THE NEW PIONEERS - Amazon S3€¦ · since 1910, more than 53 million acres burned. But it was the...

SUMMER 2002 www.evergreenmagazine.com

THE NEW PIONEERSHope Rises From The Ashes In Southwestern Forests

2 EVERGREEN

In this issue we write about “TheNew Pioneers,” an eclectic mix ofentrepreneurs, visionaries, scientists,politicians and true believers who arerallying around a simple but powerfulidea whose time has come: caring forthe West’s desperately ill nationalforests beats standing by helplesslywhile they burn to the ground.

Our story is centered in Arizona andNew Mexico where yet another dreadfulwildfire season is already underway. Mostof the story we tell was completed beforethe disastrous Rodeo-Chediski Fire sweptacross big pine country in northernArizona. The 468,000-acre blaze—thelargest in Arizona history—forced theevacuation of several rural communitiesincluding Show Low, a lovely mountaintown centered in what was the largestcontinuous ponderosa pine forest in theUnited States. 423 homes were lost,mainly in neighboring Heber, Overgaard,Pinedale, Linden and Clay Springs. OnJune 19, two thousand degree heat wasrecorded at the head of the wind drivenconflagration, which was then advancingon Pinedale at 1.5 miles per hour.

But if wildfire were the story wewanted to tell, we could just as easily bereporting from the forest graveyards ofnorthern California, western Montana,southern Oregon or southwest Idaho—all scenes of earlier conflagrations thatwere just as devastating. Since 1995, theWest has lost more than 25 millionacres in stand-replacing wildfires. Asanyone who was living near one of theseholocausts will tell you, the losses tocommunities are measured in decades,not acres.

Sadly, we know the wildfire story alltoo well. In our Winter 1994–1995edition we autopsied the charredremains of some of the West’s biggestforest fires, repeating the unheededpleas of foresters who, in the early1950s, first warned of the direconsequences of federal neglect inforests that were then showing early

signs of the onset of pestilence.But this is not just another wildfirestory. Nor is it a story about restorationforestry, a hands-on science endorsedby many ecologists and biologists; orletting nature take its course, a hands-off approach some environmentalistsprefer. We compared these opposites inour Winter 2000-2001 issue andconcluded that leaving the West to thevagaries of big wildfires is a hopelessand irresponsible proposition with nofuture in a society that expects as muchfrom its forests as we expect from ours.

No, this is a people story—a glimmerof hope accounting of the good thingsthat happen in forests and communitieswhen humility and determination finallyovercome arrogance and refusal, whenscience-based options and public valuesjointly form the basis for shaping rationalstrategies for overcoming irrational fears.

We have watched this story unfold fornearly four years. At first, it looked likenumerous other reports from westernlogging towns that had embracedrestoration forestry in their struggle tohang on to their cultures in the

In This Issue

“This is forest restoration,” shouts Brian Cottam as he stands beneath giant ponderosa pines at Fort Valley, minutes weenvironmental and community groups that are pioneering forest-thinning strategies for use in the area’s national forest

Jim

Pet

erse

n

“We must always consider the environ-ment and people together, as thoughthey are one, because the human need touse natural resources is fundamental toour continued presence on earth.”

Jim Petersen, Evergreen, Spring 1989

www.evergreenmagazine.com 3

aftermath of the collapse of the federaltimber sale program: Quincy, Californiaand Medford, Oregon to name just two.

But something different is happeningin small towns all over the Southwest.Community based collaborativeforestry—the all too clinical name givento the gut wrenching process ofreplacing distrust with consensus—isworking here as it has not workedelsewhere in the West. We wanted to findout why, so we spent five monthstraveling the Southwest talking withthose we now call “the new pioneers.”

In our report we lay out whatappear to be the reasons for theirextraordinary success. We also describethe daunting task that lies beforethem. How, for example, do you thindead and dying trees from ready-to-burn forests in a region with so littlelogging or saw milling industry left?And how do you keep the federal grantmoney flowing long enough to cobbletogether the manufacturinginfrastructure needed to process thevirtual sea of trees that crowds theregion’s forests? And, by the way, what

sort of milling infrastructure will beaccepted in a part of the countrywhere so many want nothing to dowith a return to “the old days” whenlogging and saw milling were bigindustries?

We owe our Evergreen readers anapology for the long delay incompleting this issue. Research tooklonger than expected. Then theRodeo-Chediski Fire broke out,forcing several people we interviewedto flee their homes before they couldreview our draft manuscripts foraccuracy. We subsequently decided topostpone publication long enough toget a sense for what might happen inthe aftermath of this fire. Threedelays later this much is clear. Savefor radical environmentalists—whoseem to enjoy the publicity thatcomes with these conflagrations—therest of Arizona has seen enough.Nearly 97 percent of respondents toan azcentral.com poll say theysupport restoration forestry and otherpreventive measures. In a separatesix-state poll, Portland, Oregonpollster Bob Moore found that 80percent of registered voters surveyedare concerned for the risks catas-trophic fires pose. 73 percent saidthey favor thinning to reduce therisk. Even in more populous urbanenvirons, two-thirds favor thinningover catastrophic fire. We’ve neverseen such groundswells of support forscience-based forestry.

We have laid out this issue to beread from cover-to-cover, just as youwould read a book. We set the stagewith the answers to eight commonlyasked questions about the situation inthe Southwest. After you’ve studiedthese you’ll be ready to read our twomain stories, “Solving Forestry’sRubic’s Cube” and “The NewPioneers.”

So get settled in wherever you are.You are about to meet anextraordinary cast of characters:pioneering men and women actingon faith who have embraced oneanother’s hopes and fears in a wayunlike anything we’ve seen before.We hope their story inspires otherswho are trying to cross the culturaldivide that has separated those livingin the West that was from those livingin the West that is.

Onward we go,

Jim Petersen, Editor

es west of Flagstaff, Arizona. Mr. Cottam is coordinator for the Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership, a coalition oforests.

4 EVERGREEN

The immediate causes of theSouthwest’s wildfires vary: lightningstrikes, careless campers and arson.But there are underlying factors—reasons why these fires are so large andso much more ferocious than any forwhich evidence exists in naturalhistory—that add up to realproblems for communities,firefighters and the nation.

Of all these factors, none loomslarger than the fact that there aretoo many trees crowded into theWest’s forests. And more aresprouting every year. The chartopposite compares the number oftrees counted in Southwest forestsin 1998 with the number that wascounted in a 1910 survey. Theincrease is astonishing. In someareas, ponderosa groves that onceheld no more than a dozen or twolarge trees now contain more than2,000 stems per acre. Picture a solidblock of wood the length and widthof a football field stretching a mileinto the sky. That’s how much newwood fiber is added to Arizona andNew Mexico forests every year. Theblock in your mind’s eye contains185 million cubic foot block ofwood—enough to build 1,800square foot homes for 90,000families.

The moisture, nutrient reservesand growing space needed tosustain such mind boggling growthdon’t exist in Southwest forests—and never has. The fires we arewitnessing are nature’s longpredicted reaction to a set of forestconditions put in motion by star-crossed circumstances involving publicpolicy, weather and plain old dumb luck.

Begin with this: the 1919 ponderosapine seed crop was one of the best everin the Southwest. And it grew like crazythanks to an unusually wet spring.Millions of these trees are still standingin southwestern forests. Most are nobigger around than your forearmdespite the fact that they are more than80 years old.

Historically, wildfires would havekilled most of the trees that sproutedfrom the 1919 seed crop in their first orsecond years, allowing the survivors togrow quite large in the much less

What’s causing these fires?crowded forests of that era. But by 1919the gentle under-burns that kept theregion’s forests open and relatively freeof insects and diseases were disap-pearing from the landscape. Threefactors contributed to their disap-

pearance, laying the groundwork forthe ferocious and increasinglyfrequent stand-replacing wildfiresthat have dominated the Southwestsince the 1980s.

First, 400 years of grazing. Dry grasseasily carried ground fire through theopen savannah-like ponderosa pinestands that dominated much of theforested Southwest before post-CivilWar European settlement began. But bythe late 1880s livestock had consumedso much of it that ground fire lost itsmost immediate fuel source.

Second, the nation’s 19th centuryIndian policy. For eons, Indians burnedtheir forests and rangelands annually,mainly to promote growth in grasses

and forbs that were important foodsources for game animals. But onceIndians were driven onto reservationsso-called “native fire” vanished fromthe landscape.

Third, the nation’s still widely sup-ported commitment to ridding theWest of its wildfires. As awful as ourfire seasons have become, they palewhen compared to what westernersendured 50 and 60 years ago. In1930, one of the worst fire yearssince 1910, more than 53 millionacres burned. But it was the Great1910 Fire that steeled publicresolve against fire. On Saturday,August 21, some 3,000 small firesburning in northern Idaho andwestern Montana were blowntogether by gale force winds. Overthe next 24 hours, three millionacres of timberland were leveled.Armed only with hand tools, 86firefighters perished, many stillwearing the same street shoes theyhad on when they were recruitedfrom skid row bars in nearbySpokane, Washington. An enragedGifford Pinchot, then the first chiefof the newly formed U.S. ForestService, blamed Congress. “For want of trails the finestwhite pine forests in the UnitedStates were laid waste and scores oflives lost,” he told a reporter forEverybody’s Magazine. “It is allloss, dead irretrievable loss, due tothe pique, the bias and the bull-headedness of a knot of men whohave sulked and planted their hulks

in the way of appropriations for theprotection and improvement of thesenational forests.”

The rest is history. Congress ratifiedthe Clarke-McNary Act in 1924, theForest Service went into the firefightingbusiness and development of the West’snational forest timber resourcesproceeded on course—with strongpublic support. It would be another 25years before foresters first noticed thatboth forest density and species com-position were changing. Millions ofsmall ponderosa pines were crowdinginto forests historically kept open byfrequent ground fires that would havekilled perhaps 90 percent of theseseedlings and saplings. Worst yet, white

put smokey in here

US

DA

For

est S

ervi

ce

This is one of the most recognizable faces in the world.And the Forest Service’s fire prevention programembodies one of the most successful advertisingcampaigns in history. Who cannot recite Smokey’sadmonition by heart, “Only you….”


50

40

30

10

20

0

Number of Softwood Growing Stock Treeson Non-Reserved Timberland in Arizona & New Mexico Combined

Indexed on Acre-Basis for 3 Inventory Cycles & Woolsey 1910

50

40

30

10

20

029.0+27.0-28.925.0-26.923.0-24.921.0-22.919.0-20.917.0-18.915.0-16.913.0-14.911.0-12.99.0-10.97.0-8.95.0-6.9

Diameter-Class in Inches

1910 - Woolsey PP Stand

1962 - Softwood Total



Area of Forest Typeson Non-Reserved Timberland in Arizona & New Mexico Combined

Indexed as a Percentage of Non-Reserved Timberland for 3 Inventory Cycles

Percent of Non-Reserved Timberland

Ponderosa Pine,LP & Other

50% 60% 70% 80%40%30%20%10%0%

White fir &Douglas fir

Spruce &Spruce-fir

Hardwoods

Non-StockedTimberland

19861999 1962

Fire exclusion is also altering tree species composition. Ponderosa and lodgepole pine, which regenerate best in sunlight, are losing ground to moreshade tolerant Douglas fir and white fir, species historically kept at bay by frequent low intensity fire. Neither fir species is capable of withstandingprolonged drought. Under stress, they soon fall prey to insects, diseases and fire. Thus far, changes in species composition have been less dramaticin spruce-fir and hardwood forests. [Source: USFS Region 3 inventory reports]

The number of trees growing in Southwest forests has increased dramatically since the first government inventory was completed in 1910. Thereason: the nation’s decision to exclude wildfire from forests and, to a lesser extent, four centuries of livestock grazing in the region. While forestinventory methods have been modified slightly in subsequent surveys [1962, 1996 and 1998] the number of trees per acre has increased for everyage class except the very largest. [Source: USFS Southwest Region forest inventory reports]

6 EVERGREEN

fir, a prolific re-seeder that tolerates shade but not drought, was beginning to push shade intolerant ponderosa and aspen from their native habitats. But unlike drought resistant ponderosa, which can withstand the heat of moderate fire once its bark thickens, or aspen, which following fire quickly re-sprouts from its own roots, thin-barked white fir is easily killed by fire. But now, aided by the nation’s well-intended fire policy, white fir was overtaking ponderosa and aspen habitat—more than a million acres of it between 1962 and 1986. And now, stressed beyond their endurance by four years of drought, these dead and dying fir, ponderosa and aspen stands are fueling wildfires whose explosive behavior is unlike anything that veteran firefighters have ever observed. Entire watersheds, vital to the region’s communities and economy, are in serious trouble. So too are countless thousands of rare and common species: mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects and plants. But step back from this drama for a moment. Recognize that evidence abounds that the number of trees growing in national forests in Arizona and New Mexico has been increasing steadily since both wildfire and Indians were excluded from the landscape. You can read all about it in a fine peer-reviewed article published by the prestigious Journal of Forestry nearly ten years ago. [“Changes in Southwestern Forests: Stewardship Implications”] The article, by Marlin Johnson, Assistant Director of Forestry for the Forest Service’s Southwestern Region, revealed that the number of trees of every size, except the very largest, increased steadily between 1962 and 1986, the two most recent years in which trees per acre were counted in sample plots.

During the 26-year period between surveys, the number of trees one to 4.9 inches in diameter increased from 130 to 160 per acre, while the number from five to 16.9 inches in diameter increased from 70 to 120 trees per acre. For perspective sake, consider this from history: a survey crew working in Arizona’s North Kaibab region in 1909 estimated there were 91 trees per acre three inches or less in diameter. When the survey was repeated in 1989 surveyors counted 1,100 trees per acre.

Even more surprising, data from the 1962 and 1986 surveys reveals that, despite a sawtimber harvest of 2.2 billion board feet during the 26-year period, the number of trees over 17 inches in diameter remained virtually unchanged at eight per acre, a statistic supported by separate Forest Service growth, harvest and mortality records which reveal that, for the period, regional sawtimber harvest was about 34 percent of net growth—well below the volume that could have been harvested without exceeding annual growth. Had the Forest Service reintroduced fire in the 1950s—intentionally setting some fires and allowing others set by

lightning or errant campers to run their course—the tree density problem might well have reversed itself over time, but there was woefully little public support for such action. By 1960, the face of Smokey Bear—which drew its inspiration from a bear cub rescued from a 1950 fire on New Mexico’s Lincoln National Forest—was one of the most recognizable in the world. School kids everywhere could recite his admonition [Go ahead Baby Boomers, “Only you…”] Now, a half-century later, it is too late to safely re-introduce fire—a hard lesson

learned at Los Alamos. There are too many

dead trees and there is too much debris on the forest floor. In some places it is knee deep. There is great concern for the future of the oldest of the region’s ponderosa pines. Thought their bark is thick enough to withstand the heat of low intensity ground fires, the 2,000-degree heat of today’s infernos is more than any living thing can tolerate. These big trees are also threatened by encroaching white fir and ponderosa thickets, which rob them of soil nutrients and moisture, adding to the danger that—in their weakened condition—they

will fall prey to insects, diseases and ultimately fire. Of course, it would be easy to blame our ancestors for not recognizing fire’s beneficial role in fire-dependent ecosystems. But making the West a safe place to put down new roots—paving the way for prosperity’s eventual arrival —was more important to them. And to many, it still is. So we are left with these facts. National Forests in the Southwest—and elsewhere in the Interior West—are in deep, deep trouble. They have far too many trees in them and they are burning to the ground because of it. Nature is not going to solve this problem in a publicly pleasing way. But we can.

