Applegater Fall 2015
21
MY OPINION FROM BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR
Here we go again!
BY cHRIS BRatt
Let’s face it. The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) has a fixation—an
ongoing belief that timber extraction is
the “dominant use” of the public forests
they manage for us (over two million
acres in western Oregon). In spite of
the environmental risks and the laws
that prohibit ravaging these forests,
the BLM has again raised the specter
of maximized timber production. They
are determined to continue managing
these public forests “primarily for timber
extraction activities, which include
timber harvesting, reforestation and
tree release programs.” To be fair, they
do manage other resources like wildlife
habitat, soil and water quality, and
recreational opportunities. But the bulk
of their energy, funding, expertise, and
actions continues to go into maximizing
timber extraction. Over the years, this
obsession has led to unsustainable
amounts of timber being sold and cut,
resulting in the degradation of other
forest resources.
In 1937 Congress passed the
Oregon and California Lands Act
(O&C), the first environmental law to
specify “sustained yield management.”
Since that time, this federal legislation
has guided the BLM’s forest management
activities specifying “sustained yield
management.” Sadly, the BLM has
construed the essential “sustained
yield” language—the heart of O&C—
to include only timber, leaving out
sustainability for the rest of the resources
they manage. Don’t the spotted owl,
salmon, old-growth trees, and unique
ecosystems deserve some sustainability
rights too? They are as integral to the
life of the forest as the trees. I believe
the O&C is a true “multiple use” law
where logging shares the sustainability
requirements with all the other valuable
forest resources. Not so, says the BLM,
who insist they have the wherewithal,
legal mandate, and plenty of trees to cut
higher volumes of timber than they have
in the recent past.
All of the BLM’s management
dilemmas and contradictions in terms
are about to become more important to
our Applegate community. Everyone
who cares about our surrounding public
forests should be aware that the BLM
has drafted new Resource Management
Plans (RMPs). These draft RMPs project
an increase in timber harvest. An increase
in cutting would be accompanied by a
decrease in dependent species.
This planned overcutting comes
The BLM’s RMP is a failure
BY Jack DUggaN
I really wanted this one to work.
After the spectacular failure of the
Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s)
last planning effort, the Western Oregon
Plan Revisions (“The Whopper”), I had
hoped that the people we pay to manage
our public lands understood that we need
to see a clear, understandable plan—a
plan with a realistic view of the current
state of our public lands along with a plan
to restore them to a healthy, productive
state that will serve future generations.
Like it says in the Oregon and California
Lands Act (O&C), providing “permanent
forest production…in conformity with
the principle of sustained yield for the
purpose of providing a permanent source
of timber supply.” The O&C lands are
not now in a sustainable state and cannot
provide a stable and predictable supply of
timber to give us the kind of economic
stability they should.
Unfortunately, the BLM’s “DRAFT
Resource Management Plan (RMP)/
Environmental Impact Statement” for
western Oregon fails completely to show
us, the citizens who own those lands and
are neighbors of those lands, how they
intend to create a balanced, forward-
looking management plan.
At 1,600 pages, the BLM has
obviously put a lot of work into this plan.
But for the public reviewers, it’s like the
BLM dumped a bunch of puzzle pieces
on the table, then walked away with the
box top showing us what the picture
should look like. Full of statistics, charts,
maps, tables, indexes, glossaries and
appendices, the overwhelming amount
of information fails to come together in
a way that allows us to see clearly what
will happen.
The BLM admits their limits. The
document contains numerous disclaimers
to “the scope of this analysis” and frankly
admits the lack of data on some issues.
The data that is presented is supported
by citations of many studies on various
topics, but it has been my experience that
the BLM cherry-picks their studies to
support a particular direction. There are
many peer-reviewed studies that come
to different conclusions than this BLM
document, but they are ignored.
The BLM also puts off taking action.
