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State's forests face uncertainty OSU forestry college dean says outside forces will affect what happens By BETH QUINN People outside the Pacific Northwest will decide the fate of 5 billion board feet of timber grown in Oregon's forests each year. That's the message the dean of Oregon State University's College of Forestry delivered Monday to 150 public officials, activists and business leaders who gathered at the Smullin Center at Rogue Valley Medical Center for a regional forum on forest resources. The session was sponsored by the Rogue Valley Civic League. "Southern Oregon's forests do not exist in a vacuum," George Brown said. "It's very clear that global and national forces outside our region are going to affect what happens on our forests." The greatest global force driving forest policy is population growth. Earth's current 5.6 billion population is expected to mushroom by 2050, with projections ranging from 7.7 billion to 11.2 billion people. "World population and the demand it creates for natural resources, including wood, is going to be a huge issue," Brown said. The greatest national force driving forest policy is the debate over the future of federal forests. OSU foresters believe federal lands in Oregon could produce 3.7 billion board feet of timber per year on a sustainable basis. Less than 1 billion board feet was harvested in 1998. "We have a lot of potential for increasing commodity production from our forests if we want to, without increasing environmental damage," Brown said. The wild cards in national forest policy are environmental lawsuits and legislative initiatives aimed at ending commercial logging on federal lands. Policy changes also may be forced by the growing population of people who live on rural forest land. Brown also highlighted two research projects by OSU scientists that project the future of some of the nation's forests. Using computer modeling, foresters projected what a section of Oregon coastal timberlands might look like in 100 years, based on current management policies. In federal forests, scientists predict large blocks of older, closed-canopy forests while private timberland will be intensely managed on a 60- to 70-year cut rotation. A similar modeling project is under way for Southern Oregon. At the same time, a forest economist's analysis of national trends projects that U.S. timber production will continue to fall through 2012, due to declines in southern harvests in areas that were overcut when the timber wars hit the Pacific Northwest. But U.S. timber production should begin climbing in 2020 as maturing forests are readied for harvest. Federal land managers offered little hope that public lands will ever again be managed primarily for timber production. "I'm not going to define forestry as timber management," said Bob Devlin, director of natural resources for Region 6 of the Forest Service. Equally important objectives for federal land management now include wildlife habitat, watershed restoration and forest health. But non-timber objectives of federal land managers will provide economic opportunities in Southern Oregon's public forests, Devlin said. The Clinton administration plans to spend $300 million on salmon restoration in California, Oregon and Washington starting next year. And the watershed restoration required by the Clean Water Act will pump in millions more. "That's a tremendous opportunity," he said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA