For Immediate Distribution
29 January 2007
Redway, CA – January 2007
Institute for Sustainable Forestry (ISF)
ISF’s Recent Study Shows the Long-Term Financial Advantages of Community Forestry on Maxxam’s Scotia Pacific properties: Despite up-front costs, ecologically-responsible management returns higher economic rewards than industrial forestry model over 60 year period.
Much of the current debate surrounding Pacific Lumber Company (PL) and Scotia Pacific’s (Scopac) recent bankruptcy filing is focused on the funds extracted from the company and environmental considerations in elements of its Headwaters deal. This debate is a losing strategy for Humboldt County.
PL management takes the position that approval of key THPs by the California State Water Board (SWB) will provide access to additional inventory that will enable PL to sustain its operations and retire the company’s debt. Yet increased harvest of standing inventory on the Scopac properties will do nothing to increase the future yields necessary to make payments 10 or 20 years from now. This strategy is unsustainable in both environmental and economic terms.
In their efforts to defend the terms of the Headwaters agreement and the SWB’s rulings on PL THP’s environmental groups like BACH, EPIC and HWC take the position that PL’s financial difficulties arise from its highly leveraged financial position and profit taking by PL’s parent company Maxxam.
Both sides in the current debate express a commitment to long-term financial and environmental sustainability. Neither side articulates an economically and ecologically viable strategy to create a profitable and sustainable financial structure for PL properties.
It’s time for efforts to resolve this dispute to focus on creating the financial mechanisms, policy instruments and ownership structures that will enable new owners and investors, committed to conservation values as well as long-term productivity, to make the necessary financial commitments.
ISF’s “Limited Appraisal and Valuation of Scotia Pacific Timberland and Timber” (http://newforestry.org/council/FinancingSustainability.htm)
A recent study released by the non-profit Institute for Sustainable Forestry (ISF) makes it clear that neither the Community Forestry Model nor the Traditional Timber Management Model has the potential to retire PL’s current bonded debt over the next 30 years.
Figure 1: The difference in harvest revenues over time between traditional industrial forestry and the ecologically-responsible ‘community forestry’ model. (Click on the graph to enlarge).
ISF’s appraisal values the Scopac properties three different ways: it evaluates comparable sales of similar timber properties and it compares discounted cash flows based on traditional timber management as well as environmentally friendly “community forestry” standards.
ISF’s evaluation demonstrates the long-term financial advantages of an ecologically-responsible “Community Forest Management Model.” Using the Maxxam’s Scotia Pacific properties as a case study, forestry consultants at BBW Associates found that this balanced, environmentally-sensitive approach to forestry would generate $1.1 billion more income than traditional industrial timber management over a 60-year period, but will also require significant up-front capital investment to ensure fiscal sustainability over the first 20 years.
Managing Scopac properties based on community forestry standards offers significant benefits in both economic and ecological terms:
• Increased late seral stage stand conditions from 12% to 54% of the overall acreage in the first 30 years, 100% in 60 years.
• $3 billion in long-term debt-free income over the second 30 years – double the long-term income and local economic impact of the Traditional Timber Management Model in the same period.
• Steady increases in forest inventories and productivity throughout 60+ years that will position Scopac properties to maximize their biological capacity to meet a significant proportion of California’s lumber needs on an economically and environmentally sustainable long-term basis.
• Steady increases in the provision of ecosystem services throughout 60+ years including carbon storage, water quality and in-stream and upslope wildlife habitat.
However, strategies aimed at that rebuilding an economically and ecologically viable operation will require a reduction in harvest volumes, and income, over the next two decades.
Now is the time for efforts to resolve these issues to focus on creating the financial mechanisms, policy instruments and ownership structures that will enable new owners and investors, committed to conservation values as well as long-term productivity, to make the necessary financial commitments.
For further information contact ISF at 707-923-7004 or at http://www.newforestry.org/
ISF
PO Box 1580
Redway, CA 95560
contact@newforestry.org
34 comments
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January 30, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Steve Lewis
Here we go with more “politically correct” environmental bullshit from ISF. These people haven’t the foggiest idea of what constitutes sustainable forestry or ecological health of a forest. Yet they can fool the Progressives into believing that they are experts by shoving these voluminous studies at the liberal political public who, being naive to forest ecology, buy into it. ISF’s is just repeating the ecological errors of The Trees Foundation study done in the late 1990’s. In fact, I think there are Trees Foundation people on ISF staff.
