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--> --> Threatened forests need protection By Jay Lininger Ashland The Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday auctioned six timber sales that would aggressively log nearly 4,000 acres of mature and old-growth forests on federal public land. The auction drew protests because the scientific case has never been clearer or public support stronger for protecting what remains of the unique ecological wealth represented by these old forests. The Medford BLM and the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest plan to cut over 100 timber sales in southwest Oregon over the next five years. At the planned rate of logging, all unreserved spotted owl forests in the region will disappear in 15 years, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. USFWS rationalizes the destruction, saying the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan reserved tens of thousands more acres where no logging is planned. However, only about one third of reserved acres host mature forest habitat. Open areas with serpentine geology, cut-over stump lands and tree farms with no habitat value account for the remaining acreage. None of the reserves currently function as intended, and won't for decades. Every remaining piece of mature forest is ecologically significant. Even small fragments of old forest are known to possess unique biological qualities. BLM foresters claim logging in the Poole Hill and Conde Shell timber sales on the Dead Indian Plateau near Ashland would improve forest health and reduce fire hazard. However, the mistletoe infections they seek to eradicate play important ecological roles. Threatened birds like northern spotted owls prefer mistletoe brooms as nesting habitat. Mistletoe only becomes a "forest health" problem when foresters try to grow timber in excess of historical production rates. Multiple studies link logging activities to the occurrence of laminated root rot and annosus disease, which can predispose trees to bark beetle attack. In contrast, unmanaged forests are less vulnerable to pest outbreaks than logged forests. The U.S. General Accounting Office testified July 31 to Congress that forests with commercially valuable timber are not those with high fire hazards. Commercial logging can increase fire intensity. It removes the least flammable portions of trees (their stems) and leaving behind their most flammable portions (needles and limbs). Authentic fire hazard reduction means gathering small fuels (less than 3 inches in diameter) and burning them. Judicious thinning of young trees should happen in certain areas. Community members are finding economical uses for small materials, and those uses should be encouraged. Priority areas for fuel treatment are near homes and roads, where risks to human life and property are high. Community protection and ecosystem restoration, not back-country resource extraction, should be the objectives of public land management. Mechanical logging, even when carefully done, can damage soil integrity, create sediment that degrades streams, and reduce habitat quality for species associated with clean water and moist, closed canopy forests. Mills don't need the federal logging program to survive. Just four of 71 Oregon mills rely on federal timber for more than one third of their supply, and 40 mills don't process any federal timber, according to the ODF. The federal timber sale program provides direct subsidies to timber purchasers, including undervalued public timber and planning costs. The U.S. Treasury routinely pays money out to support federal logging. Shifting the $1 billion subsidy Congress annually gives to timber companies into forest and watershed restoration will foster a just, conservation-based economy and sustain family-wage jobs within the capacity of healthy forest ecosystems. Human communities depend on the environment. Preserving wild forests and investing in degraded lands with thoughtful, science-based restoration are necessary to ensure their benefits are available to future generations as well as our own. Jay Lininger monitors public lands for Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center in Ashland. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing