Our definition clearing up effort does not seem to be successful, so I’ll try to clarify that there seem to be four choices. 1. Clearcut (standard) the definition fuzzy as it is, in the handbook and the dictionary definitions. 2. Clearcut (L) Looks like one, so any seed tree or shelterwood after overstory removal. 3. Clearcut (O) Any opening. 4. Clearcut (P) used in polemics, could mean anything writer wants.
Some Habitat Requires Openings (1993 to today)
I had a vague memory that our social scientist friends used to study what people think about clearcutting. I looked around and found a study on Google Scholar study from 1993
In the 1993 monitoring report for the White Mountain National Forest, forest supervisor Rick Cables wrote that “there is a wide and increasing interest in the concepts of ecosystem management, a principle which we believe is well addressed in the existing plan although subject to change as our monitoring efforts continue. The growing question, though, is the ‘place’ of the Forest in the wider landscape” (Cables, 1993, p. xi). One of the Forest’s goals in response to this issue of ‘place’ is to conduct all management activities with full recognition of the effect on Forest appearance. The foundation of this sensitivity to scenic value is “realizing the importance to society of a natural (appearing) landscape distinct from the man-made environments otherwise dominant in the East (USA).” As a result, project plans are frequently adjusted. “This is especially true for those areas that have experienced residential development since completion of the original (forest plan) inventory. Awareness of the concern over clearcutting has led to reduced clearcut acreage or identification of alternative prescriptions for many projects” (Kokx, 1993, pp. 52–53).Irrespective of its effect on harvesting volume, Rick Cables observes that “with respect to clearcutting, the problem boils down to this: Of the 339 inland animal species in New England, 257 of them have a primary or secondary dependence on a forested habitat. Of these 257 species 90% (233) of them have a primary or secondary dependence on forest vegetation in the regeneration (0–10 years old) or young (from 10 up to 69 years for some species) age classes. Clearcutting is the vegetative management practice that produces these various age classes of the Forest. It is difficult to provide enough of this habitat when the means of doing so is one that so many people find objectionable — clearcutting” (Cables, 1993, p. v).
Looking back, Rick’s argument was that openings are needed for certain wildlife species. I would say that seedtree and shelterwood also produce those age classes. And here we are having the same discussion about openings pretty much 30 years later. I think we made a detour to “openings are OK if they fit NRV” but as it turns out, the same groups that were against cutting trees before that detour, are still against cutting trees!
How Many, How Spatially Distributed, Under What Conditions?
How many openings should there be, distributed how, with what characteristics? Should humans make openings directly, or guide wildfire in making openings?
I think the idea of NRV was (perhaps descended from coarse-filter/ fine-filter thinking) that if you had the distribution of ecological characteristics as sometime in the past, then you would be providing habitat for critters as in the past. I remember when these ideas first came to the WO.. we’ll cut trees to “restore”, who could be against that? It turns out the same people.
Some Groups Don’t Want Human-Initiated (or for Salvage, post Natural- Initiated Disturbance, Human- Assisted) Openings
And we still have folks like WEG and other members of the Climate Forest Campaign who think no cutting (or just commercial?) should occur in stands over 80 years old. It seems like some people and groups are either “anti-opening” or “anti-opening if it involves commercial wood products.” Or perhaps it’s OK to have openings in under 80 years old stands, just recycle the same sites as they grow in. However, this runs against thinking like “the process of stand development is important”. as per this work by Swanson et al. (note that Beschta and DellaSalla are coauthors)
Early-successional forest ecosystems that develop after stand-replacing or partial disturbances are diverse in species, processes, and structure. Post-disturbance ecosystems are also often rich in biological legacies, including surviving organisms and organically derived structures, such as woody debris. These legacies and postdisturbance plant communities provide resources that attract and sustain high species diversity, including numerous early-successional obligates, such as certain woodpeckers and arthropods. Early succession is the only period when tree canopies do not dominate the forest site, and so this stage can be characterized by high productivity of plant species (including herbs and shrubs), complex food webs, large nutrient fluxes, and high structural and spatial complexity. Different disturbances contrast markedly in terms of biological legacies, and this will influence the resultant physical and biological conditions, thus affecting successional pathways. Management activities, such as postdisturbance logging and dense tree planting, can reduce the richness within and the duration of early-successional ecosystems. Where maintenance of biodiversity is an objective, the importance and value of these natural early-successional ecosystems are underappreciated.
So early-successional communities are important for biodiversity, but only if you don’t log post-disturbance, and don’t plant trees “too” densely.
It doesn’t appear to me that there is any scientific answer to the correct amount of openings and what they should or should not contain. I guess I could understand the idea of only allowing “natural” disturbances. Except that we’re told by many of the same groups that today’s disturbances are caused by climate change and are therefore unnatural.
It’s very confusing. Plus we can’t go back in time in terms of population, past practices and so on.
I do think the idea that openings are created by others in a mixed landscape, and therefore the FS should consider that, does have some merit. However if people want to observe early-successional wildlife and conditions, they can’t do that on private land. Plus private landowners tend to have different management objectives and practices, and may not want to encourage biodiversity the same way the FS does. Then there are species that prefer wildfire.. which leads to openings. Fire is more likely to be managed on federal lands than on private.
