Photograph by Steven Higgs
Mature hardwood trees in the most remote areas of the Morgan-Monroe State Forest will soon be cut down by loggers under contract with the Indiana DNR's Division of Forestry. Forest officials plan to harvest the state's only designated Backcountry Area, which is supposed to provide a "wilderness experience."
In God's wildness lies the hope of the world--the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. -- John Muir
The Indiana state Division of Forestry (DOF), part of the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR), is planning to log the Backcountry Area of Morgan-Monroe State Forest. The backcountry hasn't been logged in 30 years.
Backcountry is the DOF's officially designated term for remote, forested areas that are protected from logging and other commercial activity. The backcountry is supposed to remain intact because of its recreational value. According to the map/brochure that the DOF distributes to the public, the backcountry is supposed to give backpackers a "wilderness experience."
The backcountry consists of 3,000 acres in three noncontiguous sections in Morgan-Monroe State Forest and constitutes 2 percent of the 150,000-acre Indiana state forest system.
The Morgan-Monroe backcountry is in the northeast corner of Monroe County and the southeast corner of Morgan County and connects with Yellowwood State Forest, in the northwest corner of Brown County.
In the 1920s the state bought up farmland and denuded hillsides that had once been forest to allow the land to revert to woods. This land became the state forest system. When white settlers arrived in what was to become the state of Indiana, the region was 80 percent wooded.
"The backcountry is an ecologically sensitive area, and dogs aren't even allowed in it."
The Morgan-Monroe state forest was designated in the 1920s. The backcountry was designated in 1981.
The backcountry is an ecologically sensitive area, and dogs aren't even allowed in it. The area includes a marathon trail and the Tecumseh Trail, built and maintained by the Hoosier Hikers' Council. Tecumseh traverses Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood and will eventually link to the Knobstone Trail, which extends south toward the Ohio River.
"People can tell the difference between a healthy forest, one that's evolved without human intervention," and "one that has endured human activity," says Rhonda Baird, executive director of the Indiana Forest Alliance (IFA), a grassroots organization that's fighting to preserve the backcountry. She says that out-of-state hikers who backpack in the backcountry are amazed that such a high-quality wild area exists in south-central Indiana.
The DOF plans to first cut down trees in the northeast and southwest corners of the backcountry and continue cutting inward from there periodically.
"The conflict over how to deal with the Morgan-Monroe backcountry boils down to one between the ecological and economic perspectives."
Logging the backcountry necessitates building logging roads, bringing in heavy machinery, cutting down hardwood trees, damaging some of the remaining trees, and displacing or killing animals that live in the woods. In short, it's pure destruction.
The DOF's motive for this project is profit, but it's questionable whether logging state forests is actually profitable. According to the July 2008 "Comments" on the agency's draft environmental assessment of Morgan-Monroe State Forest, environmental economists Karyn Moscowitz and Christine Glaser said, "It is possible, and actually very likely based on data made available on national forests ... that extracting timber from a forest is a losing business in the long run, in other words, that the taxpayer subsidizes these activities by paying for maintaining, building, and decommissioning roads, plantings, etc."
Undoubtedly, logging the state forests is profitable for the logging industry.
As Moscowitz and Glaser argue, the forest's recreational, aesthetic and ecologic values far surpass its timber value: "The use of a forest for timber generates much lower values than the use of the forest to provide ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, carbon storage, recreation, air purification, water purification and flow control, and others."
In fact, Moscowitz and Glaser argue, "It seems obvious to us that the DOF plans presented in the environmental assessment have very little to do with the desire to protect or conserve or enhance biodiversity and are instead inspired by the requirements of industrial forestry." Indeed, Moscowitz and Glaser found that the forest is "managed" like a "tree farm" rather than a natural forest.
Photograph by Steven Higgs
Mitch Daniels' administration has shifted Indiana forest policy and turned the woods into profit centers.
Yet, according to Baird, the Morgan-Monroe's 2009 audit report claims the backcountry area is a prime example of "a strong commitment to identifying and protecting high conservation value forests on state ownerships."
The DOF wants to sell trees from the backcountry for the three main uses of hardwood -- construction, furniture and pallets -- pallets for one-time use, after which they're discarded.
Privately owned land can provide all the hardwood needed for industrial use, according to IFA Board President David Haberman, who was quoted in the Bloomington Alternative as saying 74 percent of Hoosiers do not want to see any of the state forests logged, ever.
What Haberman and IFA are asking for is not outlandish. They want the approach to the Morgan-Monroe backcountry be similar to that of the Charles C. Deam Wilderness Area in the Hoosier National Forest.
"People can tell the difference between a healthy forest, one that's evolved without human intervention."
- Rhonda Baird, Indiana Forest Alliance
Like all 109 million acres of land in the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS), the Deam's 13,000 acres are managed according to natural values rather than consumptive values.
The Wilderness Act of 1964, which established the NWPS on federal lands like the Hoosier National Forest, defines wilderness as "an area where the Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."
Logging is prohibited in designated federal wilderness areas, as are motorized vehicles. Only minimal development, such as trails, is allowed.
As an Associated Press story in the April 12 edition of The Herald-Times noted, "Even Forest Service managers must observe the restrictions placed on wilderness. For example, wilderness rangers must use primitive methods, such as mules for trail work and hauling equipment, and must use hand saws instead of chain saws."
The IFA is asking, again, for just 2 percent of the state forest system to be protected from logging and other commercial activity.
"Managing" public lands by logging them for profit instead of preserving them comes from an old forestry model that assumes that human beings know what's best for forests, whereas the modern science of ecology holds that forests are delicate and complex ecosystems that are best left to take care of themselves without human intervention.
"It is possible, and actually very likely ... that extracting timber from a forest is a losing business in the long run."
- Comments to DNR, by Karyn Moscowitz and Christine Glaser, July 2008
The conflict over how to deal with the Morgan-Monroe backcountry boils down to one between the ecological and economic perspectives.
The economic perspective sees exacting profits from the trees as the major goal of forest "management," though it couches its management practices in the language of ecology, using terms such as "preservation" and "sustainability."
In contrast, the ecological perspective advocates no logging or other commercial human activity in the backcountry and no "management" other than maintaining trails and protecting the forest from damaging human activity.
The Division of Forestry serves the logging industry, not the public and the forest.
The problems with the DOF run much deeper than mere forest management and pertain to the issue of democracy in the United States. As Dan La Botz observed in The Nation, "The corporate elite that has run this country for a hundred years controls all the governmental machinery, dominates the two major political parties, the lobbyists, and business and commercial associations."
The state DOF is no exception. The public has no more control over decisions that affect the forest system than it does over decisions that affect the rest of civic life.
Though Morgan-Monroe is a state forest and therefore the public's land, the DOF isn't required to ask the public if it approves its forest management plans. In fact, notifying IFA of its backcountry plans was a courtesy, not a legal prerequisite, of logging.
Photograph by Steven Higgs
The Indiana Forest Alliance has challenged the state's forestry policies, but a series of Monroe County judges have allowed the lawsuit to languish for years.
State Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, introduced House Bill 1550 in the State Legislature this year that would prohibit commercial activity -- including logging -- in the Backcountry Area of Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood State Forests. At a hearing on Feb. 11, the House Natural Resources Committee heard testimony on the bill.
Tim Maloney of the Hoosier Environmental Council testified in favor of the bill. Haberman testified on the history of the area and the need for wilderness on our public lands. Baird testified on the economic benefits of the area, especially the tourism dollars generated by races on the Tecumseh Trail. (Once the Knobstone trail is finished, the part of it that runs through the backcountry will be the most protected area of that 140-mile trail.)
A representative of the DOF, the head of the DNR, the head of the Indiana Hardwood Lumberman's Association, the head of the Indiana Farm Bureau, the Forester of the Year for 2008, the head of the grouse hunting group and others testified against the bill, generally arguing that even in these "tough times," the people of Indiana want the "experts" (DOF) to log the forests and that such decisions should be left to those "experts."
"The Division of Forestry serves the logging industry, not the public and the forest."
They even suggested that the legislators didn't have the authority to change the management of the land in question. The hearing didn't change anything because IFA knew, going into it, that the bill would be referred to a summer study commission, and that's what happened.
Since the Feb. 11 hearing, Rep. Phil Pflum, a member of the Natural Resources Committee and chair of the House Agricultural Committee, joined Pierce as coauthor of the bill.
Seven years ago IFA filed a lawsuit against the DOF. "Essentially," says IFA Executive Director Baird, "we are arguing that the Division of Forestry is not following the Indiana Environmental Policy Act (IEPA) and that the timber sale program is harmful to the state. The DOF is now exempt from IEPA, thanks to a law passed during Kyle Hupfer's stint as head of the Department of Natural Resources. However, a judge ruled in December that this does not affect our lawsuit. Our complaint can stand."
The IFA is reactivating a coalition that includes Heartwood, Sierra Club chapters, Earth Charter from Indianapolis, Sustainable Earth from West Lafayette, the Indiana Public Interest Research Group and the Hoosier Environmental Council, for a total of nearly two dozen organizations, to ask for a delay in the cutting and selling of backcountry trees until HB 1550 receives a hearing in the state legislature.
Linda Greene can be reached at lgreene@bloomington.in.us.
Rhonda Baird contributed to this story.
What you can do
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Comments
thank you Matt Pierce!
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2009/08/17/news.qp-5774256.sto?...
Yes, thank you...
Thanks for proving the Bloomington crowd cares little about anything but their precious hiking experience. This isn't an issue about anything other than what a handful of people in Bloomington want for the forests owned by the people of Indiana. There are 3 backcountry areas on state forests but apparently the only one important enough to protect is "theirs". They say a lot of lofty rhetoric about ecology, wildlife habitat, and wilderness integrity and how these are threatened by Backcountry logging - but what about the other 2 areas on Jackson-Washington and Clark state forests? Logging has gone on in those areas for years and you haven't heard a peep from them. Don't you care about the ecology, wildlife, and wilderness-LIKE experience in THOSE forests? Seems your "principles" are limited to where you can drive in a 1/2 hour to go hiking. You don't want to see a stump when you hike? Go to the 13,000 acre Deam Wilderness Area, a state park, or a nature preserve.
What I'M thankful for is that the Natural Resource Committee didn't want to further waste the time of state officials with this semantic silliness and killed the proposed bill.
Last word response
winmag has done a wonderful job debunking many of the myths that Amy has spreading in prior posts. I do not wish Amy to have "The Last Word" here as she has continued to misrepresent the facts. I do not disagree with her on all of her points, but there are numerous items that should be clarified.
1) Wood as energy. While I do agree wholeheartedly that solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources need to become a larger portion of our energy needs as a society (along with better energy conservation and the like), it is naive to think that we can subsume those needs without utilizing biomass from multiple sources. Everyone would love to believe that corn stover will be the only biomass we need. However, there is ample evidence that under current production techniques, corn stover can require more energy to produce than we can extract. If we use the entire corn plant (i.e., cobs and all), this debt disappears, but of course then we must grow food elsewhere. Switchgrass may also be an alternative, and likely would move more land away from food production to energy production. Wood will also be needed, but not in the way Amy has characterized. There is no intent to do widespread land clearing of mature, native state forests here in Indiana for biomass plantations. It will just be a way land managers can pay for light cuttings in younger forests, such as thinning, timber stand improvement and even wildlife habitat management needs (e.g., ruffed grouse management).
2) Burning and clearcutting. Fires are a natural component of many ecosystems. Most of our fire problems in the West that we experience now are because we suppressed all fires for the last 50+ years! This resulted in a buildup of small trees that allow fires to spread from a ground fire, which was natural and not fatal to the mature trees, to the canopy (thus creating a wildfire). We had the same suppression policies here, and although do not have the wildfire risk, do have a risk of major changes to our forests because of it. There is ample evidence that oak species are not regenerating and most forests in the state will switch over to maple dominance in the next 50 years. For example, in one study in MMSF and Yellowwood SF, of 8000 trees inventories in systematic plots in mature oak-dominated stands, only 20 were oak saplings between 1" and 4" in diameter. This is not sustainable.
Why should you care? Well, oak species are one of the last remaining sources of hard mast (we lost chestnut to an exotic disease over 50 years ago). Turkey, deer, mice, squirrels, and numerous other species DEPEND greatly on acorns for survival. Fewer oak mean less wildlife that you so endearingly want to protect. The IDNR stresses oak so greatly exactly because we will lose oak without something to reduce the maples that choke out most young oak trees before they can reach the canopy.
So what can we do? Manage the forest responsibly for multiple values. This includes wildlife, water, clear air, recreation, AND timber. Removing maple from the understory and some overstory oak in a technique called shelterwood cutting is PROVEN by multiple studies of up to 50 years in duration to regenerate oak successfully and maintain oak-dominated systems. This technique can maintain old trees and young trees at the same time, creating a diverse structure that favors wildlife, protects water and provides multiple ecosystem services. Prescribed burning can work and has been used successfully in many parts of the country to restore ecosystem function and resilence (there are 1000s of documented cases of this). If applied more frequently here, it too would promote oak regeneration and help sustain our forests.
3) The public vs. private lands debate. Amy is extrapolating her argument from the below cost timber sales debates that raged throughout the western United States since the 1990s. Just comparing the stumpage rates from a state forest sale and a private forest sale may lead her to this false conclusion. However, what she has not stated is the difference in requirements for the loggers across those sales. On state lands, a logger must follow regulations and Best Management Practices that protect water quality. For example, the logger must install water bars on skid trails, seed landings with grass, and build temporary bridges to get over small streams. These cost money (e.g., $500+ per water bar and there are commonly dozens of these on a sale) so the logger bids lower accordingly. On private land, these regulations do not apply, so the logger can bid much higher.
Lastly, there is a second reason why harvesting on state forests is important. The state forests have a responsibility to show sound, sustainable forestry practices. If you just drive across any county in Indiana, you will find that a majority of private woodlots are atrociously managed. They have been highgraded of all valuable timber and have serious health problems from insects and disease. Many are just falling apart. The state lands have an educational role to play to show how timber harvesting can improve the health and habitat of a forest. While I agree that the state ways to go to be the model, it will not be if we lock up their lands like the Hoosier.