Their analysis and recommendations all follow the politically correct but ecologically wrong forest management paradigm that old growth forest are the healthiest of forests. Both The Trees Foundation and ISF forest management goal is to reproduce old growth characteristics in Palco forests as quickly as possible.
What is left out of their public report is that old growth forests provide habitat do not provide habitat for all the forest creatures and plants that require real climax succession seral steps, not the last step, late seral conditions which only provide habitat for old growth species, the vastly smaller percentage of all forest animal and plant species.
In other words, ISF’s plan is guaranteed to reduce the species count on Palco forests as non-old growth dependent species are eliminated through loss of habitat. The ndns knew this for they were dependent on deer and elk which cannnot live in old growth forests as neither can the grasses that these grazers need. Why ISF doesn’t understand that light must reach the forest floor periodically to cleanse it, to provide living energy for the diverse species that follow the forest climax succession pattern of recovery from fire or in our times, commercial harvesting approximating fire “clearcuts”. Without these periodic breaks in the forest growth the old growth trees take over and reduce the species count all around. This is why Nature periodically burns the trees away so light can reach the forest floor.
Add to the species loss inherent in the ISF model, is the fact of loss of Global Warming counteraction which occurs with young vibrant new forest growth and not old growth. ISF doesn’t tell you that old growth forests do not take in anywhere near as much carbon from the atmosphere or do they release nearly as much oxygen in the photosynthesis process as young trees. You can see this for yourselves by looking at the volume of bright green new needles on young trees vs. old growth trees. Much more volume of photosynthesis happening in young forest. So, if we want to use our forests for combating Global Warming, we don’t lock them up as “carbon storage” old growth trees, we grow trees and cut them in rapid rotations and use as much wood as we possibly can. This helps remove carbon from the atmosphere whereas building up old growth forests that are steady-state carbon/oxygen consumers and producers removes one of Nature’s best ways of combatting over carbonization of the atmosphere.
But of course, this ecologically correct forest management paradigm plays right into the profits of commercial timber companies and therefore, outfits like ISF, manned by anti-commercial forestry people with a political ax to grind foist their politically correct plan onto us with all the “scientific” whistles and bells they can to snow the naive public.
Eric, you would do well to counterbalance ISF’s report with some statements by commercial forestry experts. Otherwise, this is just more pc propaganda.
Btw, ISF never did contact us at Heartlands and the above ideological difference is the reason. Heartlands remains the only financing plan around that can deal with the Maxxam debt load but you think progressive enviros will help ? Sparky and I aren’t holding our breaths for that one, that’s for sure.
January 30, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Eric V. Kirk
That must have taken some discipline Steve. You didn’t mention Heartlands until the very last paragraph!
January 30, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Anonymous
The unablogger, Steve Lewis, strikes again!
January 30, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Derchoadus
Hehehe!
January 30, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Steve Lewis
Make jokes at your own expense, dummies, because supporting the ISF plan is the fastest way to lose our redwoods to Global Warming as well as continuing economic destruction our Humboldt timber industry.
January 30, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Steve Lewis
The Heartlands Project is the very best plan ever produced to save all the remaining old-growth trees on PL lands, the very best plan for utilizing the forests to combat Global Warming, the very best plan for instituting truly sustainable forestry that does not drastically decrease the species count as the ISF plan does increasingly as more and more old-growth trees take up greater percentages of the forest, and lastly, the very best economic plan for the community that brings local ownership and control back to Palco, democratizing that ownership in the process by funding a Palco employee buy-out from Maxxam.
Progs won’t support ndns and their Heartlands Project when they threaten to take away the enviros’ icon of capitalist protest in Humboldt County. Political war against the capitalists means more to them than ecological wisdom or concern for Humboldt County workers.
January 30, 2007 at 8:57 pm
John Rogers
Steve,
I responded to several of the more obviously erroneous positions that you espoused regarding global warming and climate change the last time ISF posted information regarding the financial costs of meeting community standards in sustainable forest management. Please review those comments and check out the criteria for receiving carbon sequestration credits with the California Climate Action Registry.
We didn’t post a plan, we posted a comparative analysis of two cash flow scenarios. One based on a Community Forestry Model, the other based on a more Traditional Industrial Model. The cash flows were developed by a professional forestry consulting firm in Arcata, not by Trees or EPIC.
We wanted to emphasize is that:
1) meeting community standards is going to require upfront investments in conservation values in order to rebuild inventories, increase productivity, and meet community standards; and
2) traditional timber management practices will not generate enough income to pay down the existing ScoPac debt.
I did read through your Heartlands project info.
I didn’t sign on because you are talking about financing the acquisition, and funding the recovery period, with income from a casino.
