Is there hope......

[Zundapp]

I 'm just venting some frustration, so take this how ever you will.

In the time I've worked in the timber industry, things sure have changed. I know that's normal, its always been that way, but with every change things seem to get worse. 30 years ago,( to you old timers 30 don't look that long, but thats the window I'm looking thru) Things looked real rozey. Plenty of wood, prices were up, Then, Wham!!! The big recession hit. Followed by a 4 year slump. Things gradually got better. Prices weren't that good, but progress was steady & the wood was still there. There was a good even balanced harvest between State, National & private lands. Conservation practices were better than they'd ever been, solid reforestation programs were in place. The woods were growing at a faster rate then they were being harvested. Most mills were being upgraded, some new ones were even being built to replace the ones that went down in the slump. Logging practices had improved greatly. Noone was getting rich, but everyone was making a good living. There was real balance, things looked real promising.
  Then the enviromentalist began to creep in. Started to contest just about every timber sale the USFS put up. They kept it up untill the harvest of the National forest has come practically to an end. Caused a shortage of logs followed by a glut. State & private lands had to take up the slack.
  Now, I've always tried to do things right by the land. Always strove to leave each stand better than I found it. Took pains to remove the junk & only harvest minium amount of stems for the good of the stand in hopes to come back in 10 or so years & do the same thing over again. It really hurts to see land owners, who really seemed to care about their land,turn around and have some big outfit come in & strip it, desroying everything left. I've seen this happen to a good many pieces I've taken pains to " do it right " on.
  Meantime, while most of the private land is being striped to the minimum the State will allow, The National forest sets untouched, full of bug infestations & decease. Badly in nead of being logged. Rather then that, they've opted to manage with fire!!!! Right now They're in the process of creating a 200' buffer around all USFS land so they can burn it. It makes me sick to think about. Has the world gone mad? Where in all this is there any hope?

[Ron Wenrich]

In my corner of the world, federal land is non-existent.  My area is primarily privately owned, with some state game lands and state forest lands thrown in. 

Back when I was doing consulting work, I worked pretty much like you.  Each cutting was geared as an improvement cut.  We would thin the junk, improve spacing, and put in openings for reproduction.  We were geared for an uneven management regime.  I still see small loggers doing this type of work.

Then comes the big behemoth mill doing 50 MMbf of hardwoods.  They need large amounts of wood.  So, they hire a bunch of foresters who have no training.  They give them paint cans and put them on quota and say they need a 30% overrun.  Logging crews are also put on quota.  Produce or move on.

So, the management practices turn from removing the junk, to diameter limit cuts and leaving the junk.  The foresters in this company eventually moved into the consulting business and their marking practices are still the same.  We also have a bunch of consultants that couldn't find a job in the business, so they just became consultants.  No experience necessary.

In the past 35 years, I've seen the average diameter of logs get greatly reduced.  This means that the production costs for the logger and the sawmill has increased.  Where we used to consider a 26" tree as mature, its now been pushed back to 18", some areas even less.

We're still growing more than we're cutting.  But, the species with the greatest amount of growth continue to be what we consider junk species. 

[Rocky_Ranger]

I'm trying, I done it in the Pacific Northwest, I done it in the Rockies, and I'm doing it now down south.  Get involved with the public land managers, let them know you don't like where they are leading your lands into bug or disease infested conditions.  We're cutting just shy of 35 million board feet here on this district this year.  Last year (I wasn't here then) they cut zero.  I was in the Rockies, where one large mill is left in the whole state of Colorado and can pay what they want – when they want for stumpage.  I had over 5,000 acres ready to harvest (NEPA complete) and we were pecking away at it but the bugs are currently eating up way more than they are salvaging.  No competition for the logs, check out some of the news around Breckenridge or Vail Colorado.  Disaster!  I tried to tell folks years before the mountain pine beetle problem got so bad that the bug epidemic was coming.  I was an outsider then (still am) but what I said has come to pass (one time I wouldn't have cared to be wrong).   Challenge those in charge, don't put up with excuses.   

[Zundapp]

In this area the USFS controls more than half the timber lands. Roughly- USFS 60%- DNR ( State) 20% & Private Owned ( including large timber companys & indian land )- 20%. Most  State & Private land has been hit so hard it'll take years to recover enough to be a viable soure of timber. There's an abundunce of timber on federal land, but they're gonna burn that. I must say, the enviromentalists have done their work well. Unless things change with the situation with the federal land. I done see much of a future for the industry in this area.

[Rocky_Ranger]

We're in the 70-85% Federal lands (USFS) depending on which county we are talking about.  We have an aggressive timber processing/mills industry.  We do lots of burning, but burn to clean up the mess, not to kill trees for the heck of it.  And, you are correct, the environmental movement does their homework, gathers lots of money, and are a formidable group to deal with.  But, they are only one group.  We are growing way more than we are cutting, and we are cutting to enhance a fire-adapted ecosystem.  Goes hand in hand, fits like a glove, etc.  A pretty good place to be right now to be engaged in aggressive resource management.....

[Zundapp]

Rocky Ranger

I commend you for trying to do whats "right", & I personaly thank for your efforts. Understand, that I'm not condeming those that work for the USFS that strive to do whats right. I fully understand that these decisions are made much higher up. I also know that many in the USFS would prefer to see these lands logged but know its fruitless to go through all the time & expence to lay it out for a timber sale only to have it contested. Something has to be done & managing with fire seems to be the only alternative the environmentalists will agree to. My main question is, why, oh why do they seem to always have the final say anymore in how the National Forest is managed! I've yet to see any of these proposals on the ballet. These are Public Lands for crying out loud. Why doesn't the majority of the public get to have more say in these decisions. I write letters, there is a coalition in the area I plan to become a part of thats trying to mediate between said partys, but I don't see any changes forthcoming in the near future. Do you think there will be, before its to late. 

[Rocky_Ranger]

You bet there is hope.  What you are attempting to do is a step in the right direction.  I too have a problem with some in the USFS that think we are a National Park - our own employees.  I'm not a big proponent of making folks move around but without being exposed to different ways of thinking and doing, we can get complacent and think the prevailing operations are the way things supposed to be.  Some of the blame is inward, it's easier to accept than bow up and try to change.  Too many USFS won't get off their be-hinds and affect change.   I wish we were required to watch The Greatest Good every month to see why we are in business to start with.  Become active, form groups, talk it up every chance you get from the  morning coffee shop to letters to the editors.  I'm also a big fan of finding common ground with the groups opposed to logging and all sides can learn form those encounters.  My style of management has come from those types of collaborative discussions.......

[Texas Ranger]

Glad to see you back in the house, Rocky

[Rocky_Ranger]

I lurk here quite often but am usually so dog-gone busy I don't take the time to post much.  Just when things grab hold of my attention.  I turn some of my energy toward "Treehugger" to try and enlighten those folks on the virtues of good forest management.  Snix has been either busy or hiding for a spell, but somebody has to watch and see what that guy is up to also.  I do the "Google Forestry", Retired FS Employees Breaking News, FSEEE, and NewWest Daily for trying to keep abreast of the news.  That and some of my old haunts in the Rockies newspapers and outlets in Denver.

[Larry]

Hey Rocky...did ya get to go camping with the Rainbow Family last week? ;D :D ;D :D ;D

It looks like maybe the USFS has turned a corner and making progress.  Keep up the fight.

[Rocky_Ranger]

Naw, I like to rough it more than them sissy's was doing  :D  I don't think I was needed up in them parts anyway, Waaayyy too many hippies and folks with no clothes on..... We did provide some regular rain for bathing though.  I've had over 18 inches here in the past 30 days.

[Ron Scott]

On July 12, the Reno Gazette Journal ran an article titled Nevada senators press for better use of federal fire dollars, written by Erica Werner.

Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign complained Wednesday that money they've obtained for use in the Tahoe Basin is being held up by bureaucratic red tape. If more of it had been spent on brush clearing and fuel reduction, some of the devastation of last month's Tahoe fire could have been prevented, they said.  "We worked hard to get this money. ... we expected the money to be spent," Reid told reporters after the senators met with U.S. Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell.

Partly to blame, according to Kimbell and the two senators, are rules around Lake Tahoe that are meant to protect the lake but end up restricting where trees can be cut and brush cleared.  "There are restrictions about mechanical use, there are restrictions about diameter of different trees that might be removed, and there are restrictions that are very specific about how you manage riparian areas along water courses," Kimbell said.  "Some of those treatments, in order to effect them, would be prohibitively expensive, and still any treatment needs to have the necessary approvals," she said.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency that administers some of the restrictions has come under angry criticism after a blaze destroyed 254 homes and other buildings across about 5 square miles and displaced about 3,500 people late last month. Some residents say the agency overstepped its mission of protecting the lake by imposing unwieldy rules on homeowners including even limiting where residents can rake pine needles.

Last week Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Jim Gibbons of Nevada agreed to form a panel to determine whether the policies contributed to the fire's ferocity.