They intend to designate numerous
recreation areas, but will not determine
how those areas will be used until they
complete implementation planning in
five years. In the meantime they will limit
from trying to satisfy politicians, timber
industry folks, county officials, and
others who insist that timber sales would
generate a lot more money to help
Oregon’s financially strapped forested
counties. While that is true, it omits the
other half of the equation: if you want
to log sustainably—i.e., if you want to
have continual timber production—you
cannot finance all the struggling forest
counties, satisfy the timber industry’s
timber needs, and manage for all the
other environmental values and resources,
especially those protected under state or
federal laws. There are simply not enough
merchantable trees in these forests. These
new RMPs, if approved, will return
the BLM to a path of such widespread
habitat degradation that many of our
public forests and resources may not last.
During the past 20 years, the BLM
was committed to managing our forests
by using scientifically creditable data
from the region-wide Northwest Forest
Plan (NFP). The BLM’s current RMPs
also directed the BLM to manage all the
Northwest forestlands jointly with the US
Forest Service (USFS) to prevent further
fragmentation of these ecosystems. In
addition, the Northwest Forest Plan gave
the Applegate community (500,000 acres
of BLM, USFS,
and private
Chris Bratt
lands) the unique
opportunity to
work with the agencies in deciding
the future health of our diverse local
forests through the Applegate Adaptive
Management Area (AAMA). The local
community was given “extensive public
participation” opportunities.
But these opportunities for
our community to plan and participate
in the future of our local forests are being
sacrificed on the altar of more “intensive
management.” Now the BLM is reverting
to their old ways. Maintaining such things
as wildlife habitat, biological diversity,
carbon storage, and water quality at more
sustainable levels, while cutting a lesser
volume of board feet, will be a thing of the
past. The two conflicting interpretations
of the O&C over the years—multiple use
and dominant use—have kept the BLM
in a vacillating position. Their wavering
actions continually threaten the integrity
of our public forest ecosystems and the
integrity of the BLM itself.
If you think I’m wavering, please
let me know.
Chris Bratt
541-846-6988
activities to “existing roads and trails.”
But I have attended two recreational
workshops hosted by the BLM and
they cannot define what they mean by
“existing roads and trails.” So this ten-
year plan is short-circuited, in recreation
and other areas, by future work that will
take half the life of the plan.
Two BLM proposals that have
generated a great deal of controversy:
to return to clear-cutting (“regeneration
harvest”), and to reduce streamside
setbacks.
Clear-cutting is the most efficient and
economical tool for harvest in the short
term, but the long-term consequences
make it unsuitable for some areas,
particularly southern Oregon. Anyone
who watched the videos of last year’s
Douglas Complex fire saw those flames
burn with greater speed and intensity
through monoculture plantations that
resulted from clear-cuts. We live in one
of the most biologically diverse regions in
the world, and converting the landscape
to a monoculture will destroy our
ecological balance.
At a time when water is in high
demand, it is insane to impact even
the smallest feeder stream by allowing
increases in water temperature. Reduction
of streamside setbacks also impacts
wildlife, often causing many species to
seek a better environment.
The O&C Act requires that the
BLM manage our lands by “protecting
watersheds, regulating streamflow, and
contributing to the economic stability
of local communities and industries, and
providing recreational facilities.” Yet the
BLM shows, by this proposal alone, that
they have failed to take a comprehensive
view of its management practices.
The BLM bases nearly every study
and analysis on the impacts to cutting
timber. It claims: “The terms ‘annual
productive capacity,’ ‘annual sustained
yield capacity,’ and ‘allowable sale
quantity’ are synonymous.” Obviously
economics are determining forest
management rather than scientific
forest management determining the best
economic outcomes.
Clear-cutting, warmer streams, and
an overall failure to address the non-
sustainable conditions of our public
lands will not result in “economic
stability.” The BLM has worked hard,
but failed to present us with a plan that
allows us to tell our grandchildren what
the landscape will look like when they
are our age. The BLM needs to go back
to the drawing board.
Jack Duggan
shanachie@hughes.net
More information on the BLM’s plan
is available at www.blm.gov/or/plans/
rmpswesternoregon/.