An interesting observation from an attendee at a meeting on the Medicine Bow National Forest (that may or may not have been “public”):
“During the meeting, the forest service representatives discussed a plan from Washington, D.C., to harvest more trees in national forests…”
Things do get lost in translation from meetings to attendees, to reporters, to print, but does anyone know anything more about this “plan from Washington, D. C.?”
Considering the fact that the national forests are now harvesting 8% of the annual growth from their unmanaged, unhealthy, over dense, aging,timber stands while 68% of the growth dies and forest-dependent communities far exceed the national poverty level, let us pray that there is indeed a plan to harvest more timber from our public lands.
A quote from Sonny Perdue, Sec. of Ag. “State and local officials … value the forestlands in their communities,” Perdue says. “The good neighbor authority ought to be more than just a slogan. We truly want to be partners.”
The Shasta-Trinity National Forest has told us of a new Timber harvest target that they will implement. Being a member of the Trinity Collaborative, which just celebrated its 5th year, we have worked with our local forest managers in deciding priorities through Program of Work meetings. We were just told at our last meeting that some new, unvetted projects that will help meet the new Washington DC timber harvest mandate will now have top priority over a Community wildfire protection plan that’s been on the Program of Work since 2013. Top-down mandated timber levels that ignore local input is what brought us the Spotted Owl controversy due to unsustainable harvest levels in the past. After 5 years of working through the Trinity Collaborative, this new development seems to be taking us in the wrong direction and the quote from Sec. Perdue does seem to be just sloganeering.
There is always an effort to increase the amount harvested. I think it has been 3.2 billion board feet nationally for the last several years (and the FS has come close but has not been able to do quite get there), and for FY18 the amount is higher than 3.2 billion (can’t recall off the top of my head what it is).