From Land Letter Northwest, by Natalie M. Henry
When foresters on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southwest Washington originally started planning the Smooth Juniper timber sale in 1999, the forest had hit an all-time low in timber production because of litigation by environmental groups, convincing the Forest Service to shelve the controversial sale. But in the last two years, a coalition of interest groups have revived the Smooth Juniper sale by finding common ground.
In 2003, environmentalists, the timber industry, labor representatives and local citizens banded together to form the Gifford Pinchot Collaborative Working Group. The group's first major accomplishment has been to pull the Smooth Juniper sale off the shelf and redraft it in a way everyone could approve.
"Since 2003, [environmental groups] have been very clear, and the collaborative working group has too, about what types of projects we support and which ones breed a lot of controversy. And [on the Gifford Pinchot] the Forest Service has really embraced that paradigm shift and said that their management activities will focus on restoring forest health instead of just extracting timber," said Regan Smith of the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance.
"The district had put a lot of work into Smooth Juniper, but initially it faced opposition," said Dave Olson, interim ranger for the Cowlitz Valley District of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. "The collaborative group not only helped transform a controversial project, it helped save a sale and all the work that had gone into it."
As part of the National Environmental Policy Act process that requires the Forest Service to develop a series of different alternatives for each proposed timber sale, the group developed an additional alternative that the service eventually chose and finalized earlier this month. The group changed the sale from a primarily extractive cut to a thinning project that aims to make previously clearcut stands that were replanted with a thick monoculture of Douglas fir into a more complex, natural forest with a variety of species that will support wildlife and be spacious enough to allow light to reach the understory, making trees grow larger, faster.
"We basically turned it from an extractive timber sale to a restorative thinning sale, so it still has commercial value. ... However, the objectives are to restore the remaining stands," Smith said.
The volume went down from 8 million board feet (mmbf) to 5.2 mmbf, but the sale was approved quickly and without opposition. The group eliminated all logging in roadless areas and old-growth stands and then designed innovative thinning operations to make the forest function more like an older forest supporting rare and endangered wildlife, such as northern spotted owls. In addition, the group ensured unneeded roads would be removed after logging to avoid harming threatened salmon runs in the Cowlitz River watershed.
Since most of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest is formally designated under the Northwest Forest Plan as an adaptive management area, the group was able to put together a comprehensive monitoring plan for the Smooth Juniper sale to see if thinning produces the desired effects or has negative consequences.
"The collaborative process worked. We were able to get timber out in an environmentally responsible way, and we succeeded in avoiding appeals that plague controversial timber sales. It's a win, win, win," said John Squires, a Packwood, Wash., resident and member of the working group.
The sale is also significant in that it will produce 5.2 mmbf from only 400 acres, according to Bob Guenther, president of the local Thurston-Lewis Central Labor Council and member of the working group. The Cowlitz Valley Ranger District alone contains 11,000 acres of previously clearcut, plantation-style monocultures that need thinning and restoration.
"If one 400-acre sale produces over 5 mmbf, think of how much could come from 11,000 acres thinned over many years. It's enough to make locals feel like it might be worth hiring another crew member or buying another tractor," Guenther said.
A local tourism group, Destination Packwood, also supports the sale and applauds the efforts of the group to bring together former adversaries.
"Those of us who were initially on opposite sides of the forest management spectrum realized that we didn't have to compromise our ideals to reach our goals. We discovered we actually have an incredible amount of common ground," said Maree Lerchen, president of Destination Packwood.
The group is working on other timber sales that it is developing from start to finish, according to Smith, who said efforts on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest can serve as a model for other forests in the region.
"I think the Gifford Pinchot National Forest is one of the leaders," Smith said.
At least one other national forest in the region, the Siuslaw in southwest Oregon, is also getting the cut out with environmentalists' support, namely through thinning and restoration, Smith said. And others are on their way, like the Umpqua National Forest in western Oregon, she said. But many others are still finding their timber sales mired in controversy, Smith said, noting specifically the timber salvage sales that are part of the Biscuit Fire restoration project in southern Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest.
"Nothing's moving forward, and it's just perpetuating this idea of the timber wars. It's really unhealthy, and it's a waste of taxpayer money. And up here, what we're really proud of is we've identified the common ground and we're moving forward and we're not seeing all the acrimony and waste of money that you see in other areas," Smith said.
Squires added that the working group is creating a model that the Forest Service can use elsewhere. "We learned how difficult it can be to balance competing interests, but in the end we found a noncontroversial model of how to do that, and we hope the Forest Service will utilize this model from now on," he said.
The appeals period for the Smooth Juniper sale ended earlier this month, and the service is still deciding when to offer the sale.
