The service usually tries to balance competing needs and views in managing forests; the BLM is more focused on timber sales

By George Sexton

Both the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management administer public forest lands on millions of acres surrounding the Rogue Valley. Both agencies are part of the executive branch of the federal government, and in many places the forests they manage are physically next to one another and affect the same communities, watersheds and wildlife. Yet often their timber sales, prescribed fire programs, recreation management and community interactions look nothing alike.

Multiple use vs. timber dominance

Most of the folks in Forest Service local leadership positions view their job as balancing the sometimes competing values of wildlife, fuels, recreation, timber and watersheds on public lands. Usually everyone has a seat at the table. The public, stakeholders and Forest Service employees with different backgrounds and expertise influence the development and implementation of projects on these public lands.

In contrast, BLM leadership believes that the primary mission for public forest lands it administers is to provide profitable timber sales to the timber industry. To accomplish that mission, the BLM has assigned itself mandatory timber volume targets in the “Harvest Land Base” and commercial logging acreage targets in the so-called Late Successional Reserves. This laser focus on timber production to the exclusion of other forest values is reflected in the BLM’s heavy-handed forest land management.

These different approaches to forest management generally result in Forest Service projects in which the public and agency scientists can have a real voice in project planning. By contrast, in BLM projects the timber staff makes all of the meaningful decisions. Indeed, most BLM timber sales have been laid out, marked and cruised before the agency analysis or public commenting process occurs.

Collaboration vs. isolation

BLM timber planners have little use for meaningful public involvement because the timber volume quota for yearly individual projects is preordained and mandatory. Months before the BLM starts planning a project the name, location, acreage and timber volume of the forthcoming timber sale has been published in a yearly Annual Forest Product Sale Plan that is provided to the timber industry by BLM public land managers.

The Forest Service, on the other hand, frequently reaches out to its neighbors and stakeholders to help define the goals and objectives of its projects before a particular management action is proposed. This serves to bring in multiple perspectives and allows voices for wildlife, recreation, fuels and watersheds to have a voice in the management of public lands that belong to everyone. This process can be messy, and it sure doesn’t always result in perfect projects. In in the long run, however, it benefits the Forest Service, the public and the land through better decision making than does the BLM’s “our way or the highway” approach.

An example: Dealing with the Douglas fir mortality crisis

A stark example of how these two differing land management styles play out locally can be seen in the agencies’ responses to the widespread die-off of lower-elevation Douglas fir forest stands due to climate-influenced drought, heat domes, bug kill, timber plantation establishment and fire exclusion policies.

The Forest Service has approached Douglas fir die-off in projects like the Ashland Forest Resiliency Project by teaming up restoration groups to encourage the reestablishment of hardwood forest stands while selectively removing some dead Douglas fir trees. The forests don’t look like what they did before the logging, but the management process has been transparent, and the result may allow for oaks and madrone to thrive in some places where conifers can no longer survive.

To date, the BLM has offered three Douglas fir mortality timber sales throughout the Ashland Resource Area and one hazard tree roadside logging timber sale in the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument in response to the Douglas fir die-off.

No environmental analysis at all was prepared for these timber sales. The BLM simply picked areas to log without public input or analysis. The BLM elected not to have “an external scoping process.” No one outside of the agency knew those forest stands would be logged. Some of the logging occurred in spotted owl nest cores. Some occurred on steep slopes, some occurred in the backcountry. Some of it will probably increase fire hazard. Some of it required new logging road construction. But the first time you or anyone else are likely to know about these timber sales is when you see the fresh BLM clear-cuts on your next trip to the woods.

Which forest management process do you prefer, that of the BLM or the Forest Service?

George Sexton is the conservation director for KS Wild.