The right path ahead through the woods

Former Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service and the father of the widely successful Siuslaw restoration thinning model Jim Furnish weighs in on the future of federal forestlands.

Today the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests will hold a hearing on forest restoration and hazardous fuels reduction. As the Siuslaw National Forest supervisor during the turbulent 1990s, I witnessed the Pacific Northwest timber wars firsthand. But I helped form a radically different forest management approach, based on restoration and collaboration, that has proved resilient and robust. It's a model that should be replicated in other national forests.

The decades after World War II saw a housing boom spur seemingly limitless timber jobs and profits. But unchecked logging took its ecological toll on watershed health and wildlife habitat. At the same time, the sprawling road system enabling resource extraction became unaffordable. Eventually, public concerns about the impacts of logging on the environment increased, and conservation organizations angered by forest management practices turned to the courts. A light went on for me: It was time to take a new management approach.

In just a few years, management of the Siuslaw National Forest went from being loathed by environmentalists to being praised. Timber harvest activity remained lively, but was designed to nurture existing mature and old-growth trees. Logging was limited to small-diameter trees in the overcrowded stands growing in previously clear-cut areas. This placed ecology before economics.

Today, the Siuslaw National Forest is an area in which old growth is protected, streams are being restored, partnerships are blossoming, budgets are being balanced, and litigation has all but ceased. It is a model for how to restore forest health and reduce fire risks, while supporting timber jobs.

We are now at a time, just as we were during the timber wars, when effective leadership and broad consensus are badly needed. Yet federal forest policy is dominated by gridlock and despair. Why are national forests still mired in controversy? It's because the Forest Service is not pursuing management practices that closely reflect public values. If a 30-plus year career in the Forest Service has taught me anything, it's that the public wants federal agencies to be good stewards of public lands and advocates for resource conservation, not exploitation. People are fed up with clear cutting old-growth forests, ruining wildlife habitat and punching roads into our remaining roadless lands. Policymakers need to recognize that national forests are public lands, not industrial lands.

Unfortunately, while the Siuslaw model holds promise for forests around the nation, it will require an act of Congress for widespread adoption. Federal agencies need direction to get out of the business of old-growth logging and focus instead on a restoration thinning program that restores the forest while producing timber. There are millions of acres of overstocked plantations across the West. After decades of litigation, conflict and fractious logging in our national forests, it's high time we took an ecologically sustainable, science-based path forward through the woods.