Month: November 2011

Study Examines Health Benefits of National Forests

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Here’s the link.

Outdoor recreation requires effective management and protection of the natural spaces where things like biking, camping, hiking and hunting are done. Sound like a no-brainer? The U.S. Forest Service wanted some research to back it up anyway – just in case.

Hence its recent study of how national forests contribute to the public health. The results were published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Forestry under the title, “A National Assessment of Physical Activity in US National Forests.”

Authored by Jeffrey Kline, Randall Rosenberger and Eric White, the study used as its starting point growing national concern about problems associated with inactivity, such as chronic disease and obesity. It then looked at a number of physical activities people do in national forests and estimated the energy they expend while doing them.

The authors concluded, “National forest contributions to physical activity among the American public likely are significant and could be enhanced with continued and targeted investments in recreation infrastructure and public outreach,” according to an abstract.

Here’s a link to the study.

California Snowmobile Lawsuit

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From the Redding Record-Searchlight here.

For the time being, north state snowmobilers won’t have to worry about the U.S. Forest Service limiting where they can ride, even as a lawsuit challenging the recreational activity makes it way through federal court.

On Nov. 3, the Snowlands Network, Winter Wildlands Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity filed a civil suit in federal court challenging whether the U.S. Forest Service has adequately studied the potential harms snowmobiling causes California’s forests. The groups allege snowmobiles are sources of toxic emissions, water and noise pollution, they disturb winter animals and damage snow-covered foliage. The suit also alleges snowmobiles are a nuisance for those who enjoy winter “nonmotorized recreation” like cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. The suit notes several members of the environmental groups are among those “seeking quiet recreation.”

“Due to the adverse impacts of snowmobiles, other governmental agencies that have extensively studied snowmobile impacts — such as Yellowstone National Park — have imposed restrictions on the types and number of snowmobiles allowed, and severely limited the areas in which they may be used,” according to the groups’ complaint. “The Forest Service has not taken comparable action.”

John Heil, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region, said Monday forest administrators won’t make any changes to how snowmobile riders access or use public lands while the suit is pending.

He declined to talk about the suit, saying the Forest Service doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation.

The suit was condemned by at least one local snowmobile rider, Sylvia Milligan, the former north region director of California-Nevada Snowmobile Association. The Anderson woman called the suit “frivolous.”

Milligan also is chairwoman of the Recreation Outdoor Coalition, a group that had challenged potential restrictions to off-highway vehicles on federal forest land.

She said snowmobile riders are a responsible group who ride machines that have limits on how much noise they can make and the amount of emissions they release. She said the state recently performed its own environmental reviews and found no problems.

“They couldn’t sue against it (the state),” Milligan said. “Now, they’re trying to sue the Forest Service.”

Milligan notes her fellow riders have tried to foster positive relationships with snowshoers and skiers, many of whom enjoy trekking on the groomed snowmobile trails and the ungroomed paths the snowmobiles pack down.

“We try so hard to get along with these folks,” she said.

There are 260 miles of groomed and ungroomed snowmobile trails on three national forests near Mt. Shasta. The primary access point for snowmobilers in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is on the Pilgrim Creek Road outside of McCloud.

The suit says there are more than 1,700 miles of groomed snowmobile trails on California’s national forests, providing snowmobile riders access to more than 8.3 million acres, a vastly larger amount than that given other nonmotorized recreation, where only 162 miles of trails are maintained for skiing and snowshoeing.

Here’s a link to the lawsuit.

My comment: it’s interesting that some have argued that non-recreation uses of the land interfere with recreation and the economic and social benefits of recreation. A brief look around on the internet suggests that snowmobiling is a positive tourism economic benefit to communities, and an activity that families enjoy outdoors (aka “kids in the woods”). My view is always that a more productive dialogue would be “I think you should manage snowmobiles differently in these specific cases for these specific reasons” rather than “you need to do more NEPA.” Just sayin’

Forest Service Chief Tidwell announces future advisory committee for Planning Rule

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Forest Service Chief Tidwell announces future advisory committee for Planning Rule
Call for nominations set for later this year

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2011 –The U.S. Forest Service announced today that it will form an advisory committee that will provide advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture on the implementation of the new Planning Rule set for finalization this winter.

