FORESTRY MATTERS – Part 1
July 9, 2026
Dear Reader: As we enter a new and possibly more threatening wildfire season the Herald has offered me the opportunity to write a series of articles concerning the wildfire/forest management conundrum that we now face. The title of this series, “Forestry Matters” was chosen because of its double meaning: First being a discussion of forestry subjects or matters, and second, we are in dire straits, and proper forest management is required to avoid further peril. For background, I graduated from Oregon State University in Forest Management in 1968 when we still had a vibrant forest products industry. During college I spent two summers on fire crews and two with Insect and Disease Control with the U.S. Forest Service, then following a stint in the service was employed as a forester by Boise Cascade Corporation in Northeast Oregon. However, by 1980, with almost total restrictions of harvesting on federal lands, our forest products industry was reduced to a shadow of its former self. While you can take the forester out of the forest, you can’t take the forest out of the forester, and I have followed forestry matters intensely since then.
In the pieces to follow we will work our way through a number of topics but start with the history back perhaps 10,000 years ago with the Indigenous People. In the last few years, with the completion of the North American Tree Ring Fire Scar Network and several papers derived from that work we have made a quantum leap forward in understanding how the Native Americans managed their lands. Additionally, a more thorough review of the written works by the early explorers, such as George Vancouver and Joseph Whidbey, the botanical studies and records of David Douglas, the journals of Lewis and Clark, the records of the Hudson Bay Company, the records of the early railroad surveyors and the written documentation of some of the earliest non-native settlers, combined with the oral tradition of Native Americans came together to form a cohesive whole. Before we go there, however, I would like to remind you of one of Mark Twain’s sayings:
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for certain that just ain’t so.”
As with any scientific endeavor, it is essential to discard preconceived notions and base decisions on the best evidence possible, which also means throwing out those precious ideas and beliefs that have been proven to be false. When examining the history of our nation’s forest resources we will find that some of the glorious beliefs just don’t stand up when confronted with actual facts. According to this prior narrative, the forest of North America before European contact were ancient, untouched, dense and self-regulating; vast cathedrals of old growth that sustained themselves without intervention for millennia. This image has shaped conservation law, federal land management policy and public sentiment for more than a century. It has inspired genuine love of the land and motivated real conservation victories. But as a description of ecological history, it is deeply and consequentially wrong. The forests that early European explorers encountered were not wilderness in any meaningful modern sense. They were cultural landscapes; actively shaped, managed and maintained by Indigenous Peoples over thousands of years.
Additionally, common perceptions of the Indigenous Tribes generally involve notions of people who walked gentle on the land. Understanding the condition of North American forests prior to European settlement requires looking far deeper into history than the 1500–1850 period typically referenced in environmental debates. Archaeological, paleoecological, and anthropological evidence now makes it clear that Indigenous Peoples have been shaping the continent’s landscapes for at least 10,000 years, and in many regions even longer. Their influence was not marginal. It was continuous, intentional, and ecologically transformative.
Population estimates for the pre-contact era vary widely, but even conservative reconstructions show that Indigenous populations were large enough — and geographically widespread enough — to exert landscape-level influence. While the estimates for 1500 BCE range from roughly 2.1 million to 18 million, earlier periods also supported substantial populations. By 8,000–10,000 years ago, nearly all major ecological regions of North America were inhabited, from the Pacific Northwest to the Great Plains to the Eastern Woodlands.
Now, how did the Indigenous People manage the landscape to such an extent. That will be covered in the next installment. Stay tuned!
Thanks, Don Healy
Forestry matters — Part 2
Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 16, 2026
How did the Native Americans manage the lands for the past 10,000 years? The answer is, first and foremost, fire.
Indigenous Peoples were not passive inhabitants of these landscapes. They were sophisticated ecological engineers who used burning, harvesting, transplanting and other tools to maintain open, resilient and productive forests. For thousands of years prior, the forests were shaped by people who understood that fire was essential to maintaining ecological balance, wildlife abundance and food security. Initially, it was thought that Indigenous People were hunter/gathers much like our more prehistoric ancestors. While not purely agriculturalists like modern society, research has now shown that the Indigenous People were diligent managers of numerous food and material sources. Unlike today’s farmers who intensively manage a consolidated acreage for the production of one, or a few species, the Indigenous People managed the desired crops in situ and traveled to where the crops grew naturally, in many cases following a regular migration each year to fulfill their needs.
The Indigenous population had an intimate relationship with their environment, and their only significant tool to cultivate and manage the plants and animals upon which they depended was fire. Indigenous fire served dozens of functions, including:
Maintaining berry fields (huckleberry, serviceberry, salmonberry)
Enhancing root crops (camas, wapato, biscuitroot)
Improving forage for deer, elk, and bison
Maintaining spaced oak and hazelnut stands free of underbrush
Encouraging basketry plants such as beargrass and willow
Nurturing medicinals: yarrow, Oregon grape, wild ginger
Maintaining wetland plants: tule and cattail
Reducing pests and pathogens
Maintaining travel corridors and visibility
Protecting villages by reducing nearby fuels
These were not incidental benefits — they were the intended outcomes of a deliberate management system. Native Americans probably knew as much if not more about specific plant sequences in local communities, what we refer to now as plant succession, as contemporary forest and rangeland specialists. They were also fully aware that many of the plant and animal species that they relied on would disappear if they allowed normal plant succession. The oak groves they relied on for acorns would be taken over by Douglas fir, which would later be superseded by hemlock and cedar. Huckleberry patches could not exist under a dense forest canopy, so the continual use of fire was necessary to preserve an important component of their food supply. The same reasoning applies to many of the other plant species listed above.