In summary, it is naive to think that we can maintain the forests of MMSF and other state forests "as is" without some active management. Forests change over time, sometimes to the better and sometimes not. While I agree that some areas need to be reserved and unmanaged (e.g., state parks, nature preserves), I strongly disagree with the assertion that harvesting should be eliminated from all public lands.
HAHAHAHAHA
"Back country logging sale postponed"
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2009/08/17/news.qp-5774256.sto?...
HT-8/17/09
Quercus and winmag--Your lies are losing momentum!
Is that laughter or chainsaws?
Amy, don't look now but while you were laughing the Natural Resources Committe killed that ridiculous bill. Keep laughing, maybe it will drown out the chainsaws!! Too bad for you Quercus and Winmag's "lies" were actually facts and apparently facts never lose momentum when open-minded people who are interested in the truth actually listen to them.
backcountry sale
Well, apparently with the consideration of this issue by the summer study committee, the bill proposing permanent protection of the backcountry area is no longer in play. I guess that means the backcountry timber sale is back on track again.
No lies here
Hey there, Amy - I enjoy a good debate every now and then, but I am not incorporating lies into my arguments. I'm not sure if you read what I wrote with very much attention, but everything I said was TRUE. Even if you disagree with the concept of forest management, it doesn't make certain scientific things untrue. This applies to the discussion points about soil fertility, soil erosion, plant succession, forest types, forest management principals, animal biology, ecological interactions, etc, etc.
You might be interested to know that if you were fighting to protect 3000 acres of true old growth forest from management, I would be on your side. But the area in question is indeed previously disturbed second and third growth forest, so for me, it qualifies as a different argument at that point. Cutting some trees out of it now is really no different from the cutting of some trees out of the same area 30, 50, or 100 years ago.
I actually worked for a consultant forester some years ago, and he had a job on a 40 acre parcel of private land in Illinois that actually WAS old growth - owned by the same family since the early 1800's and no cutting in it. He (the landowners) wanted to mark a sale in there, and we almost came to blows over it. I actually notified a university biology dept about it and they came out to put plots in the woods. So, believe it or not, I subscribe to the idea that certain areas need to be protected from man caused disturbance - just not second and third growth forest that has been previously managed already.
Coincidentally, that particular example gives credence to my opinion that some of the efforts being put forth to protect forests might better be targeted toward private land rather than public land. That particular consultant also had a job or two that were deforestation jobs to convert land - in one instance for farmland, and in another for strip mining for coal - yes we do have strip mining in Indiana. That is where all pro-forest people are truly losing in the larger perspective.
Logging MMSF
Winmag's response is very good and on target. Thank-you for providing some clarification of the facts.
logging at MMSF
While I will always appreciate people who want to conserve nature, this article is very one-sided, leaves out a lot of facts, and misrepresents many things to the point of spreading false information.
The forests of Indiana are not virgin old growth like in the Pacific northwest. The land has been cut several times, and some of it has been cleared and regrown to trees. Sustainable harvesting of second and third growth timber is not a bad thing. Utilizing natural resources that are renewable should be something we all strive for. Certainly fossil fuel extraction is not sustainable or renewable.
Hardwood timber sales in Indiana are very very rarely below cost. Hardwood timber brings more money per board foot than softwood timber, and the amount of roadbuilding costs when compared to logging in western mountainous forests is minimal. Hardwoods are used primarily for furniture and flooring - not construction lumber. Pallet material comes from the lowest grade top logs in a tree and low value trees in the woods taken in the process of leaving the better trees to grow. Selective harvesting is not "pure destruction" any more than weeding your garden, mowing grass, or harvesting a cornfield is pure destruction. The plants continue to grow and the land is still a forest.
Forests do indeed provide a lot of ecosystem values. But a selectively harvested forest does the same thing. The trees are still there, the plant life is still there, the wildlife still live there, and the water continues to be filtered through a forest rather than over a plowed bare ag field or a Walmart parking lot. You can still hike in a woods that has been cut, and the remaining trees still sequester carbon.
"Privately owned land can provide all the hardwood needed for industrial use" - Now that is a good one that gets used all the time. The people that keep repeating that ought to spend some time looking at what private land timber sales look like. There certainly are well managed sales that are administered by knowledgable foresters, but a whole lot of them don't involve sound management and are diameter limit cuts or high grade cuts where all the valuable wood in a forest is extracted and all the poor quality trees are left behind. And usually very little effort is put into stopping or slowing erosion. It is purely a mining job where no concern is given to the future of the forest at all. In many cases what is left of such private sales are cleared off for development or subdivided for housing. Is that really what David Haberman is promoting? I would much rather have public land managed by trained professionals to ensure a perpetual presence of quality trees in a forest on the landscape.
What Haberman and the IFA are asking is not so simple as to set aside one backcountry area. They don't want to see a single tree cut on public land anywhere. This is very naive and would serve the interests of a small minority of extremists. As JFK once said, the problem with extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. Well stated in this case.
Instead of couching this debate in terms of "it's a choice between money, profit, and economics, or ecology", why don't people try to understand that there is middle ground that can serve both interests. It is quite possible to have public forest land that is managed to sustainably remove some timber products while at the same time ensuring that there will always be a public forest there to continue to grow trees and provide recreational opportunities. A second or third growth forest that has already been cut in the past can continue to be managed, and it will still sequester carbon, filter water runoff, serve as wildlife habitat, and offer a place to hike, hunt, and get away from civilized society.
There are many other worthwhile environmental causes that require more concern and effort than worrying about professional foresters managing a public forest for multiple uses. Try to put your efforts toward stopping mountaintop removal, or the strip mining of Alberta's boreal forests for tar sands, or the rampant suburban sprawl and development, or the deforestation in the tropics for soybean production, or the illegal logging in central Africa and Indonesia, or the illegal trade in wildlife parts in the Orient, or the combined sewer overflows from many urban areas into our rivers, or conversion of greenspace into unnecessary highways. There are dozens and dozens of legitimate environmental causes that warrant infinitely more attention than what is being given to this issue. I wish people would put productive energies where they can do the most good.
Winmag, your knowledge of
Winmag, your knowledge of forestry issues is extensive, and in fact implies employment in the industry. While it is true the forests of Indiana are not virgin old growth, they are however sacred, scarce and reclaimed parcels of a once thriving forest ecosystem. "Harvesting" the back-country is a phrase and a policy of contradiction. The term back-country is assigned to areas that are to remain untouched, therefore harvesting them destroys the very purpose for which they were created.
Further, what remains truly at steak is not the recreational benefits of this land, but the ecological devastation the DOF's slash and burn policy would inflict.
Also, the argument of using trees to generate electricity as a smart idea rather than coal fails to convince me, especially since we all know electricity can be generated in far less invasive and far more environmentally sound ways:wind, water, solar..
Also, the argument that "because the forests have been exploited in the past so they might as well be exploited again" is appalling
And how does wildlife remain if you cut down its habitat? Do you mean, "wildlife dies"? And how can the trees still be there if they are cut down? Do you mean the tree stumps are still there because it is not profitable for you to dig them up? And if you have an extensive long term plan to clear cut the state forests repeatedly, what tress will be
remaining to sequester carbon?