U.S. Wildfire TrendsIn Millions of Acres Averaged by Decade

Mil

lion

s of

Acr

es 25

30

35

40

20

15

5

10

01919-29 1930-39 1940-49 1950-59 1960-69 1970-79 1980-89 1990-99 2000-02*

* Average based on dataup to August 14, 2002.


Can this get any worse? Yes, the West’s wildfire situation can get worse. In fact, it will get worse, pro-bably much worse. Why? Because most landowners are not doing enough to address the two underlying causes of catastrophic wildfire: the exponentially increasing number of trees that crowd national forests and the corresponding and excessive buildup of highly flammable woody debris: tinder dry needles and limbs, fallen trees, and all but dead ponderosa, fir, spruce and juniper pushed to the brink by unsustainable growing conditions, corollary insect and disease infestations and prolonged drought. This year the wildfire crisis is centered in Arizona and Colorado. Two years ago it was New Mexico and western Montana. In 1987 in was northern California and southern Oregon. In 1988 it was Yellowstone, 1990 Arizona, 1992 Idaho, 1994 Colorado, 1997 Alaska, 1999 California. At this writing (Aug. 22) it is revisiting southern Oregon with a vengeance. Year after year, the worsening crisis plays itself out in riveting images: retardant bombers flying at treetop level flash across television screens, towns are evacuated, guests flee destination resorts, dot-com billionaires man the roofs of their million-dollar retreats with six-dollar garden hoses, thousands with respiratory and cardiac problems flood emergency rooms, deer and elk roasted within an inch of their lives are mercifully shot, waves of fire undulate in the night sky like northern lights and yellow-jacketed firefighters disappear into the smoky haze. Some will come out the other side in body bags. Thus far this year 19 have, including seven killed in accidents while traveling to and from big fires. Even before the current wildfire season

began talk of “another Los Alamos” was widespread among veteran firefighters. The May 2000 fire began as an ill-advised controlled burn set by the National Park Service in the Bandelier National Monument south of Los Alamos. High winds drove flames northward across 47,000 acres forcing evacuation of the entire town. 405 homes were destroyed. “I am scared to death we are going to lose lives and communities again this summer,” declared John Bedell in an April interview. Mr. Bedell, the retiring supervisor on northern Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, characterized the situation as “the worst I have seen in my 33 years in the Southwest.” “I see no sign things will improve in the foreseeable future,” Mr. Bedell said of the rapidly deterioriating situation and the Forest Service’s inability to get ahead of it. “On the Apache-Sitgreaves alone we have 400,000 adjacent to community acres that need treatment. And that doesn’t count the acres that are in watersheds or provide critical habitat for plant and animal species or are considered to be prime recreation areas.” Mr. Bedell knows whereof he speaks. But for the grace of God, Prescott, Arizona

would have been lost in a mid-May firestorm that was less than a tenth the size of the Rodeo-Chediski Fire, which drove more than 30,000 from their homes and left more than 400 families homeless. And had this colossus crossed the highway south of Show Low it would have burned across the top of the White Mountains, all the way into New Mexico. Well over a million acres would have been lost. Just how bad could it get? Consider this. According to Forest Service and Government Accounting Office reports some 73 million national forest acres are on the verge of ecological collapse. But efforts to mount

the large-scale long term thinning program scientists have been recommending for years have been repeatedly thwarted by legal, regulatory and management entanglements that Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth recently likened to “the Gordian Knot of ancient Greek mythology. And unlike Alexander the Great, I cannot simply draw my sword and cut it,” he said in June 12 testimony before members of the House Sub-committee on Forests and Forest Health. Just how Congress and the nation’s various federal resource management agencies will [with their conflicting mandates] unravel what Mr. Bosworth termed “the piecemeal im-position of regulations, court decisions and internal agency process requirements” remains to be seen. Despite its limited success, collaborative forestry—with its emphasis on consensus building and community empowerment—offers reason for hope. So too does the groundswell of public support for thinning as an alternative to catastrophic wildfire. But hope has given way to crisis. One in three acres is over-crowded, overstressed, dead or dying. And every forest scientist we know who is familiar with the West’s fire ecology confirms our worst fears. Unless

U.S. Wildland BurnedIn Millions of Acres - 1960 to 2002

Mil

lion

s of

Acr

es

5

6

7

8

9

4

3

1

2

01960

Through August 15, 2002.

1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

8 EVERGREEN

When logging slashis not properly disposed ofit can be a fire hazard.This is why piles of dis-carded limbs and treetopsare burned when burningcan be done safely.

Forest managers facean interesting challengewhere slash disposal isconcerned. Minimizingthe risk of subsequent fireis very important, butlimbs and treetops alsohelp enrich the soil as theydecay and they providehabitat for rodents, birdsand insects.

Numerous scientificstudies affirm the fact thatwhen slash is properlytreated it does not pose aserious fire threat. Onesuch study, conducted inCalifornia’s Sierra Nevadarange in 1996, drew thisconclusion:

“Timber harvest,through its effects onforest structure, localmicroclimate and fuelaccumulation, hasincreased fire severitymore than any otherrecent human activity.If not accompanied byadequate reduction offuels, logging (includingslave of dead and dyingtrees) increases fire hazardby increasing surface deadfuels and changing thelocal microclimate. Fireintensity and expected fire spread ratesthus increase locally and in areasadjacent to harvest. However, loggingcan serve as a tool to help reduce firehazard when slash is adequatelytreated and treatments aremaintained.” [Emphasis added]

There is also new evidence that pastforest management activity, includinglogging, can help slow the pace of evenlarge fires. Near Show Low, the Rodeo-

Isn’t logging to blame?

Chediski fire was finally stopped justinside the city limits—averting thepossible loss of the entire town—whenit entered an area that had beenthinned. With less to burn, the fireslowed, giving firefighters anopportunity to contain it.

“The fire did the least amount ofdamage in areas that had been thinned,where logging slash had been treatedand prescribed fire was later applied to

reduce woody debrisaccumulations,”reported Jim Youtz, aBureau of Indian Affairssilviculturist assigned tothe White MountainApache tribe at FortApache. Mr. Youtzhelped battle theconflagration, whichstarted on tribalforestland.

“Areas where nomanagement activityhad occurred weredevastated,” heexplained. “Wherelogging or thinninghad occurred but slashwas not removed,there was moredamage than in areaswhere slash had beentreated and prescribedfire had been used toeliminate excess woodydebris. We also noticedthat old burns helpedslow the pace of thefire, but small treesgrowing in old burnsdid not survive unlessthe area had beensalvaged logged. Butwhere salvage logginghad occurred, treesthat had been plantedor sprouted naturallyafter the fire survivedthe new burn.”

Managing forests—thinning overly densestands, removing

diseased, dead and dying trees,treating logging slash and control-ling woody debris accumulations—isexpensive, but not nearly as costlyor environmentally destructive ascatastrophic wildfire. And as youwill learn in this report, there arehopeful signs that these costs canbe offset through development ofnew commercial markets for mostforest residues.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

When logging debris is properly disposed of the risk of post-logging wildfire isminimal. [Top photo] Trees too small to have commercial value are piled forburning at Fort Valley, west of Flagstaff. [Bottom] Finely ground woody debrisfrom the Blue Ridge demonstration project near Lakeside. Biomass technologyand marketing expertise is desperately needed in the Southwest.


What if we do nothing?

If we do nothing,most of the Southwest’sforests will be lost to fire.

Thereafter, the firecycle will subside and theprocess of renewal willbegin. It will take severalhundred years. Mean-while, there won’t bemuch to look at or enjoy.

Despite this reality,some environmentalistsstill insist such a forestmeltdown would be goodfor nature. But forestecologists who arestudying the situationwarn that the fires we arewitnessing have movedwell beyond “the range ofnatural variability.”

Put simply, we are notwitnessing the kind of firebehavior that is associatedwith a naturally functioning shortfire-interval ecosystem—a plant andanimal community in which firesplay a quite beneficial role: frequentbut never very intense burns thattraveled along the forest floor,clearing away debris, keeping insects,diseases and shade tolerant plantspecies in check.

