Hello again and welcome to The County
Seat, I'm Chad Booth. The last few
weeks have seen several fires flare up
around the state, four of them are
burning now as we tape this show. We
have seen homes destroyed and
watersheds affected, similar to last year.
The difference is that this season has
started much earlier.
The popular notion is that a climatic
changes have brought on a drought that
has rendered the forest more vulnerable
to burning. But to assume that logic is to
see only part of the story, as it is the
condition and density of the forest that
dictates how wide a fire will spread. So
let's start by learning about the different
theories for running a forest. Here is Ria.
So here is a question for you what is the life
cycle of a forest? In other words. How long
does it take a forest to grow from seedlings to
old growth trees? Well it depends upon three
factors.
1 is the species of the tree. As an example, a
Cottonwood tree grows much faster than a
Douglas fir.
2nd is the climate, trees on the coast region might
grow to maturity up to 40 years faster than the
same species of trees near us in the Rocky
Mountains.
And the third and most important fact is how you
raise the forest.
Let's look at three models for managing a forest.
First is the hands off method, or Mother Nature
method.
Untouched, a forest will go from fire to fire ready
in an average cycle of about 180 years. (This is an
average, the number will change substantially by
virtue of the primary species. By the time it
reaches maturity it will be old, prone to disease,
overly dense and ready to burn again.
This method is a brutal way to manage the eco
system of a forest. It has negative impacts on
watershed, wildlife, and for a short period of time
air quality.
The second system is the European model. This is
how most forests in Europe are managed. In this
model, the cycle begins when large tracts of trees
are clear cut harvested and new seedling planted
to restart the growth cycle. This produces whole
sections of forests with trees of a single species
that are all about the same age and thinned to
allow for maximum growth. When they are at
maturity, they are all cut down and replanted and
the entire cycle starts again.
The third system is the Selective Treatment
Harvest Method. This method many believe is the
best for sustainability. It mixes species of trees
along with shrubs and grasses and mixes them in
different densities with stands of trees of
different ages. The idea of this method is to keep
about 40 seed bearing trees per acre in any given
stand and harvest the rest. The landscape is
mixture of open space and stands of trees. This
serves the domestic and wildlife habitat, and
gives the trees a survivability buffer between
stands in case of insect infestation or fire. Under
the Selective Treatment model the stands are
checked about every 25 years and selectively
thinned to maintain the best 40 seed bearing
trees in the stand and make sure that one species
does not become dominant over another. The
Selective Treatment Harvest Model can shorten
the seedling to mature tree cycle by up to 40
years and leave the section healthy through the
entire cycle. In this model, the soil stays anchored
and provides cover and forage for the rest of the
ecosystem, with no catastrophic episodes like
clear cutting or fire to critically disrupt the
ecosystem. The separated stands act as an
insurance agent against catastrophic fire and
insect invasions while providing a steady supply of
useable fiber that can be commercially used to
better our lives as building material, fuel and
cellulose fiber which can be used in many
applications.
Western Forests could be considered as the
treasure of the west and the forest lands the bank
that holds them. They are beautiful to look at, and
a renewable resource to make rural economies
diverse and self-sustaining. But as with any
treasure in there are villains trying to get at them.
Fire, if not applied properly, can be the bank
robber, that wipes the treasure out all at once,
and disease is the embezzler who slowly steals
the wealth one tree at a time. A sound
stewardship plan is like the bank guard and the
auditor who can keep the treasure safe. All we
need to do is find a way to make good
stewardship make sense for the nation, the local
communities and the trees. Chad has some ideas
on that coming up in our discussion. For the
County Seat, I'm Ria Rossi Booth.
Welcome back to the County seat. Our topic
today is taking a look at different ways to
manage forests there's been some talk and
there've been some comparisons about different
entities on public lands and how they work and
within a kind of blend that into a concept that is
really been pioneered in part by Kane County
Commissioner Jim Matson, who has a long and
extensive background in forestry, so Jim thank
you for taking the time to join us today. We had
a current Forrester/consultant who was
supposed to be with us today, but he had
last-minute health issues that stopped him from
joining us were going to carry on without him.