Under Indigenous management, the old growth stands looked dramatically different than what we see today. They contained very old, large trees, but only a few per acre. The stands were open and frequently the forest floor was filled with grass that supported deer, elk and a broader animal population. The Native Americans would have likely viewed today’s old growth stands as deserts in their ability to provided food and materials.
Paleoecological records, early explorer accounts, and modern fire-scar data all converge on the same conclusion: historical forests were far more open and less dense than contemporary stands. In many regions of the West, particularly in ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests, tree densities were often 10-20% of current levels. Large, fire-resistant trees dominated the canopy while the understory was sparse with limited ladder fuels.
In May and June of 1792, Captain George Vancouver’s expedition entered Puget Sound expecting a wilderness populated with unsophisticated natives. Viewing the Penn Cove area on Whidby Island the following report was written:
“The surrounding country, for several miles in most points of view, presented a delightful prospect consisting chiefly of spacious meadows elegantly adorned with clumps of trees which the oak bore a very serious proportion, in size from four to six feet in circumference. In these beautiful pastures…the deer were seen playing about in great numbers. Nature had here provided the well-stocked park and wanted only the assistance of art to constitute that desirable assemblage of surface, which is so much sought in other countries, and only to be acquired by an immoderate experience in manual labor. (George Vancouver, A Voyage of Discovery in the Pacific Northwest and Round the World, 1791-1795, Vol. 2. Kaye Lamb ed. (London, 1984) pg.568.)
Next topic: Lifestyles of the Rational and Indigenous.
Don Healy lives in Lynnwood. He graduated with a B.S. Degree in Forest Management from Oregon State University in 1968, spent 10 years in the field and has followed forestry matters avidly during retirement.
Forestry Matters – Part 3
Published July 23, 2026
Lifestyle of the Rational and Indigenous
There are 575 federally recognized Indian Tribes in the U.S., with the Pacific Northwest being home to at least 100 different tribal groups residing in a wide variety of habitats; from denser, forested coastal areas to arid inland areas, each with its own plant and animal communities upon which the locals were dependent. It was necessary for each group to develop survival strategies suited to their locations. Fire was the primary tool common to all groups. Since it was unlikely that a tribe’s local habitat contained all the resources necessary for survival, extensive, sophisticated trade networks existed between the Tribes. The Klikitat Tribe were the master traders of the Pacific Northwest, trading with the Yakima, Salishan and Chinookan Tribes, and later with the Hudson Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. The Klikitat Tribe used an annual migration pattern that illustrates one of the many systems the Indigenous Peoples employed to thrive in their environment. Ethnohistorical, ethnobotanical and ethnographic evidence was used to map out the seasonal migration route used by Klikitat Indians on their lands east of Vancouver, Washington, north of the Columbia River, south of Mount St. Helens and east to the Cascade Crest, a route now known as the Klikitat Trail.
Winter villages near the Klikitat and White Salmon Rivers were occupied from November until early May with occasional fishing excursions to the Columbia River.
Late winter-early spring: harvest sucker (a fish) and “Indian celeries”.
Late April- May: catch Chinook Salmon.
Late May-July: harvest and prepare camas at mid-elevation prairies, and harvest of early-maturing serviceberry, chokecherry kinnikinnick and hawthorn as well as trout at Trout Lake.
August: The peak social season, called “huckleberry month” where members of many Tribes gathered in the subalpine meadows and previously burned clearings at the Cascade Crest to socialize, gamble, hold horse races and trade. The huckleberries were harvested in large quantities using a wooden comb; mashed, dried and formed into cakes and often mixed with dried meats and fat to create pemmican. Huckleberries were considered a gift from the Creator, the “chief of all berries”, and a staple of their diet.
End of August: Return to mid-elevation prairies and harvest late-maturing fruits, nuts and camas. Camas was prepared by lining a large pit with stones, building a large, hot fire in the pit, lining the pit with skunk cabbage leaves and filling the pit with camas bulbs, then cover and cook for four days. Camas have a sweet, rich and earthy flavor like a mix of baked pear, roasted sweet potato and caramelized fig.·
September-November: Harvest acorns and hazelnuts.
Return to winter villages. As the Klickitat left the Cascade Crest in August and began their returned to their winter sites after harvesting, they would set fire to small conifers invading the huckleberry fields, then burn the camas prairies, then the oak groves and many of the grassy meadows along the way. The frequent light burning of these areas was not destructive to the land. It removed the encroaching grasses, brush and conifer seedlings and reduced them to mineral matter which was fertilizer for future crops. In the case of the huckleberry patches they knew they could not pick them the next year, but the year following they would have a great harvest. Burning the camas prairies and open meadows kept the forest from encroaching, and in the oak groves the fires kept the groves from becoming Douglas-fir forests and eliminated undergrowth, as it was much easier to pick up the acorns on the forest floor, rather than searching through the brush. This was all orchestrated and refined through years of experience.
The following quote from Lara. A. Jacobs (Citizen of Muscogee/Creek/ Nation best describes this relationship: “Across many Tribal Nations, fire is medicine. It has the power to heal lands after they have been scarred, to protect beings who dwell within them, and to restore balance in ways both visible and unseen. Fire teaches, reminding us of the ties that sustain our kinship with trees, water, winds, animals, and all our more-than-human relatives who share its warmth and power. To live well with fire is to honor the relationships and responsibilities it carries, with people, with land, and with the living world that breathes through flame.”
Next: David Douglas and Indigenous Burning in the Willamette Valley
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Forestry Matters – Part 4
Indigenous Burning in the Willamette Valley.
In the previous discussions of Indigenous burning practices, we mentioned the purposes of the burning, but not the scope of it. The scope of the fires was impressive as documented in Dr. Boyd’s book “Indians, Fire, and the Land in the Pacific Northwest” in the chapter “Strategies of Indian Burning in the Willamette Valley”. In 1825 (prior to the massive influx of immigrants in the mid-1840s) the Hudson Bay Company initiated their annual southern trapping expedition to California. Alexander McLeod led the party and David Douglas, the noted botanist, accompanied them. The party departed Fort Vancouver in early September during the Indian’s burning season. In Yamhill Valley McLeod noted “several Indian habitations” and a landscape “much overrun by fire.” Near the present site of Salem, Oregon, “the party was obliged to ford the river in order to find food for their horses because the land was burned and destitute of grass.”
Over the next few days, Douglas recorded:
“9/27 Country undulating; soil rich, light with beautiful solitary oaks and pines interspersed through it and must have a fine effect, but being all burned and not a single blade of grass except of the margins of the rivulets to be seen.”
“9/30 (heading south)…Most parts of the country burned; only on little patches in the valleys and on the flats near the low hills that verdure is to be seen. Some of the natives tell me it so done for the purpose of urging deer to frequent these parts to feed, which they leave unburned and of course they are easily killed.”
“10/2 (McLeod) Pasture is rarely found in the course of this day none has been seen, altho’ we traveled good twenty miles and had to put up along a small river that our horses might have the pickings along the margin of the woods, elsewhere the fire destroyed all the grass.”
The Willamette Valley is 140 miles long and up to 60 miles wide and from the accounts of McLeod and Douglas it appears that a sizeable portion had been burned by Native Americans. So the scope of the burning activity was extensive. The Hudson Bay Company estimated that the native population was about 8000 at the time of the expedition, However, by 1825, the population had already been greatly reduced, with an estimated pre-contact population of perhaps 15,000. Douglas separated from the party in Umpqua County and headed back to Fort Vancouver in early November.
Where all had been burned heading south, he found “Country open, rich , level and beautiful.” “Fall rains had caused a greening of the prairies.” Where he saw deer on the way down he found newly formed marshes and lakes filled with migrating waterfowl (pages 100 and 101). It is obvious that the Native Americans had finely-tuned land management skills.
Moving farther afield let’s ponder the Great Plains. That vast, flat plateau of grasslands stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the interior lowlands and from Canada to the Rio Grande. Many just assume that the endless grasslands early pioneers observed was the natural state. Multiple lines of evidence now show that the Great Plains were historically fire-dependent ecosystems and Indigenous Nations played a major role in sustain those fire regimes. Fire intervals of 1 to 35 years characterized the plains, Indigenous-set fires were especially common in late spring and summer.
Native American communities burned grasslands to:
• improve forage for bison and other game
• direct animal movement
• clear brush and woody encroachment
• maintain travel corridors
• protect settlements by reducing fuel
• facilitate agricultural preparation and maintenance.
• prevent the spread of trees and shrubs, keep prairies open, and stimulate vigorous regrowth of native grasses and wildflowers which depend on periodic burning
The U.S. Forest Service notes that historical fire regimes were a blend of lightning and human ignitions, and that Indigenous burning was a major contributor to the frequent, landscape-shaping fires that maintained the prairie mosaic.
Had the Indigenous People not actively managed these prairie lands, much of this area would have followed nature’s path to become forest.
Next Topic: The end of Native American land management.
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Forestry Matters – Part 5
End of Native American land management.
Note: The website theforestmatters.com provides access to the source document for these pieces and the charts, graphs and references that support the positions made in them.
As mentioned in Part 4, the 1825 Native American population already diminished by smallpox, measles, and influenza was faced with an estimated 400,000 emigrants starting across the Oregon Trail in 1843; it was the end of the traditional Native American Culture. Some estimate that by the 1860s only 5% of the Native American were living compared to pre-contact levels. The Native Americans were on the losing end of virtually every negotiation regarding treaties, native lands, fishing, shellfish rights, and in many cases were made prisoners on their own reservations. Their very capable land management practices that had maintained a delicate balance between forested areas and those environments that provided the food and material needed to survive using fire ceased. Burning practices were heavily used by essentially all Indigenous People throughout the U.S. Under their stewardship, the incidence of fire was much, much higher, but the fires were much less intense than recent levels.. (please refer to the graph on page 4 the source paper)
Since about 1850, land management has been guided by us, the recent immigrants, and in 176 years we have vacillated from massive clearcutting operations to the opposite extreme of practicing no management whatsoever. To make sense of this I’ve divided the time from 1850 to the present into three eras. The Exploitive Era, The Modest Management Era, and the No Management Era.
The Exploitive Era, 1850 to 1930: To the settlers, the forests were an obstacle to development and the 1849 Gold Rush in California created a massive demand for lumber. The Puget Mill Company, a subsidiary of Pope and Talbot first attempted to benefit from this opportunity by sending ships from their mills in Maine around Cape Horn which proved too risky. In 1853 they built their first mill at Port Gamble, followed by a second at Port Ludlow. In 1860, what is now Snohomish County was still the eastern portion of Island County, with Coupeville as the county seat and the only towns in our region bordered Puget Sound or the Snohomish River. Because there was no road system, residents and freight travelled between Edmonds, Everett, Snohomish and Seattle by boat on the “Mosquito Fleet.”I
In 1861, the mill companies started buying up land in the area between Seattle and Everett for possible future supply as they devoured the available timber on the Peninsula. The Puget Mill Company purchased 8000 acres and Merrill-Ring owned “extensive tracts” including the Paine Field location. There was virtually no development in inland Snohomish County until 1893 after Everett was incorporated. In 1900, Snohomish County decided to raise revenue to develop our local area. Snohomish County levied a high tax on standing timber so Merrill Ring, the Puget Mill Company and numerous other timber companies responded by clearcutting the entire area from north of Seattle to Everett then pushed inland up the river valleys and into the foothills, deforesting areas around Carnation, Snohomish and the Stillaguamish Valley. This was not a light selective operation. This was total clear cutting and in that era only those portions of the log free of knots were of value leaving behind 15 feet of debris. In McCollum Park and on the trail down to Meadowdale Beach you can still see the springboard holes cut into the large stumps that are gradually decaying. By 1910 there were over 20 sawmills and shingle mills on the Everett waterfront. This exploitative approach was common throughout the Western U.S. and was fueled even more with the completion of the Great Northern Railroad Line in 1893 allowing better access to eastern markets.
