Page 10
Street Roots • August 19-25, 2016
News
FORESTS, from page 5
Accounts,” logging practices in western
Oregon are undermining the state’s climate
adaptation goals by using an “accounting
trick” that takes credit for carbon dioxide
absorbed in forests conserved by nonprofits,
small landowners and state agencies, giving
the illusion that the industry is carbon
neutral.
“Those big trees in those older forests
are big sticks of carbon on the landscape,”
said Dominick DellaSala, one of the report’s
authors and president and chief scientist at
the GEOS Institute. “Up to two-thirds of
that carbon is released quickly to the
atmosphere after accounting for stores in
wood products.”
Planting new trees to replace the old
doesn’t make up for that carbon loss, he
said; “those young stands, for the first 15
years or so, are a source of carbon dioxide
pollution.”
He explained that in an area where a
young stand of trees is growing out of a
recent logging event, more carbon is
emitted into the atmosphere than the trees
are able to take in. Discarded branches and
needles, or logging slash, that’s been left on
the ground decomposes rapidly, sending
previously stored carbon up into the
atmosphere. Additionally, carbon in the
upper soil layer is released when the soil is
disturbed during the operation, and carbon
left over from photosynthesis is released
during the night when the young trees
respire.
“So it’s a cumulative process of release
that you get in a younger stand, which is
acting as a carbon source,” he said, “as
compared to an older stand, which is acting
as a carbon sink.”
Line Cannon disagrees with DellaSala’s
findings. Cannon is the director of forest
resources and taxation at Oregon Forest and
Industries Council, which represents the
timber industry. He said he’s been looking
at carbon in forests for about 10 years.
He points to the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, which in 2007 stated in
its summary on forestry, “In the long term,
a sustainable forest management strategy
aimed at maintaining or increasing forest
carbon stocks, while producing an annual
sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy
from the forest, will generate the largest
sustained mitigation benefit”
He said the carbon stored in trees is
already part of the “natural carbon cycle,”
and will inevitably get released sooner or
later, whether it be through decay, wildfire,
or slash and biomass burning after logging.
Bigger, older trees experience
accelerated growth and an increased ability
to absorb larger amounts of carbon,
according to the findings of a team of 38
international researchers published in
science journal Nature in 2014. It’s a study
that’s been sited as a reason for preserving
old growth forests and leaving larger trees
on the landscape.
Maguire, at OSU’s College of Forestry,
said this study “was the talk of the town for
a while. Some people vehemently disagreed;
some agreed. It’s one thing to say I agree
with that or I don’t agree, but it’s a different
thing to say I have data that would suggest
otherwise. The thing that really annoys me
about my own profession is when people will
claim something and you know darn well it’s
PHOTO BY EMILY GREEN
On a tour through Zena Forest, located in the central Willamette Valley, owners Sarah
Deumling and her son Ben stop to tell their audience about how they look to the forest to tell
them what trees will grow best. Sara explains that in this patch of woods, the Douglas fir trees
are healthier because they are growing alongside maple, and the two species have a symbiotic
relationship.
their opinion and they have no substantial
data to back it up. That’s not the way we
should be doing things. That just hurts our
profession.”
The Oregon Global Warming Commission
has convened a Forest Carbon
Subcommittee to answer questions about
the interplay between the carbon content of
Oregon’s forests and current logging
practices. This was initiated in response to
the report that called out the timber
industry for its carbon dioxide emissions.
The subcommittee is expected to have its
report and recommendations to the
governor and Legislature before the start of
the 2017 legislative session, said DellaSala,
who sits on the subcommittee.
The subcommittee is a mix of
stakeholders, including forest and
environmental scientists and timber
industry representatives. Cannon, who sat
on the initial committee that looked at
forest carbon emissions for the commission,
also plans to attend every meeting.
DellaSala said that with OSU
environmental scientists Beverly Law and
Mark Harmon at the table, he has
“confidence that the best science will be
used to assess carbon from forestry
operations.”
Whether the group can agree on
recommendations, he said, is yet to be seen.
Different way of doing business
Following a morning drizzle on a
temperate afternoon in May, the owners of
Zena Forest Products, Sarah Deumling and
her son Ben Deumling, led a group of
policymakers and other interested parties
on a tour of their sustainable forest.
The Deumlings, like Hayes, have been
experimenting with methods for producing
timber in a way that incorporates ecological
benefits.
Ben began the tour by explaining how his
family manages its 1,300 acres in the
Willamette Valley, just northwest of Salem.
While federally protected wilderness
areas are the most biologically diverse and
environmentally beneficial, they cost money
to maintain rather then generating a profit,
he said.
On the other end of the spectrum, a tree
plantation is the least biologically diverse
and beneficial to the environment, but it’s
the most profitable.
The trick, he said, is to find a balance
between the two, where the forest benefits
commonwealth resources, such as clean
water and wildlife, but also generates a
profit, making its upkeep viable for the
landowner.
“We’ve been working on how to make it
profitable for 30 years, and I think we’ve
figured it out,” he said.
They harvest some Douglas fir, and older
hardwood trees that they mill on sight, along
with wood from neighboring forests. They
also make their own high-end flooring and
custom wood products.
But they don’t clear cut, they don’t
compact the soil, and they use minimal
amounts of herbicide, said Sarah Deumling,
a grandmother who’s known to take her
aggression out on invasive species with a
small hand saw, hacking them down rather
then spraying them with herbicide.
“If all you have is a row of trees because
you sprayed everything else, you’ve killed
the frogs, the slugs - and carbon is
absorbed by this green stuff on the ground,”
she said.
The Deumlings’ forest contains a wide
variety of trees, including Douglas fir, oak
and maple, and has a multilayer canopy -
much like a native forest.
They spot harvest trees that have reached
a particular value, cutting them down with
chainsaws and pulling them out by chain so
as not to disturb the forest floor with
additional road building.
“Forests like this, healthy and diverse -
here’s where I win,” she said. “They don’t
blow over in a windstorm. When we get a
heavy rain, the soil acts as a sponge because
it’s not compacted, and insect infestations
and disease don’t explode because they are
usually species specific, and wo have variety
here.”
Plus, she added, “hardwoods don’t burn
as much.”
Much of their forest management is
based on a German model that Sarah calls
“near to nature forestry.” Her husband was
a forester in Germany before persuading his
employers to invest in Zena Forest. He died
in 1996, and now his wife and son own and
manage the property, with hopes that the
next generation of Duemlings will continue
their legacy.
Hayes, who manages his own three
forests using similar methods, said German
foresters moved toward more sustainable
practices after they ran into serious
problems with the loss of soil productivity
after years of intensive-harvest tree
plantations - much like is being practiced
on a large scale in Oregon.
The big shift
Hayes said foresters such as himself and
the Duemlings are now looking to the next
stage: Phase V, where that perfect balance
of ecology and profit is achieved.
His company, Hyla Woods, is Douglas fir
dominant and profitable, he said.
But a lot needs to happen before Phase V
is viable for the industry as a whole.
While Sarah Duemling may be able to
hack away blackberry bushes with a hand
saw, for a company like Weyerhaeuser or
Stimson Lumber, it just isn’t practical or
economically viable. Plus, Zena Forest
enjoys the help of volunteers who believe in
its owners’ mission.
“If it’s really going to work economically,”
See FORESTS, page 11