What we are instead witnessing isnature’s increasingly forcefulresponse to one of our nation’s feltnecessities: the need to limit wildfirefor reasons involving public health,safety and enjoyment. The questionis, “Where do we draw the line?”Where does public health, safety andenjoyment end and nature begin? Orshould there even be such a line ofdemarcation in modern society?

Should we step back and let entiretowns burn to the ground becausesomeone thinks they were built inthe wrong place? Or do we simplycarve out mile-wide buffers at thecity limits, ceding what lies beyondto inevitable wildfire? Do wearbitrarily set up our defenses ten or20 miles from town or do we trysomething completely different—a

more holistic approach that wouldtake us deeper into the forest wherewe would enlist science, technologyand nature in a quest to reduce therisk of catastrophic wildfire in foreststhat are simply too important to usfor whatever the reason?

While there are no easy answersto any of these questions, a 1998statewide poll of registered voters inArizona suggests that most peopleliving in the Southwest understandthat there are serious environmentalconsequences associated withinaction in the face of catastrophicwildfire, especially for a nation thatplaces such high values on clean air,clean water, abundant wildlife andbeautiful forests.

The poll, conducted for theEastern Arizona CountiesOrganization (EACO) by the ArizonaState University Media ResearchService revealed 87 percent supportfor protecting endangered plants andanimals, 91 percent support forcontrolled burns to protect foresthealth, 97 percent support forrecreation on public lands, 91

percent support forharvesting old ordying trees and 88percent support forthinning.

“For mostArizonans, wildfirehas become a qualityof life issue,” says Dr.Martin Moore,executive directorof EACO, now theEnvironmentalEconomicCommunitiesOrganization, St.Johns, Arizona.

“We recognize thatif we lose our forestswe lose much morethan trees,” heobserves. “We lose avery appealinglifestyle that makes

the Southwest such an attractiveplace for businesses and familiesalike. We simply cannot afford toleave our future to chance, so we arebringing together groups of peoplewho share our belief that restor-ation forestry beats watching forestsburn to the ground.”

But restoration forestry’sproponents face two daunting tasks.Many politically powerful groups seerestoration as nothing more thanlogging in disguise, and thereforeoppose it. Worse, even if restor-ation’s opponents could be swayed,there is virtually no forest productsindustry left in the Southwest toprocess and market whatever woodfiber might be thinned fromnational forests.

“We’re working very hard torecruit technologically advancedbusinesses that capitalize on theemerging opportunities we see insmall-wood processing and energydevelopment,” Dr. Moore reports.“Without these businesses wecannot begin to deal with theunderlying causes of these awfulfires.”

Heavy rains scoured this streambed to bedrock following the June 2000 ViveashFire. The blaze ripped through 28,000 acres of heavy timber on the Santa FeNational Forest on a windless day. Flood-related erosion is common followingstand-replacing wildfires.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

10 EVERGREEN

Are there goodforest fires?

Yes there are good forest fires.In fact, foresters often

“prescribe” fire to dispose ofaccumulated debris, enrich the soilby speeding nutrient recycling orretard the growth of shrubs orgrasses that would otherwise crowdout recently planted seedlings.

But prescribed fire is notwildfire. Moreover, as we’ve alreadyexplained, the wildfires that areburning in the Southwest today areburning well beyond the para-meters for which scientists canfind observable evidence of pastbehavior: fire scars on stumps, ashaccumulations in soil and thepresence or absence of woodydebris.

Historically, fires burnedfrequently in the Southwest—onthree-year intervals in some places,a bit less frequently in others, everyten years on average in ponderosapine and low elevation Douglas-firforests. Because they traveled closeto the ground, most of these fireswere not very intense. But they didhelp enrich the soil by hastening therelease of nutrients stored in drygrass, shrubs, seedlings, fallen treesand decomposing plant matter.

By contrast, the crown fires thatnow frequent the Southwest don’thave any redeeming value. In fact,their ferocity is difficult tocomprehend: flames moving fastenough to overrun birds in flight,burning hot enough to crackboulders, melting topsoil’s organiclayer into a waxy glaze that isimpervious to water. The floodingthat follows often strips streamchannels to bedrock, washing away

every vestige of fish habitat.So the irony: our early attempts

to contain wildfire—a societaldecision made some 80 years ago—simply postponed the unexpectedbut inevitable return of even largerfires and more destructive fires.Worst yet, millions of people nowlive in or near in or near forests,often unaware of the danger theyface. In the Southwest alone, theForest Service estimates 200,000homes are at risk because of theirproximity to national forests with ahigh burn probability.

Of course, forests eventuallyrecover from the ravages ofwildfire, no matter howcatastrophic the damage. Buthealing often takes hundreds ofyears—a fact that could per-manently cripple every industryin the Southwest, especially ifforested watersheds stopfunctioning.

Getting along with nature ischallenging, especially in a modernsociety that is so dependent on thesteady flow of goods and servicesthe earth provides. How easily weforget that all natural systems—including forests and woodlands—perpetuate themselves throughdisturbance: wind, floods, insects,diseases, earthquakes, ice storms,volcanic eruptions, lightning andwildfires. Nature passes nojudgements as to the good or evilthat these disturbances unleash.They simply are. They do what theydo. Things change, sometimessubtly, sometimes suddenly. Oldforests perish and new ones taketheir places. Time marches on.

Much of the chaos that is naturegoes on unnoticed—nitrogenfixation for example. By volume,colorless odorless nitrogen makesup 80 percent of the earth’satmosphere. It also exists innitrogeneous compounds present inplant and animal tissues, especiallyproteins. Nitrogen is a marvelousfertilizer, but to do its work it mustfirst be fixed—combined with otherelements by biological or chemicalaction to form compounds greenplants can use. The heat from firetransforms nitrogen into moreeasily absorbed organic compoundsthat fuel photosynthesis, theprocess by which plants, includingtrees, capture visible light energyand, with the aid of chlorophyll,convert water from the soil andatmospheric carbon dioxide intoglucose (sugar) and oxygen.Glucose is then converted intoother organic chemicals, the mostcommon being cellulose—a waterinsoluble polymer. In trees, theseorganic compounds are convertedto wood fiber.

So yes, there are indeed goodforest fires, prescribed as well aswild. But until the underlyingcauses of the conflagrations that aresweeping the Southwest today aremeaningfully addressed suchtherapeutic disturbances willremain rare. And before the currentcrisis can be meaningfullyaddressed—within the framework ofa perpetual forest thinningprogram—the public must create apolitically stable climate in whichwood fiber consuming businessescan prosper.


Ste

ve A

rno

Ste

ve A

rno

Ste

ve A

rno

Ste

ve A

rno

The ecological benefits of thinning and prescribed fire are ondisplay in this series of four photographs taken in Montana’sLick Creek by Dr. Steve Arno, a fire ecologist who, before hisretirement, worked for many years at the Forest Service’sIntermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula. The LickCreek area was heavily logged in the early 1900s, then left toregenerate by itself. The result was a dense stand of trees thatneeded thinning. The Fire Sciences Laboratory took on the taskas part of its ongoing research.

Before thinning. Note the old stump in the foreground partiallyhidden behind a tree that grew up after the area was logged.

After thinning. The old stump is plainly visible now because thetree the tree in the foreground has been removed along withmany others that crowded the stand. The residual ponderosastand is now plainly visible. Note the debris on the ground.

The following spring. Mission accomplished: excess woodydebris is gone and new vegetation is sprouting. The risk ofwildfire has been reduced and residual ponderosas will nowbegin to grow in earnest. Plant diversity has been increasedand the area now provides a much wider variety of wildlifehabitat than it did before thinning.

Prescribed fire at night. Fire consumes ground litter, reducingthe risk of a later wildfire and preparing the soil for naturalreseeding from residual pines. Burning at night, when the air iscool, reduces the risk that the fire will escape.

12 EVERGREEN

What happened to theSouthwest’s Timber Industry?The Southwest’s timber

industry is long gone, a victim ofits near total dependence onnational forest timber saleprograms that were phased out inthe 1990s.