While this is a creative approach, we are hopeful that responses can be developed that help to increase competitiveness for conservation forestry practices across the board.
Please read ISF’s Limited Appraisal and Valuation of Scotia Pacfic Timberland and Timber all the way through.
Thanks,
John
January 30, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Steve Lewis
John, all you got to do is address the fact that carbon sequestering as rationale for promoting old-growth characteristic forests is counter-productive to using our forests to combat Global Warming.
If you can show me statistics where old-growth forests sequester more carbon per acre than faster rotation forest management I’ll reverse my opinion. But you and I know that will never happen because using such statistics blows your whole analysis out of the water.
As does the fact that the more old-growth trees percentage-wise in a forest the less species count.
You guys do a lot of fancy footwork but its all based on bad forest science that leaves out the full climax succession pattern of differing stages, each one creating habitat for its particular range of species. Close off the light to the forest floor with old growth canopy and you reduce the species count as well as the forest’s health.
And you obviously did not read our Heartland plan because if you had you would know that the financing mechanism was based on a lottery system, not casino money. There was no casino at Bear River when the tribe sponsored our Heartlands Project. Lotteries are clean operations and have been used historically to finance large community projects that otherwise cannot find adequate funding, e.g our California school system.
Are you prejudiced against Native American stewardship of their own ancestral lands? You need to address this issue when you, like eric, discredit the NA plan for forest stewardship of a third of Scotia Pacific land, the rest to held in trust for Palco ESOP employees to own and manage in coordination with Bear River.
What can your plan do better than this solution that includes a feasible way to finance the buy out from Maxxam?
So, why aren’t you helping us?
January 30, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Anonymous
Steve, can you tell us again what university your B.S. in forestry is from? And what year did you get your RPF license? Where can I see your published research papers on successional stage forest ecotypes in North America?
Thanks.
January 30, 2007 at 10:34 pm
John Rogers
Steve,
We haven’t proposed a “plan”. We have done a valuation of the properties based on a discounted cash flow analysis of two options. There are, of course, other options.
We would like to help build consensus on forest practices and financial strategies that will keep existing working forests intact, increase productivity, increase conservation values and decrease divisive conflict.
It is imperative that we develop strategies that increase the competitiveness of forest practices and ownerships that meet community standards. We believe the failure to do so will result in the loss of intact working forests, their conservation value and the supply base for the industry.
I think you are right about there being an ideological divide in this community. What can be done to bridge it?
John
January 30, 2007 at 11:13 pm
John Rogers
I had intended to stop posting for the day, but this publication came in the mail and may contribute to a useful discussion:
Forests, Carbon and Climate Change: A Synthesis of Science Findings
http://www.oregonforests.org/media/pdf/CarbonRptFinal.pdf
The Oregon Forest Resources Institute
(OFRI) commissioned this book, a
synthesis of science findings on the
relationships between forests, atmospheric
carbon and climate change. While there is not
scientific consensus about all the causes and
implications of global climate change and the
role of human activities, there is agreement that
the relationships between forests and carbon,
carbon and climate, and climate and forests are
important and need to be better understood. It
is also clear that Oregon is a forest-rich state,
poised with opportunities for forests, forestry
and forest product enterprises to contribute
toward maintaining a livable climate.
This chapter in particular may be of interest:
CHAPTER 5. Forest Management Strategies for Carbon Storage –
Page 79
Best,
John
January 31, 2007 at 2:36 am
Steve Lewis
–John, all you got to do is address the fact that carbon sequestering as rationale for promoting old-growth characteristic forests is counter-productive to using our forests to combat Global Warming.
–If you can show me statistics where old-growth forests sequester more carbon per acre than faster rotation forest management I’ll reverse my opinion. But you and I know that will never happen because using such statistics blows your whole analysis out of the water.
–As does the fact that the more old-growth trees percentage-wise in a forest the less species count.
No, I don’t hold a forestry degree or a BS in biology but I don’t need to read someone’s “synthesis of scientific opinions” to know basic biology principles that must apply in forest management.
You can answer my questions or continue the snow job, it’s up to you. Real forest management starts with ecological reality, not political bias affecting the public’s right to know. Assuming the same size acreage, same climatic conditions, same species, same time period as your model uses, which sequesters more carbon dioxide and releases more oxygen in the photosynthesis process? Your forests managed for earliest old growth charactertics or trees on commercial timberland that are started from seedlings, thinned for maximum board feet increase of remaining trees, and harvested and replanted on a 60 year rotation schedule?
