CATHARSIS OF AN OLD FORESTER

 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.