This exploitive approach was common throughout the Western United States. The concept of forest management was not even a consideration. The timber companies worked through the entire countryside, punching in railroad lines to the logging site, hauling logs out to the mill, then pulling up the ties and rails and re-laying the track to the next location.
By 1920, there were many thousands of acres left devoid of vegetation and covered with logging debris; what a contrast with the personal, devoted attention given to the land by the Native Americans. Please see marthalakehistorysaz.com for a more detailed record and pictures of this area.
Forestry Matters – Part 6
Continuation of the Exploitive Era
Compared to the Native Americans gentle treatment of the landscape our behavior was extreme at both ends of the spectrum. Where we had access we totally annihilated the forest; where we didn’t have access we did nothing. Both options destroyed the delicate balance created by the Native Americans.
An interesting local tidbit before we continue: With the timber gone and Snohomish County wanting to continue to develop the area the tax on the land value was increased and most companies sold their logged over land. The Puget Mill Company decided to market their land for “gentleman farmers”, advertised throughout the western two-thirds of the U.S., built a demonstration farm near the current location of Alderwood Mall, and built a hotel for prospective buyers. Like a modern-day timeshare, if you came out and listened to their pitch they put you up for free in their hotel. If you purchased a lot, 10% down and 7% interest, they would clear one acre for you. The remaining acreage with 15 feet of logging debris was yours to clean up. Apparently it worked. The Puget Mill Company sold hundreds of parcels with many of the buyers taking up raising chickens. In fact, in 1926 the Alderwood area was second only to Petaluma, California, for egg production in the U.S. (For more see: marthalakehistorysaz.com)
Now the good news is that despite the brutal treatment of the lands of our area, we do happen to live in one of the most resilient environments on earth. By 1920, the land between Seattle and Arlington and east to the foothills of the Cascades was pretty much devoid of forest. Those areas are now heavily timbered, some to the point that we should be concerned about urban fire issues. In much of Snohomish County we know that the logging here started about 1900, so the oldest trees you see, some being more than 4 feet in diameter, are at most 126 years old. Teenagers in tree-years. In the areas we hadn’t logged the widely spaced forest followed the path of normal plant successions, with shade tolerant trees and shrubs filling in the understory, displacing the grassy areas that supported deer and elk.
A friend of mine, a retired consultant forester was involved in a project sponsored by Oregon State University in the 1990s to inventory and analyze hundreds of old growth stands in Oregon, Washington and California (including dozens of spotted owl nesting stands). These were untouched stands, never logged, and the number of old (250- to 600-year-old) trees was generally 5 or less per acre. However, the total densities were 200 to 1000 stems per acre. These stands had very few large, old trees and a dense understory of younger and smaller, trees. It was only later that he had an epiphany and realized the cause for this stand structure. It was quite simple: the burning practices of the Native Americans over millennia had created true old growth stands which were very open, with browse available for game, and were ideal conditions for growing healthy, insect and disease-free trees. The younger cohort sprouted with the cessation of the Indian’s periodic burning, in time becoming the overstocked jungle we see today. What we call now old growth forests are really a recent anomaly.
In 1979, anthropologist Jay Miller “went into the Methow Valley in north-central Washington with a van load of Methow Indian elders, some of whom had not been there for fifty years. When we had gone through about half of the valley, a woman started to cry. I thought it was because she was homesick, but after a time, she sobbed, “when my people lived here, we took good care of all this land. We burned it over every fall to make it like a park. Now it is a jungle. Every Methow I talked to after that confirmed the regular program of burning”. (Indians, Fire and the Land of the Pacific Northwest, Edited by Robert T. Boyd, New edition, 2021.Pg.1)
The Indigenous Peoples did an excellent job for thousands of years. Our culture arrived in force about 175 years and proceeded to make a gigantic mess of the whole situation.
See theforestmatters.com for source document and additional information.
Next, The Modest Management Era
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Forestry Matters – Part 7
The Modest Management Era, 1930 to 1980
With the Great Depression economic activity greatly diminished, severely reducing our forest products production, and remained depressed until our entry into WWII in 1941. By this time, lower elevation lands with close proximity to the mills had been exhausted and attention was now focused on National Forests. Until then, the timber industry viewed the national forests as huge timber sources that needed to be kept off the market so that the timber industry could keep private timber prices high. The USFS had been focused on fire prevention, timber theft, reforestation and surveying. The USFS followed their 1935 rule that every reported wildfire was to be controlled and extinguished by 10 AM the following day. The war years intensified the need to establish national forest priorities–one of which was increasing wood outputs through the Timber Production War Project. The biggest single wood use was packing crates to ship military supplies; but other important uses were for bridges, railroad ties, gunstocks, ships, docks, barracks, other buildings, and aircraft. With the war effort and the building boom that followed, harvest activities revived, and by this time the USFS had gained a footing, and a semblance of forest management was enacted on federal lands. Gasoline and diesel-powered logging trucks, crawler-type tractors and chain saws had replaced steam donkeys, rail lines, oxen teams and misery whips and the national forest lands were harvested under gradually evolving USFS guidelines. Due in part to the vastly increased demand for wood products and the “baby boom” fueled need for new homes, the postwar USFS managers were active in opening vast forest areas to timber management. The timber industry now sought cheap national forest timber to supplement or replace heavily cutover private forest lands.