January 31, 2007 at 2:48 am
Steve Lewis
Before any of you jump to wrong conclusions, no, our Heartlands Bear River Timber Management Plan does not use a 60 year rotation model.
I’m willing to be proven wrong about the basic question I put to John but I’ve spent enough of my life around forests and educated myself enough to know the per acre volume of active carbon sequestering is being accomplished in young forests. You can see the difference for yourselves pretty easily around here. Most of those old growth mass is taken up by the trunk and branches of the tree with the “alive” portion of new needles where photosynthesis is doing the carbon scrubbing is relatively small compared to the tree and small compared to the same size area where younger trees are more crowded together and rapidly growing.
January 31, 2007 at 2:59 am
Steve Lewis
If you like looking at those grand old growth forests and don’t care about Global Warming,
if you don’t care about future generations perhaps not seeing those magnificent old growth forests because their dead and gone because the climate’s gotten to hot for their habitat needs,
if you think destroying corporate capitalist timber management is more important than these other considerations, then the ISF concept is the one for you.
This is your choice but for me, “ecological wisdom” as the supposed Green Party platform slogan goes, dictates a turn-around in paradigm thinking in the politicized environmentalist organizations such as we see with the ISF promotion of bad forest science.
January 31, 2007 at 3:12 am
Steve Lewis
Blogsters should check out Rose’s blog now for the stuff she’s digging up trying to follow the money trail funding enviro orgs.
Seen from her liberal Republican perspective, one can understand how she would assume a Leftist conspiracy that deliberately politicizes environmental information, i.e, censors any that doesn’t support the anti-corporate capitalist position and thereby compromises the validity of anything they say.
My example above with ISF promotion of a plan that promotes the wrong ecological goal because it is based on prejudiced environmental information–old growths= good–young trees= greedy corporate capitalists making money =bad.
January 31, 2007 at 3:19 am
Steve Lewis
I know, I’m back hogging the comments again here, but this topic is important to me, a long standing issue and part of many others that have separated me from local environmentalist organizations. If we could agree on basic biological principles in sustainable forest management, we’ve taken a major step towards cooperative community stewardship of our forests.
January 31, 2007 at 4:17 am
Anonymous
You almost had me till you mentioned Rose. Her shrill, frantic tone is off-putting. Any “investigative reporting” she may be doing is colored by her personal vendetta.
For example, her attacks on Baykeeper are over the top, in particular her attack on their logo. If you noticed, there’s only one comment on that post. That’s called being shunned.
Also, her other “articles” re: the same topics are not getting any comments from those who support what she’s tearing down. There’s no discussion possible with her. So I’m also shunning her because of that.
January 31, 2007 at 5:52 am
Anonymous
John 2:34 (Sounds Biblical)
RE: “What can be done to bridge it?”
A recognition that we are all here for many of the same reasons.
Except for the ideological extremists who come for a beach head….but even they like the beach.
Curious….isn’t it?
January 31, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Steve Lewis
Anon 8:17, you’re not reading her blog with an open mind. She’s a Republican and when she tracks down the money sources and sees the coordinated political agendas of radical enviro orgs, of course, she’s going to think there’s a Leftist conspiracy going on.
I myself tend to think it is more a matter of politically correct lemming syndrome where activists have so inundated themselves with anti-corporate capitalist propaganda that they automatically push the Leftist p.o.v., some not even aware of their biases, e.g, the ISF example above.
You can all watch now how ISF, Humboldt Watershed Council, EPIC, Humboldt Baykeepers, Humboldt Greens, HCDCC, all start pushing for an ISF type of resolution of the Palco bankruptcy situation. They’re doing it because they have convinced themselves the carbon sequestering in old growth “answers” Global Warming conditions but it is in fact a much less efficient means of reducing carbon in the atmosphere because it relies on old growth new growth which in mature trees only keeps them at a steady-state level of carbon/oxygen production, i.e., they aren’t doing anything to take out extra carbon.
The young forests do the vast majority of the work. Even in the Amazon the old growth trees are basically poles lifting jungle plants, vines and creepers up to the sunlight. It is all the accompanying fast growing vegetation that is doing the lion’s share of carbon scrubbing and oxygen releasing in the Amazon.
Here it is our young trees do the lion’s share but because this biological fact favors commercial forestry profits it is ignored by anti-corporate enviros. And we all therefore pay the price for politicized environmental activism which has already lost us thousands of old growth because enviros did not back the only feasible way to get Palco back in community hands–our Heartlands Project.