Privately owned logged land that is not well managed would not be the fault of publicly owned land, nor does it provide sufficient reason to log state forests. Perhaps you should eliminate that from your argument all together. And perhaps if you seek better regulation of private land logging, you should take it up with the state legislature, not with David Haberman.
And please don't construe JFk quotes to secure your argument, and don't label people who want to preserve a small fraction of public forests as extremist.
And why don't you address the subsidization of Indiana's logging industry? Tax payers lose money in the logging of state forests, but the logging industry profits, just how much does the republican party receive in campaign contributions from the logging industry? We lose money paying for the trees to be cut down, and we lose the trees too, nice deal for the citizens of Indiana.
And while we're on the subject of worthwhile environmental causes, rather than defending the DOF's really bad logging plan, YOU might consider putting your efforts toward "stopping mountaintop removal, or the strip mining of Alberta's boreal forests for tar sands, or the rampant suburban sprawl and development, or the deforestation in the tropics for soybean production, or the illegal logging in central Africa and Indonesia, or
the illegal trade in wildlife parts in the Orient, or the combined sewer overflows from many urban areas into our rivers, or conversion of greenspace into unnecessary highways."
MMSF backcountry - Amy Gerstman comments
I'd like to respond to Ms. Gerstman's comments. Yes, I do have knowledge of forestry issues - including the industry side of things. I'm not going to make apologies for knowing something about the subject of which I speak. And I don't mind carrying on an intelligent discussion of the issues using science as well as emotion.
As far as using trees to generate electricity - I was not suggesting that. You misinterpreted what I said. I was making the point that using a fossil fuel like coal to generate electricity is not sustainable because it is a nonrenewable resource. While trees are a renewable resource, and can be harvested to produce wood products in a sustainable manner. I have no issue with using wind and solar for electricity generation, but we are getting off point.
You imply that "exploiting" forests is appalling, even if they were exploited in the past. The point I was trying to make is that it is more defendable to protect an uncut forest that is several hundreds of years old rather than a second or third growth forest that might not even be 100 years old. More people can get behind protecting undisturbed stands of Doug fir that are 5 feet in diameter or redwoods that are 10 feet in diameter rather than previously logged hardwood stands that are much smaller and younger.
As for the question of how does wildlife remain when forests get cut - well that gets to the ecology of things. There are certain species of wildlife that thrive - yes, thrive - in disturbed forest habitat. Game animals like deer and turkey are going to be noticeably more plentiful in a diverse habitat with mature and immature stands of trees than strictly in a mature forest. Grouse will completely disappear if there are no areas of young trees. There are also numerous species of songbirds that utilize early successional habitat - some of which are entirely dependent upon it. Others that are more associated with mature forest habitat utilize early successional areas to glean insects from to feed their young. If one were to think about it, if there are any species of wildlife that were completely dependent upon climax stage successional forest habitat in this state, they would have been extirpated in the early parts of the 20th century since the state of the forests then were much worse than they are today, with less area of less mature trees when compared to today.
The comment about how can the trees still be there if they are cut down? My advice would be to do some very basic research into what is being talked about. No one is promoting the idea of completely denuding 3000 acres of the MMSF backcountry area. What I believe is being talked about is using a variety of techniques including group selections (what you would call a clearcut, but much smaller) as well as single tree selection methods to harvest the trees. In both of these cases, there are lots of residual trees being left in the stand to grow. Despite what you might believe, the purpose of forestry is not just to make a bunch of money, but rather to tend the stand by taking out slower growing or defective trees while allowing the better trees to continue to grow and take advantage of the space opened up by other tree's removal. The remaining trees continue to grow and sequester carbon. In the case of a group selection, the purpose is to start a small area of the forest over with new trees that cannot grow in shaded conditions - species like yellow-poplar, black cherry, and the oaks. Without such management, the nature of the stand changes and certain species die out and disappear.
As far as poorly managed private timberland, I wouldn't disagree that some more regulation might be in order. But in a state like Indiana, good luck with getting that passed. The person who should eliminate the private land from their argument is David Haberman and anyone else who keeps touting how wonderful it would be if all the timber that would ordinarily get cut on the state land would get shifted over to private land. Yes, that makes a lot of sense - instead of having professional foresters manage public lands for timber, have it all get put into the hands of private individuals who may or may not care what the forest looks like after it gets cut. My experience has been that there is a sizeable segment of the private woodland owners who care only about how much money they can make. Not everyone, but a lot. There are some businesses that make their living on buying land, stripping every stick of wood off of it, and selling it as subdivided lots. These businesses continue to exist because private owners care more about money than trees.
On to the point about subsidization of logging with below cost timber sales. I am interested to see how you come to this conclusion and what accounting methods you are using. When the state forests have timber sales, they calculate the cost of the paint to mark the trees, the time for equipment preparation of the site, the cost of the gravel and other materials, and the time of the forester to mark the sale. To my knowledge, the vast majority, if not all of these sales make more money in revenue than what the costs add up to. Some of them make a lot more. I suppose it is possible that someone is adding other costs in that I am not aware of, but on the basis of the time and materials it takes to sell timber compared to what it brings in, you are wrong on that point.
And now, for your final point. You think I am a hypocrite by defending sustainable forestry on public lands and (to your knowledge) not standing up for other environmental issues. On that point, I can assure you with utmost confidence that you are WRONG! I am an ardent opponent of I-69 and its threat to the greenspace and have written many letters and spoke at many meetings against that ridiculous project. I have also been involved in many local fights to prevent conversion of more land in my county into unnecessary strip malls, roads, and industrial parks. I put new flooring in my kitchen several years ago, and I used American grown northern red oak flooring produced in Tennessee - not mahogany, or teak, or Brazilian cherry or any other tropical hardwood that might have come from deforestation in those regions. I have long said that American society needs to stop wasting fuel and electricity on things like Hummers and Las Vegas lights so we don't have an incentive to rip the tops off of mountains in WV.
The very fact that I am aware of all of those issues would indicate that I have an interest in all of them and keep informed on the details related to them. I would suggest that you continue to enlighten yourself as to some of the more scientific reasons behind forest management and not so much on the emotional ones.
Indiana Forests
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comments Winmag, I always enjoy rational debates.
So, if you are not making a case for trees to generate electricity (by cutting them down and burning them) instead of coal, why on earth did you bring it up? Because, trees are not renewable in any immediate sense or consideration. They take many years, sometimes decades, to grow and establish root structures.
Coal, however, IS abundant in Indiana! We have many, many decades worth right below our feet. Coal is Indiana’s current source of electricity. (Now I admit, all those new environmental regulations placed on the coal industry are a bit pesky, but our air quality, and the health and well being of our families and children, make those regulations necessary—much as I’d like to apologize to you for them.)
I think it’s wonderful that trees are harvested to produce quality wood products in a sustainable manner, I just object to using public forests for that purpose.
Yes, I consider exploiting the state and national forests appalling.