The Federal Advisory Committee – which could be formed early next year – will advise the Secretary on how the new rule is implemented. The U.S. Forest Service manages 155 national forests and 20 grasslands that will be affected by the new rule, which, if finalized this winter, will replace a 1982 version.

“This new committee will keep the collaborative momentum going on what has been a remarkably open and transparent process for the country’s first planning rule in 30 years,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “Stakeholder input has been instrumental in allowing us develop a strong draft rule up to this point – we need to continue to tap into our strong partnerships to carry this rule forward.”

In the coming months the Forest Service will announce its request for committee member nominations in the Federal Register. More information about the committee and how to seek nomination will be available at that time. Members will be sought with diverse backgrounds, who represent the full range of public interests in management of the National Forest System lands and who represent geographically diverse locations and communities.

Visit the agency’s planning rule website for the latest information on the formation of the committee and the status of the new planning rule.

I think this is great, for the reasons articulated previously on this blog here. Although at the time I was suggesting one for rule development, most of the arguments, I think, are equally valid for rule implementation. It helps to transition from the idea that problems with NFMA planning are “FS problems” to understanding that everyone has a role in improving the planning process.

Crapo on Collaboration

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From Political News here.

Nov 13,2011 – Crapo: Collaboration Taking Higher Profile in U.S. Forest Service Notes promotion of Region 1 Forester Leslie Weldon to Deputy Chief

Washington, D.C. – The use of collaboration and increased public involvement to address contentious federal land management issues is a welcome development, according to Idaho Senator Mike Crapo. Crapo noted the promotion of Region 1 Forester Leslie Weldon to become the new Deputy Chief for the U.S. Forest Service.

Crapo said Weldon has been an active supporter and participant of the Clearwater Basin Collaborative (CBC), an advisory group Crapo helped establish more than three years ago to find solutions to contentious land management and wildlife issues in Idaho’s Clearwater Basin.

“The U.S. Forest Service has been an active participant in the Collaborative and I credit the agency with being at the forefront of this collaborative, problem-solving effort and working with Congress to fund joint initiatives that are bearing fruit,” Crapo said. “Regional Forester Leslie Weldon, working with the leadership team of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest and all of our collaborative members, is advancing a template for land management that could lead to fewer fights in the courts and more on-the-ground land use agreements. We have seen collaborative successes with the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management with the Owyhee Initiative in Southwest Idaho. Now, we are seeing collaboration work with the Forest Service and I commend today’s announcement and promotion of Ms. Weldon to help lead the Forest Service team.”

The CBC has spawned new discussions of job creation through timber harvesting and landscape improvements, which could benefit habitat for elk, fish and other wildlife. Collaborative members have also discussed land protections, recreation and transportation issues to settle long-running disputes on federal lands in central Idaho. The Idaho collaborative effort was one of ten in the nation singled out by Forest Service management as pilot projects under the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act for funding to promote problem-solving through consensus building and on-the-ground decision-making on the management of federal lands.

Chinese market adds wrinkle to ailing Northwest logging industry

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From the Douglas County News-Review

China’s effect on the U.S. timber industry is a classic story of supply and demand, with winners and losers.

U.S. home building continues to lag far below pre-recession levels. Meanwhile, millions of new homes are being built in rapidly growing China, the largest foreign customer for Oregon timber.

Demand by China has driven up timber harvests and log prices, even though the domestic market for wood products is weak.

Since most of the timber bound for overseas leaves Oregon in the form of raw logs, rather than finished wood products, China has kept loggers working and benefited timberland owners. But it’s put the squeeze on mills.