February 1, 2007 at 1:36 am
Steve Lewis
Yes, if you can’t answer my questions that debunk the basic premise behind ISF’s sequestering carbon in old growth trees, then perhaps you can answer eric’s diversionary damage control question so you can save face.
February 3, 2007 at 3:44 am
Anonymous
“A recent study released by the non-profit Institute for Sustainable Forestry (ISF) makes it clear that neither the Community Forestry Model nor the Traditional Timber Management Model has the potential to retire PL’s current bonded debt over the next 30 years.
“
That about says it all really.
It seemed pretty obvious that J. R. wrote the column.
The returns (losses) look horrible from a business POV. Sounds like you need to hope, pray and look to big philanthropy if you want to avoid something much less favorable than the community forestry model or the traditional timber management model.
BTW, the study was admirable, but only reinforces the obvious. ROI relegates commercial logging/timber stand management to a junk investment status.
On the other hand. If some very clever and creative brain cells got rubbed together just the right way you may figure a way to do what Weyerhauser and Plum Creek learned to do decades ago. Which was to combine real estate development with commercial timber land operations and in this case the community forestry model and develop a solution that yields very small compromises from the sustainability goals you seek.
That sounds like the best possible approach given the realities at play.
IMO.
February 3, 2007 at 7:33 pm
s
ISF’s “sustainability goals” are biased in favor of locking as much forest up in old growth as quickly as possible. That is counter-productive both to Global Warming conditions and timber industry economic viability We need an unbiased report before we really know the situation at Palco.
Letting enviros do a study is like letting Palco do a study–both parties cannot be trusted to give accurate information.
I wonder how many times I have to promote our Heartlands Project before anyone outside a few ndns hears? We have a financially feasible financing mechanism to buy out Palco, the only one around yet no one seems to care but about six or seven Bear River tribal members, one Pomo, and one white guy who’s retiring from the Project as soon as it gets funding and can pay salaries instead of everyone involved in Heartlands doing so voluntarily for years. We know how to get the money for a Palco buy-out but we need local backing or we can’t do it. Simple as that.
Enviros and Progs won’t help us because we don’t do their anti-corporate attack on Maxxam trip. Bear River won’t help us until the Bowman regime is gone which actually may be soon but, meanwhile, Palco goes bankrupt, the community has a great opportunity to restore local ownership and control to Pacific Lumber Co. and Heartlands is there waiting.
February 3, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Eric V. Kirk
There isn’t enough old growth left to have a serious impact on global warming one way or another. That’s a pure red herring.
February 4, 2007 at 2:30 am
Stephen
Your comment is the pure red herring trying to divert attention away from the glaring false basis of ISF conclusions that can only see carbon sequestering in old growth trees as a final solution. Please feel free to correct me, John, and eric, your second in the ring here as usual shoring up any Progressive washouts, but is not the recommendation of ISF for conversion of Palco lands to old growth characteristic forests as soon as possible their best-case scenario if they could figure out how to make it pay? The Trees Foundation and ISF share the same anti-corporate philosophy, even some of the same people, and they have politically biased themselves out of ecological reality re the role of old growth forests in maintaining sustainable and healthy forests. Global Warming, which they thought they could turn into another weapon against corporate timber companies is actually coming to the timber companies’ defense. But we will probably never hear any words of praise for the timber companies that have gone to short rotations that are producing the needed young forests that combat Global Warming best. Just as we won’t hear our local enviros ever give the needed advice now to grow more trees, cut more trees, build more wood buildings, use more wood everywhere we can, never recycle paper but use paper more paper, always putting used paper into landfills where the carbon again becomes stored in the ground and not released into the atmosphere. This is how you use our forests to combat Global Warming most effectively. Sequestering carbon in old growth trees is only a political gimmick being promoted by anti-corporate enviros who, as usual, cannot see the forest for trees, and will stand by and watch our planet heat up if helping corporate capitalist profits helps combat Global Warming.
February 5, 2007 at 1:00 am
John Rogers
Is not the recommendation of ISF for conversion of Palco lands to old growth characteristic forests as soon as possible their best-case scenario if they could figure out how to make it pay?
Nothing so doctrinaire. If Palco were a willing seller, management criteria would need to be developed by the coalition / partners that can actually put together the resources to make a credible offer.
The primary goal here is to get people working together to protect both the future supply base for the industry and the conservation values inherent in a well-managed forested landscape. We need to find solutions that minimize the divisiveness that has resulted in a litigious atmosphere and an unproductive regulatory deadlock. This conflict has cost the state, the environmental community and private owners millions. What we need is an effective strategy to keep California’s private forests economically viable in an increasingly competitive and global forest products industry.
