10/6/2003
KUFM / KGPR
T. M. Power
Making Sense Out of “Zero (Commercial) Cut” on Public Forestlands
In the debate over how to manage our public forests, many timber industry
officials, political leaders, and newspaper and other media commentators have asserted
that irrational environmental obstructionists have been mindlessly shutting down the
Forest Service’s commercial timber program. These environmental critics often point to
the “zero cut” objective espoused by many of environmental organizations to document
that obstructionist objective. These folks, we are told, want to keep any trees from being
cut down on public lands. Even on lands that already have extensive lumber road
networks in place, where timber has been harvested for decades, and where new
commercially designed plantations of young trees are already maturing, these
environmentalists want to stop timber harvests. What sense does that make?
I will leave those environmental organizations to speak for themselves. But there
is a logic to a narrower version of the zero cut position, namely that commerciallymotivated timber harvests should not be taking place on federal lands.
The social logic behind that position is implicit in the widespread recognition,
acknowledged in our law and regulations, that our public forestlands produce a wide
variety of valuable goods and services, only some of which are commercial in nature. In
the past this was described in terms of “multiple-use,” but today most recognize that that
emphasis on “use” is too narrow. We now talk about forest health and the
environmental services that natural forestlands provide to on-site visitors as well as
surrounding communities.
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The list of the environmental services provided by natural forestlands is lengthy,
including wildlife habitat, watershed services, biodiversity, soil stability, climate
stabilization, fisheries, recreation opportunities, scenic beauty, and open space. Most of
these are non-commercial in character. Of course those forestlands can also provide
commercial opportunities to timber, livestock, mineral, and recreation businesses. The
source of the conflict over forest management policy has been the appropriate balance
between the pursuit of commercial objectives and the pursuit of the non-commercial
environmental services objectives.
Between 1950 and 1990, our forest managers acted on the presumption that
they could pursue the commercial and non-commercial objectives simultaneously. They
told us that huge sprawling clearcuts not only were the most profitable way to harvest
trees but that those clearcuts were also good for the forest since they mimicked natural
fires. We were told that the clearcuts would also boost water production, allow superior
tree stocks to be grown, create more habitat for wildlife, and, through the road system,
open more and more of the National Forests to recreation. The commercially motivated
clearcut, they asserted, was really a multiple-use tool.
Since almost all of the commercial and non-commercial objectives were said to
coincide, no choices had to be made between them; no tradeoffs were necessary; there
were free lunches to be had by all. Unfortunately, this simply was not the case. A naïve
or cynical “conspiracy of optimism” simply obscured the fact that the commercial
objectives were being allowed to trump the non-commercial, to the serious detriment of
the forests.
This same naïve position is being asserted today as we discuss forest health and
hazardous forest fuels reduction programs. Timber interests tell us that commercial
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timber sales are also forest fire reduction and forest health programs. This is
emphatically not the case. The prescription for a profitable timber sale involves taking
the older, larger, and less flammable trees and leaving the branches, tops, and needles
as well as the smaller, more flammable trees and brush. The prescription for a more
stable, less fire-prone forest is to leave the older, commercially valuable trees, and
remove the smaller trees and brush, much of which has no commercial value.
Pursuing one of these objectives necessarily requires that the pursuit of the other
objective be at least partially abandoned. Tradeoffs have to be made. There are
unavoidable costs associated with those choices. Pretending otherwise is dishonest and
dangerous.
A century of growing population, the commercial or residential
development of almost all private land, and the harsh treatment of industrial timberlands
have also caused a shift in the role people think public lands should play. Those lands
are increasingly seen as preserves where commercial and development pressures can
be held at bay so that some part of our natural landscapes can be permanently
managed for non-commercial purposes. This is not to say that timber would not or
should not be harvested, only that the motivation behind the harvest should not be
commercial in character. Only harvests justified by other noncommercial objectives
such as community safety, true forest restoration, or wildlife, would take place.
There is nothing obstructionist about such a position. It is a forward-looking vision
that seeks to preserve for future generations some of that natural forest values that we
have all enjoyed in our lifetimes.
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