“It’s a mixed blessing. It’s had a negative effect on our milling infrastructure, but it’s a positive for our loggers and landowners,” said Bob Ragon, executive director of Roseburg-based Douglas Timber Operators, a timber advocacy group.

Until a few weeks ago, ports almost couldn’t load ships fast enough to sate China’s appetite for logs. In the first half of this year, the West Coast exported nearly 1 billion board feet of logs, mostly to China. That was a 79 percent increase over the same period in 2010, U.S. Forest Service economists found.

Oregon supplied more than half the logs, a total of 518.5 million board feet. Industry veterans say the developing Chinese market brought on record log prices, sometimes almost double normal prices.

Today, exports to China are in a lull. But industry insiders expect the hiatus to be only temporary and for demand to rise again in the spring.

“I guess that’s what happens when you do business with China. In the past, China has been known to do this, jump in and jump out,” Ragon said.

The hot-and-cold Chinese market adds a new element of uncertainty to the ailing wood products industry, which can’t afford to compete with China for logs when plywood and two-by-fours aren’t selling at home.

The volatile Chinese market has left people questioning whether China will become a dependable customer as lawmakers court the Chinese to buy American.

State Rep. Tim Freeman, R-Roseburg, went to China with a delegation of Oregon lawmakers in September and said China’s “emerging economy and boom has created a situation where they’re consuming more than they can produce.”

He said Oregon’s annual exports to China total $4 billion, quadruple exports eight years ago, and are mostly made up of commodities from Intel and other high-tech companies.

Freeman said Oregon’s proximity to the Pacific Rim should make China a growing market. Freeman said the delegation didn’t discuss log exports with their hosts.

Ragon and others say the best-case scenario would be for the Chinese to buy finished wood products from Oregon mills.

Ragon said exporting manufactured wood products, instead of logs, would triple or quadruple employment throughout the industry.

For now though, far more of Oregon’s cut trees are exported as logs rather than finished products, by a ratio of 10 to 1.

Oregon Employment Department Regional Economist Brian Rooney reports that mill jobs outnumber logging jobs by three to one in Douglas County. The number mill jobs, however, is declining. Rooney said the booming export market drove a slight increase in logging jobs, but not enough to offset the loss of mill jobs.

Oregon State University Extension Service forestry agent Steve Bowers said high log prices particularly benefited landowners with stands of Sitka spruce, hemlock and white fir — trees not as coveted by mills as Douglas fir.

Bowers said China, which has different building needs, was indiscriminate in the wood it bought. China’s demand for all types of logs, however, naturally drove up the price for Douglas fir, too.

“Export was dictating the values for domestic buyers, and they did not like that,” he said.

The president and CEO of Lone Rock Timber Co., Toby Luther, said the Roseburg logging company sends less than 10 percent of its logs to exporters. But the statewide increase in logging was driven by China.

“The amount of harvest is up, and that’s not because of mills. It’s because of China,” Luther said. “My concern is that, China continues to buy up logs and makes mills less competitive in terms of accessing logs at a price they can afford.”

Luther said log prices are comparable to what they were during the building boom in 2004-05, but mills can’t justify paying those high prices because of low domestic sales.

When Glendale-based Swanson Group this month announced temporary shutdowns, beginning Monday, that will affect all four of its mills and 700 employees, company President Steve Swanson blamed the foreign competition for logs.

Jim Dudley, log procurement and marketing manager for Roseburg Forest Products, said RFP has experienced similar price pressure. Most West Coast manufacturers are suffering losses, he said.

Nevertheless, there is an upside for manufacturers. Dudley said the export market has sustained logging companies that wood products manufacturers will need when home building bounces back in the U.S.

“While (foreign competition) has been difficult to compete with on the manufacturing side, it has helped us protect our logging infrastructure. If we get any increase in domestic demand, it’s important to have that infrastructure,” he said.

Dudley and others in the logging industry say more federal logs, which can’t be exported, would ease the large price swings the Chinese market has caused.