The prior discussions have failed to address the multitude of benefits derived from leaving the forests intact and thriving: reduction of global warming; removal of pollution from the air; assisting the earth in regulating rainfall and global temperatures; enabling and protecting wildlife habitat (certainly you do not have the arrogance to assume humans are the only creatures entitled to existence on this planet?); producing oxygen; preventing erosion, mudslides, and floods; and so forth….THAT, I do believe, addresses the real ecology of things.
I think it is best to leave the existing wildlife intact rather than assuming that slash-and-burning the forests repeatedly over a 30 year period would bring about some sort of other species whom wouldn’t mind massive destruction.
The game animal argument doesn’t hold water since we have an overpopulation of deer and turkey, which often starve to death in winters since we’ve managed to kill off all of their natural predators, like the bobcat and the wolf. (But I do support well managed in-state-forests hunting of deer and turkey, which generate food for our food banks during the winter time of need.)
I DO believe the DOF’s plan IS promoting the idea of completely denuding 3000 acres of the MMSF backcountry area….and then some. 30 years of slash and burn, come on what will be left, toothpicks????!! Clear cutting is clear cutting. And do tell, who will be regulating this massive clear-cut to ensure all possible environmental regulations are observed? A former police officer with absolutely NO education in ecology?? Do you have any of those hanging out there??
Slower growing or defective trees need no human intervention to be eliminated, are you aware of something called evolution?
Haberman’s argument, as well as mine, is that we are reducing the profits generated by logging private land. Indiana does this by subsidizing public land logging. This causes a reduction in the Indiana and national gross domestic product and contributes to unemployment and a reduction in tax revenue AND contributes to our existing recession.
Once again, if you wish better regulation of private land, take it up with the GA. You may in fact begin this by addressing your local representatives to make your concerns known—they will then in turn introduce better regulations of private land logging to the GA. I address my concerns to my local representatives all the time and they utilize their position to lobby the GA.
Let’s address subsidization of logging with below cost timber sales: could the DOF provide itemized costs of the current construction and maintenance of roads within the state forests? As well as the costs of the extensive 30 year logging plan?? The coats of the plan were never made public. That information will assist me greatly. Thank you. The public knows that logging is subsidized in national forests, it’s the inability to sequester documents from the Indiana Division of Forestry that I have difficulty with. If there is no subsidizing, I wonder then why the public cannot access those documents? Especially considering that the state forests are owned by the Indiana taxpayers.
I never used the word “hypocrite” nor have I engaged in any sort of “emotional” debate. But I’m delighted you oppose I-69. However, this isn’t about I69, it’s about the state forests.
forest mgmt issues
I'll continue to engage in this discussion to address your responses.
No, I'm not promoting the idea of cutting down trees for electricity generation. Again, my point was to contrast renewable resources with nonrenewable ones. I believe it is pretty universally agreed that fossil fuels are considered nonrenewable. Wood, on the other hand, is considered renewable because it can be grown on the land, harvested, and then regrown on the same land to be harvested again in a "relatively" short period of geologic time. Yes, it is true that trees take decades to grow into what one would consider a large tree, but the vast majority of the trunk (the part utilized for wood products) is made up of carbon that was fixed from the atmosphere over decades of growth. While the vast majority of the macronutrients - nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK) - are contained in the actively growing tissues of the fine branches and leaves. Those parts are left on site to decay and continue the nutrient cycle.
The consistent removal of these nutrients in the grains and vegetables that are grown on agricultural land is what necessitates the addition of large quantities of fertilizer to ag land. Which in turn is the cause of a lot of the nonpoint water pollution when the nitrogen leaches through soils and into groundwater, while phosphorus is bound to soil particles that erode off the surface of tilled fields into surface water. All this leads to increased algae growth and biological oxygen demand (BOD). Forest management may be unsightly to some, but it is a healthier utilization of our resources from a nutrient cycling perspective. And by harvesting products that are primarily carbon from sequestered atmospheric CO2, and putting a lot of these products into "long term" storage like building materials and furniture, it is a reasonable way to funnel CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it while letting young trees sequester more of it.
I'm not real sure what you are trying to get at with your comments on coal. Yes, we have a lot of it. But it is a nonrenewable resource that when burned, has a low efficiency of energy transfer into the form we want - electricity. Most of that conversion process is lost as heat. And more importantly, when it is strip mined, it completely devastates the land. If there is a forest in the way, it is not only clearcut, but bulldozed. Any rare understory plants and habitats are completely eliminated. The topsoil that can be saved is piled up and most of the biological activity ceases (worms, microbes, etc). Then when it is put back, the soil is semi-sterile, and so compacted that little can grow there. I see strip mining as a much more devastating activity than selective timber harvesting.
Your listing of benefits that forests provide is accurate, but a point that continues to be overlooked is that just because a forest has trees cut from it does not eliminate either the forest or the benefits that continue to be gleaned from that forest. A managed forest (one where trees are cut on a regular basis) will still have uncut trees that will still sequester carbon and produce oxygen and provide wildlife habitat and filter rainfall and provide a buffer from erosion. Forests are dynamic and not static. The trees that either die naturally or are cut will be replaced by new trees that will take their place. The disturbance that logging introduces in the way of disturbed soil is very limited in area (skid trails and log yards), and with the installation of proper water diversions and soil stabilization practices, will only very minimally impact the water resources. Even under what you would consider extreme conditions, a lot of tops from a heavily cut area will protect the soil from direct rainfall runoff, and after one year, every harvested woods will have a layer of fallen leaves covering the areas that were exposed to bare soil. The amount of erosion from either agricultural fields or any development site is orders of magnitude greater than from logging in forests - when BMP's are implemented.
You are correct in the fact that we have an abundant population of deer and turkey. Wolves were indeed extirpated many years ago, but the bobcat seems to be doing quite well from the population research that was done on them in the last 10 years. If you would like to confer with the non-game biologist that was involved in that study, I think he would agree that bobcats are a species that benefit from forest management which creates early successional habitat, because they are predators of smaller mammals like rabbits (another game species) that would find more food in such thicker herbaceous vegetation than in a mature woods. But diversity is really the key - not all early successional, and not all mature woodland.
As for your belief that the Division of Forestry plans to "denude" 3000 acres of the backcountry, you will have to talk directly with the state forester, but I am pretty sure that is not the plan. I think what is being proposed is selective timber harvesting - the kind where some trees are cut and a lot are left. The plan may indeed include all of the acreage, but not with the intent of deforesting it, and not even with the intent of clearcutting much of it. You use the term - slash and burn - but that is really more appropriately applied to situations where farmers cut or deaden the trees (usually in the tropics), and then burn the brush to clear it for agriculture.
This is deforestation and conversion, and I really don't think that is even close to what is being proposed. The burning that is practiced in forest management is primarily understory burning to encourage oak trees and reduce the amount of beech and maple. Is is prescribed and planned specifically to maintain living overstory trees while manipulating the understory. You might be interested to know that a lot of the nature preserves in Indiana are purposefully burned regularly also to manipulate vegetation. These areas that are not managed for timber production see a LOT more fire than most of the state forest lands.