Some of those policies may have prevented money targeted for the Tahoe Basin under the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act from being efficiently doled out and spent, according to Reid and Ensign.  The law, which auctions off public land in southern Nevada and uses the proceeds for a variety of public uses, has sent $22.5 million to the U.S. Forest Service for use in the Tahoe Basin since 2005, but only $12 million of that has been spent, according to Kent Connaughton, the Forest Service's associate deputy chief.

"We wanted to find out from the Forest Service about what type of bureaucratic rules can we change to make sure the money is able to be spent in an efficient fashion to reduce the fuels at Lake Tahoe and the Tahoe Basin," said Ensign.  Kimbell promised to report to the senators on progress with fuels reduction at Tahoe. Officials agree that without the clearing of trees, brush and other fuel that did occur in the area, the fire would have been much worse. Uncleared areas "served as a wick for the fire and caused the fire to spread into areas that it might not have, had that riparian area been treated similarly to the upland slopes," Kimbell said.  

The 3,100-acre fire, attributed to an illegal campfire, was declared 100 percent contained July 2.

[Rocky_Ranger]

Yep, I agree.  We waste too much $ and time on trying to get to the point of doing the job in the first place.  And, every time Congress tries to fix the problem it ends up putting us in the middle of the guaranteed fight over what effect are we after.  NEPA has long been on the books and we are finally recognizing the best way to eliminate conflicts is to sit down at the table with environmentalists and talk.  Some of the CE's we now have help, but the Courts rule against us most of the time.  Not really for bad science but judges who are easily persuaded with smoke and mirrors.

[Phorester]

Forests, no matter who the owner, need to be managed according to good biology and not administrative decree.

The very biodiversity that pseudo-enironmental groups wax poetic over should clue them in that every forest is different, every hillside in that forest is different, every stream bottom at the base of that hillside is different, every tree species is different. They cannot be managed by a rigid set of rules and regulations and have an environmentally sound forest resource.  They need to be managed according to biology.

Get out of the courts and let the professional resource managers make the management recommendations, not the lawyers.   Get the politicians out of the management decisions.  Get the gov't. bureaucrats in all levels of gov't. agencies out of the on-the-ground decision making process.  That's why they hire biologists and foresters.  Let them do their job and back them up.

[Cedarman]

I just had a chance to read this topic. To Zundapps post I think the key phrase I have read so far is that "we are growing more than we are cutting". Whenever the supply goes up, prices go down.  The net effect of recycling paper and using fewer trees is that down the road we will have fewer trees.  Who wants to plant new stands of trees if it is not economically viable to do so? So things are down right now.

We are in a cycle now where mills have went out of business because of government and environmental rules change lowering demand for logs.

Natural forces run their course.  Humans can have an uncanny abiltity to forget the "law of unintended consequences".  They have in their "minds eye" what they envision will happen when they make the rules, but they cannot forsee future events.

Now that corn is being turned into ethanol on an unprecedented scale, it will be very interesting to watch what happens.  With all the extra corn being grown, will corn prices stay high, will soybean prices go ballistic because less beans are grown, will cereal prices go higher? (only a few pennies of a box of cereal is actual grain cost)
I don't think we know because of all the interconnectedness of the situation.
Same applies to forestry. 

[crtreedude]

There is an ebb and flow to business. For example, you don't go to school to be a teacher when the market is screaming for teachers - you go to school to be a teacher because everyone says there are too many teachers. You can't be a teacher overnight, and you can't grow a tree overnight.

Back in 1997 here in Costa Rica there was a very aggressive program of planting trees (and many scams around them) - most of these plantations are very poor quality.

Now, there are very few people planting trees. Because of this, the price of wood is going up rapidly.

[Rocky_Ranger]

The other two posts above this one hit the proverbial nail on the head.  Cycles of grain supply and demand will be influenced by speculation as much as anything.  Poor crop, price goes up.  Demand high, price goes up.  Think you have the market figured out, wait a month......I'm very optimistic for continuing swings, mostly positive, in forestry.  Competition with Canada is fierce right now for lumber but our pulp and chip market is pretty strong.  Will it get worse - yep, will it get better - yep.

[Larry O]

 Those of us that live and work near the Lake Tahoe Basin have dealt with the worst agency I have ever seen T.R.P.A.  They have grown to a self run ,penalty funded, group of experts that are now above the local planning and buildind dept's . The killer was in 7-06 I had a sign in my truck window "FOR SALE" and I was told by a  TRPA employee driving a goverment truck that if I left that sign visible from Hwy. 50 it was a $50 fine  . I did anyway and I feel for the the folks who followed the ( laws ) and lost there homes,  sad state here

[Cedarman]

Larry O, what country do you live in?  We have soldiers dying so we can be free from tyrany.