This created a flurry of activity on the legislative front. One of the initial steps towards forest management was The Sustained Yield Forest Management Act of 1944. This created cooperative sustained-yield units combining public and private forests to stabilize local communities, secure continuous lumber supplies and prevent destructive logging. With the advent of the automobile, more free time and the opening of millions of acres of forest lands to the public, recreational demands on the national forests increased. Operation Outdoors, a 5-year program designed to improve and replace many of the older CCC-built structures, was launched in 1957 to expand the recreation facilities and opportunities on the national forests to meet demand.
In the early 1960’s, a new wave of concern about the conservation of natural resources began. It resulted in controversies over the management of the national forests and in the passage of many environmental protection laws. The first of the environmental protection laws was the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act (MUSY) of 1960. Its purpose was to ensure that all possible uses and benefits of the national forests and grasslands would be treated equally. The “multiple uses” included outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and fish and wildlife in such combinations that would best meet and serve human needs.
The passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, set the stage for the creation of the over 800 untouched units which prohibit motorized equipment and permanent structures to preserve natural habitats.
The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), signed into law January 1, 1970, mandated that environmental impacts of proposed Federal projects be comprehensively analyzed. An important part of the act made it mandatory that agencies seek public participation on projects, from the planning stage to the review-of-documents stage. These requirements were quickly incorporated into the many projects that were underway on the national forests. This was followed by the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA) which placed limits on the size of clear-cuts.
While all of these laws were well intended and focused on many reasonable and necessary changes, it is the “made it mandatory that agencies seek public participation on projects, from the planning stage to the review-of-documents stage.” that has had the unintended consequence of bring virtually all forest management actions on federal lands to a halt. There was no provision for forcing disparate groups to come to a consensus so meaningful action could commence.
Next: The Era of No Management
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Forestry Matters – Part 8
The Era of No Management
As a result of the requirement that public participation be required from “planning to the review-of-documents stage” unencumbered by any procedure to force disparate groups to come to a consensus, timber sales on federal lands soon ground to a halt. The effect of these stipulations began to impinge upon timber sales in the late 1970s, and by 1990 resulted in an almost complete shutdown of the wood supply from federal land. With no avenue for a forced consensus any group or individual can file suit to halt a timber sale or silvicultural treatment. The matter is taken to court where the judge stops further action until a hearing is held, generally after some delay. The judge is probably not trained in forestry and expert witnesses are brought in and years can elapse before resolution by which time the original plan has to be redone. However, those who brought suit have won because the original sale or treatment is now void. Is this not a form of anarchy?
The management and fire issue is now becoming dire, so we need to go beyond original law and create a system that forces a consensus among the disparate parties. Perhaps a federal board needs to be appointed composed of Native American Tribal members, experts in forestry, fish and wildlife, range management forest recreation and other areas of expertise that can come to decisions that carry the force of law and are inviolate. It is a certainty that these decisions will not be totally acceptable to any of the parties, but it is essential that we do something. Forty-six years of doing nothing is inexcusable and we are paying a heavy and unacceptable toll.
Please be aware that while harvesting ceased, the trees did not quit growing. In has now been 46 years with very little management, years during which trees were growing and competing with one another for water and nutrients, years during which stagnation was setting in, and years during which the mountain pine beetle and the Douglas-fir bark beetle were finding stressed trees easy targets, and during years of increasing fuels load and fuel ladders into the crowns were developing. We hear a lot of media coverage with drought conditions being the cause for this problem, but the reality is that occasional droughts have always been a normal occurrence. In Western Washington and in much of the State, precipitation trends have been level or even slight increasing. What is unmentioned, but factual, is that we have artificially created drought conditions due to lack of forest management. Each tree and plant transpires and acts like a straw that draws water from the soil and releases it to the atmosphere. Consider the example from last week regarding the old growth stands maintained by the Native Americans that contained only 5 very large trees per acre, that when cruised in the 1990s had up to 1000 additional understory stems. There is no mystery here, but the fact is seldom mentioned. Once again, the Native Americans had a far better understanding of silviculture than do anti-forestry groups.
The company I worked for, Boise Cascade had two large sawmills, a stud mill, a plywood mill, and a particle board plant in the NE Oregon region, and the waste chips were shipped to Wallula for paper production. My job was to purchase and administer the harvesting of local privately owned timber. The trees for removal were selected with a priority on trees with mistletoe, evidence of bark beetle or other insect or disease issues, then spacing the residual stand to intervals allowing for maximum growth until the next harvest. The USFS followed the same guidelines on the lands they administered. Generally, no more than 50% of the stand was removed unless a rancher desired more forage. When the cutting was completed the debris was concentrated in piles and then burned in late fall after the first snows. As a forester, I received a great deal of satisfaction when a year or more later we could walk through the vigorous, health stands that we had helped maintain. At the time, I was not aware of the Native American land management practices, but in hindsight, what we provided were results similar to their forest management practices.
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Forestry Matters – Part 9
The No Management Era Continued.
