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OVERCAST Temp: 39 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Thursday, February 20, 2003 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend November 24, 2002 Tree sitter Andrea Dworkin hangs from a rope as she talks to a reporter on Friday about the efforts of tree sitters to stop the Peak timber sale cut. The company cutting the trees said the protesters have been little more than an annoyance. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Two sides of success Tree sitters, loggers both say they’ve accomplished their goals at Peak sale By Paul Fattig Mail Tribune UNION CREEK — Dangling on a thin nylon rope from a wooden platform more than 100 feet above the forest floor, a woman whose tree-sitting name is Andrea Dworkin offered her perspective. "We have been successful — we have brought public attention to the corporate deforestation that’s going on here," she yelled. "Look around at the devastation," she added. "We have brought attention to what is happening." Her voice was drowned out by the giant bumble-bee roar of a Chinook helicopter buzzing over the 600-acre Peak timber sale en route to yarding another turn of logs to a nearby landing. The sale is a trade for what the U.S. Forest Service has deemed a more sensitive habitat near the coast. While protesters say the swapped forest must be preserved, the logging operator says it needs to be thinned. From the viewpoint of those logging the unit, the timber operation also was a success undeterred by the protesting tree sitters still in the trees. "Most reasonable folks will say that is now a healthy forest," said Ray Jones, vice president of resources for Roseburg Forest Products, in a telephone interview. "On average, the tree size will be much larger than before the sale," he added. "It will be better for the remaining trees. Wildlife will be happier. It’ll be more fire- resistant. And it will be a very nice place to walk through, to hunt through or to just visit." Those opposing perspectives are emerging from the Peak timber sale high in the Rogue River National Forest about 10 miles west of the Crater Lake National Park boundary. Two tree-sitting stands were erected in mid-July by the Mazama Forest Defenders, an environmental group opposed to the logging operation that began this fall. The Dillard-based Scott Timber Co., a subsidiary of Roseburg Forest Products, purchased the nearly 4 million-board-foot sale. After timber fallers cut the trees, Aurora-based Columbia Helicopters Inc. began harvesting the logs. Logging is expected to be complete by Dec. 6, weather permitting, Jones said. Watching it closely from the agency perspective is Joel King, the affable ranger in charge of the Prospect Ranger District on whose northern edge the Peak timber sale is perched. "We don’t do a very good job of listening to each other," he observed of those involved in the forest debate. "We’ve got to work on that." Indeed, during the war of words this fall, tree sitters accused the loggers of purposefully working too close to the stands in an attempt to scare the protesters. The loggers countered that the sitters used their net of ropes in nearby trees to move as close as possible to the logging operation. Forest Service officials report there have been no safety violations during the logging operation. An agency employee for more than a quarter-century, King takes a philosophical approach to the ranger job. "These young people care for the forest so much they are willing to sit up a tree to be heard," he said. "But the loggers choose to work in the woods because they love their work. "They are both important parts of the community. We need to treat them and each other with respect or we are all going to lose." King, speaking during a recent tour of the timber sale, wonders if many staking out positions in the forest dispute in the Pacific Northwest have lost sight of the trees. "Everybody cares about the forests," he said. "But it seems like it has become more of a power struggle at times than a forest issue." From his forester’s perspective, it is more important what is left than what is taken. "You make those kind of decisions on public land for forest health reasons, not for the benefit of any power struggle," he stressed. Too often, objectivity is stumped by needs and opinion, he said. "For instance, forest health depends on perspective," he said. "If you are a bark beetle, you like dead pine. "If you want to see big trees with a diversity of species with small openings for wildlife, then this will be what you would consider a healthier forest," he added. "Yeah, I do think this will be a healthier forest now." Humankind began suppressing wildfires in the region some 80 years ago, creating a forest with an abnormally high number of trees, he said. As a result, many areas in the region have several thousand trees per acre, compared to what would have been 100 to 300 per acre around 1910, he said. "The forest would be OK if we let the trend go," he said. "But it probably wouldn’t be the forest most people would want." That forest would have more bug infestations, more trees dying off in the competition for water, nutrients and sunlight, he said. "Ten percent of the sugar pines over 6 feet (in diameter) at Union Creek have died in the last five years," he said. "That means in another 50 years or so there won’t be any big ones left alive. "You’ll have smaller trees left, but when a fire comes through, that will take out most of those trees." From his perspective, logging operations like the Peak timber sale are making up for past overzealousness to stop wildfires. "This sale is a thinning from below where we are taking out predominantly the white fir," King said. "The area that remains is fully stocked in most cases." However, where large sugar pines are growing, forest openings have deliberately been created to ensure those trees will survive, he said. "These pines are not conducive to overcrowding," he said. "We want to keep the diversity in the forest so it will be more resilient if climate changes occur." As for the diversity of opinion, King figures that comes with the territory. "People need to be able to speak their mind in our society," he said. "They need to be able to freely disagree, not only with each other but also with the government. That needs to be respected." King stressed that no matter the perspective on the project, no one is above the law. "The timber sale was taken to court twice — it was found to be legal," he said. "It is a legal enterprise of the government. "But the demonstrators, for the most part, have obeyed the law." Several were arrested for trespass after the area was closed to the public for safety reasons. They were charged with misdemeanors. One of those charged was George Sexton, conservation director of the Ashland-based Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center. "The Forest Service bills this sale as thinning from below and fuels reduction," Sexton said. "They know that’s what everybody wants to hear. "But when you go out in the stand, you notice it is the co-dominant and dominant trees that tend to be marked for harvest," he added. "And those are the very trees most resistant to fire." There are large stumps alongside large trees in the unit. While he acknowledged the logged area would look park-like to many, he was quick to observe that doesn’t mean it’s a healthy forest. "By almost any measuring stick, we have lost an ecological jewel," he said. "There are old-growth trees on the ground we’ll never see again in our lifetime." The logging fouled the habitat of northern spotted owls and other wildlife that depend on mature trees for their survival, he said. "It’s a big loss," he said. "But the silver lining to that dark cloud is that the Rogue forest (officials), which has been in the old-growth liquidation business for a long time now, has learned that the younger generation is taking a stand." The tree sitters weren’t a major problem, said Fred Shields, project manager at the site for Columbia Helicopter. "It’s pretty much water under the bridge — we dealt with it," he said of logging around the tree stands. Ray Jones, the Roseburg Forest Products official, agreed. "They’ve been a nuisance but a controllable one," he said, later adding, "We’ll be glad to be done with Peak. "We just want to finish it and finish it safely," he said, noting that safety concern is also for the tree sitters. In the future, he envisions a robust forest filled with large trees where the logging occurred. "In my view, the job looks great," he said. "It has been a good job of thinning. It’ll be very difficult to tell it has been logged. "The Peak sale is really a good example of what can be done in similar timber types across the Northwest," he added. "It’s a new way of doing business." Back atop her stand, treesitter Dworkin, in a short cell-phone interview, says the stumps left behind will remind people for generations of the logging that occurred this year. The new way of doing business is what has her concerned. "I’ve talked to some of the loggers here," she said. "A number of them said they weren’t comfortable with what they were doing, but they needed the money to feed their families. "But we also had some ideological disagreements," she acknowledged. Noting that she and others in the trees aren’t getting paid and are surviving on donated food, Dworkin expects to be in her tree, which had been marked for cutting, until she feels it is protected from a logger’s saw. "We will come down when we are certain what is left of the sale will be safe," she said. "It’s unclear right now when that will be or what it will entail." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy webmaster feedback A D V E R T I S E R S