To bring our brief history of logging in the PNW up-to-date, it was estimated that remaining old growth in the PNW was being cut at about 2-3% per year before the federal listing of the Northern Spotted Owl as a threatened species. Further, across all age classes, the cut from the 12 National Forests in the PNW west of the Cascade crest was estimated as being 61% greater than the sustained yield harvest rate in the mid 1980's. Then, the owl was listed in July of 1990. In May of 1991, US district judge William Dwyer issued an order to stop logging on Federal lands in old growth (operationally defined as forests dominated by trees >200 years old) until the US Forest Service and BLM had a scientifically sound plan that would protect the owl. The plan was to include an analysis of impacts on other old growth associated species as well.

President Clinton convened the "forest summit" in Portland, OR, at which a team of scientists and land managers developed several options for federal forest management. After a long process, one of these options (option 9) was adopted, and remains in force as of this writing in 2002. Under this option, the cut from federal lands in the region would drop to about 1/4 the mid 1980's peak of 5 billion board feet per year to about 1.2 billion board feet. (A board foot is a chunk of wood that is 12 X 12 X 1".)

At that time, it was estimated that about 13% of the original west side old-growth forest remained, or about 3.5 million acres. About 6% of the total original west side old growth was protected already [about 1.2 Mill acres in wilderness areas, national parks, research natural areas, and so forth].

Some of the not previously protected old growth will now be protected under Option 9, but some won't be. Environmentalists say that Option 9 didn't go far enough towards protecting old growth, while the timber interests say it goes too far.

Option 9 tries to switch the focus of forest management from either (1) timber or (2) a single threatened species (like the Northern Spotted Owl) towards "Ecosystem management." (See the pages from the Record of Decision that are in your readings packet, which outlines the strategy to be adopted on these federally managed lands within spotted owl range. The Record of Decision describes the philosophy of ecosystem management (which emphasizes preservation of biodiversity and ecosystem function, while still allowing some timber harvest). It also describes the land allocations that will cover the 24 million acres of federally managed forested land within the range of the Northern Spotted Owl

To summarize the land allocations briefly:

• About 30% of these federal forested lands were already reserved in some way. These were not all old-growth forests. These reserves include parks, wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, wildlife refuges, and so forth. Their designations as reserves continue under Option 9.
• About 30% of these lands are now designated as "late successional reserves (LSR's)." These lands are NOT all old growth at present, by any means (there isn't that much left!), but they are to be managed either to protect existing old growth OR to enhance the development of old growth characteristics over time. While conventional logging is not to be allowed on these lands, some thinning and salvage logging may be allowed in some of the late successional reserves. (In some cases, thinning can probably be helpful in accelerating the development of old-growth characteristics, as we'll discuss later.)
• About 6% of the land area is in "adaptive management areas (AMA's)." These areas are destined for the development and testing of new management approaches. Each AMA has a different emphasis to its prescription; some to maximize the area of late successional forests, some to enhance riparian condition, etc. Some timber harvest will come from these lands, but if done as intended, it will foster mgmt objectives and be done in such a way that we learn how better to manage forests Thus, some logging can occur in AMA's, but it is to be designed explicitly as something to be learned from. That is, experimental approaches will be designed and used, operating under the philosophy that says "Management is an experiment -- lets learn from it!"
• About 11% of the area is in riparian reserves (areas along streams and other water ways). Various buffer widths are required along riparian areas, depending on whether the stream is intermittent or perennial, fish-bearing or not, and so forth.
• About 16% of the area is designated as "matrix," which is the land base from which most harvest will be taken and which DOES include some that is currently old-growth forest. We'll say more later [in class, and maybe, if I have time, on this web site] about how this harvesting is to be done, but for now I'll describe it briefly, and indicate that it SHOULD be very different from conventional clear cut harvest and regeneration practices.)

Rules for harvest from matrix lands:

(1) Pre-harvest surveys for sensitive species (those found by the team of scientists to be associated closely with old-growth forests) must occur. If sensitive species are found in these lands, the species occurrence must be documented and management techniques that will foster preservation of the species must be used, ranging from simply documenting their occurrence through establishing a buffer around them to no harvesting within a very large area.
(2) A renewable supply of down logs must be left in place (we'll see later why these matter!)
(3) At least 15% of the green trees on each harvest unit must be retained (except for in some areas in the Coast Range and on the Olympic Peninsula). This is referred to as "logging with green tree retention." No more clear cut harvests on these federal lands! (We'll soon see why this matters too.)

Prescriptions for matrix lands also include stipulations about what species will be replanted and how slash will be disposed of.

• The last 6% of the land base is "administratively withdrawn," which includes visual buffers and so forth.

Click old-growth forests, to read about why these forests are so special (and important); history to review the history of logging in the PNW; deforestation to return to the list of topics included related to logging hisotry and consequences globally and within the PNW; navigate for reminders on how to move about within and among these pages, or contents to return to the master table of contents for this BI 301 web site.

Page maintained by Patricia S. Muir. Last updated November 18, 2002.