ISF goals are to keep working forests intact and managed on a sustainable basis throughout the north coast. We support FSC criteria as a minimum standard. FSC criteria allow a fair amount of flexibility in management prescriptions depending on site specific conditions. (http://www.fscus.org/)
We chose the single tree selection prescription in part to emphasize one point:
There is a price tag for delaying harvests to rebuild inventories and meet community forestry standards.
We know that increasing rotation ages to 100 – 140 years will not recreate the old growth forests that are gone – nor will this generate the tight-grain quality so highly prized by woodworkers and secondary producers. However, allowing standing inventory to approach or exceed the culmination of mean annual increment will increase sawlog quality and substantially increase productivity (the volume produced per acre on an annual basis). Increasing the volume produced by California’s working forests will allow California to meet more of its own lumber consumption needs and maximize the level of timber and lumber related employment and economic activity within the state. (See the next post for more info.)
Keeping the openings necessary to encourage regeneration small will help reduce negative public reactions and perhaps keep tree sitters and lawsuits to a minimum without reducing overall productivity. From a business/investor perspective this promotes regulatory stability, reduces risk and minimizes overhead.
As far as carbon sequestration and storage goes, the solution to global warming is to stop polluting.
That said, the ability of forests to play a role in reducing carbon in the atmosphere could be one of several important tools. Perhaps more important from the perspective of working forest competitiveness is the potential for nascent carbon markets to actually provide income to forest managers who meet public demands for conservation values.
Carbon credits are based on the difference between the minimum carbon volumes stored under intensive management scenarios and the actual carbon volumes stored under less intensive management regimes. It is the longer rotations and higher standing inventories that can increase cash flow for managers.
That’s it for now…
February 5, 2007 at 1:09 am
John Rogers
FYI…
Extended rotations and culmination age of coast Douglas-fir: old studies speak to current issues.
Curtis, Robert O. 1995. PNW-RP-485.
Summary:
Trends of mean annual increment and periodic annual increment were examined in 17 long-term thinning studies in Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii(Mirb.) Franco) in western Washington, western Oregon, and British Columbia.
Maximum ages were about 90 years on high sites to 117 years on a low site. Problems in evaluating growth trends and culmination ages are discussed. None of the stands had clearly reached culmination of mean annual increment, although some seemed close. Periodic annual increments declined only slowly. Culmination has not yet been observed in systematically thinned stands that are relatively free from damage. The observed trends seem generally consistent with some other recent comparisons. Extended rotations combined with increased use of thinning are promising components of any strategy to reduce conflicts between timber production and other forest values. These comparisons indicate that rotations can be considerably extended without reducing long-term timber production; value production probably would increase. A major problem in such a strategy is design of thinning regimes that can maintain a reasonable level of timber flow during the transition period while producing stand conditions compatible with other management objectives. Several examples of drastic thinnings seem promising. The continuing value of long-term permanent plot studies is emphasized.
February 5, 2007 at 1:35 am
John Rogers
anon 7:44
Thanks for your comment. We have made some efforts to get “creative brain cells” rubbing together.
In October of 2005 we hosted a well attended workshop in Eureka on financing forestland acquisitions. We focused the discussion on a shared goal: Maintain Healthy and Productive Working Forests on the North Coast. Representatives of Palco, EPIC, the Sierra Club, Simpson, the Board of Forestry, and Save the Redwoods all attended. PDFs of the presentations made at the workshop are available here.
We do recognize the contribution that limited and appropriate development can play in generating realistic acquisition/management scenarios.
We note however that this strategy cannot be used repeatedly without fragmenting the forested land base — reducing the likelihood of future harvests, and minimizing conservation values.
Step by step…
February 5, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Steve Lewis
John, this is your “answer”?
“As far as carbon sequestration and storage goes, the solution to global warming is to stop polluting.”
This isn’t an answer at all to my criticism which still is very valid that ISF isn’t facing biological fact but is basing its recommendations on politics.
Of course we need to stop polluting but we also need to use what Nature has given us to combat Global Warming and that is young forests which are natural atmospheric carbon scrubbers and oxygen releasers, doing the job far better than any equivalent acreage of old-growth forests. You refuse to address this point because it makes your ISF recommendations of favoring old-growth pointless in terms of combating Global Warming.
No mention of carbon-oxygen role of old-growth vs. young trees. It’s all politics based on the status quo where enviros keep the public unaware of the true carbon cleaning ability of young forests. You are part of that enviro cover-up by not even addressing the issue.
