position statements: active management to achieve and maintain healthy forests
position
The Oregon Society of American Foresters supports active forest management prescribed by professional foresters to achieve and maintain healthy forests, consistent with land management objectives. To accomplish this, a wide range of proven forest management strategies and tools should be available to professional foresters. These include carefully planned uses of forest thinning (sometimes removing trees over a wide range of sizes and ages), approved chemicals (e.g., fertilizers and pesticides), prescribed burning, salvage of designated dead and dying trees, regeneration harvest (e.g., clearcutting, shelterwood, selection) and mixed species planting. Efficient implementation of active forest management requires good access with forest roads and a minimum of inflexible, blanket restrictions. Many federal forests in Oregon now have an especially acute and long-term need for active management with diverse strategies and tools, including the access and administrative flexibility necessary to effectively expand and maintain such management.
issue
An important, ongoing challenge for professional foresters is to achieve and maintain healthy forests. This challenge includes debate about the definition of forest health, which is often based on personal or group values and management objectives. Among professional foresters one widely accepted definition of "good" forest health is that it is a condition where biotic and abiotic influences on the forest (e.g., pests, weather, silvicultural treatments, and harvesting practices) do not threaten current or future resource management objectives or options. Natural events like wildfires, wind, diseases, and insects are important factors in a healthy forest ecosystem. The original native forests in Oregon were shaped significantly by these events.
However, a century of fire exclusion and more recent reductions in active management, especially on federal lands, have resulted in large areas of forests with overstocked, very dense structures and unusual species mixtures near or beyond the extreme range of natural conditions. The consequences of these changes have been increased pest infestations and large wildfires that are far more severe and damaging than what was common historically. The economic and environmental impacts and the human health and safety risks from these extreme disturbances are significant, and our growing population and diverse forest uses make such impacts and risks widely unacceptable.
Many tools can help professional foresters achieve and maintain healthy forests, but use of these tools may be significantly restricted by existing resource policies or inaccurate perceptions and concerns of the interested public. These tools include well-proven and scientifically based practices such as prescribed fire, use of pesticides, thinning, salvage harvesting and regeneration harvest (Oregon SAF 2003). Even with improved polices and implementation, the wide success of newer management programs for forest health will not be evident for many years, as both the problems and solutions can be decades in the making.
background
Years of disease, insect infestations, and past management policies and practices have resulted in large areas of forests that are at high risk from severe wildfires and further insect and disease epidemics. These problems are especially severe on federal lands in central, eastern and southern Oregon, where many forests are overstocked and the western spruce budworm and Douglas-fir tussock moth have defoliated many Douglas-fir, spruce, and true fir. Although defoliation alone may not kill trees, these and other pests (e.g., fir engravers, Douglas-fir bark beetles) have put millions of acres of forest under stress and at high risk of catastrophic fires. In western Oregon, overstocking has resulted in significant mortality by bark beetles. Conversion of natural spruce-hemlock forests to Douglas-fir near the Oregon Coast may have contributed to an unprecedented outbreak of Swiss needle cast, resulting in overall growth loss of 25 percent. With large increases in national and global travel and trade that provide efficient vectors, invasive and exotic pest species are growing concerns as forest health problems.
Recent wildfires in the West have been unusually intense and damaging to important resource values like wildlife and fish, some of which are listed as threatened or endangered species. In the last decade, the nation experienced three of the worst fire seasons on record including the largest fire in Oregon since the Civil War, the Biscuit Fire. With the persistence of very limited active forest management in many areas, fuel loads have built up and can be expected to continue and grow further, greatly increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfire.
In the past, foresters often prescribed heavy thinning, clearcutting or salvage of unhealthy or dead trees to control the spread of pests, harvest wood fiber for useful products, and regenerate new forests. More recently, conflicting policies and controversies over management tools, commercial harvest, and cutting of larger trees on public lands have greatly restricted the ability of agencies to manage unhealthy forests. In addition to increasing the risk of further damage to affected forests, such restrictions have increased the risk of catastrophic losses in adjacent healthy forests, both public and private. Altered funding formulas and reduced budgets and professional staffing also have limited the ability of agencies to plan and implement both pre-commercial and commercial thinning and other treatments to address forest health concerns, despite the growing need for such work. Newer policies and funding limitations have created additional barriers to active management by reducing access through road closures or inflexible blanket restrictions.
Oregon's forests are resilient and dynamic, and disturbances play an important role in maintaining their health and unique attributes. However, passive management that relies primarily on natural disturbance entails serious risks to the wide range of continuous benefits that Oregonians demand from their forests, from wildlife habitat to wood products to recreation opportunities. These benefits can be best achieved and sustained through active management for healthy forests. Although active management can have some short-term impacts and cannot eliminate all forest health or wildfire hazards, a substantial and growing body of research and professional experience shows that it can produce much more reliable and positive results than a passive management approach.
Professional foresters, in collaboration with other natural resource specialists, need the flexibility to prescribe and use a broad range of proven, science-based methods for preventing and treating forest health problems. When tailored to each unique, local situation, such flexibility allows highly effective, economical and environmentally sound practices to be implemented. These positive outcomes can help ensure that Oregon's healthy forests will be maintained and those that are currently unhealthy will be substantially improved.
selected references
Edmonds, R.L., J.K., Agee, and R.I. Gara. 2000. Forest health and protection. First Edition, McGraw-Hill Co., San Francisco, CA. 630p.
Fitzgerald, S.A. (ed.) 2002. Fire in Oregon's forests: risks, effects, and treatment options. Oregon Forest Resources Institute, Portland, OR. 164p.
Kanaskie, A., D. Overhulser and M. Williams. Forest health in Oregon - 1999 (pdf). Oregon Dept. Forestry, Salem. 9p.
Oester, P.T., S.A. Fitzgerald, W.H. Emmingham, A. Campbell III, and G.M. Filip. 1992. Forest health in eastern Oregon (pdf). EC 1413. Oregon State Univ. Extension Service, Corvallis. 6p.
Oregon Dept. Forestry. Undated. Thanks for asking about...forest health (pdf). Oregon Dept. Forestry, Salem. 1p.
Oregon SAF. 2003. Position statements. Oregon Society of American Foresters.
SAF. 1997. Forest health and productivity: A perspective of the forestry profession. Society of American Foresters. Bethesda, MD. Summary.
Wickman, B.D. 1992. Forest health in the Blue Mountains: the influence of insects and diseases. USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-295, Portland, OR. 15p.
Adopted by the Oregon Society of American Foresters (OSAF) Executive Committee on September 19, 2003. This statement will expire September 19, 2008 unless after thorough review it is renewed by the OSAF.