesting and forest management into the same agency. Logging companies are interested in fire prevention from the perspective of protecting their assets. As they have said many times, biodiversity and forest health are not their responsibilities (viz. Robert Fisher, owner of HRC: “we are a business, not a charity”))except insofar as legal compliance is concerned. Forest management is a public trust, and therefore must concern itself with public safety and its corollary, ecological stability. The axiom of commercial interests, to extract the most profit at the least cost, is antithetical to this trust. Cutting down big trees, which are fire resistant and have been demonstrated to reduce forest temperatures up to 4.5 degrees compared with plantations, increases fire risk.

The fact that Cal Fire plans to log its own Jackson State Forest flies in the face of its public trust mission: fire safety, protection from the effects of climate catastrophe, and the defense of biodiversity.

 

The preservation of the last stands of planetary forest are our last best hope for curbing carbon emissions in the shortest amount of time. If all logging were stopped today, and the forest allowed to grow, our remaining trees could remove 1/7 of the world’s carbon-dioxide exhalations annually. Redwoods and, to a slightly lesser extent firs, sequester carbon at a rate 2.5 times the rate of tropical rainforests. And the older the tree, the more efficiently it can sequester carbon. Although they may grow more slowly, they produce more photosynthesizing leaves/needles. But as forests are logged, this sequestering engine is lost, and forests will no longer be sufficient to mitigate climate change.

The UN Council on Biodiversity reported last year that 1 million species are at risk of extinction, “which paints an ominous picture with serious consequences for humans as well as the rest of life on Earth”.

Here in the pacific northwest there are many indigenous species whose populations have been, and continue to be, decimated by human activity. The problem can be compared to the human housing market: as we know unhoused human lives are shortened by 25 years due to the of hardship of living rough. The housing, or habitat, market for wildlife, is already tight. Then, four months ago the US Fish & Wildlife Service redefined critical habitat, which by law must be allocated to a threatened or endangered species at the same time it is listed. By stipulating that habitat must be intact, ready and able to support an endangered species, without the need of any restoration or alteration, it excluded the candidacy of millions of acres, and invited the destruction of millions more.

In January, US Fish & Wildlife Service opened up 3.4 million acres of northern spotted owl habitat to logging.

In order to keep a roof over their heads, that is, to save their habitat from logging, animals must stay home 24/7 and make sure to be noticed, as the Forest Practice Rules have no respect for untenanted housing. Instead of keeping and recruiting habitat for northern spotted owl, Green Diamond Timber now shoots their competition, the larger and less specialized Barred Owl, and is rewarded by USFWS with being allowed to harvest the habitat the owls have vacated. The resultant take of NSOs “is more than offset by the value of information gained from this experiment and its potential contribution to a long-term Barred Owl strategy”(FWS).

This expresses a deranged form of goal obsession, worse than the archetypal “Bridge Over the River Kwai”.

Although the public submitted questions, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife declined to participate in the preharvest review team meetings of either of the last two THPs I examined. But they are paid by the public, by us, to be guardians of our wildlife! a public trust.

They report that they are understaffed and underfunded. This represents a sharp decline from the days of Pacific Lumber/MAXXAM, when their biologists, such as Armand Gonzales, fought valiantly for wildlife.

But the Agencies are snowed by the status of “certifiably sustainable” timber harvesting practices achieved by our three dominant timber companies, who, significantly, pay for their own certification, and are rewarded with a premium for their products. The Agencies appear to believe that this dissolves their own public obligations.

However, the certification process has been comprehensively tested, by the public, a group of whom complained to the certifying organization on several grounds: cooperation with local communities and tribes, use of herbicides, and

protection of ecologically valuable forest. Needless to say , the timber company in question, HRC, did not change their ways. In fact, just a week ago, after offering property-wide access to the Bear River Tribe for habitat typing, lead bullet collection and toxin identification for an EPA study being conducted by the tribe, preparatory to the release of the Pacific Condor in Humboldt County, the company slammed the door in their faces.