“Keeping the openings necessary to encourage regeneration small will help reduce negative public reactions and perhaps keep tree sitters and lawsuits to a minimum without reducing overall productivity. From a business/investor perspective this promotes regulatory stability, reduces risk and minimizes overhead.”
In other words, tree sitters are here to stay and continuing lawsuits by EPIC/HWC are part of your scenario for Palco’s future.
“Carbon credits are based on the difference between the minimum carbon volumes stored under intensive management scenarios and the actual carbon volumes stored under less intensive management regimes. It is the longer rotations and higher standing inventories that can increase cash flow for managers.”
“Increase cash flow for managers”..sounds like a sales plan for Maxxam stockholders but it ain’t sound forestry practice as it guarantees taking away tens of thousands of acres of potential carbon scrubbing trees from our ability to combat Global Warming.
Your recommendations are politically based, i.e., they are based on continuing the snow job of environmental activists that lobbies for, demonsrates for, lawsuits for, old growth trees. You assume this bad forestry policy is here to stay.
Isn’t your outfit’s job to educate the public on forestry management?
Isn’t it your responsibility to present the true biological picture of forestry that can be used to help combat Global Warming?
February 6, 2007 at 1:00 am
Steve Lewis
If our climate heats up more, there won’t be any conifer forests except digger pines here ISF to sustain. The redwood and fir forests will be replaced by oaks and other drier climate adapted trees. It’s happened before. Our ancient redwood groves are relatively young–not there 7000 years ago. It can happen again. Why not use our forest to help stop this while also bringing back economic life into our depressed timber economy?
ISF can play a part in helping to join together the different players in the timber management arena but only if ISF basis its findings on biology and not ideology.
February 6, 2007 at 6:43 pm
John Rogers
Longer rotations will increase both on-site storage and, depending on product life cycles, off-site storage as increased productivity results in increased harvests.
—————-
—————-
Forests, Carbon and Climate Change: A Synthesis of Science Findings
http://www.oregonforests.org/media/pdf/CarbonRptFinal.pdf
In the forest management context it is often easier to estimate the net change in carbon stock than individual flows of carbon (e.g., photosynthesis and respiration).
A gain in on-site carbon stores indicates carbon is being removed from the atmosphere, whereas a loss in on-site stores indicates carbon is being added to the atmosphere and in case of harvest – transferred off-site.
Page 87
Forest Management and Carbon Storage: Pacific Northwest Forests
The potential for carbon storage in the forests of the Pacific Northwest is among the highest in the world because the major dominant tree species (Douglas-fir) is very long-lived and maintains high growth rates for a very long time compared to other regions (Smithwick et al., 2002). Hence, protecting the remaining oldgrowth, creating additional protected areas, and using longer rotations may be more effective for increasing carbon storage on land than in other forest regions. Timber harvest in this region over the last 100 years has decreased carbon stores in forests (Harmon et al., 1990). For example, between 1953 and 1993 carbon stores in live forest biomass declined by 206 million tons or by 13% (Melson 2004, in review). The extent of this decrease has been a function of ownership with declines higher on private industrial (24%) than federally owned lands (7%). Thus, areas with more frequent harvests are storing less carbon on-site than those with less frequent disturbances. Total carbon stores on forest land across all ownerships also appeared to decrease in western Oregon during the 1972-2002 period, although the rate of decline is predictably slowing as the transition from natural disturbance regime to a more intensively managed one comes to an end (Cohen et al. 1996, Wallin et al., in review).
There is considerable potential to increase onsite carbon stores in the region by altering management. Because the time to field-test various management systems is prohibitively long, simulation models are used to assess how various forest management alternatives will perform. STANDCARB is a simulation model that accounts for the regeneration, growth, death, decomposition, and disturbance of forest stands (Harmon and Marks, 2003). The types of carbon accounted for in this model include live (broken into various parts such as leaves, branches, stems, and roots), dead (all the types of live parts that have died), and stable (soil) pools. Disturbances include windthrow, insects, fire, and timber harvest (including salvage of dead wood). Simulation experiments with the STANDCARB model, using parameters for Douglas-fir and western hemlock typical of the Oregon Cascades, indicated that forests protected from fire stored the greatest amount (93% of the maximum) of carbon at the landscape level and agricultural fields stored the least (15% of the maximum) (Harmon and Marks 2003). Conversion of old-growth forests to any other management or disturbance regime resulted in a net loss of carbon on-site, whereas conversion of agricultural systems to forest systems had the opposite effect.