Only three sawmillingbusinesses of any size still operatein the two states: Fort ApacheTimber Company at Fort Apache,Arizona; Mescalero ForestProducts at Mescalero andAlamogordo, New Mexico and RioGrande Forest Products atEspanola, New Mexico. Of these,only Rio Grande attempts topurchase thinning sales offeredperiodically by the Forest Service.

The Southwest’s only pulp millis still operating but it no longerbuys pulp logs in the region.Rather than endure the vagaries ofthe federal government’s on againoff again thinning program, newowner Abitibi imports cooked pulpfrom Canada.

“There isn’t much left,”laments Allen Ribelin, co-owner ofHigh Desert Investment Company,a Flagstaff logging firm. “We’redoing some urban interfacethinning work for the ForestService and some right-of-waywork for the state, but the millingindustry that was here for so manyyears is gone and probably won’treturn.”

Little remains of the Forest Servicetimber sale program in the Southwest.Limited salvage logging is occurring indead and dying forests, but green treeharvest volume has been decliningsteadily since 1989 when 428 millionboard feet were harvested in Arizona andNew Mexico national forests. (See chartson facing page)

The decline in the region’s lumberindustry is chronicled in profilesprepared by the University of MontanaBureau of Business and EconomicResearch—a 1997 New Mexico reportand a companion 1998 Arizona report.New Mexico forest products sales in 1997were less than half what they were in

1986, $77.7 million versus $170 million.Lumber production in 1995, 1996 and1997 fell to a 50-year low. Also signif-icant: just 12 percent of the 1997harvest came from national forests,compared with 84 percent in 1986.Private lands accounted for 63 percentof the harvest and tribal forests 25percent.

Arizona fared no better. In 1998,lumber production fell to 81 millionboard feet, its lowest point since WorldWar II and a 70 percent decline in sixyears. Sales for the year were $29.2million, about ten percent of what theywere 20 years earlier. And the federalshare of timber harvested fell from two-thirds in 1984 to 37 percent in 1998.

Tribal forests accounted for 60percent of the harvest. Privatelands, which comprise only 1.5percent of the state’s timberlandbase, accounted for the remainingthree percent.

Although the Fort Apache,Mescalero and Espanola sawmillscut most of the region’s lumber,there are many portable millsoperating in both states. In fact,New Mexico had more of them in1997 than it had a decade earlier.These “Mom and Pop” mills oftenoperate seasonally, cutting houselogs and vigas or latillas—aestheticstaples in the Southwest’s sig-nature adobe-style architecture.Meanwhile, most of the construc-tion lumber used by the region’sburgeoning homebuildingindustry comes from Canada,Texas or California, an irony notlost on Mr. Ribelin.

“How ridiculous is it that wehave to import lumber because ourown national forests, which holdmillions of acres of dead and dyingtimber, are no longer managed forthe timber they could produce?” heasks. “Our family would probablybuild a new sawmill here in theFlagstaff area capable of handlingthe small diameter trees that mosteveryone agrees must be removedfrom our forests to reduce the risk

of wildfire, but we’re unwilling to makethe investment without federalassurances of a stable and adequate long-term supply of logs.”

While some see the decade-longcollapse of the region’s timber industryand the Forest Service’s statedunwillingness to enter into long-termsupply agreements as nearly insur-mountable obstacles, others seem to seenew opportunities everywhere they look.

“There are advantages to startingfrom nothing,” says Dr. Martin Moore,executive director of the St. Johns,Arizona Environmental EconomicCommunities Organization (EECO).“We can focus on the future withoutworrying about the past.”

Harvesting big ponderosa on the Coconino National Forestin the 1950s. Chainsaws no longer threaten these big trees,but insects, diseases and drought do. Unless the densethickets in which these big trees live are thinned, wildfireswill soon kill them.

US

DA

For

est S

ervi

ce


Through its various federally fundedcommunity-based collaborations EECO isincubating a half-dozen small enterprisescapable of consuming modest amounts ofwood fiber harvested from forests adjacentto at risk communities.

Community-based collaboration hasalso gained a significant foothold in NewMexico. Most attribute success to thededication of state forester Toby Martinez,who is also credited with formation of theFour Corners Initiative, a four-statedialogue involving community and triballeaders, environmentalists and entre-preneurs from Arizona, New Mexico,Colorado and Utah.

“Clearly we would all like to be workingat an infrastructure scale that matches thescale of our forest health problem,” says Dr.Moore. [EECO is also involved in FourCorners] “But I think even our mostimpatient members recognize that we haveto start small in order to rebuild lost trust.”

It will not be easy. Doers like Mr. Ribelinwon’t risk their capital until the ForestService comes up with a bulletproof long-term supply contract. Through theirlawyers, environmentalists shout backacross a philosophical chasm—announcingtheir fear that the old timber industry willsomehow regain a foothold in theSouthwest if they don’t appeal and litigatethe Forest Service’s every move. Thestandoff continues.

Brian Cottam, coordinator for theGreater Flagstaff Forests Partnership (untilrecently the Grand Canyon ForestsFoundation) shares Dr. Moore’s concernsfor the absence of trust and the inadequacyof scale. To the chagrin of some of itspartners, the Flagstaff-based conservationalliance has pioneered several innovativethinning projects in northern Arizonadiscovering, perhaps to its own surprise,that thinning forests in ways that areacceptable to nervous environmentalists isonly half the battle. Finding reliable buyersfor small diameter logs of often poor qualityisn’t easy either.

“It all goes together,” Mr. Cottamobserves. “We can’t market logs withoutmills and we won’t have mills until somelevel of mutual trust is restored. The factthat most of the people we work with nowconcede that our wood utilization andforest density problems must be addressedtogether, and on a much larger scale, is agood sign. Creating firebreaks aroundcommunities and calling it forestrestoration isn’t going to get the job done.We need to start building new millingcapacity at a scale that will allow us tomeaningfully address both our forestproblem and our forest future.”

ArizonaTimber Harvest & Lumber ProductionIn Millions of Board Feet (MMBF) - 1947 to 1998

500

400

300

100

200

0

HARVEST

PRODUCTION

MM

BF -

Scr

ibner

MM

BF -

Lum

ber

Tall

y

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995

500

400

300

100

200

0

New MexicoTimber Harvest & Lumber ProductionIn Millions of Board Feet (MMBF) - 1947 to 1997

300

250

200

50

100

150

0

HARVEST

MM

BF -

Scr

ibner

MM

BF -

Scr

ibner

500

400

300

300

100

200

200

0

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995

PRODUCTION

Arizona’s timber harvest has declined dramatically in recent years – in large part because of thecollapse of the federal timber sale program and, regionally, the March 1993 U.S. Fish & WildlifeService decision to list the Mexican spotted owl as a threatened species. As harvesting hasdeclined so too has lumber production, which is now at its lowest level since the end of World War II.[Sources: University of Montana Bureau of Business Research and Western Wood ProductsAssociation “Statistical Yearbook of the Western Lumber Industry”]

As recently as 1989, New Mexico national forests accounted for 136 million of the 210 million boardfeet of timber harvested annually. But the Mexican spotted owl listing and subsequent litigationcaused a near 80 percent decline in federal timber sales. Harvesting on private and tribal timberlandsincreased some, but not enough to offset the big federal decline. Overall lumber production is nownear its lowest point in state history. [Sources: University of Montana Bureau of Business Researchand Western Wood Products Association “Statistical Yearbook of the Western Lumber Industry”]

14 EVERGREEN

What can we makefrom smaller trees?

“Almost anything” is thequick answer to the question.Solid wood, wood pulp and wood-based chemicals are found in morethan 5,000 products—everythingfrom floor joists to food additives.

But realistically, what can bemade from the Southwest’s sea ofsmall trees depends on whichmanufacturing technologies winpublic support. And although noone knows for sure what thesemight be, smaller family-ownedbusinesses that make finishedproducts, like furniture, seem tobe preferred over large industrialcomplexes.