Dudley said if logging on federal lands were increased to even one-fourth of what it was 20 years ago, before the spotted owl was listed as a threatened species, mills would have a steady supply of timber.

The ailing industry is almost entirely dependent on logging from private lands, he said.

According to the Oregon Department of Forestry, 75 percent of the state’s timber harvest occurs on private land, which makes up 38 percent of the state’s forests. Federal forests make up 59 percent of the resource and contribute 12 percent of the state’s timber production.

In Douglas County, private lands account for 44 percent of forestland and supplied 86 percent of the harvest in 2010. A majority of the county’s timberland, 54 percent, are on federal lands and produced 12 percent of the harvest.

“Now the onus has been put on private property to provide all the jobs for the Oregon forest industry,” Dudley said.

Environmentalists counter that the onus for providing wildlife habitat falls on federal lands.

“It seems to me that if the industry wants public logs, they have some responsibility to provide some habitat on their lands,” said Ken Carloni, president of Umpqua Watersheds, a Roseburg-based conservation group.

Carloni said only a lack of “cheap federal logs” was cramping domestic supply and suggested an export tax on raw logs could encourage China to purchase processed lumber instead.

“If it weren’t so attractive to ship the logs, then the domestic supply of logs would increase. Just as much fiber should be hitting those freighters and going overseas, it just should be square instead of round,” he said.

Industry leaders say unless there was a global agreement such a tax would drive the Chinese to buy logs from other countries, like Canada and Argentina.

“You put protectionist taxes on timber and you could tax your way right out of the market,” said Dave Stroble, Southwest Washington and Oregon region manager for Merrill & Ring, a Seattle-based log exporter.

Stroble said U.S. log exporters are in a wait-and-see period as the competitive Chinese market develops.

“The longer it lasts, the more it will mature. It could take years or decades to reach a level of stabilization that we’re used to over here, and it’s hard to speculate how this market is going to mature,” he said.

Our Public Land/ Private Forest Resources: How Not to Be a Colony

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Large loaders negotiate waves of logs as they load visiting log ship Global Wisdom at the Port of Olympia in late September

It’s interesting, but not surprising, how our current serious economic situation has changed some of the tenor of discussions of resource use in the U.S. When I was a young sprout, forest policy was clearly in the hands of economists. Then, perhaps in the owl battles of the Pacific Northwest, wildlife biologists and others seemed to be in the lead (remember the Gang of Four?). As our last couple of posts show, knowing something of economics is, perhaps, undergoing a resurgence of importance as we discuss resources and jobs. There seem to be four different conceptual possibilities. First, exporting our resources without manufacturing here (the “colony” idea as stated by Governor Kitzhaber below); second, making sure we get as many jobs as possible from our resources before we export; third, using our resources for our own energy (see Denver Post story below); and fourth not using them at all but leaving them alone (can we afford this?).

In the last couple of days I have seen two pieces from different perspectives. First,
this piece, ostensibly about the FS using a a PR affiliated with Rosemont to work on scheduling public meetings to discuss the proposed Rosemont Mine. The comments are very interesting and go into topics like the copper going to Korea as a raw material, the fact that the mine would be owned by Canadians, and impacts on the trade deficit.

Check out the comments from this..here’s one from CK H.

Without geology and mining you have nothing. Nothing. Not your home, computer, car, electricity of ANY kind (solar, coal, hydro, nuclear, petroleum, gas), clothes you are wearing, the food you are eating (has to be grown with fertilizers, pumped water, transported etc.), bicycles, medical equipment, tile flooring, cosmetics, firearms, backpacks, Kindle/Nook, iPod/Ipad, camera, smartphone, and every other thing you ever possessed or ever will possess.