As for who will be overseeing any harvesting operations on state land - including the backcountry area, it will probably be people who have gone to college to study forest management. This usually includes curriculum involving biology, dendrology, plant systemics, ecology, maybe some physiology, possibly mammology, ornithology, ichthyology, zoology, as well as other science and humanities courses. Most people who choose to be natural resource managers do it because they enjoy being outdoors and care about the environment, and certainly not for the money.
Manipulation of the forest stand by eliminating defective or slow growing trees is something that is done to correct mismanagement practices of a century ago. Cutting out all the large, sound, straight, valuable trees and leaving the crooked, rotten, low value trees is a practice called high-grading, and has long term negative effects in a forest. By reversing that practice and leaving the best stand of residual trees by removing the less desirable ones is what proper forest management is all about. Even people opposed to tree cutting like to walk in a forest of large diameter (possibly from enhanced growth rates) trees that are tall and straight. If the oak trees are being targeted as the desired future stand, the wildlife have more hard mast (acorns) to feed on in the fall and winter. Again, proper forest management is not a bad thing and can serve multiple objectives.
You have put forth the argument that by selling timber from public lands, this results in reduced profits for private timberland owners. I'll try to argue my point from a numbers standpoint. If there are 4,655,000 acres of forestland in Indiana, and the Division of Forestry manages 150,000 acres, that represents slightly over 3% of the total. If the approximate amount of timber cut in Indiana on a yearly basis is about 400,000,000 board feet, and the Division of Forestry cuts between 12-14 million board feet per year, that is also between 3 and 4%. Calculated both ways, the impact of public land timber on the industry as a whole only represents in the vicinity of 3%. It is hard to imagine that having much of an impact on depressing prices as a whole. And I don't really see how providing a resource for loggers to cut, mills to saw, and manufacturers to produce products from is going to lead to unemployment, reduced GDP, and less tax revenues. I would think it would help those things. If we were talking about national forests in some western state where 30% or more of the landbase is publicly owned, I think your argument of saturating the system might have more traction.
Politics is a convoluted process. I have addressed numerous issues (many environmental) with legislators, and they will still choose which issues they want to promote or fight for. Especially when the issues being brought up are raised by only a minority of people, many things get ignored. It is helpful that one of our federal senators - Lugar - appreciates trees and forestry. I would like to see better management of Indiana's private forestlands, but it is highly unlikely anyone will carry any bills through the legislature (and get the governor's signature) that do very much to impact private property rights as interpreted in this state.
Finally, I am not sure what organization you are affiliated with, but at least one Bloomington-based group has in the past made their request for information related to state forest timber sales. From what I understand, that information (which is indeed public) was copied and provided to fulfill that request. As I stated earlier, the costs associated with timber sales on state forest land are indeed accounted for. Perhaps you have a different set of costs you would like to see included, but roadbuilding costs are certainly direct in nature and accounted for in the whole scheme of things. In fact, I think that the money allocated back to the counties (15%) from timber sales is calculated based on net proceeds (revenue minus costs). If all of these sales were below cost, the counties would not recieve any income.
Indiana Forests
I am a board member of Indiana Forest Alliance.
I find it important to distinguish renewable from non renewable. I do not place trees in the renewable category such as wind, unacceptable that you would.
Coal is a fossil fuel, however our supply is plentiful in Indiana, and the US, unlike oil, which is not. Unlike trees which take many years to mature.
Agriculture does not need artificial ingredients to acquisition nutrients, nor need it cause NPP if properly managed. I do not need to be lectured on environmental quality from an individual whom advocates cutting down trees as sustainability.
You honestly believe the transfer of wood to heat to electricity is any better than that of coal to heat to electricity, which (coal) we have decades of, if not centuries worth? And should proper environmental regulations be enforced, would avoid pollution?!
What other questions have you for me on the subject of coal? If coal was not so plentiful, Indiana would have built a nuclear power plant years ago.
I’m not aware of strip mining in Indiana, are you?
I do not believe bobcats or any other natural predators will benefit from deforestation.
Please provide a listing of the nature preserves that engage in purposeful burns. Not sure why that is relevant to proper management of state forest, but please attempt to explain.
“People who’ve gone to college to study forest management will oversee the cutting of the backcountry?” Wow, really, might you provide their names and positions?
Does anyone who works for the DNR have a prior career in police enforcement?
And please spare us all from your exploitation=”environmental preservation” double talk. I especially have no interest in it. You may officially drop that rambling rhetoric from this discussion.
Why does your argument not include the coats of the DOF 30 year logging plan? We ask, yet we can never receive.....
Subsidizing logging inhibits the natural free market trade from taking place-- thereby negatively impacting the GDP as well as employment in IN and the US. The public has yet to receive a copy of the cost of timber sales or the 30 year forestry plan. Can you provide those documents?
What!?!?
How can anyone that suggests coal mining is more environmentally stable than tree harvesting call him- or herself an environmentalist!?!? Have you ever seen what a coal mine does to the land? Have you been to eastern Kentucky and see stand after stand of timber bulldozed and mined? The ecosystem never recovers. Selection systems that are being proposed only remove 10-20% of the trees at any entry. Over 80% of the tree canopy is intact. The understory recovers within a few years, the forest can grow back what is removed in 10-20 years.
I consider myself an environmentalist, but I get tired of the NIBY attitude towards forest management. Everyone is happy to buy paper and wood products from forests in the western U.S. or overseas in Brazil and Indonesia, but no one wants to produce what they use locally. Think of the carbon consequences of shipping the Brazilian cherry grown to essentially tree farms to Indiana for our "needs".
If you want to talk about environmental degradation, think about our agricultural practices. We have loss over 95% of our wetlands, much to tiling practices, and 99% of our native prairie. Fertilizers continue to "grow" the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Forest management impacts pale in comparison to this.
the trees
Look, I’m not crazy about coal. I’m well aware of its many bad impacts to the environment. But cutting down the forests and burning them to generate electricity is plain wrong, bad for the environment! Nor does paper need to be derived from trees when paper can be made from recycled materials, hemp, flax, etc. We do not need to have world wide deforestation to purchase toilet paper.
I would love for Indiana to break its dependence on coal and build renewable sources of energy such as wind farms, solar technology. But don’t cut down the trees and try to sell the idea as sustainability and “good forest management”.
We are not a NIMBY group, we are a group attempting to protect the few remaining forests in Indiana. FYI, IFA is against deforestation/ environmental exploitation worldwide. We are acting locally on this issue because it is local and impacts our quality of life.
I get tired of people who wrap their desperate economic initiatives in green packaging and try to pass them off as science!
I’m aware of the lost wetlands, deforestation and agricultural practices that have caused the dead zone, so how the hell does cutting down more trees make that better?!
Re: the trees
Well, I'm glad that I am carrying on a debate with someone who is a board member of IFA. Perhaps some of these points can be discussed internally within your organization.
You say that trees are not renewable, and I do - based on the fact that they grow back once they are either blown down by wind or cut down by man. I guess we will just have to disagree on that point since our definitions of renewable resources differ. You might get on Wikipedia and note their definition of renewable resources - it includes wood products.