If this is true, it may bedifficult to align the primary-secondary manufacturing chain ina way that facilitates efficient useof millions of tons of smalldiameter trees that now crowd theregion’s forests.

For example, hundreds ofsecondary wood manufacturers,including high-end door andwindow makers, buy their rawmaterial from sawmills that preferto sell their best grades of lumberto value added manufacturers. Stillother manufacturers live off theleast valuable parts of the tree—wood waste processors for example.

No matter their market niches,the survival and prosperity ofsecondary wood processingbusinesses rest on their ability tobuy raw materials at prices thatinclude the imbedded cost ofharvesting and initial processing.Imagine how much a gazebo wouldcost at WalMart if the manufacturerhad to buy the logging equipment(at least a million dollars), harvestthe timber, haul the logs to town(log trucks cost around $80,000) anddo all of the sawing (figure $25million for a good sawmill) and re-sawing work before the gazebo couldbe assembled!

Technology has changed the woodmanufacturing business as much as

any business on earth. Companiesthat just a decade ago were stillsawing lumber or peeling plywoodveneer from large diameter treesnow employ advanced millingsystems to glue, laminate and finger-join a variety of structurallysuperior products made from smalldiameter trees. Conventional lumberand plywood are slowly losingmarket share to these “engineered”products because they are stronger,easier to assemble, usually defect-free, perform better on the job andsometimes even weigh less.

In the transition from large tosmall diameter trees, log quality hasbecome the more important factor.When quality is good it is possible totake trees apart and reassemblethem in layers containing severaltrees of different species. As largewood billets—up to 60 feet by eightfeet by two feet—they can then be

re-sawn into anything from I-joistflanges to salad bowls.

With so much chaos in thenation’s energy markets, and somuch dead wood in southwesternforests, wood pellet manufacturingplants would seem to be a good betfor even conservative investors.Arizona utility companies arerequired to generate a percentageof their power from solar energyand renewable fuels and the NewMexico legislature is contem-plating a similar requirement.

Bone-dry pellets made fromsawmill wood waste or ground uptrees yield four times as manyBTU’s per cubic foot as does unpro-cessed green biomass, which (byweight) can be 50 percent water.Equally important, when pelletsare burned in technologicallyadvanced stoves they burn socleanly that they can be used ondesignated “no burn” days.

It is likely that federal fundingfor research in bio-fuels will beincreased in the aftermath of thisyear’s fire season. Whether it is

possible to make fuel from renew-able wood as efficiently as it can bemade from non-renewable petro-leum remains to be seen, but if it isthe technology will probably beperfected at Sandia, at Departmentof Energy research laboratory atAlbuquerque, New Mexico.

Many observers believe theSouthwest cannot begin to solve itsforest health problems without apulp and paper complex capable ofannually consuming thousands oftons of forest residue. Whethersuch an imposing industrialcomplex will ever gain public favorremains to be seen, but itscornerstone presence would greatlyimprove the efficiency of theregion’s harvesting and woodprocessing chain, spawning dozensmore small wood ventures withwhom it would surely developcustomer relationships.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

P&M Signs Mountainair, New Mexico, made this U.S.Forest Service ensign from an extruded compositematerial composed of finely ground juniper wood andtiny pellets made from ground up plastic milk cartons.


Jim

Pet

erse

n

These small diameter logs are from a thinning on the Coconino NationalForest west of Flagstaff. When quality is good, virtually any structural orpanel wood product can be made from such logs.

This under construction home in Bigfork, Montana includes a wide varietyof engineered wood products—floor joists, rafters and roof, flooring andwall panels—made from small diameter trees.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Am

eric

an F

ores

t & P

aper

Ass

ocia

tion

High quality wood chips are used mainly to make myriad grades of paperwhile lower quality chips are used to make packaging materials.

Computers were supposed to usher in the “paperless society” but, infact, paper use has more than doubled since the computer age began.

Am

eric

an F

ores

t & P

aper

Ass

ocia

tion

Wood pellets made by Forest Energy Corporation burn so cleanly theymeet EPA particulate matter emission standards.

Forest Energy Corporation, Show Low, Arizona, uses these chips tomake wood pellets for residential wood stoves.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Jim

Pet

erse

n

16 EVERGREEN

How much industryis needed?

Of all the questionsconfronting restoration forestry’sproponents this one is the mostdifficult to answer. Dozens ofmanufacturing scenarios arepossible but no one seems toknow for sure which ones mightwin public favor.

For example, how muchindustry will the public tolerate?Will only cottage industries beacceptable or might a handful oflarger ventures be included in themix?

Will taxpayers be willing topermanently subsidize under-capitalized businesses that havelittle or no hope of ever making iton their own or would somecombination of larger morecommercially viable ventures bepreferred in the long run?

And how about logging? Howmuch of it will the public endure inthe name of forest restoration? Willwe just nibble around the edges of theproblem, not really doing much forforests but making a good politicalshow of it? Or might we reduce treedensity more dramatically, allowingforests to gradually complete theirown recovery?

And once the thinning work iscompleted—perhaps 50 yearshence—will the public continue tosupport the industry’s presence or willit side with those who say forest densitycan then be controlled by controlledburning?

Like unaligned squares in a Rubic’scube, the amount of industry neededcannot be determined until the public’sperceived support for restorationforestry is well defined.

Several respected forest ecologists,among them Dr. Wallace Covington ofNorthern Arizona University, favor re-creating the full range of naturaldisturbance patterns that wereprominent in the Southwest beforeEuropean settlement began. Some

scientists say such an ambitious andcostly undertaking would requireremoval of perhaps half the treescurrently growing in somesouthwestern forests. But otherrestoration proponents say they doubtpeople who have grown comfortablewith the look of forests will support theappearance-altering removal of so manytrees on such a large scale. Still othersfrankly doubt that our increasinglyhealth-conscious society would toleratethe great volume of smoke that wouldbe generated by the post-thinningprescribed fire-only program someecologists favor as a way of sustaining

forests that would by thenapproximate pre-settlementconditions.

Although the finer points ofthe thinning and prescribed firediscussion will be debated forsome time to come, one thing isclear. Most people living in theSouthwest expect the federalgovernment to do whatever isnecessary to prevent the fiery lossof what remains of their richforest legacy.

Equally clear is the fact thatthe time-honored relationshipbetween the federal governmentand the timber industry willundergo profound change asrestoration forestry comes into itsown. Fee for service contractors—including former loggers who nowspecialize in thinning dense foreststo concise Forest Service standards—are replacing sawmillingcompanies that for decades couldbe counted on to pay sky-highprices for federal timber even whenlumber markets were at rockbottom. As with all professionals,their fees will vary as a function ofoperating costs and the difficulty ofthe job. The loser in this transitionis the federal treasury, which willnever again see the huge sums ofmoney it took in year after year

auctioning national forest timber to thehighest bidder. But restoration forestrycan pay for itself without subsidy if astable political climate can beestablished and maintained. Privatecapital will then flow toward harvestingand milling businesses that have thebest chance of success in brutallycompetitive global wood fiber markets.

Perspective on the possible size andshape of the region’s new forestproducts industry is contained in ameticulously researched report writtenin late 2001 by Dr. Debra Larson, aprofessor in the Department of Civil andEnvironmental Engineering at

Rick and Deb Smith log in northwest Montana. Most of theWest’s logging companies are generations-old family-owned businesses.

Ste

phan

ie S

teck

, Nor

ther

n Li

ghts

, Big

fork

, Mon

tana


Northern Arizona University. [“TheSuitability of Various Markets for UsingSmall Diameter Ponderosa Pine toSustain Forest Health and Fire-RiskReduction Programs In NorthernArizona”] She estimates that thinningFlagstaff’s 94,000-acre urban interfacewould yield between 24,816 to 99,828truckloads of small diameter logs,depending on the number of treesremoved.

But across all of northern Arizonanearly ten times as many acres are saidto need treatment. Assuming publicacceptance, Dr. Larson estimates thatthe ongoing fiber supply would supporta pulp mill, a roundwood merchan-dizing operation designed to servicesmaller niche markets, and a non-structural panel operation—perhaps a

particleboard, medium densityfiberboard or oriented strand boardplant.