Certification is just another masquerade: sheep’s clothing.

Meanwhile the owners of the timber companies are as unreachable as the gods on Olympus. Regarding their power over our lives, climate and forests, these billionaire gods seem to have some kind of ataxia, like multiple sclerosis, and their multifarious empires have, unlike the Olympians, the common denominator of profit.

It is suicide. We must end this fatal minuet, and retire the senile forest practice rules. Measured carbon sequestration achieved by our forests, that is,

letting them grow, in a practice called “pro-forestation”, should be defined as a “high quality timber product” and recognized as achieving the goals of 14 CCR933.11, “maximum sustained productivity”. Timberlands are called “working forests”: well then, let them work, sustaining life on earth, instead of providing pellets for Swiss stoves.

And, let the industry instead invest in and market a different building material, one that doesn’t impose the death penalty on the planet.
Ellen Taylor

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stuber
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stuber
2 years ago

What a bunch of shit. There are as many if not more animals and birds around right now. We know, we live amongst them. Right now it is very busy and noisy in our forests. Had there been more logging and grazing, along with the August complex being put out right away, instead of being allowed to burn, by irresponsible USFS creeps, there would be a lot more trees and wildlife. More CO2 is produced from underwater vents around volcanos, be they underground or above, not man made. The volcanos that pop off regularly produce far more CO2 and many other pollutants than human activity. But one thing some “green” human activity does is kill thousands of birds, and that is those horrible wind turbines. An estimated 400,000 raptors alone are killed each year because of this genocidal method of producing energy. Natural gas kills no birds, or other animals, and is very clean. And the logging industry in northwest US and Canada plants over 250,000,000 trees a year to sustain their industry, which is very green, and animal habitat friendly. How many trees have you planted, how many wind turbines have you shut down for our wildlife? The owners of timber companies know and practice sustainable logging practices, and they do not consider themselves gods, but stewards of their lands, for generations to come. I have talked to them, perhaps you might make the effort to talk to them, and learn how much they care about these lands. We teach children these facts every day. They see the destructiveness of wind turbines and solar panels on the environment, and know you people lie to promote your false narratives. get out into the forest and see and hear all the wildlife that is flourishing.

lol
Guest
lol
2 years ago
Reply to  stuber

“There are as many if not more animals and birds around right now. ”

[edit] Thinking that your casual first hand observations are more dependable than all of the biological sciences is about as dumb as you can get.

“More CO2 is produced from underwater vents around volcanos, be they underground or above, not man made. The volcanos that pop off regularly produce far more CO2 and many other pollutants than human activity.”

Yeah so what? Are you suggesting we try to plug underseas volcanoes? The amount we add is the problem.

“Natural gas kills no birds, or other animals, and is very clean.”

It is normally MUCH cleaner than coal, that does not make it clean. The carbon produced does kill animals as it contributes to climate change.

“But one thing some “green” human activity does is kill thousands of birds, and that is those horrible wind turbines. An estimated 400,000 raptors alone are killed each year because of this genocidal method of producing energy. ”

The tech exist to prevent these bird strikes, but it is not often used because it makes thee projects less profitable for the energy industry.

“And the logging industry in northwest US and Canada plants over 250,000,000 trees a year to sustain their industry, which is very green, and animal habitat friendly. ”

They plant trees in their tree farms to replace what they harvest, and do not allow them to reach anywhere near maturity. It is in no way green, nor does it make usable habitat for animals.

“The owners of timber companies know and practice sustainable logging practices, and they do not consider themselves gods, but stewards of their lands, for generations to come.”

Some of them know a bit about sustainable logging practices, none of them employ these practices, other than what is required by law, and they constantly try to skirt that. They have devastated our ecosystems and obviously care for nothing but short term profits.

Lone Ranger
Guest
Lone Ranger
2 years ago
Reply to  lol

Nuclear power is by far the cleanest, but like covid, the Karens object.

thetallone
Guest
thetallone
2 years ago
Reply to  Lone Ranger

Cleanest if you overlook the most deadly poison on the planet that lasts half a million years. Can you say ‘Fukishima’?