The ore deposits of various sorts are sitting in host-rock geology in every geologic terrane imaginable. The contained metals or industrial materials are only liberated for your use owing to the dedicated efforts of geologists, mining engineers, metallurgists, technicians galore, haul truck drivers, shovel and LHD operators, surveyors, vendor service supporters, financial whizzes, reclamation and environmental specialists, general managers/foreman…right down to the guys at the end of the chute. Your comfortable life style is thanks to the labor of hundreds of thousands of individuals in small village to large cities around the world.

It sounds almost like dialogue from the “timber wars” days- if we use it (timber, minerals), someone’s going to produce it- why not us? Hypothetically our environmental and worker protections are better than some other places in the world- why not do it if it produces jobs for us and reduces our trade deficit?

Similarly, with regard to private timber, this story.

Kitzhaber: Oregon can’t be China’s timber colony
Cuts on state land could help boost local mill jobs

By Tyler Graf

The Forest Grove News-Times, Nov 9, 2011
(news photo)

Chase Allgood / News-Times

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber addressed the State Forestry Board last week, arguing that a balance between industry and environmentalists can be achieved.

In July, Stimson Lumber Co. announced a new round of layoffs at its Hagg Lake and Tillamook Mills.

The reason? Boundless demand for logs from China (where buyers want whole, unmilled logs) was draining the demand for local milling.

And as logs from private lands are heading east, jobs here in Oregon’s forested wilds are disappearing.

That doesn’t sit well with Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, who tackled the issue during a speech he gave in Forest Grove last week.

Private land owners account for the vast majority of timber harvests and, unlike state-owned forests, are not legally required to mill their logs in the United States. Private-land harvests are often sent whole to China for milling.

“This amounts to nothing more than exporting our natural capital and jobs,” Kitzhaber said.

It’s necessary to increase harvests in state forests, Kitzhaber said, in part to protect struggling mills, but it’s also important for the state to find other revenue streams, such as selling the forest’s carbon credits on the open market.

State forests can take the lead in drafting a more durable future for forest health, the governor said during the regular meeting of the State Forestry Board in Forest Grove Thursday, calling for a new approach to forest management.
Finding middle ground

The governor’s speech centered on finding middle ground between the competing interests of state, federal and private forests and creating “long-term, sustainable practices” that both create jobs and protect natural resources.

“We have the opportunity to break the mold of conflict,” Kitzhaber said.

The federal government owns about 60 percent of the state’s forestland, accounting for 17 million acres. But that land generates only 12 percent of the state’s timber harvests.

Since 1989, timber harvests in the state’s national forests have dropped by 90 percent, sped along by a 1991 federal ruling that closed much of the Northwest’s old-growth forests to logging to protect Northern spotted owl habitat.

On the other hand, the state owns about 3 percent of forestland, including the Clatsop State Forest, and generates about 10 percent of the harvests.

Kitzhaber pushed the board to set aside state forestland for conservation areas, which would be free of timber harvests, as a way of demonstrating that the state is serious about protecting its forest from over-harvesting./blockquote>

But also note that log exports have been good for the Port of Olympia here.

Finally, a piece in the Denver Post this morning on rural jobs and clean energy about Michael Bowman here.

Last week, he found himself the only person to represent rural interests in America at a White House Champions of Change award forum, the Obama administration’s weekly initiative that touts people across the country making change in their communities.

His group of 15 individuals focused on green energy and job creation.

“Everyone knows we make food, but often people don’t think of these rural communities as places where the fuel and energy is going to come from to meet these new demands,” Bowman said.

He praised the wind farms of Colorado’s Eastern Plains and solar development in the San Luis Valley. “The most exciting things are happening where there are renewable-energy projects being built, and putting a tax base into a region where there was none before.”

He also met with officials at the departments of Defense and Agriculture, and pitched a plan for energy independence that would create an alternative to the strategic petroleum reserves — a “working reserve of bio fuel that every farm, ranch, and forest in America can participate in helping create,” he said during a phone interview.

He talked about the fuel-agnostic engine developed by Sturman Industries of Woodland Park. He serves as a consultant to the company, co-founded by Eddie Sturman, who invented digital valve technology for the Apollo space program in the 1960s, and then advanced that technology to create smart engines that run on all types of fuel.