The unanswered question iswhether the public will support thepresence of such an imposing wood-processing complex. “I hope so,” saysEECO’s Dr. Moore. “Minus a diversecombination of facilities capable ofprocessing and marketing largeamounts of fiber of varying qualityforest restoration on a meaningfulscale will be virtually impossible withgovernment subsidies.”

Although House and Senate leadersfrom Arizona and New Mexico havedone remarkably well in their bi-partisan effort to channel federalfunding into collaborative forestryprojects in the Southwest, there is

concern they won’t be able to do muchmore, especially now that billions intaxpayer dollars are being redirected tohomeland security.

“Uncle Sam is not going to pick upthe tab for this grand experimentforever,” declares Ron Christiansen,Chairman of the Gila County Board ofSupervisors and an EECO boardmember. “We have a three or four-yearwindow of opportunity in which toturn forest restoration into a payingproposition. Fortunately, we’re not farapart from environmentalists who seethe same problems, risks andopportunities we see.”

Even under the best ofcircumstances, solving forestry’sRubic’s Cube will not be easy orinexpensive.

The Southwest could certainly use a pulp and paper mill like this BoiseCascade Corporation complex at International Falls, Minnesota, but somedoubt the region would ever embrace such a large wood-consumer. Despiteits size, this Boise mill has no impact on water quality in the nearby RainyRiver, a prized sturgeon fishery.

Jim

Pet

erse

n


18 EVERGREEN

By Jim PetersenEditor, Evergreen Magazine

It is hard to believe that theSouthwest’s tumbledown forestsonce fit Edward Beale’s idyllicdescription, but they did. His loftypines and grassy glades gracecountless black and whitephotographs taken as early as1890.

Thousands who walked or rodethe region’s northern reaches inthe early years following the CivilWar recorded what they saw intheir journals. Among the morepicturesque accounts: C.E.Dutton’s vivid description laiddown in painstaking detail in areport he wrote for the U.S.Geological Service in 1882.

“The trees are large and noblein aspect and stand widely apartexcept in the highest parts of theplateau where the sprucespredominate. Instead of densethickets where we are shut in byimpenetrable foliage, we can lookfar beyond and see the tree trunksvanishing away like an infinitecolonnade. The ground isunobstructed and inviting. Thereis a constant succession of parks andglades, dreamy avenues of grass andflowers winding between sylvan walls,or spreading out in broad openmeadows. From June until Septemberthere is a display of wild flowers whichis quite beyond description.”

Scientists believe perhaps 75 percentof the Southwest’s ponderosa pineforests fit this description 150 years ago,but today you have to look long andhard to find settings in either Arizona

“A vast forest of gigantic pines, inserted frequentlywith open glades, sprinkled all over with mountains,meadows, and covered with the richest grasses, wastraversed by our party for many days. We came to aglorious forest of lofty pines, through which we havetraveled ten miles. The country was beautifully

undulating; and although we usually associate the ideaof barrenness with pine regions that was not so in thissense: every foot being covered with the finest grass andbeautiful grassy glades extending in every direction.The forest was perfectly open and unencumbered withbrush wood so that traveling was excellent.”

or New Mexico that even come close towhat Messrs. Beale and Dutton found.To be sure, you can still find big treesin the high country—many more thanyou might think would be there—butthey are entombed in dog-hair thicketsthat hide their existence from all butthe most observant eyes. To be sure,this remains the largest contiguousponderosa pine forest on earth, but thepine colonnades, the dreamy avenues ofgrass and the wildflowers winding

between sylvan walls that inspiredthe poet in C.E. Dutton are nearlygone.

Today, some 73 million acres inthe Interior West are on the vergeof ecological collapse—a chainreaction calamity brought on by thepresence of far too many trees forthe natural carrying capacity ofoften-arid lands. Choked bydrought and robbed of soilnutrients they are easy prey formarauding insects and diseases thatcan somehow detect stress in sicklytrees. Inevitably, merciful wildfiresend their misery.

Throughout the Southwestthere is great concern for publicsafety. Forests surround manycommunities, including dozensthat are summertime retreats forfamilies seeking relief from thescorching desert heat. One suchmountain enclave—heavily woodedShow Low-Lakeside, Arizona—hadto be evacuated and was nearlyoverrun by the 468,000-acre Rodeo-Chediski Fire. Some 470 homeswere destroyed, mainly inneighboring communities. It seemssilly—maybe even callous—to saythat it was inevitable, but is was.

And if just one more warning wasneeded, it came in a May 15 dressrehearsal when 1,500 Prescott residentswere forced to flee their homes as afurious fire bore down on theircommunity. Though only five homeswere lost, the swiftness of theconflagration prompted fire experts topredict that this season would likelybring one or more 100,000-acreconflagrations to the West. There havebeen three thus far.

Solving Forestry’s Rubic’s CubeEdward Beale, transcontinental railroad surveyor, traveling south of the Grand Canyon, 1858

Jim

Pet

erse

n

A remnant of the seeming infinite colonnades forestsurveyor C.E. Dutton wrote about in an 1882 U.S.Geological Service report. This one lies west of Flagstaff.


Tangled ponderosa thickets like this on in northern New Mexico’sSanta Fe National Forest are commonplace in the Southwest.These tickets often hide larger trees that could be saved by thinningthe decadent trees that surround them.

Jim Petersen


20 EVERGREEN

Virtually all of the region’scommunities—with their hundredsemerald-green golf courses—get theirwater from reservoirs that collectspring runoff from forested water-sheds. But a fourth consecutive year ofdrought has pushed stream flows to alltime lows. Less obvious is the amountof water that isn’t flowing because it isbeing sucked up by millions ofdrought-stressed trees that weren’there a century ago. Moreobvious is the fact that lastwinter was a non-eventacross the Southwest. At7,000-foot Flagstaff, wherethree feet of snow isconsidered normal inFebruary, lawns werealready greening up byWashington’s Birthday.

Still worse, tree ringresearch underway at theUniversity of Arizonasuggests that, for all the talkabout drought, theSouthwest has actually beenin a wet period for the last211 years—and may soonre-enter a prolonged dryspell. By comparing thedistance between rings—wider spacing indicatesmore robust tree growthbrought on by above normalrainfall—scientists haveconcluded there have beenfour prolonged wet-drycycles over the last 2,129years. Wet cycles haveaveraged 225 years inlength, so the region maywell be approaching theend of a fourth such periodand the beginning of a fifthdry spell: average length339 years.

The last dry period,1399-1790, caused thewidespread abandonment ofagriculturally advancedIndian settlements in sixlocales—thriving andincreasingly populous communitiesthat drew domestic and irrigationwater from rivers and streams duringthe previous 375-year wet period.

Packing up and moving on is nolonger an option in the Southwest,now the nation’s fastest growingregion. And if polling data is anyindication, most living here have nointerest in standing idly by whileforests they love and depend on burn

to the ground in increasingly frequentand destructive wildfires.

Questions abound.Will this fire season be a bad one? [It

already is]Is anything being done to avert

calamity? [Yes, high-risk forestsadjacent to some communities arebeing thinned, but the pace of work isvery slow when compared to theurgency of the wildfire problem facing

hundreds of western communities]Can anything be done to pull forestsback from the brink of fiery disaster?[Yes, but not without controversy. Someenvironmentalists say thinning denseforests is nothing more than an excuseto resuscitate a nearly dead loggingindustry. In an opinion piece he wrotelast March for the Arizona Republic,Phoenix attorney Charles Babbitt, amember of both the Southwest Forest

Alliance and the Audubon Societyinsisted, “We need to stand back and letour forests burn.”]