Guest
Guest
Guest
2 years ago
Reply to  thetallone

But there aren’t enough caves or cement manufacturers to house without wood all those people who have inconsiderately stopped died at age 35 to hold the population in check and keep using up natural resources at alarming rates. Nor manufacture solar panels and batteries, which itself uses resources at an alarming rate, at levels required to heat their homes if they have them. Even worse those damned poor people keep complaining about it being too expensive to feed themselves as it is and being forced to go to fast food distributors for their unhealthy food needs.

Farce
Guest
Farce
2 years ago
Reply to  Guest

Covid could have helped. But we keep blowing it. Need about 2-3 billion people to leave very soon- and not the super-poor but the wealthy mass consumers of crap…I’m guessing war and mass starvation will arrive soon? Hopefully before we kill everything…We have collectively decided to not handle the problem through other means

Guest
Guest
Guest
2 years ago
Reply to  Farce

LOL As if the super-poor wouldn’t immediately fill in the vacated consummer slots given the chance. As the nature of illegal (and for that matter, legal) immigration into the US shows. No one comes to the US “yearning to breathe free” as that inane self aggrandizing poem suggests. Not now if ever. They came to get the means to live better, with more of a chance to get lots of “stuff.”

HotCoffee
Guest
HotCoffee
2 years ago
Reply to  thetallone

The never ending nightmare that’s never mentioned when discussing our polluted ocean.
And as for our streams, when PG+E trims around the lines, make sure to tell them not to use pesticides or else they will.

tahca
Guest
tahca
2 years ago
Reply to  Lone Ranger

Instead of everyone picking at one another, why don’t we take the useful and correct points each offers and bring our minds together in a respectful and mature manner to make decisions that promote our environment’s long-term health? And that means for ALL BEINGS, not just human beings, because everything is interconnected – a delicate system! Thank you Ellen for your thoughtfulness and passion in speaking out. If this is the Ellen I suspect, she is one dedicated lady for the health of this planet we call home – and isn’t that what we all really want?

BTW – natural gas is NOT clean. The METHODS used to produce it and what that contributes to this mess we’re in go far beyond filth. Look it up!

ex hum
Guest
ex hum
2 years ago
Reply to  lol

Do you live in a wood framed house and what is your heat source? What do you use to fire your BBQ ? Do you request paper or plastic at the store? Do you filter your coffee? And what Do! you wipe yer ass with??? Phffft.

thetallone
Guest
thetallone
2 years ago
Reply to  stuber

I don’t know how long you have lived here. 30-40 years ago, every winter, massive flocks of birds migrated over my place for days at a time. There were still fish in the creeks. Not now. When I was a kid, we had to stop the car every so often to scrape the insects off the windshield in the Sacto valley. Now when you drive through there, hardly any. Remember those massive clouds of birds over the grape fields and orchards? You just don’t see that anymore. Dozens of species go extinct PER DAY, thousands of times the previous rate. Educate yourself. Or not. But let’s hope the young people have more sense.
Oh yeah, 95 percent of old growth gone. Pecker poles in their place.

Guest
Guest
Guest
2 years ago
Reply to  thetallone

Butterflies. I remember them in clouds around me at times. Now just the occasional one.
Now no Pilated Woodpeckers but lots of crows to fill in for them. The trouble is that old people remember these things while young ones never know anything was ever different. Old people are the ones who created those losses and the younger ones will go on to create more.

Lone Ranger
Guest
Lone Ranger
2 years ago
Reply to  thetallone

When I was a kid in Humboldt, hardly any birds had a season,and all my buddies had guns. That’s what happened to your birds.

Guest
Guest
Guest
2 years ago
Reply to  Lone Ranger

I disagree. While hunting can devastate a species, eliminating the habitat a species adapted to fill is a much more permanent loss. One from which there is no recovery. Only replacement.