On the coal mining versus timber harvesting issue, perhaps I need to explicitly state this point more clearly - I am not advocating that we cut down trees (forests) and burn them as a source for electricity. I think I have said that 2 or 3 times already. I am making the point that coal takes millions of years to develop, while trees can be cut and regrown in less than 100. In my mind, that makes trees a lot more renewable than coal.
If we were to talk about using trees as fuel, I would only advocate burning wood in a woodstove or fireplace as a source of heat for personal use. By using it in such a manner, the chemical bonds in the wood are broken and the energy that was fixed in photosynthesis is transferred directly into heat that goes directly into a house. This is a more efficient transfer and use of energy than burning coal to heat water into steam to turn a turbine to generate electricity, and then have to cool the water back down into liquid form. Heat is lost directly to the atmosphere in the burning of the coal, and it is lost to the water used to cool down the steam in the cooling towers. There are also frictional losses in the turning of the turbines and generators, and further loss in the electrical lines when the power is sent many miles down the lines.
You are correct in the statement that coal is plentiful, and there is a long term supply of it. Does that make strip mining and mountaintop removal any less destructive? Reference this website and view the trailer to get a glimpse of what coal has done to West Virginia - www.burningthefuture.com . I'm kind of wondering if you are being sarcastic when you ask if I am aware of any strip mining in Indiana. Yes, very aware - and you should be too. Drive around in Warrick, Gibson, Spencer, and Pike (especially) counties in the southwest or in Greene and Sullivan counties around Terre Haute and you will see ample evidence of strip mining. Minnehaha Fish and Wildlife Area and Greene Sullivan State Forest are old strip mine lands. The fact that there are no nuclear plants in IN is more of a political decision. Marble Hill was a nuclear plant in IN that was started and never finished because people were worried about Three Mile Island and Chernobyl type accidents, and the plug was pulled.
In reference to agriculture not needing the addition of artificial nutrient input, I would disagree to some extent. Grain and vegeteble crops have the NPK nutrients concentrated in their "fruits", and by removing them (which is the purpose of agriculture), there needs to be a mechanism to replace those macronutrients. The options would be to either add those nutrients through organic animal manure, inorganic fertilizer, or not to remove those nutrients in the first place. In either of the first two scenarios, it is an intensive use of the land, which leads to runoff into the water system. In the latter scenario, we give up modern society as we know it, and one American farmer ceases to feed 140 people - which is the productivity achieved with modern agriculture in this country.
You asked for a list of nature preserves that do prescribed burning. Hoosier Prairie in Lake County is a big one (over 400 acres) that is burned regularly to maintain prairie vegetation. Leavenworth Barrens in Crawford County is burned every 4 years or so to maintain a barrens system which includes low productivity forest intermixed with pockets of prairie vegetation. Bloomfield Barrens in Spencer County is also burned to maintain a barrens system. Post oak cedar nature preserve in Harrison County is also burned every 4 years or so to maintain a savannah type system with post oak and blackjack oak in the overstory and unique plant communities in the understory. Twin Swamps nature preserve in Posey County is burned to manage the understory of the flatwoods community. Part of Brown County State Park was burned this past year to encourage oak regeneration in the understory of the forest. Additionally many of the Nature Conservancy properties are burned regularly to maintain unique fire dependent plant communities.
What was my point you ask? Because you keep referring to "slash and burn" policies on state forest land - implying that cutting of trees is bad and burning in the woods is bad. I am giving you examples of places that most people assume have no management done in them - nature preserves, state parks, and TNC lands - where fire is an integral management tool. And yet the state and national forests get the black eye for practicing active management.
As to the remark about college educated professionals overseeing any harvesting on state forest lands - if I am not mistaken, I believe all field personnel up to the management staff (state forester) at Indianapolis have relevant college degrees in either forestry, wildlife, ecology, or some other natural resource related degree. The staff at Indy are listed on DNR's forestry website under "Division Staff", and the list of property staff is accessed by clicking on "Indiana state forests" and then on "procedures and regulations" and then on "state forest procedures manual" and then on appendix I-A-2 "state forest management personnel."
Your comment about someone in DNR having a "prior career in law enforcement" - you are obviously referring to the DNR director, and probably to his predecessor who was an attorney. My impression is that positions at that level and above are political appointments that are made by the administration in charge of the governor's office at any particular time. I'm not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing - just the way things are. Those people make policy decisions, while lower level personnel make on-the-ground management decisions. That is why they have relevant natural resource related college degrees.
You have mentioned twice about the "costs of the DOF 30 year logging plan." I guess I would have to ask for some clarification from you. Are you talking about the pertinent costs associated with harvesting timber from state forests, or are you talking about some more nebulous concept that involves costs that are not easily defined? If you are talking about how much money the state might be spending in putting paint on trees, paying personnel to do it, the gas burned to travel there, the cost of equipment preparation of the site (roads) and the cost of the gravel for the site, then those costs are all recorded and tracked, and then subtracted from gross revenues to determine net "profit" from which the 15% that goes back to counties is calculated. That information is undoubtedly contained within public information request materials that I was under the impression your organization requested and was subsequently provided.
You have also used the term - subsidized logging. Perhaps our definitions of that term also differ. If the government is not paying loggers to cut timber, and those loggers are competitively bidding to buy state timber, and the highest bid wins, then I don't see how that equates to subsidized logging. Loggers do not receive "crop deficiency payments" as do many farmers when the federal government artificially puts a price floor on commodities such as corn, beans, cotton, or sugar. As I said before, I don't really see how providing a resource for loggers to cut, mills to saw, and manufacturers to produce products from is going to lead to unemployment, reduced GDP, and less tax revenues.
I take a little offense at your statement - exploitation=”environmental preservation” double talk. I don't consider my debate points as "rambling." I have tried to argue some basic science and used some numbers and statistics to back up my arguments, and you apparently just don't want to listen. You don't like cutting trees - I get that. You especially don't want to see state forests cut - okay. But when I say that proper forest management admininstered by trained professionals is preferrable to strip mining of a nonrenewable resource (coal), or permanent deforestation and conversion to agriculture or development, or that there are species of plants and animals that utilize or depend upon early successional stage forest habitat (created by logging), or that costs attributable to timber sales are tracked and do not result in below cost timber sales, or that 3% of Indiana's forest resource base cannot significantly reduce prices paid for private timber - those are all relatively straightforward points that can be backed up.
I don't promote "exploitation", I promote wise utilization. I prefer to talk in terms of conservation rather than "preservation." One of the points of the DOF's harvesting plan is to channel 35% of timber sale revenue toward acquisition of additional land to add to the state forest system. Would you rather that land remain in private hands to be under threat of potential deforestation and development, and keep state land acreage at its current level, or would you like to see state lands expanded? I doubt if the legislature is going to allocate much money toward that end. At least the DOF is trying to "conserve" a bigger chunk of Indiana as public land through its own means by utilizing timber sale revenue.
The Last Word
Trees are not renewable in the sense that corn or wind or the sun is. Trees supply the oxygen necessary for all living things on this planet, protecting the soil from erosion, protecting the water from soil erosion deposits, enabling wildlife with food and habitat, regulating weather, reducing global warming and many other positive things. They are being cut down at alarming rates.