Between 1960 and 2025, total harvest levels in Washington State dropped from 5 billion bd. ft. to about 2.7 billion bd. ft. In Oregon harvests dropped from 9 billion bd. ft. to 4 billion bd. ft.; in both cases over 80% of that came from private lands, with no clear cutting on federal lands. Many think that national forest old growth stands are under threat from clear cutting, but that is not the case. Federal timber harvesting has dropped to 1 to 2% of the total due to federal environmental rules. From these numbers we can see there has been very little forest management activity on federal lands leading to the dramatically increased fuel load. During this era, another phenomenon has occurred that has not received much attention yet is having a significant impact on all vegetative growth. It is the CO2 Fertilization Effect (CFE). CO2 levels have been rising as anyone following the climate issue is aware. CO2 levels have increased from 325 to 429 ppm from 1960 to the present. The formula for photosynthesis is 6CO2 + 6H20 yields C6H12O6 + 6O2: so CO2 plus water produces a carbohydrate (plant substance) plus 6 molecules of oxygen. For plants to survive they need at least 150 ppm. About 18,000 years ago during the last glacial period, levels dropped to 170 -180 ppm. This was a truly existential event. Had it fallen much further, terrestrial life on earth would have ended. Thousands of studies of the rates of plant growth at various CO2 concentrations show that the optimum level for most plant species is between 800 and 1200 ppm; 2 to 3 times above current levels. As a result of the increase Douglas-fir is growing 3% more rapidly, ponderosa pine is growing 21% faster and red alder about 11%, further adding to our fuel load issue. The good news is that crop species such as corn, wheat, and coffee are growing 11, 12 and 14% faster respectively, improving our food supply. The over-achiever is blackberry which now grows 225% more rapidly, in case you haven’t noticed. The CFE has another positive. With rising CO2 levels plants become more drought resistant. To photosynthesize, the stomate, the pores on the leaves, need to remain open long enough to take in the necessary CO2. When the stomata are open the plant is transpiring, so under higher CO2 levels the stomate do not need to remain open for as long, conserving water. Virtually all plant species benefit from CFE. (co2science.org)
With less harvesting occurring, the growth rate is further accelerated by the CFE. Hopefully this is making clear the fact that we have no shortage of trees, or forests for that matter. What we desperately need to do is manage the bounty that we have. The Native Americans maintained fuel levels much below today’s levels, and we need to strive to reduce fuel loads to levels that will allow us to re-employ their practices.
This year is proving to be an exceptional fire year. As of August 28, 2026, the National Interagency Fire Center Data Base showed that to-date this year we had both the greatest number of fires and the highest acreage burned for the past 10 years. The trend line from 1983 to the present for acres burned is strongly upward, with a very close correlation to the fuel load over the same period. This is no coincidence; as our professor stated during the forest fire portion of the Forest Protection Class at OSU in the mid-1960s, he told us to write down the 3 most important factors relating to forest fires in this order, then proceeded to say fuel load, fuel load and fuel load. He was correct then and it is correct now.
As mentioned previously, a major obstacle to implementing necessary silvicultural practices has been the anti-forest groups’ use of legal means to block action. Their success has resulted in a dramatic increase in the fuel load over the past 46 years which is resulting in our current fire predicament.
There is a contradiction between the intent of, and the current application of the thoughts of two of the original leaders of this movement, John Muir and Aldo Leopold which will be the next topic.
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Forestry Matters – Part 10
Muir and Leopold
With much of the opposition to thinning and harvest operations being led by the environmental groups, let’s take a moment to examine the history and rationale of these movements. John Muir (1838 to 1914) was one of the first leaders. It is said that Muir arrived in San Francisco in March 1868 and walked directly to Yosemite and was soon employed as a shepherd and sawmill hand. He would have seen the environmental destruction created during the Gold Rush. The clear-cutting of vast oak and pine forests for lumber, the blasting away of entire hillsides with the water canyons used in hydraulic mining, the rivers choked with millions of tons of sediment and polluted with the toxic mercury used to recover gold. These highly destructive operations continued until 1884 and covered 12,000 square miles. John Muir had a front row seat to the devastation and was highly motivated to protect Yosemite from a similar fate. In 1903, Muir accompanied President Theodore Roosevelt on their famous three-day camping trip to Yosemite that convinced Roosevelt to place the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove under federal protection. Muir explored Washington and Oregon extensively from the 1870s through 1908 and witnessed the massive clearcutting taking place in our region as well.
What Muir witnessed was orders of magnitude more destructive that anything witnessed since. In areas left untouched, Muir described western landscapes as “wild” and unpopulated by design, failing to credit Tribes for maintaining open meadows and forests via regular light burnings. His early journals contained derogatory remarks about the California Native Americans he encountered. It wasn’t until later, in Alaska, the he expressed modest respect for their peaceful coexistence with nature. But he did not document or analyze their active ecological land management or systematic cultivation techniques. He was opposed to prescribed burning and felt that natural fires should be extinguished as quickly as possible. John Muir co-founded and was the first President of the Sierra Club.
Aldo Leopold (1886 to 1948), who helped found the Wilderness Society in 1935, was trained at the Yale School of Forestry and joined the USFS in 1909, with the standard, utilitarian views of the period. Initially he supported total fire suppression and had little respect for the Native Americans practices, referring to their use of fire as “Paiute forestry”. Leopold was also intimately aware of the environmental devastation that had occurred earlier in the U.S., particularly the clearcutting that had occurred in the Great Lakes region. The famous “shack” that he purchased in a worn-out, logged-over piece of property in Wisconsin that he converted into a summer retreat, was his personal rehabilitation project. Leopold did not explicitly detail or credit Native American land use practices, but after working in the Southwest in the 20’s and 30s, he recognized that fire was a vital ecological tool. He also promoted the concept of wilderness preservation within National Forests, believing that parts of the natural world should remain human intervention and commercial extraction. Over time his opinions evolved to closely resemble the philosophy of the Native Americans. Let’s compare:
To Native Americans, the Earth is one’s relative, requiring respect and care, as are all the animals and plant life the land supports. The definition of one’s ‘relatives’ encompasses all living things, not just the members of one’s family, and so, just as one would not claim to ‘own’ a relative, one cannot own the land; one can only act as a steward in caring for it.