Managing Forests Because Carbon Matters: Journal of Forestry Supplement

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Thanks to Terry Seyden for finding this; I’ve been carrying this special section around trying to find time to read it.

New Analysis of Carbon Accounting, Biomass Use, and Climate Benefits
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111109093852.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 9, 2011) — A recent report provides new ideas surrounding carbon and energy benefits forests and forest products provide. The report, Managing Forests Because Carbon Matters: Integrating Energy, Products, and Land Management Policy, summarizes and analyzes the most recent science regarding forests and carbon accounting, biomass use, and forest carbon offsets.
A team of researchers from the U.S. Forest Service, several universities, and natural resource and environmental organizations coauthored the report, which appears as a supplement to the October/November 2011 issue of the Society of American Forester’s Journal of Forestry.
” This work should help policymakers reconsider the critical impact forests have on our daily lives and the potential they have to solve problems that confront our Nation,” says Bob Malmsheimer, lead author of the report and a professor at State University of New York (Syracuse) College of Environmental Science and Forestry. “We believe our science-based findings should lead toward positive reforms that encourage investment in this vital renewable resource.”

The report suggests that U.S. environment and energy policies should be based on the following science findings:

Sustainably managed forests can provide carbon storage and substitution advantages while delivering a wide range of environmental and social benefits including timber and biomass resources, jobs, economic opportunities, clean water, wildlife habitat, and recreation.
Energy produced from forest biomass returns to the atmosphere carbon that plants absorbed in the relatively recent past; it essentially results in no net release of carbon as long as overall forest inventories are stable or increasing (as with U.S. forests).
Forest products used in place of energy-intensive materials such as metals, concrete, and plastics reduce carbon emissions (because forest products require less fossil fuel-based energy to produce and they also store carbon for a length of time based on their use and disposal), and they provide biomass residuals (i.e., waste wood) that can be substituted for fossil fuels to produce energy.
Fossil fuel-produced energy releases carbon into the atmosphere that has resided in the Earth for millions of years; forest biomass-based energy uses far less of the carbon stored in the Earth, thereby reducing the flow of fossil fuel-based carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

“Perhaps this report will inspire fresh efforts to find management strategies that folks can agree on,” says coauthor and Forest Service scientist Jeremy Fried. “The forest inventory and analysis data collected by the Forest Service on all forested lands in the U.S. provided the data necessary to explore how forests can be managed to provide climate benefits. Full life-cycle analyses of U.S. forests show that the best opportunity for these forests to provide even more climate benefits requires a combination of factors. Those factors are: sustainably managed forests, a healthy market for long-lived forest products, and renewable energy generated from forest and mill residues.”

The report emerged from the Society of American Foresters Task Force on Forest Climate Change Offsets and Use of Forest Biomass for Energy. Authors include Robert Malmsheimer, State University of New York (Syracuse) College of Environmental Science and Forestry; James Bowyer, Professor Emeritus of University of Minnesota; Jeremy Fried, U.S. Forest Service; Edmund Gee, U.S. Forest Service; Robert Izlar, University of Georgia; Reid Miner, National Council for Air and Stream Improvement; Ian Munn, Mississippi State University; Elaine Oneil, University of Washington; and William Stewart, University of California-Berkeley.

Read the paper online here.

Profile of Forest Industry in the Interior West- Guest Post by Todd Morgan

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The sun rises at Pyramid Mountain Lumber the morning of August 30, 2011, in Seeley Lake, Montana. They are one of the largest saw mills in Montana.

Another photo by Josh Birnbaum. You can find more of his photos here, on the Celebrate Forests photoblog.

Guest post by Todd Morgan.