Based on the model’s results, the three factors most crucial in developing an optimum on-site carbon storage system are, in order of increasing importance; (1) amount of detritus removed by slash burning, (2) amount of live mass harvested, and (3) rotation length (Figure 5). Carbon stores increased as rotation length increased, but decreased as the fraction of trees harvested and detritus removed increased. The effects of continuous-cover forestry depend on many factors, including the intensity and frequency of thinnings, and the growth response of the remaining tree stand. As the use of partial harvest expands and the long-term effects are studied, the impact on carbon stores will become clearer. The simulations with STANDCARB indicated that partial harvest and minimal fire use may provide as many forest products as the traditional clearcut and broadcast burn system while maintaining higher carbon stores on-site.
In conclusion, forest management cannot fully solve the problem of carbon accumulation in the atmosphere (and no other individual sector can). However, measures in forestry and other types of land management can contribute significantly to the solution. Over the course of 50 years, reduced deforestation, reforestation, afforestation and other measures could provide a cumulative sequestration of 25 billion metric tons of carbon globally. This is similar to the effect of doubling the current global nuclear power generation capacity or doubling the fuel economy of cars (Pacala and Socolow 2004). Increased carbon storage on land, in combination with a host of emission reduction measures, can help reduce and even end the ongoing rise of carbon concentration in the atmosphere.
February 6, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Anonymous
Re-inventing Management of Western Forests in the Face of Climate Change: Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies
City of Arcata 2007 Forest Lecture Series- March 2, 2007 at 6 P.M.
The public is invited to attend the City of Arcata 2007 Forest Lecture Series featuring a presentation, Re-inventing Management of Western Forests in the Face of Climate Change: Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies by Dr. Constance Millar, Research Paleoecologist, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Sierra Nevada Research Center, Albany, California.
Millar currently studies the response of subalpine forests in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin to historic and current climate change. In 1992 she was nominated as a PEW Scholar for Conservation and the Environment. Millar is a leading organizer and co-director of the consortium, CIRMOUNT (Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains), an interdisciplinary science initiative dedicated to understanding climate, ecosystem response to climate, and effects of climate on natural resources and resource management in the mountains of western North America. Millar received her PH.D in Genetics and M.S. in Wildland Resources Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She also holds a B.S. in Forest Science from the University of Washington.
Meet at the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center, 569 South G Street on March 2, 2007 at 6 p.m. For more information call the City of Arcata, Environmental Services Department at 822-8184.
Snacks provided!
For additional information please contact:
Mark André, Director Environmental Services: 822-8184
February 6, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Steve Lewis
John, what’s it take for you to learn some basic biology? Young trees are the ones taking out the greatest percentage of carbon out of the atmosphere. Not old-growth trees. And storage of carbon in old-growth trees is minimal compared to carbon storage in young forests, cut on fast rotations where the wood product is used in wood buildings, wood furniture, etc. and paper that is never burned but recycled into the ground in landfills. Your concept promotes old-growth trees as the main carbon storage mechanism. Well, that’s just ignoring the reality of promoting young forests doing far greater carbon scrubbing when they are cut, the wood used, replanted, and cut again, and again, not only storing carbon far more efficiently but giving our timber economy a value its never had before which will greatly help revitalize it. Your concept guarantees our forests will be pretty to look at but economically unviable for many many years. Plus the species count will inevitably go down with your old-growth promotion concept. A lose-lose scenario vs. a win-win one with our forests being used to combat Global Warming.
February 6, 2007 at 9:12 pm
John Rogers
Old growth vs young growth is a false dichotomy.
Doug fir and redwood in the 100-140 age range are at their peak productivity — at or near CMAI.
I’ve provided enough links for you to do your homework and the math.
February 6, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Steve Lewis
John, all you’ve done is cut and paste reports that have nothing to do with efficiency of carbon storage. You’ve done nothing to address this issue that I posed from the beginning of this discussion.
Doug fir and redwood trees at 100-140 years of age in stands of equal acreage with young doug firs and young redwood trees that have gone through two rotations in the same time period are going to be vastly outstripping the old trees in their ability to sequester carbon. This is accomplished not by carbon storage in the trees left to go to late seral stage but by humans taking the stored carbon as boards and wood products and creating more social wealth with it building the physical infrastructures that house our needs. By purposely ignoring the human factor, your study is deliberately biased towards maintaining the fiction that old growth tree carbon sequestering is the best strategy for forest management. It most definitely is not the best strategy for a Global Warming scenario.
It’s time you take your own advice and start doing the math and homework which validates my position as it debunks yours as politically biased enviro propaganda.