Aldo Leoplolds “Land Ethic” changes the human role from conqueror of earth to citizen of a larger biotic community with the core maxim that an action is right when it preserves the integrity, stability and beauty of the natural community, and wrong when it does otherwise.
Very similar ideas. Neither Leopold nor the Native Americans were opposed to rational management of the land and both supported reasonable use of the resources with consideration and appreciation for the world at large. Both Muir and Leopold viewed and were responding to atrocious land treatments, situations that for the most part do not exist in our country today. Our federal lands today are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the travesties that colored both Muir’s and Leopold’s world views.
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Forestry Matters – Part 11
The Anti-forestry Contingent.
Our biggest obstacle to engaging in active forest management on federal land is the disproportionate influence of the various anti-forestry groups who appear to be operating with a distorted perception of the history of our forest resource. Neither John Muir or Aldo Leopold, nor many other founders were aware of the extent to which the Native Americans had very actively manipulated this environment for thousands of years. These groups object to any silvicultural action on lands containing mature or old growth timber, unaware that the old growth stands we have today are an anomaly that have only existed for the past 175 years. Like nostalgia, “they are trying to recreate the good old days that never were.” Currently, about 3.3% of our citizens are members of the environmental groups that are opposing forest management activities. On the flip side, a recent poll conducted of Washington State voters showed that 86% supported managed forests. (https://share.google/SQmnvznvMKQcW1xca) The increasing fire problem will most likely reduce the anti-forestry side while increasing the number of forest management proponents.
As mentioned before, it isn’t so much that the anti-forestry groups are wrong in their concerns, it is that their timing is off. The Indigenous People managed the environment very gently and consistently for thousands of years, while our culture has gone from extreme exploitation to no management at all in decades. The Native Americans felt that they did not own the land. They were a part of the land, the land owned them and as a part of the land they had the right to take what they needed in a moderate and appreciative manner. The anti-forestry groups are intent on stopping any use of the land; at odds again with the Native American ethic. There is a middle ground!
Hopefully this massive disparity between the pro and con sides illustrates the dire need to arrive at a solution like the one stated in Paper 8 to force a consensus position that can be acted upon. The few are controlling the many with positions that may have been appropriate in the past but are no longer relevant. All parties need to make their case, but our legal system allows a small minority to totally control the narrative; this is not how a democratic society should function. In my case it became personal.
My work as a forester ended in the late 1970s. The mills I worked for were shut down or drastically reduced production as a result of curtailment of timber sales on federal lands. Forest Service employees quit attempting to prepare timber sales because each one was challenged and stopped. Half of the forestland in the PNW is in federal ownership; 67% in Union County, Oregon and 56% in Wallow County, Oregon. The effect on the local economy was devasting, particularly to the school districts where 25% of the gross proceeds from federal harvests went to local counties for schools and roads. The town of Fossil, Oregon had to reduce the school week to 4 days. Sounds like third world behavior. In the 46 years since, the forests that had sustained the local mills with selective harvesting methods grew denser, stagnated, developed insect and disease issues and greatly expanded risk of forest fire.
Before we continue on, we need to review the actual state and trends of our nations forest resource over the past century. The following quiz will show you how your perceptions compare with reality.
1. Forested acreage in the U.S. now compared to the year 1920?
a. -5.5%, b. -15.9% c. -23% d. +5.8%
2. Percentage of forested acreage in the U.S. administered by the U.S. Government?
a. 49% b. 29% c. 35% d. 15%
3. Volume of merchantable timber in U.S. in 2022 (last inventory), compared to 1953?
a. -13% b. -19% c. +26% d. +72%
4. On USFS and BLM timberlands what percentage of the acreage is combined mature and old growth ?
a. 63.7% b. 23.5% c. 15.1% d. 45.9%
5. What is the greatest mortality factor in federal old growth stands?
a. Insect and disease b. Fire. C. Logging
Correct answers available next week, or check charts on front page, and source paper behind the blue button on theforestmatters.com.
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Forestry Matters – Part 12
The Anti-forestry Contingent continued.
First, answers to last week’s quiz: 1. On forested acreage, we have gained 41,881,000 acres since 1920, a gain of 5.8%. 2. Percent of forested acreage administered by the U.S. Government: 29%. 3. Change in merchantable timber from 1953 to 2022: +72%. 4. Percentage of mature and old growth on USFS and BLM land of their total forested acreage: 63%. (mature 45.3, old growth 18.5%) 5. Greatest mortality factors for mature and old growth forests: Fire 3.2%, insect and disease 2.3% and logging 0.3%.
As these figures indicate, we have no shortage of timber in the U.S., old growth and mature stands make up a majority of the timber under federal control, which is the portion the anti-forestry groups are focused on, and the greatest mortality factor on the lands they are concerned with is fire, followed by insect and disease problems. The combined mortality rate for these two factors is 5.5%, which is much greater than the growth rate. Under the current paradigm, thanks to the actions of the anti-forestry factions, we are losing ground. To reverse this situation we need to follow the example of our Native American predecessors; we need to resume reasonable and proven silvicultural practices, and we need to do what is appropriate to all age classes, including old growth. The current objective appears to be to return as much land as possible to wilderness. However from the Native American perspective wilderness represents a fallen state into which the land descends in the absence of work not done and relationships not tended to, as expressed by Sierra Miwok elder James Rust, quoted by M. Kat Anderson: “The white man sure ruined this country, it’s turned back to wilderness.” (The State of Fire, Why California Burns” by Obi Kaufman, 2024, page 24, on the reference page of theforestmatters.com).