Lone Ranger
Guest
Lone Ranger
2 years ago
Reply to  Guest

Oh we annihilated every specie we stumbled upon. Man there sure are ton of bugs plastered across my windshield this evening, never seen so many.

R-dog
Guest
2 years ago
Reply to  stuber

It is too late the damage had already been done there is no turning back the clock when I was kid the fog in eureka was so thick I could not even see my nabors house it rained 75 plus inches of rain we had fress fish stores to go to two pulp mills running saw mills everywhere the fishing was great the eel river ran so swift in the summer I parents would not even let us go in the water now the rain is gone away the fog is no longer here the fish are gone all but a few mills are running fisherman no longer can even make a living anyone that says it’s all bull shit is in denial I have lived here my entire life and things have not gotten better only worse it’s getting hoter every year dryer no rain for the rivers to flow or to replenish the ground water to much had been taken in a short amount of time there is no reverseimg the damage that’s been done

stuber
Guest
stuber
2 years ago
Reply to  stuber

First, we are not supposed to call each other names, like stupendous moron. And we did not even call the chic who wrote this any names. You admit birds are killed by the windmills. But statistics do not lie. Automobiles produce 68,000 tons of pollution a year, there are 170,000,000 of them. The container ships, cargo ships, cruise ships, 90,000 of them, produce 270,000,000 tons a year, or burn 7500 gallons of raw filthy oil, and hour. If we made our own stuff here, in the US, we could eliminate millions of tons of pollution a year. If we moved people out of the cities, and offered them the village lifestyle. Cities pollute way more than the village lifestyle. Of course, the communists in our politics now, with filthy Joe and Harris, want everyone off their lands, and into boxes in the city, where they can control us. They want our guns because the Chinese own them, like they own the NBA, and MLB, and know without guns, we are much more controlable. Fuck the CCP. We could be making our own clothing, electronics, car parts, tools, and everything else here, and shut down the commies, and their container ships. Are you willing to teach children these things, how to work with their hands, think, and shoot. We do. They hate windmills, solar panels, and love loggers. teach your children well.

thetallone
Guest
thetallone
2 years ago
Reply to  stuber

Unless you are proposing child labor, you are going to need immigrants if you want to do all that manufacturing in the good ol’ USA, ’cause they are the only ones who will take those jobs. Just sayin’. And you can try to indoctrinate your children well (regardless of your slant), but if you raise them right, they will have a mind of their own, and (oops) might reject some of that “training”. Just sayin’.

Bozo
Guest
Bozo
2 years ago

Oh boy. Ellen… excessive human population is the death penalty of the planet.

Lone Ranger
Guest
Lone Ranger
2 years ago
Reply to  Bozo

Covid tried to save the planet but we refuse to go.

Guest
Guest
Guest
2 years ago
Reply to  Lone Ranger

Unfortunately, so far, Covid targeted a non reproducing part of the population. Not a good try at all. Maybe those who see overpopulation should cheer lockdowns as a solution to overpopulation because less babies seem to be the result as of now. Along with increased deaths from other things related to isolation.

Guest
Guest
Guest
2 years ago

In a redwood forest wildlife flourishes when an area is clear cut and allows all manner of native plant species to thrive, feeding many more animals than the area was previously able to support.

You should be embarrassed
Guest
You should be embarrassed
2 years ago
Reply to  Guest

That is pure ignorance. Wind fallen trees and other natural events allow for this process, not clear cutting. Clear cutting results in soil erosion, invasive plants, and loss of biodiversity.

Guest
Guest
Guest
2 years ago

Depends on the trees. Old growth Redwoods themselves are not teeming with a variety of either animals or plants. It’s the riparian areas or bordering prairies that offer diversity. And large populations. Except for fungi and creek dwellers- there’s lots of that in the Redwoods. I think.