So, I will try to play devil's advocate for some of
the things that Tom talked about that didn't quite
align with yours, but we'll get into a
conversation.
Okay.
So, let's start right with the title you're talking
about forest stewardship's. Explain that concept.
And also coupled with community forest
stewardship, you know, so we were going to do
is couple if we can are forest and landscapes
with those communities that are in and around
and adjacent to these large forest tracks they
are the direct beneficiaries today and they also
ought to have a role in what the direction is as
we go ahead and manage towards healthy
forests in a sustainable fashion.
There would be some people who would argue
that if you clear-cut an area you scarred its
natural beauty and so it seems to me that the
argument really is about aesthetics that the
environmental and recreational community say
well we just don't want that forest mowed down.
So, what is your answer to that?
Let's say that I was a 25 or 30-year-old Forrester
and I was given the track of let's say 80,000
acres to manage. In a career in a 30 to 40-year
career I could change the character the structure
and the nature of that whole forest stand, and
you wouldn't know it at the end of that 40-year
period.
How would I not know it. I mean some people
would say well how dare you think that you
should change. Mother nature.
If you can go in there in such a way and remove
the trees that in one sense or another are either
out of phase or not contributing to the overall
picture. But what I'm saying is that you could do
it in such a way that most of us are just
windshield observers. And as you drive to and
through the forest over a decade or two decades
or three decades that forest character can
change. If you don't see it. But if you have a
large area that's been cut over or clear-cut as
you had said earlier right away you know what's
happening to it. But a large fire is as devastating
as a big clear-cut. So, we've got to deal with the
natural presence of that forest it's forest
structure and what it's contributing.
Okay, so let's an example of this let's look at
West Yellowstone okay the Yellowstone fire was
a game changer for public lands and they said,
were going to let it burn. It's going to be natural
were not going to fight it and it wiped out that
Paul stand of lodgepole pines it used to basically
drive through a lodgepole tunnel until you got to
the Madison River Junction and then it was all
gone. Nothing but cinders and even some of the
tree trunks within a period of two or three years
toppled over and you just had barren landscape.
It's now been what 35 or 40 years sense that fire
what was that 87 or something like that.
Yeah, its 30+ yes.
30+ years and you just now are at a point where
you have what I would call a young maturing
forest you don't have any tall trees, none there
are probably 60 or 70 trees per acre. And there's
other growth in their but trees are starting to
become predominant in that landscape again
but not tall. Okay, if you're talking about this
community stewardship program or where
somebody is selectively trying to maintain it.
How different is his project look then that one?
I think when you have those kind of disruptive
structural changes you're going to be able to tell
it and notice that over time but let's say that we
decided that we are going to harvest with a
group selection approach to it, and so we are
taking a look at this clump of trees and its age
and its structure and then this one. And then this
one were to say basically we want to be able to
take and move this mosaic around over time and
you thin it out so that you always have a forest in
canopy over top. But they will be so many trees
per acre. Whether it's 20 or 80 at any one stage
or the other but as you remove the curial you
take material out that has commercial value. It
helps pay for the process and you don't have to
go to the bank of the Potomac to borrow money.
Do you think it's self-sustainable with the cost of
maintaining the forest because of the product
pulled out is going to equal the cost to maintain
it?
Absolutely. And it was going on before until we
got tied up into these neepa battles over the
NGOs and their approach to wanting to be able
to determine outcomes and what happens. We
stalled the whole thing out.
And so, explain how that process worked, what
happened there?
There was an approach of storage management
forest did areas that would say that in a given
period of time that the removals would equal
let's see 10, 15,000,000 feet per year. And if you
kept that up on a steady schedule and it should
be less than millions of board feet per year. But
more about acres treated and the objectives that
were going to put in on the ground for the
watersheds and the tree species that are there
then we would be looking at the means by which
how do we then make those selections and do it
in a fashion so that the courts and the neepa
challenges don't unnecessarily, the appeals and
lawsuits choke it down.
So how different is that doing this community
stewardship program. How is that different than
just doing timber sales to achieve that goal
through the forest service?
