News
Street Roots • August 19-25, 2016
FORESTS, from page 4
"I've witnessed some very interesting, some very
heated arguments among industry members.
There are some that will say, 'Why should we be
funding someone to find stuff out that is going
to diminish our ability to harvest?' And there are
others that are just adamant that's what we do as
foresters; that's our responsibility."
manage for this by spacing trees irregularly
or thinning early on in the growing process, .
he said, others do not.
DOUG MAGUIRE,
But regardless of spacing, the cookie
PROFESSOR OF FOREST MANAGEMENT AT OREGON STATE
UNIVERSITY'S COLLEGE OF FORESTRY
cutter height and characteristics of the
trees creates limitations that deny many
woodland creatures the diversity they need
to survive.
Gonzales, who leads Oregon Wild’s
nesting sites - and she’s doing it with
“A lot of species that nest in the older,
Forest and Watershed campaign, said
funding
from
the
timber
industry.
aged forests need multilayer canopies
another way tree plantations differ from
“The timber industry, including Oregon
because that provides protection to them,”
native forests is that their interiors are
Forest and Industries Council, lobbied the
said Kim Nelson, a research and wildlife
warmer. He said this has contributed to the
Oregon Legislature, saying they wanted
biologist at OSU.
warming of Oregon’s streams, which last
marbled murrelet research done so that
Nelson has been studying the marbled
year killed millions of fish.
some of these questions that they want to
murrelet, a seabird that flies inland to nest,
An OSU study released earlier this year
know, about how to better provide for the
since the 1980s. The murrelet was listed as
compared the microclimates of old-growth
murrelet, are answered,” she said.
abundant in the 1900s, she said, but today
forests to plantation forests in the Oregon
The timber industry, through a self-
is listed as threatened under the
Cascades, finding that tree plantation
imposed tax on lumber, funds a lot of
Endangered Species Act - a status that
interiors can be up to 4.5 degrees
research at OSU’s College of Forestry,
gives it habitat protections on private lands
Fahrenheit warmer.
Maguire said.
in Washington and California, but not in
One of the study’s authors, OSU
A benefit of this, he said, is third-party,
Oregon.
pfofessor Matt Betts, told the college’s
neutral research that’s publishable in peer-
She said the decline of the murrelet,
department of News and Research
reviewed journals.
along with other bird species such as the
Communications: “To the untrained eye, .
Conflicting opinions among timber
spotted owl and woodpeckers, is attributed
plantations might look similar to old-growth
interests regarding research funding serve
to habitat loss from forestry.
forests in terms of the aspects that are well
as an example of how deeply the industry’s
Jason Gonzales at Oregon Wild said coho
known to influence temperature,
values are split.
salmon and hundreds of smaller and “less
particularly canopy cover. So the magnitude
“I’ve witnessed some very interesting,
charismatic” species such as salamanders,
of the cooling effect of old-growth structure
some very heated arguments among
frogs, lichens and other fauna are also
is somewhat surprising.”
industry members,” Maguire said. “There
threatened as ä direct result of forestry
Gonzales said watershed warming is a
are some that will say, ‘Why should we be
practices in the Pacific Northwest.
“major problem all over the state,
funding someone to find stuff out that is
But Nelson pointed out that some
especially in far western Oregon -
going to diminish our ability to harvest?’
private landowners are voluntarily trying to
throughout the coastal areas of lakes, with
And there are others that are just adamant
employ practices that are consistent with
algae blooms that are dangerous, rivers
that’s what we do as foresters; that’s our
wildlife needs.
that are warm and fish that are dying.”
responsibility.”
She’s studying what buffers around
murrelet territory should look like and
whether the birds can be attracted to new
Page 5
The carbon question
In the era of climate change, one
potential problem with clear-cut logging
jumps out: It involves removing entire
patches of Pacific Northwest forests, which
are shown to have tremendous potential for
carbon dioxide sequestration.
A study authored by faculty at OSU’s
Department of Forest Science and
University of Washington’s College of
Forest Resources in 2002 found old growth
forests in the western portion of the Pacific
Northwest store more carbon dioxide per
acre than any other forests in the world.
Some of that carbon is absorbed in the
lush understory - the thick blanket of
shrubs, ferns and other plants that covers
the forest floor but gets cleared away after
a clear cut and experiences limited growth
in densely packed tree plantations.
One group of researchers argues the
state needs to start accounting for the
timber industry’s long-ignored contribution
to climate change.
In a November 2015 report, the Center
for Sustainable Economy and GEOS
Institute in Ashland pegged the timber
industry as the second-largest contributor
of greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon,
surpassed only by transportation.
See FORESTS, page 10
I
PHOTO BY JOE GLODE
A clear-cut mewed at milepost 23 along Oregon Highway 26, west of Portland.