The problem we are facing is not too few trees; it’s too many trees with far too little forest management. The Native Americans maintained fuel loads at much lower levels with very active management. Our culture took over about 1850, 176 years ago and practiced rudimentary forest management during about 40 of those years, from1940 to 1980, vacillating from gross exploitation to no management at all. This seems to be a pattern our nation has followed in many arenas; perhaps it is time for common sense to come to the fore. I feel very fortunate in that I was able to actually practice forest management during that 40-year period.
Initially these commentaries focused on the burning practices of the Native Americans, and these worked exceptionally well if you’ve maintained fuel loads at reasonable levels. We have failed to do so. As was evident in the quiz answers and events such as the Paradise, Spokane and numerous other recent fires, to use fire only in most settings today would be catastrophic; we must first reduce fuel loads to safe levels. What options do we have to reduce fuel loads? Only two come to mind…..burning and removal by mechanical means; thinning or harvesting. We can continue on our current course of doing nothing until the fire smoke and damage gets so bad a consensus is reached to take action.
On much of our lands we can and should use selective logging techniques, and again we can and should remove both smaller trees and merchantable trees. The “21-inch rule” is absurd and needs to be scrapped. The scope of our current problem is massive and is growing far more rapidly than our meager efforts to date. Thinning alone is a very expensive practice, and we will need to generate revenue from the merchantable timber to create the funds necessary to make progress. Selective logging done properly is environmentally friendly and can leave much more attractive stands for both flora and fauna. At times it looks a bit rough immediately after the operation, but our area is very resilient and recovers rapidly…far more so than after a major burn. This is the type of forestry I was involved in during the 1970’s and we achieved excellent results then and have even better equipment today. We do have several obstacles that need to be addressed.
Next: The Path Forward.
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Forestry Matters – Part 13
The Path Forward
For harvesting to be profitable on the scale necessary, we need a competitive market for logs, and our forest products industry was decimated with the earlier cessation of harvesting on federal lands. Today, 25% of our lumber supply, worth about $19.7 billion, is imported from Canada. While we ignored our federal forests, the Canadians have been exhausting their easier pickings. With only difficult sites left, they are cutting back, with more cutbacks planned in the future. In the last decade lumber production there has decreased by 55%. This is an opportunity that we need to capitalize on. By reestablishing a modest forest products industry we could create a market for the material we need to thin and harvest. Were we to replace the Canadian lumber with domestically produced lumber the downstream financial stimulus could add an addition $39.4 billion to our GDP. Additionally, in the past, 25% of the gross revenues from federal timber sales went to local counties for schools and roads which benefited these rural locations substantially. This is a far more prudent action than our current practice of watching our forests burn.
Before returning to suggested silvicultural treatments for our various forest types, let’s consider some of the possible end products for the thinned and harvested timber.
Engineered wood products: Currently, construction practices for larger buildings involve the use of reinforced concrete. This involves the mining and refining of iron ore and the production of steel and concrete. These are far more energy intensive than the production of engineered wood products. Buildings up to 14 stories have been constructed entirely from wood, and the Ascent in Milwaukee, WI., which is primarily timber is 25 stories, and Atlassian Central, a hybrid structure, in Sydney, Australia tops out at 39 stories. For the thousands of smaller multi-story apartment and commercial units using lumber and engineered products would provide a large environmental advantage. Wood construction is lighter than concrete and steel and requires proportionally smaller foundations which further reduces the environmental impact.
Many question the safety of wood structure during fire, however wood is a positive here. The Twin Towers collapsed because the ignited jet fuel greatly reduced the strength of the steel reinforcement. The failure of one or two stories created an unbearable load for the stories above and brought down the entire structure. Wood structures hold their strength for greater duration before collapsing. With proper treatment and fire suppression systems modern designs are very safe. Wood is 40% carbon, so this is carbon sequestration in spades.
Biofuel plants: Convert forest residue, sawmill cutoffs, and urban wood scrap into synthetic, gas, renewable diesel and electricity. This technology has the potential to create enough power for small communities surrounded by areas that need forest fuel reduction. Hat Creek Bioenergy, in Burney, California is one such operation that started operations in 2025, providing power to PG&E and producing biochar. (See: Forest power: woodchips to electricity | US Forest Service) To date the profitability is unknown. The known is that while these plants release CO2, they release dramatically less of the very toxic compounds created by forest fires and are very effective at reducing fuel loads. If these operations are combined with the harvesting of merchantable timber they can make economic sense.
Lumber mills: We will need to produce enough lumber domestically to fill the void left by the reduced output from British Columbia. More lumber mills will provide more competition for logs and increasing the density of mills will reduce the costs of manufacturing lumber. One of the calculations I went through when buying stumpage was the cost to haul the logs from the harvest site to the mill. As with agricultural products, it makes good economic and environmental sense to produce the products we need as close to the marketplace as possible…in other words buy local! The Canadians have trod heavily upon the land for decades, while we are again at the opposite end of the spectrum, allowing our federal forest lands to grow, stagnate, propagate insect and disease populations and burn. Isn’t it far better to tread lightly upon all of the land, both Canadian and U.S. lands, following the example of our Native American predecessors?
Next Topic: Forest Succession
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