A few weeks ago, I was out and about with Forest Service and NGO folks currently working in reforestation. Some forests more than others kept up their facilities and knowledge about seed procurement and reforestation, during the years when reforestation was out of fashion. For 40 years or so, at least in some Regions, there has been downplaying of the need to plant trees in favor of hoping for the best via natural regeneration. As was known at the time, some species are terrific at regeneration and some not so much, in different places. If you don’t have parent trees around, there’s going to be a lack of seed. We knew quite a bit about how all of that works and what the key factors were (and probably now continue to be). Since that time, some of the following discussions have occurred:
Reforestation is not restoration (!) . Indeed it’s not, but if you want trees of some species, you need to plant them, if they don’t regenerate naturally. Trees aren’t everything, but people, wildlife and watersheds tend to like them. And what is “restoration” anyway? Restoration to what exactly at what spatial scale with what dynamics? Why is it that goals have become more nebulous, and more difficult, as time has gone on. Used to be species protection, now it’s “biodiversity” which could be anything (and is pretty much defined that way). Used to be planting trees, now it’s “ecosystem restoration” which perhaps can never be achieved, depending on your definition.
If trees don’t naturally regenerate, it’s due to climate change. If you actually believed this, why bother? If we thought that 40 years ago, many stands would not exist today.
Climate change is going to kill all the trees anyway. You’ll see that, but then how can keeping trees around be justified as a long-term natural climate solution. In terms of reforestation, it’s a natural “que sera, sera” approach to management.
These seem all fairly negative ways of choosing to look at the world. Planting trees is not good enough, they won’t survive due to climate change, and they’ll all die anyway. As I said to one person on our trip “all we can do is the best we can, knowing what we know today, and being flexible as new information comes online.” But looking back on it, we are also standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, and we can learn from them.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that this renewed interest in reforestation hasn’t been accompanied by what I consider to be the right kind of investment. For whatever reason, people trying to plant trees today don’t have as much technical support as we did in the 80’s. For example, when I worked in South-Central Oregon, we had an area reforestation specialist. In the 80’s it was already thought to be difficult to get planted trees to survive, so we invested in a) figuring out what worked, b) sharing the information and c) building needed infrastructure and knowledge capacity in the Forest Service. Maybe the Pacific Northwest Station of the Forest Service and Oregon State University are thinking of reupping an Oregon-wide Fundamental FIR- ish (Southwest Oregon Forestry Intensified Research Program) program? Maybe they already have, but the folks I spoke with didn’t know about it?
The difference would be that it would be focused on reforestation (natural and artificial) and early stand establishment, maybe preferentially post-fire and be Oregon-wide (not just Southwest). Or maybe the West side doesn’t need it.
But maybe the academic community hasn’t gotten the message that figuring out how best to plant trees is cool again? There’s quite a bit of information out there, but much of it is hidden in the nooks and crannies of the internet. Is someone rounding it up? Interviewing retired reforestation professionals? My point is that many things used to be known and may not need to be reinvented.
Private industry has continued to plant trees and hold annual reforestation-related meetings in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. Why doesn’t the Forest Service attend those meetings (they used to) and work more with their private counterparts to get up-to-speed?
In the area I visited, the FS was learning techniques from industry partners, but other partners did not want certain practices e.g. herbicides. I was thinking of Oregon, but what comes to mind with your comment is that many states have no timber industry to learn from, even if they wanted to. And I’m not dissing the FS RNGR folks (Reforestation, nurseries and genetic resources), who do excellent work for NFS states and private landowners. I’m just against unnecessary wheel reinvention.
Have ‘em pick up a copy of “Regenerating Oregons Forests”, that’s all they need to know…
You mean the 1978 one edited by Brian Cleary? We learned lots of stuff in the 89’s after that.
The big blue “how to” by Brian Cleary, yes! 👍
Sorry, I meant on the East Side, and we learned many new things thanks to the nursery folks, our Area Reforestation Specialists Mike Panelli and Al Horton and others, during the 1980’s..
Exactly, I was there; we built upon Clearys book with the introduction of seedling acclimation, animal damage control through the use of Vexar and herbicides. Panelli was a good friend and mentor.
Good times, until we lost Mike….
We had thousands and thousands of acres of successful reforestation, from wildfire (Marks Creek) to a robust timber – early seral, stand treatments.
Here are some photos of the seed orchard we named after Mike, which is now producing cones.
Many people place WAY too much faith in “Natural Succession”. They seem to be OK with how long that process could take, with all the human-caused wildfires (and re-burns) burning across our lands. Decades? Even a century?!? (Maybe never?)
I was fortunate to have worked with several of the most successful foresters in the Douglas Fir Region during my career in the 1970s and 80s. T. J. Starker was a leader in reforestation practices, Weyerhaeuser was conducting some of the finest research in genetics as well as field practices, Phil Hahn was running an excellent seedling nursery for GP, and Merrill-Ring was performing some very useful field research.
As a result of working with these folks, their associates, and others in the field — including a number of BLM and USFS foresters — my crews became very proficient and were given increasing latitude in our operations. One result is that we were the first PNW reforestation business I know of to provide full-time jobs, and I had several employees that worked for me for years, including a few for more than 10 years. Our work with plug-1 seedlings, micro-site planting densities, pre-commercial thinning specs, site prep, and broadcast burning produced thousands of acres of successfully reforested lands — many of which have been subsequently logged and replanted.
Then the early 80s economics, the spotted owl in 1990, the Clinton Plan in 1993, and ESA lawsuits ever after. Unemployment, polluted air, forest fires, business failures, dead wildlife, and crappy reforestation ever since. Even the private and industrial lands have been regulated into mediocrity compared to what we could do, and was being done, in the 1970s and 80s. Documented.
Glad to see the FIR Program mentioned. I had the good fortune to be part of the Adaptive Phase located in Medford OR.
Understanding propagule availability and a suitable operational environment for seedling establishment are two key pieces.
The FIR Program had two phases. Fundamental, COF and PNW reaearchers looking at the basic science side of things, and Adaptive, located in Medford, testing on the ground and providing extension programs for resource professionals.