Catharsis of an Old Forester
Fred Winkler
I was driving over Rabbit Ears Pass recently and witnessed a small
portion of the devastation the Mountain Pine Beetle has perpetrated on
the forests of Colorado. Being a retired Forester I had to stop and
check out what was going on in the lodgepole. I have academic
credentials as a Forester, however more importantly I have been a
student of Colorado forests for over 30 years.
I pulled off on a dirt road, got out of the truck and took a
short hike through the forest of dead lodgepole pine. I was somewhat
surprised that the beetle thrived the winter temperatures at this
elevation. In the past the cold temperatures had kept the beetle at
endemic levels at higher elevations. Then I remembered the recent series
of mild winters. As I expected the young lodgepole had resisted the
beetle. Also as expected at this elevation, there were quite a few
subalpine fir seedlings and saplings with a spattering of Engelmann
spruce seedlings. I was hoping to find more lodgepole seedlings. It is
probably too soon. The dead needles will have to fall so that direct
sunlight can go to work on the lodgepole’s closed cones and produce the
dispersal of seed for a new forest. I also noticed wood decaying fungi
in the base of some of the dead lodgedpole. This could lead to large
areas of blown down trees in the future.
I am going out on a limb and make some humble prognosis. The
best-case scenario is that the lodgepole will react as it would after a
wildfire. The closed cones of lodgepole will respond to the heat of
direct sunlight and disperse the seeds of a new forest. Direct sunlight
on the forest floor will produce a flush of shrubs, forbs and grasses.
In some environments there will be an increase in aspen. However the
aspen in Colorado also seems to be in trouble. Within a generation we
could again see the green lodgepole forest we remember. This is only
possible if we can prevent catastrophic wildfires until the new forest
is established over the next 20 t0 30 years.
This brings me to the worst-case scenario. If large-scale fires occur
before the new generation can produce seed; there will be long periods
with deforested landscapes. The dead trees from the previous forest
will blow down producing dense fuel beds. These fuel beds if ignited
result in intense fires and subsequent soil sterilization. There will
be soil erosion, degradation of water quality and shortened life of our
reservoirs.
Of course the safest prediction is that there will be a spectrum of
effects from the worst to conditions similar to that before the beetle
attack. On low energy north and east facing slopes where fires are less
frequent and less intense, we may see recovery in a relative short
period of time. In more extreme environments with blowdown followed by
intense fires, the recovery may take centuries.
I got back in the truck and headed over the pass and down into North
Park and my thoughts turned to my walk in the woods and my career as a
Public Forester. Could the disaster have been prevented? Probably not.
However I believe it could have been mitigated by sustainable forestry
practices. By sustainable forestry practices I mean cultural activities
that emulate the natural processes that have evolved in these systems.
These forests have always periodically renewed themselves.
These renewal cycles can be short term with low intensity or long term
with high intensity. In any case the renewal processes are initiated by
some form of disturbance be it fire, insects, disease or weather events.
Sustainable forestry emulates these natural disturbances and
distributes them over time and space. Thus creating a mosaic of forest
conditions where only a portion of the overall landscape is susceptible
to natural disturbance at any one time. This mosaic of forest conditions
creates a range of habitats and diverse wildlife populations. The
forest condition prior to the current insect infestation, brought about
by fire suppression and lack of management, can be characterized as a
vast sea of decadent Lodgepole ripe for catastrophic disturbance. This
disturbance could have been wildfire, however it was epidemic Mountain
Pine Beetle triggered by climate change.
How could this situation come about on the National Forests of
Colorado? Like everyone else I have my opinions. I ascribe at least
some of the blame to what I call the “post card” mentality of the public
that controls policy on the National Forests. By this I mean the mind
set that envisions a beautiful, lush “post card” forest landscape, if
left alone, will be the same landscape their children and grand children
will enjoy. There were decision makers in the resource management
agencies with the same mind set. I often referred to this as the Nancy
Regan School of Resource Management: ”Just Say No”.
As foresters we failed to convince this public that forests are
dynamic systems. I some cases these dynamics are slow, encompassing
decades. In other cases quite dramatic with changes taking a matter of
hours. In any case a vast, perpetual landscape populated with large,
old growth trees is not realistic.
As foresters we were too busy chasing boardfeet, growth/yield
models and economic analysis. We should have been studying the dynamics
of the natural processes going on in these forests and developing
strategies to emulate these processes. I sat in a lot of agency
meetings where the answer to all the problems was, “If we could just
educate the public”. I imagined that down the street there was another
meeting where they were saying, “If we could just educate those
foresters” The point being, we as foresters failed to communicate as
much as we failed to listen.
Above I used the phrase, “ the public that controls National
Forest Policy”. I was referring to individuals and organizations that
halt forest initiatives by simply putting a postage stamp on a letter
containing an appeal. As the land management agencies became more
politicized, administrators became more and more sensitive to that
public . In my opinion they almost completely abandoned resource
management. Don’t get me wrong I am not suggesting management on every
acre of public forests. There are environments where activities would
interfere with the natural forest dynamics. There is a definite place
for Wilderness. We all need the spiritual and esthetic qualities of
Wilderness. We also need areas to study the natural processes I’ve
been ranting about through out this article. Having said that, we need
accept the consequences resulting from the natural processes. I am
definitely opposed to putting our young people in jeopardy fighting fire
in Wilderness.
Forest industries also played a role in creating the current
situation. When I first came to Colorado the industry consisted of
small ”mom and pop “ sawmills and logging operations. They provided
some jobs for the local community and forest products for local
consumption. These local mills were of a scale that did not put great
demands on the National Forest. Yet they gave Foresters a tool to manage
the forests.
These small-scale operations gradually evolved into larger scale
operations. They required larger capitalization, but from what I could
tell the investments were for the most part local. The demands on the
public forests were greater, but within a scope that could be directed
toward sustainable management.
In the 1980’s a large corporation established itself in
Colorado. Sustainable forestry does not make much sense to corporate
accountants. To corporate accountants forest are viewed as liquidatable
assets.
Why invest in infrastructure then put that investment at risk to the
forces of nature for 80 to120 years and then maybe get a profit. To
corporate accountants it makes much more sense to amortize your
investment in the shortest period of time, take your profit and move on.
This rationale resulted in the devastation of forests in New England,
the Lake States and the Pacific Northwest and resulted in the
establishment of the National Forests at the beginning of the twentieth
century.
The corporation did stimulate the economies of some Colorado
communities. Employment increased and there was some trickle down to
local merchants, however if you didn’t own stock, then you didn't share
in the profits generated from public lands. The large corporation
didn’t last long. Their political clout was not as strong as the clout
of the environmental community. The fall out from this conflict
resulted in public land administrators abandoning resource management as
being too controversial. In the mean time the corporation drove most of
the “mom and pop” operations out of business. The consequence being that
we have no resources to clean up the beetle mess.
Thank you for letting me get all that off my chest. In retrospect
being a Public Forester was a good way to spend a life. I had many
unique experiences, worked with exceptional people (mostly) and actually
got to practice forestry for a little while. And to the Old Red Feather
Crew, I don’t care what anybody says, we did good.