I’m so glad we’re in agreement regarding the bad idea of converting coal into electricity, I hope you will become active in promoting environmentally sound methods that do not involve cutting of trees, especially the state forests.
You may not be advocating the use of wood as fuel but I do believe it is on Duke Energy’s agenda. Duke Energy held a state bio-fuels conference in Plainfield, IN on August 20, 2008. One of the speakers was The Indiana Hardwood Lumber Association.
The Indiana Living Green journal reported in its March/April 2008 edition:
“The demand for wood fuels throughout the country will continue to grow. U.S. utility companies are planning to build biomass-fueled power facilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the rising costs of oil. These facilities should come online in the next two to four years, which will further increase competition for wood chips, the organization reported.”
That same Living Green article also reported that: “Southern forests are facing additional pressure from Europe as utilities overseas, bound by the Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, import wood chips to produce power. The weak dollar has made it cheaper for Europe to import wood fuels to satisfy their energy needs.”
The great irony is that cutting tress worldwide is the single greatest source of greenhouse gases and global warming!
I'm guessing it will only be a matter of time before the timber extracted from our Indiana forests are logged for the purpose of burning fuel here and abroad. Logging in the state forests is subsidized by taxpayers and is corporate welfare, as the taxpayers pay the expense of constructing and repairing roads used to extract the timber. Furthermore, logging on public lands undermines the profits derived from logging private lands.
The Indiana Division of Forestry currently operates under an outdated 100 year-old charter. Our landscape has changed drastically since 1908!
The plug was pulled on Marble Hill because after Three Mile Island there was no insurance company in the US who would insure any new nuclear power plants. Besides we had all this coal so why bother?
I do not agree that prescribed burns are a good idea. I do not believe they are a necessary management tool or envirnmentally sound. We have exhausted the resources on this planet to suit our needs. This form of regulation does not reflect a true respect for natural ecological processes.
Further I feel that the 30 year DOF proposal is slash and burn.
That public information provided to IFA by your office did not clarify the projected costs of the 30 year plan.
Logging the state forests has recently been marketed as an attempt to generate a new industry, or more correctly, expand a fledgling existing industry. Like corn being utilized as a fuel source, we desperately seek new uses for the few natural resources we have. And so eyes have turned to wood, especially with the new regulations imposed on the coal industry.
Food for thought from IFA:
The Indiana State Forests were created for a multiple of uses, yet
the IDNR aims to manage the State Forests primarily to grow oak trees,
not for wildlife habitat or recreation. This violates the spirit of the law.
Clear cutting and burning are not proven methods of regenerating
oak trees.
Burning forests is a dangerous technique that endangers public
health and wildlife.
The value of ecosystem services like providing clean air and water
provides $221 million worth of services for the Indiana public
every year.
Public lands should be managed for the greatest good to the Indiana
public, not to maximize the profits of the timber industry
The Last Word Response
winmag has done a wonderful job debunking many of the myths that Amy has spreading in prior posts. I do not wish Amy to have "The Last Word" here as she has continued to misrepresent the facts. I do not disagree with her on all of her points, but there are numerous items that should be clarified.
1) Wood as energy. While I do agree wholeheartedly that solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources need to become a larger portion of our energy needs as a society (along with better energy conservation and the like), it is naive to think that we can subsume those needs without utilizing biomass from multiple sources. Everyone would love to believe that corn stover will be the only biomass we need. However, there is ample evidence that under current production techniques, corn stover can require more energy to produce than we can extract. If we use the entire corn plant (i.e., cobs and all), this debt disappears, but of course then we must grow food elsewhere. Switchgrass may also be an alternative, and likely would move more land away from food production to energy production. Wood will also be needed, but not in the way Amy has characterized. There is no intent to do widespread land clearing of mature, native state forests here in Indiana for biomass plantations. It will just be a way land managers can pay for light cuttings in younger forests, such as thinning, timber stand improvement and even wildlife habitat management needs (e.g., ruffed grouse management).
2) Burning and clearcutting. Fires are a natural component of many ecosystems. Most of our fire problems in the West that we experience now are because we suppressed all fires for the last 50+ years! This resulted in a buildup of small trees that allow fires to spread from a ground fire, which was natural and not fatal to the mature trees, to the canopy (thus creating a wildfire). We had the same suppression policies here, and although do not have the wildfire risk, do have a risk of major changes to our forests because of it. There is ample evidence that oak species are not regenerating and most forests in the state will switch over to maple dominance in the next 50 years. For example, in one study in MMSF and Yellowwood SF, of 8000 trees inventories in systematic plots in mature oak-dominated stands, only 20 were oak saplings between 1" and 4" in diameter. This is not sustainable.
Why should you care? Well, oak species are one of the last remaining sources of hard mast (we lost chestnut to an exotic disease over 50 years ago). Turkey, deer, mice, squirrels, and numerous other species DEPEND greatly on acorns for survival. Fewer oak mean less wildlife that you so endearingly want to protect. The IDNR stresses oak so greatly exactly because we will lose oak without something to reduce the maples that choke out most young oak trees before they can reach the canopy.
So what can we do? Manage the forest responsibly for multiple values. This includes wildlife, water, clear air, recreation, AND timber. Removing maple from the understory and some overstory oak in a technique called shelterwood cutting is PROVEN by multiple studies of up to 50 years in duration to regenerate oak successfully and maintain oak-dominated systems. This technique can maintain old trees and young trees at the same time, creating a diverse structure that favors wildlife, protects water and provides multiple ecosystem services. Prescribed burning can work and has been used successfully in many parts of the country to restore ecosystem function and resilence (there are 1000s of documented cases of this). If applied more frequently here, it too would promote oak regeneration and help sustain our forests.
3) The public vs. private lands debate. Amy is extrapolating her argument from the below cost timber sales debates that raged throughout the western United States since the 1990s. Just comparing the stumpage rates from a state forest sale and a private forest sale may lead her to this false conclusion. However, what she has not stated is the difference in requirements for the loggers across those sales. On state lands, a logger must follow regulations and Best Management Practices that protect water quality. For example, the logger must install water bars on skid trails, seed landings with grass, and build temporary bridges to get over small streams. These cost money (e.g., $500+ per water bar and there are commonly dozens of these on a sale) so the logger bids lower accordingly. On private land, these regulations do not apply, so the logger can bid much higher.
Lastly, there is a second reason why harvesting on state forests is important. The state forests have a responsibility to show sound, sustainable forestry practices. If you just drive across any county in Indiana, you will find that a majority of private woodlots are atrociously managed. They have been highgraded of all valuable timber and have serious health problems from insects and disease. Many are just falling apart. The state lands have an educational role to play to show how timber harvesting can improve the health and habitat of a forest. While I agree that the state ways to go to be the model, it will not be if we lock up their lands like the Hoosier.
In summary, it is naive to think that we can maintain the forests of MMSF and other state forests "as is" without some active management. Forests change over time, sometimes to the better and sometimes not. While I agree that some areas need to be reserved and unmanaged (e.g., state parks, nature preserves), I strongly disagree with the assertion that harvesting should be eliminated from all public lands.