Washington’s Department of Natural Resources recently proposed to increase trust land timber harvest, engendering much fact and fiction.
At statehood, Washington received several million acres of forestland for specific beneficiaries, such as schools, colleges and universities, and the state’s counties. Over time other forestlands were added to the pool, creating a 2.1-million-acre timberland asset held in trust for specific beneficiaries. The state’s enabling act, as well as trust law, upheld by the state Supreme Court, mandates that the primary obligation of the trust managers is maximize income for the trust beneficiaries.
Over the next decade, these lands will return up to 2 billion non-tax dollars to trust beneficiaries and create family wage jobs that people count on. But some citizens condemn DNR because they believe the agency makes money from trees at the environment’s expense. This claim needs examination.
* Myth: DNR plans to double timber harvest. Fact: DNR proposes to increase Western Washington’s sustainable forest harvest target by less than 20 percent. Experts generally agree this is a conservative increase, borne out by data that show the average age of trust forests will increase over the next 70 years. If DNR were over-cutting its forests, they would get younger instead of older.
* Myth: DNR plans will harm fish and wildlife. Fact: DNR has a 70- to 100-year Habitat Conservation Plan, approved by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which requires unprecedented fish and wildlife protection. Both government and independent experts forecast no substantive negative impacts on fish and wildlife. In fact, fish and wildlife will benefit from the HCP.
* Myth: DNR plans to cut all its old growth. Fact: The commissioner of public lands has announced that the DNR will preserve remaining old growth forest and reimburse trust beneficiaries as required by law. DNR will manage other forests to produce and retain attributes associated with older forests.
DNR will manage some forests with variable density thinnings that mimic old growth forests. Other harvests will be larger, creating substantial openings used by deer, elk, bear and other small animals, which eat berries and young shrubs. Predators, such as cougar, bear, bobcat and the northern spotted owl feed on the critters that need open areas. DNR’s timberlands are providing, and will continue to provide, good homes for fish and wildlife.
Much has been written about the northern spotted owl. Environmentalists use the owl as a symbol to argue against cutting trees. Rural communities were decimated by related timber harvest restrictions related to the spotted owl. Biologists struggle to understand owl population changes.
Severe weather in 1998-99 killed many owls. Insect infestations and wildfires reduced the eastern Cascades’ owl habitat. But the big factor is a barred owl invasion, pushing into Washington and Oregon, and pushing out the spotted owl. The barred owl is adaptable to many habitats and food sources; it is aggressive, and will interbreed with the spotted owl, producing normally sterile offspring.
The northern spotted owl may be doomed regardless of what we humans do to protect it. That doesn’t mean we ignore our responsibilities to protect the owl, but we must do it with the understanding that the spotted owl may go extinct through totally natural events, over which we humans have no control.
DNR approached the “owl problem” with owl circles, which is compatible with the agency’s intent of emphasizing owl protection near federal lands, an action reviewed and approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Owl circles, large swaths of land, are the old protection of choice. However, they are cumbersome and not terribly effective, and DNR is now going a different direction. The agency’s owl circles will be phased out over the next several years, in favor of a landscape management approach that will provide more habitat over a wider land base. This allows for greater timber management activities, which provide suitable owl habitat in younger forests, a good deal for both owls and trust beneficiaries.
This fortuitous situation did not happen by accident. DNR land managers worked closely for several years with biologists from DNR, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop land management standards and owl protection measures. It is a tribute to the forestry and wildlife professionals who set aside their own interests – and prejudices – to accomplish a goal of greater timber production with more fish and wildlife habitat. That accomplishment deserves to be praised.
DNR is about to adopt its new sustained harvest alternative, which protects fish and wildlife while producing non-tax revenue for schools, counties, hospitals and multiple public needs. The agency has gone the extra mile to write a plan that produces revenue while not trashing the environment. DNR must get on with the job and adopt the new plan.
Ron Smith represents the fourth generation in his family to work in the forest products industry in the Northwest. He is a professional forest engineer and president of Buse Timber &Sales in Everett.
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