Thirdeye
Guest
Thirdeye
2 years ago
Reply to  Guest

True. Rare and endangered plant surveys on timberlands show most of their occurrence in disturbed areas. Shading out understory results in significantly reduced plant productivity and forage.

thetallone
Guest
thetallone
2 years ago
Reply to  Guest

Redwood forests have their own specialized biology. They don’t need to be converted to your idea of improvement. If you believe in God, maybe she planned it that way?

well . . .
Guest
well . . .
2 years ago

“The agent of this chaos is the still-increasing concentration of carbon-dioxide in earth’s atmosphere, caused by human activity.”

Not accurate. Habitat loss and over hunting/fishing are also major drivers of the current mass extinction event.

math says
Guest
math says
2 years ago

Based on the state of the planet, the USA should not export any lumber at all. Only finished wooden products such as furniture, toys ect.

well . . .
Guest
well . . .
2 years ago

“In fact it makes no sense to combine commercial timber harvesting and forest management into the same agency.”

This is what many people don’t understand. Logging is NOT fuels management.

The Real Brian
Guest
The Real Brian
2 years ago
Reply to  well . . .

That statement stuck out to me as well.

Sunshine
Guest
Sunshine
2 years ago

The logging companies would go bankrupt if they were to restore forest health. Forest soils are depleted and growing less quality wood. They would go bankrupt just cleaning up the fire hazards left from inadequate forest management. THP’s do not answer to citizens only to business interests.

Joe Mota
Guest
Joe Mota
2 years ago

This writer lost me with her claim that the rules that govern forestry haven’t changed in 50 years, which plainly displays that she knows nothing about the rules that govern forestry. Wondering why I would waste time reading an opinion from someone who obviously doesn’t know what she’s talking about, I didn’t bother with the rest of her diatribe. It would be as useful as listening to Trump prescribe raking as the cure for wildfires.

Alf
Guest
Alf
2 years ago

A whole lot of time wasted in useless thought influced by very flawed so called environmental reasoning. Total BS from start to finish.

JohnDoe
Guest
JohnDoe
2 years ago

Ellen… classic NIMBY [edit]. The problem is demand for wood. Would you rather we clearcut down the amazon or harvest sustainably here in CA?

Littlefoot
Guest
Littlefoot
2 years ago
Reply to  JohnDoe

Maybe the problem is the entitlement to wood.

Tim
Guest
Tim
2 years ago

While I can understand the sentiment put forth by the author, they are remarkably ill-informed on the subject. This is evident throughout but perhaps most clearly in the last sentence:

“And, let the industry instead invest in and market a different building material, one that doesn’t impose the death penalty on the planet.”

Using wood for construction is the only material that qualifies as both renewable and sustainable. Some like concrete are enormous producers of greenhouse gases while wood production actually sequesters carbon and when used in construction can remove carbon from the atmosphere for decades or centuries. No other building material has a smaller long-term impact on the earth than using wood correctly.

The comments in the letter about wildlife habitat demonstrate a similar disconnect with the science on wildlife conservation. There is no one type of perfect wildlife habitat — not even old-growth forests. That’s because different species require different habitat types. Appropriately done, harvesting forests can increase wildlife diversity and help maintain biodiversity goals.

Done incorrectly harvesting can do great harm and that’s the key behind writing rules and regulations like the California Forest Practices Act — to keep forest management and all of the associated ecological components sustainable. It isn’t perfect because no regulation ever is, which is why the rules continually evolve with new guidelines produced every year.

Thirdeye
Guest
Thirdeye
2 years ago

Condensed down, “blather blither blither blather,” with astounding egocentricity expressed in the reference to “my watershed.”

Among all the ignorance expressed, the ninth paragraph takes the cake. Photosynthetic productivity, and with it carbon sequestration, drops as stands age. Accumulated biomass decays and releases carbon dioxide, offsetting the uptake achieved with photosynthesis. If biomass isn’t isolated from the atmosphere, it’s not sequestered carbon. The only terrestrial environment where that occurs on any significant scale is anaerobic bogs.