I think when you hang a commercial label on it.
It naturally takes on an air of skepticism as
opposed to something that would say the
beneficiaries of this are the families that
communities that are in and around that need
tourism that need that would material and need
to have jobs for their people and the way that
you that is to just say basically you have working
circles. And here's another working circle and in
those areas there. They need to determine a
forest management approach that whether it's
going to be a selective harvest or it's going to be
even eight harvest or whatever it takes. And
then you say this is what we're going to offer but
you are also going to say to that that particular
community you come up with your family
stewards that are going to live there and they're
going to take on these contracts and these jobs
to do this thing. There is a working model for this
right now and it's called grazing. This simply
mirrors that same approach so as to whether
you have four or five contract entities, or you
have one large or one mill they would be
responsible for going out and making an
assessment and then making an offer back to
the forests and say, were going to do X in this
period of time, and we will pay you this for it.
And so, they would actually be paying for the
process. Kind of like when they would do timber
sales except that it would be over a longer
period of time?
Over a. Of time that there would be annual
increments based on what's removed and that
would be to some prescription that actually
enhances the situation so that you don't end up
with a forest that's standing ready to collapse
either through a insect attack and/or fire.
So, what does a healthy forest look like?
Well, that's a good one because to me it has
several age classes and it. Scattered around on
it. You might even have two or three different
species but you look up in the crowns and you
can tell because they're all cone shaped but
they're topped off and flat and no full age that
particular forest is going through a phase where
it's going to eventually drop per collapse.
Really?
Yes
so, to get that cone shape the trees. If I'm
guessing they need light. And so, you've got
have them thin enough that they can fill out at
the bottom and create that cone shape at the top
of the trees.
And moisture and some trees need more shade
than others other tree species need more
sunlight, so you get a mixture of that as you go
along through that.
Does it have open space in the middle of it?
It sure does and it sure can and sure should and
an edge in the interior and then at a particular
point in time when it's restocked so that it goes
from that say having any thing from 80 to 100
trees per acre as its thins itself out. You're
probably going to end up with a net number of
trees out there somewhere around 40 and that
acre has enough moisture and enough sunlight
and other conditions that allows it with its own
productivity to grow up over that period of time.
And then it goes on into something that can be
18 and 24 and 36 inches in diameter and 82 150
feet tall.
And then you pull those trees out and.
Selectively.
Selectively and so you've got, you've basically
have within a 60 or 70-acre area a little bit of
everything?
Yes, in actuality what you want to do is have it in
such a condition so that you don't have fuel
ladders from the littlest trees to the next size
trees so that when the ground fire comes
through the grass. It goes right to the top, so you
need breaks in their so that it does not do that,
and you have time to react to a ground fire those
are all things that contribute to that particular
mosaic as you select for those conditions over
150 to 200-year period, you know the problem is
we don't live to be 300 years old.
Right.
We look at it through the eyes of what we see
right now today without realizing that there's
other conditions coming. So that's the
opportunity that's out there.
So, do you think that a lot of this environmental
meandering into land policy has to do with the
fact that weird looking at a lifecycle that's 300
years and were trying to interpret into 70?
Or 20 to 70 years or whatever the case may be,
yes, I think is we are if you will shortsighted
without knowing what the and result could
possibly be.
One last question. If this community forest
stewardship program had been in place 10 to 12
years ago with the outcome of the steed sawmill
in Escalante been different?
Yes, and the one in beaver M would still be able
to keep the one in Panguitch functioning as we
look ahead at this yes you still. You see, instead
of having people knocking heads over a
1500-acre tract or a 2000-acre tract you would
say basically all right we're going to talk about
working circles and it's going to have so many
acres and so much standing forest capacity that
needs so much activity and so much work. We
want you to give us a proposal for a 20-year
period. And when that period is defined then you
write a contract and then you write the
processes by which it's carried out and then the
removals are balanced on that and then the
payments start to take place.
And then the forest service still has some
oversight capacity to make sure that the
standards of what it supposed to look like at the
end of the 20 years is what they envisioned.
Absolutely, and once again they have a working
model for this now in their livestock grazing
programs.