Sometimes Clearcutting is Used For Any Cutting by Interest Groups (P)
I should also note that some groups seem to use the term clearcutting for any cutting at all, including what we might imagine to be commercial and non-commercial thinning. From the Climate Forests Campaign on the Expansion of American Timber Production Executive Order:
Clearcutting our public lands for private profit will destroy mature and old-growth forests, pollute our air and water, and in bypassing the Endangered Species Act, actively drive vulnerable wildlife to extinction.”
Of course, they argue that thinning is also bad..
Removing large trees and reducing overstory canopy opens the forest to more sunlight, hot, dry winds and higher temperatures, which can encourage growth of flammable shrubs and increase wildfire risk.
The problem I have with this is that the FS really does clearcut (S) and if we want to understand why, we need to focus on those prescriptions in those units.
Conditions That Lead Landowners to Clearcut (S) in Minnesota
I thought that this 2020 JFor paper by Windmiller-Campione et al. of landowner changes over time in Minnesota was fairly interesting. Similar studies would be of interest in the West, perhaps they exist and I haven’t found them. The FS does not always tell us clearly in NEPA documents why clearcutting (S) was chosen.
In the Minnesota study, National Forests, industry and small landowners were surveyed. One gets the impression of clearcutting being used when a species is having trouble with native or invasive insects or diseases. It’s interesting that clearcutting went up from 2008 to 2017 for dealing with a couple of these problems.
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I don’t believe there is any actual confusion here. Language is a flexible tool, and everyone generally employs it in the way that gets them the most utility. Scientists, conservation orgs, industry orgs, the general public, and the government are all coming with different backgrounds and trying to do different things. They find utility in using “clearcut” in various different ways, and so they do.
In many cases, I believe that this is knowing and intentional. Scientists know that not everyone cares about precise definitions, but we need them to do our jobs. Conservation groups are familiar with scientific definitions, but choose to use words in other ways that they believe will generate more support for their causes. The government is aware of both technical definitions and public perceptions and tries to walk a line that satisfies both.
This happens all over natural resource management. “Mature” and “old growth” is another example that comes to mind.
I agree, that’s a good point Sean. Maybe agreeing upon clear definitions in the non-science public sphere is too much to ask. At the same time, for public discourse and finding common ground, it doesn’t help if words are used and everyone has their own definition.
“The FS does not always tell us clearly in NEPA documents why clearcutting (S) was chosen.”
Funny, because that was what NFMA was all about (§6(g)(3), which is about requirements for forest plans):
“(F) insure that clearcutting, seed tree cutting, shelterwood cutting, and other cuts designed to regenerate an even-aged stand of timber will be used as a cutting method on National Forest System lands only where-
“(i) for clearcutting, it is determined to be the optimum method, and for other such cuts it is determined to be appropriate, to meet the objectives and requirements of the relevant land management plan;
“(ii) the interdisciplinary review as determined by the Secretary has been completed and the potential environmental, biological, esthetic, engineering, and economic impacts on each advertised sale area have been assessed, as well as the consistency of the sale with the multiple use of the general area;
“(iii) cut blocks, patches, or strips are shaped and blended to the extent practicable with the natural terrain;
“(iv) there are established according to geographic areas, forest types, or other suitable classifications the maximum size limits for areas to be cut in one harvest operation, including provision to exceed the established limits after appropriate public notice and review by the responsible Forest Service officer one level above the Forest Service officer who normally would approve the harvest proposal: Provided, That such limits shall not apply to the size of areas harvested as a result of natural catastrophic conditions such as fire, insect and disease attack, or windstorm; and
“(v) such cuts are carried out in a manner consistent with the protection of soil, watershed, fish, wildlife, recreation, and esthetic resources, and the regeneration of the timber resource.
I think this supports a distinction being made for “cuts designed to regenerate an even-aged stand of timber” (NFMA does not define “clearcutting.”)
Thanks, Jon. I think the analysis for that is done by the ID team, but they may not explicitly address these in the document. Plus, folks may not go back to NFMA when conceivable NFMA requirements are in the planning rule and hence forest plans. But very interesting.
This has got to stop, me agreeing with Jon, that is….🤣. His points are valid, as is following NFMA, but all ID Teams I ever led or participated in certainly expounded on why a clearcut was needed for stand regeneration. The word itself is a lightning rod to the enviros.
The Ouachita NF kept the incentive in their “new” Plan, signed now in 2005. The PSICC’s Plan was done during the early Reagan Administration and we used the CC a lot in LP Pine. Arizona allowed it but not much of it was done – we incinerated several hundreds of thousands of acres (with over a million acres burned) that done an admiral job of early seral conditions!
Actually, on the old Ochoco, I prescribed thousands of acres of clearcuts, over time, but were mainly in spruce/fir, or deep trending true fir, mixed conifer, in areas of historic high- grading. Black Hills didn’t need to clearcuts, forest types just didn’t need it for regen…..
And as I mentioned earlier, SW Ponderosa Pine can use openings of about 5 acres for “fire safe” zones for natural regen to survive low-intensity wildfires. This mainly occurs where regen is already established, but it’s timber markers choice on those types of Restoration Prescription. However, even though they resemble a CC, they “ain’t”!
Good call – I had forgotten that NFMA specifically refers to clearcutting seperately from other even-aged methods. Under section 6(g), the FS should only authorize clearcutting in a forest plan when it is the “optimum” harvest method, while the may authorize the other even-aged methods where “appropriate.” I don’t know what practical effect, if any, this distinction has had.
Historical note:
Section 6(g) of NFMA is based on guidelines seeking to limit clearcutting contained in a 1972 Senate committee report authored by Senator Frank Church (hence they are called the Church Committee guidelines). They are reprinted here:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Forest_and_Rangeland_Management.html?id=u-4jn5wNDfUC at pdf p. 1080.
Congress debated NFMA in the shadow of a 1973 federal court injunction prohibiting the FS from using clearcutting, seed-tree, and shelterwood cutting (affirmed by the 4th Circuit in 1974) as contrary to the individual marking language of the Organic Act.
See https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/367/422/1425532/
affirmed by
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-4th-circuit/2109195.html
The Church guidelines addressed only clearcutting – the other systems were added to the NFMA bill during its Senate consideration, probably in response to the injunction. (The injunction was not nationwide, but all parties accepted that the issue has nationwide implications, and some other district courts had adopted the original court’s reasoning, though the Alaska district court declined to follow.)
And no – the Church guidelines did not define clearcutting either!
It’s true that some wildlife need early seral habitat, but logging is typically not the best way to create it. Natural processes create habitat qualities far different from those created by logging, in particular: the scale and intensity of disturbance, the amount of retained biomass, the type and extent of soil disturbance from roads and heavy equipment, the diversity of plants allowed to grow afterwards, the persistence of those diverse early seral communties, etc.
D.J. McRae, L.C. Duchesne, B. Freedman, T.J. Lynham, and S. Woodley, 2001. Comparisons between wildfire and forest harvesting and their implications in forest management. Environ. Rev. 9. 223-260 (2001); DOI: 10.1139/er-9-4-223.
Crow, T.R. and A.J. Perera. 2004. Emulating natural landscape disturbance in forest management – an introduction. Landscape Ecology 19: 231-233. http://www.firescience.gov/projects/01-1-3-43/project/01-1-3-43_01_1_3_43_Deliverable_02.pdf
NCASI. 2006. Similarities and differences between harvesting- and wildfire-induced disturbances in fire-mediated Canadian landscapes. Technical Bulletin No. 924. Research Triangle Park, N.C.: National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc. http://landscape.zoology.wisc.edu/People/Simard/NCASI924.pdf
Nitschke C.R. 2005. Does forest harvesting emulate fire disturbance? A comparison of effects on selected attributes in coniferous-dominated headwater systems. Forest Ecology and Management 214 (2005) 305–319. http://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/FireForestEcology/FireScienceResearch/FuelsManagement/FM-Nitschke05.pdf
Second, it seems like your argument is that forest management does not create the same kind of ecological conditions as wildfire. But to a seedling, what caused the opening and bare mineral soil may not be important. So it depends on “what kind of veg management activity exactly” and “what conditions are we looking at, which are important to what creatures?” which implies a couple of value judgments that do not seem scientific to me.
It’s a value judgement to say imply that should pick “the best way” to create early seral habitat, without consideration of other risks (potential bad accidental wildfire impacts), nor the social and economic value of producing and using wood. Which implies that the decision should be based on ecological values alone.. determined by.. ecologists? Not to speak of the fact that some scientists say that “climate fueled” wildfires are more destructive, so perhaps what was “natural” in the past will not happen “naturally” in the future, and wildfires themselves are managed so…
SecondLaw, you just described the functions of a National Park; National Forests are for the benefit of multiple uses, including timber production. Tiering wildlife habitat improvement with timber harvest is still going strong after 120 years – even more! Case 1 took place on the Black Hills in 1899, earning the distinction of the Nations first timber sale. I still have my Case 1 block, and no, I wasn’t there but still have my block from that transaction.
It’s great that we as a Nation have learned to facilitate these many uses and benefits of National Forests, trying to find that balance to provide “the greatest good”. Now where have I heard that before…..🤣
(You’re right – about this has got to stop.) I think what is more current than 120 years old is the recognition that a lot of wildlife species (and some of the most vulnerable) that is not a revenue-producing game species can be harmed by timber production, and that “multiple-use” includes those species (not to mention “sustained-yield”).
I think we know that “they can be harmed by timber production”; they can also be harmed by recreation and windfarms and pretty much anything. Isn’t that the point of doing environmental documents- to describe environmental issues and to remediate them to the extent feasible? Wasn’t that the point of standards, and even mapping areas for timber in forest plans?
I think Jon is poaching on my kindness; either that, or it’s a slow news day….🤣.