Thank you for contacting me regarding forest industry information. I used the link and went to the blog discussion about “corporate interests.” There seems to be a lot of misconceptions or misunderstanding of the logging and wood products industries in the West. Sure, most mills & logging operations are part of corporations, but most local businesses (bike shops, ice cream stands, coffee shops) are incorporated too. Incorporating is a legal means to separate one’s personal finances from those of one’s business. But there are many different kinds of corporations—limited liability, publicly traded, privately held, etc.

Most of the logging and timber-processing firms (the businesses that use timber from private and public lands) in Montana and the other Interior West states are privately held, not publicly traded, most employ fewer than 100 people, and most have owners, officers, and managers that live in or near the community where the business is located. I don’t think the same can be said of industrial forest landowners (TIMOs & REITs). As the wood products industries have changed over the past 30 years, many companies that owned mills and timber land (vertically integrated) sold off one aspect of their business or the other, becoming either a mill/wood products business or a timberland business. There are very few left that have both, and those that do have both are generally overwhelmingly into one aspect or the other. For example is Plum Creek; they are a REIT with a great deal of timberland all over the country, but their only mills are the few in Montana; Rayonier, Weyerhaeuser, Boise, International Paper—these are similar publicly traded companies. But those are quite different than the local mills Pyramid, Tricon, R-Y, Sun Mountain, etc. that have very little or no land holdings, are not publicly traded, and must compete against the big corporations for timber, labor, and market share.

Most logging in our region is also performed by small, private contractor firms; they are not crews that work for the mills; they are not publicly traded companies; and I suspect most are in debt up to their eyeballs, considering the price of logging equipment, fuel, insurance, and skilled labor. Hopefully they are incorporated, so that if the business fails, they don’t lose their homes to pay business debts.

In terms of forest industry info, my program here produces quite a bit of information about Montana’s industry, Idaho’s, as well as the other western states. You have obviously been to our web site and seen some of the quarterly, annual and periodic information we produce. Attached are some documents that may be of interest to you, and below are some specific links to regional publications.

For quarterly conditions in Montana: http://www.bber.umt.edu/forest/wage.asp

For annual forest industry conditions in Montana and Idaho: http://www.bber.umt.edu/forest/outlook.asp

For periodic reports about the industry in various western states: http://www.bber.umt.edu/forest/regionalreports.asp

For a report we did that highlights industry capacity changes across the West as well as in Montana: http://www.bber.umt.edu/forest/timber.asp

It doesn’t take much research to see that the forest industries in the Interior West are more dependent on Federal timber than elsewhere in the country. It likewise doesn’t take much to realize the firms that comprise the forest industries in the Interior West are not the giant, highly politically influential, publicly traded companies that “occupy Missoula” and “occupy Wall Street” are rallying against and which people feel have too much power. Recognizing these facts would, however, require people to give up some of their pre-conceived notions and perhaps re-evaluate their world view.

Please let me know if you find this useful and what other types of info you could use or would like to see made available. We are constantly striving to improve the timeliness, relevance, and usefulness of the information we report. We also have several more up-to-date reports that are going to press or currently in review. These will be posted to our site ASAP.

Thank you again for contacting me. I look forward to further discussion.

Todd Morgan is the Director of Forest Industry Research at the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana.

Here are five documents he provided.
Baucus_request_2009_BBER

Finaldraft_DRC_ report_DRAFT

montana mill closures 4_6_2010

R1_capacity_report

RB-8

Collaborative’s logging plan still controversial – Op-ed by Mike Garrity

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Here’s the link..thanks to Matthew Koehler.

Collaborative’s logging plan still controversial
By Mike Garrity – IR Your Turn | Posted: Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A Nov. 1 article in the Independent Record reported that a “collaborative” group developed and submitted to the Forest Service a proposal to log thousands of acres in and around an inventoried roadless area southwest of Lincoln. The article neglected to mention that the Forest Service proposed a similar timber sale called “Nevada Dalton” in the late 1990s. That project was halted when President Clinton’s Roadless Rule went into effect in 2001. Since both the Roadless Rule and the reasons for initially halting the project are even more valid now, the project should be dropped once again.