Okay.
With a UN's and operators.
It's a fascinating concept, I hope people listen.
I do to were going to work on it.
Thanks Jim for taking the time.
You bet.
Thank you for joining us, will be back right now
and we will take a look a little closer to what
healthy versus unhealthy versus burnt looks like
here on the County seat will be right back.
Welcome back to The County Seat. WE
were only able to air about 12 minutes of
our conversation on "Community
Stewardships", If you can get the time to
catch the entire 24 minute conversation
it is an excellent investment in time and
understanding of the issue.
One of the things that was hard for Jim
to convey in our conversation is what a
healthy forest is supposed to look like; as
opposed to what we think It should look
like; and what it does look like (up close)
after a fire. So prior to our in studio
discussion Commissioner Matson took us
out on the ground to see for ourselves,
first hand.
Best conditions we could have in here would be
tree densities that typically do not exceed sixty
trees per acre as a result of the crowns
interlocking and the material on the ground the
fire that would start on the downhill side or on
the south west side would roll through here at a
very fast clip during drought and dry conditions
that would be anywhere from five to ten miles
an hour. The condition we are going to look at
next is in a managed stand where its full size
trees which has less trees per acre and the
crowns are not interlocking and if anything they
contribute to openness and therefore wouldn't
have a crown fire that would start at the ground
level and sweep right to the top and then right
across the landscape.
As we continue to stroll along we can see that
the older bigger trees that were taken out in
the previous harvest are represented by these
stumps.
This stand in this area has probably had three
total entries up until the current time it's had a
thinning operation in here where they have
thinned it out trying to obtain somewhere in
the neighborhood of sixty trees per acre.
You do not see a fuel ladder situation here
where you have lots of little trees that stair step
themselves up to about twenty feet tall. So if
you have a ground fire or some kind of event
like that in this particular stand it's not likely it
will take the whole thing out and you are able
to get on top of it before the fire takes it all
completely out. Overall I would give this
particular stand an A I think it's in good shape
This is the shingle fire it's about six years old
I'ts man caused it started off at one of these
canyon points to the south of us. I think overall
when you look at this you can see the clumps of
this biased on the area we were before this is
much the same situation with the black jack
ponderosa pine intermediate size tree making
up so many clumps. If we had previous
treatments in here we wouldn't have had near
the losses we have had so as a result it's just
kind of like take care of it now or you will have
to take care of it later. It requires activity and
forest management
I will be back with some closing thoughts
in just a minute.
Welcome back to The County Seat. As
discussions and ideas were floating back
and forth between Commissioner
Matson, Forest expert Tom Quigley and
myself, regarding this episode, there was
some concern about equating
Community Stewardship agreements to
grazing allotments, although they would
work in a very similar fashion. For the
most part grazing allotments are a win-
win proposition as the BLM gets
someone else to bear the cost and
responsibility to keep the range in good
health and they in turn can make a few
dollars by running cattle to keep the
grass in check. But somehow, if the
private sector makes a cent off of
government land, the popular thought is
that it is a rip off to the American Public.
This is a silly notion, but it is pervasive in
federal land management. Remove the
grazing leases, and the range will still
have to be treated to keep wild grasses,
forbes and junipers from running amok,
except instead of getting paid, the U.S.
Treasury has to pay out. The same is
true with the forest: heaven forbid you
could let anyone remove fiber from the
forest before it has rotted past any
commercial value and you have to pay a
contractor to dispose of it. This same
thinking can be applied to horses, drilling
and a host of other activities that have a
viable private sector value that would
allow Uncle Sam to get some cash back
from Mother Nature. But to many, such
folly should be criminal.
We have to rethink how we perceive the
resources (particularly the renewable
ones) we have on our public lands and
find a way for the land to be self-
sustaining, and the cost of getting there
to be the same (self-sustaining) . That is
my two cents worth for today, thanks for
joining us. Please help us go and grow by
following us on YouTube and Facebook
and sharing our posts with your friends.
Thanks for watching, and we will see you
next week, on The County Seat.
an hour. The condition we are going to look at
have a crown fire that would start at the ground
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