Despite an attempt by the Bush administration and corporate logging and mining interests, the Clinton-era Roadless Rule remains in effect and has just been bolstered by a recent decision of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, both the 9th and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeal have found the Roadless Rule to be valid and carry the force of law.

“Collaboration” by a small group of people — including those with commercial interests in for-profit timber mills — does not make a timber sale in national forests on inventoried roadless lands legal. These lands belong to all Americans, not just a handful of local Montanans, and the manner in which activities on these lands are conducted must therefore follow federal law.

But there are more problems with this proposal than just its intrusion into roadless lands.

According to a quote from one of the collaborators, this logging proposal will fix “… a forest that, because of 100 years of fire control and logging, is out of sync.” Yet, the article doesn’t explain how more logging will fix the problems caused by previous logging. Nor did it explain how a natural forest ecosystem can be “out of sync” with anything except the traditional Forest Service goals of “getting out the cut” to benefit the timber industry. Quite frankly, the public is being asked to simply accept the Bush-era political propaganda that we can make forests “healthy” by cutting them down.

Neither the collaborators nor the Forest Service explained how and what wildlife will supposedly benefit from more multimillion-dollar timber sales or the 6.5 miles of new logging roads and new noxious weed infestations that go with them.

The IR’s readers deserve to know what’s at stake here.

Lynx: The area proposed for logging is in federally designated critical habitat for lynx, currently listed as threatened and, thus, protected under the Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, the article neglected to mention that logging destroys lynx habitat since it drives out the snowshoe hare and ground squirrels upon which lynx prey. The Forest Service’s own research shows that forests that have been logged are avoided by lynx.

Grizzly bears: The Forest Service admits that logging and the new roads that go with it will reduce important wildlife hiding cover and that similar logging on similar private lands has harmed big game and grizzly bear habitat. Yet, the agency and the collaborators who support the logging plan have not explained how reduction of existing cover levels on our national forests can possibly be called restoration.

Cost: The huge cost to taxpayers for this timber sale is glaringly omitted. A look at the Helena National Forest’s budget reveals that taxpayers lose over $2,000 an acre on commercial timber sales, so this 2,182-acre timber sale, including over 400 acres of clearcuts, could cost taxpayers over $4 million with little in return except the destruction of critical wildlife habitat.

Given the current national debate over government spending, we want to know why taxpayers are being asked to fund an expensive and destructive timber sale to marginally benefit logging companies.

And finally, after logging destroys the forest and stream habitat, will the Forest Service and collaborators then ask taxpayers for even more money to restore the habitat for lynx and grizzly bears?

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies will fully participate in the Dalton timber sale public process, and we encourage others who are concerned about the viability of native species and responsible federal spending to participate as well. We hope the Forest Service will answer our and all of the public’s questions and make a decision based on facts, science and the law, not political pressure to subsidize timber corporations.

Mike Garrity is executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Note from Sharon.. here’s a link to the information on this project.

In the scoping doucment, I found this..

Summary of Treatments in Roadless Areas
 Nevada Mountain IRA — 1,815 acres in the project area fall in this IRA. Proposed treatment includes prescribed burning on
405 acres, including non‐commercial hand slashing and pre‐treatment of the units.
 Ogden Mountain IRA —4,906 acres in the project area fall in this IRA. Proposed treatment includes 248 acres of fuels reduction
by hand felling, and 2,482 acres of prescribed fire. The prescribed burning includes non‐commercial hand slashing and pre‐treatment of the units.

So the op- ed said

Since both the Roadless Rule and the reasons for initially halting the project are even more valid now, the project should be dropped once again.

But I see nothing in the 2001 Roadless Rule that would not allow fuels reduction (exception “To maintain or restore the characteristics of ecosystem composition and structure, such as to reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire effects, within the range of variability that would be expected to occur under natural disturbance regimes of the current climatic period”); or prescribed burning.