Who to believe? What to believe?Begin with this metaphor: like all whodiscover cancer raging in their bodies,we have choices to make where ourdesperately ill forests are concerned.We can fight or we can lie down and die.If the choice is to lie down and die,catastrophic wildfire will do the rest,

just as surely as relentlesscancer claims its victims.But if the choice is to fight,restoration ecology—arelatively new science rootedin holistic principles—offershope for corrallingmetastasizing wildfiresthat are devouring theSouthwest’s forests. Unlike most forestmanagement strategies,which define themselves inper acre yields and the time-cost of investor dollars,restoration forestry seeks torecreate forest conditionsand biological processes thatwere prevalent during aparticular period of naturalhistory. And no one whois familiar with whatSouthwest forests looked like150 years ago should besurprised to learn that agreat many people wouldlike to recreate that look.Among them: Dr. DavidGarrett, former dean of theNorthern Arizona UniversitySchool of Forestry. Nowretired, Dr. Garrett iscampaigning for massiverestoration projects inArizona, New Mexico andColorado—projects so largethey would engulf entirenational forests spanningmultiple river drainages nowthreatened by the extra-ordinarily high risk ofcatastrophic wildfire.

“We have sufficient scientific data toproceed with large-scale restoration,”the ever-impatient Dr. Garrett said in arecent interview. “We need to getstarted soon or we are going to loselarge chunks of the Southwest forhundreds of years to come.”

Unlike most scientists, whosereputations rest on the quality of theirresearch, Dr. Garrett’s reputation is thatof a builder, an idea man. NAU’s lavish

Jim

Pet

erse

n

[Top] Dr. David Garrett and his wife, Pam. Dr. Garrett, former dean of theNorthern Arizona University School of Forestry, is campaigning for massive forestrestoration projects in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. [Bottom] Aftermath ofthe Viveash Fire in New Mexico’s Santa Fe National Forest: the denuded treesreveal a forest far too dense to survive the impact of wildfire.


new forestry school was constructedduring his tenure and, though often atodds with faculty members who resistedhis more disciplined Forest Serviceapproach to research, he is widelycredited with having pushed the schoolto the forefront in restoration research.Now he wants to make certain that itescapes the theoretical confines of itslaboratory beginnings. And he has againenlisted the help of some very powerfulfriends who helped himturn NAU’s forestry schoolinto a research powerhouse.Among them: Senators JonKyl, Arizona and PeteDomenici, New Mexico.Also, a cadre of state andcounty officials—electedand appointed—who aredemanding a larger say inthe fate of the region’snational forests.

“I like the pre-settlementforest condition restorationforestry advocates because itpushes us away from value-laden societal goals writteninto environmental law overthe last 50 or so years,” heexplains. “Though well-intended, these laws don’tgive us the flexibility neededto cope with present forestconditions. If we can agreethat the biophysicalcharacter of pre-settlementforests is a desirable goal,then I’m here to tell you wehave the knowledge and thetools necessary to re-createthat system, or at leastsomething very close to it.”While optimistic aboutrestoration’s possibilities,he concedes the public mayresist removing the numberof trees that would have tobe harvested to recreate theprecise character of pre-settlement forests. “We’retalking about removing halfthe trees from some forests,more in others,” he says. “Fifty percentmay be too much for the public totolerate, but at the very least annualharvest has to exceed annual growth.Otherwise, we’re only perpetuating thecurrent condition.”

It is easy to get lost in statistics thatquantify the amount of wood that isbeing added to forests in the Southwestevery year. Imagine a solid block ofwood the dimensions of a football field

stretching a mile into the sky. Nowimagine that this massive wood block ismade up of trees that in their lifetimeswill never grow much bigger aroundthan a saucer. The big ones will bedinner-plate size.

Perhaps more meaningful are theastonishing visuals that burst from fieldstudies Dr. Garrett has conducted onthree southwestern national forestssince 1995: the Lincoln near Ruidoso,

New Mexico, the Kaibab north ofFlagstaff, and the Apache-Sitgreaves inArizona’s White Mountains. All threeforests are very popular touristdestinations. Each has undergoneprofound change over the last century.

On the Lincoln National Forest, Dr.Garrett reports ponderosa stand densityhas increased from 20 to 50 trees peracre in 1900 to 180 to 220 trees per acretoday. Suppression of wildfire is the

main reason, though overgrazing, highgrading in big trees and, more recently,the absence of an aggressive thinningprogram, have also contributed to thesituation. Before the downfall, lowintensity ground fires, carried byabundant grasses, occurred on three toten year intervals, clearing awayaccumulating debris in countless two to100-acre meadows. Ground litteraveraged one to three tons per acre.

Today, the meadows aregone, ground litter averagesten to 30 tons per acre andmost wetlands and springshave been sucked dry bysickly drought-strickenpines. Biological diversity isa fraction of what it waswhen water and sunlightpowered pine-accentedmeadows. It is the same inhigher elevation mixedconfer forests and in pinyon-juniper woodlands. The scene repeats itself inthe North Kaibab. Dr. Garrettreports that, despite theharvest of 1.4 billion boardfeet of timber from the areabetween 1900 and 1993,continuing forest growthexceeded losses from bothlogging and tree mortality.In the absence of frequentground fires, which probablykilled 90 percent of allseedlings before they wereknee high, saplingseventually overran mostKaibab meadows andwetlands. And stand densityin trees of all sizes continuesto increase. In trees smallerthan six inches in diameterdensity has increased from107 per acre in 1910 to morethan 900 today. And in treeslarger than six inches,density has increased from45 per acre to 115. Concurrently, theaverage number of acres

burned annually in the Southwest hasincreased from 7,000 to 98,600 acressince 1930. And the trend lines suggestthe situation will continue to deter-iorate until forest restoration workbegins in earnest. “Nature and the public are on acollision course in these forests,” Dr.Garrett observes. “We are either going toremove some trees or Nature will do it forus. If we do the restoration we can control

Jim

Pet

erse

n

[Top] Hiram “Doc” Smith is program liason officer for Northern ArizonaUniversity’s Ecological Restoration Institute. “I have been to most of the bigdances,” he says of his 35 years with the Forest Service, many of them spenton fire lines. [Bottom] This is the old superintendent’s house at Fort Valley -the oldest forestry experimental station in the U.S. It was founded in 1908.

22 EVERGREEN

the outcome. If nature does it, we can’t.”It is the same on the Apache-

Sitgreaves National Forest. Dr. Garrettreports an astounding 500 percentincrease in the number of trees four to20 inches in diameter—from an average25 to 50 trees per acre in 1900 to anaverage 314 per acre today. But therehas been a 50 percent decline in treesover 20 inches in diameter—a fact hesays argues persuasively for a forestrestoration.

“The public benefits twice,” heexplains. “In the near term the high riskof catastrophic wildfire is reduced andin the longer term natural systems thatdrove these forests for eons repairthemselves. If we want to protectwatersheds, recreation areas andwildlife habitat we have no choice but toremove some trees.”

But there is a caveat. Reducingforest stand density to a point wherecommunity safety and forest recoveryare assured—to a point where wildfirecan reassume its more natural role—isgoing to require the presence of a woodmanufacturing complex large enoughand sophisticated enough tomanufacture and market the fiber.

“We have to get the wood out offorests or we do nothing to alleviate therisk of fire or the spread of insects anddiseases,” Dr. Garrett explains. “I knowthe presence of industry is controversialfor some, but we can’t expect taxpayersto pick up the tab for restoration. Weneed to recruit businesses that can buy

the fiber, remove it from forests andprofit by turning it into productsconsumers will buy. If we aren’t willingto accept this kind of industry then wehave to accept the consequences ofcatastrophic wildfire.”

Not everyone who supportsrestoration is anxious to see new lifebreathed into the region’s nearly deadforest products industry, but Dr. Garrettdoes not see an alternative. “Some havesuggested the industry could betemporarily revived, but I don’t see it.Once restored, Southwest forests willneed to be thinned in perpetuity orstand density will again quicklyincrease. Some argue that we cancontrol density with prescribed fire, butI think the amount of fire needed to dothis region-wide would generate anunacceptable volume of smoke. Fire is agood tool, but I suspect you’ll see itused in combination with a thinningprogram designed to perpetuate adiverse multi-aged forest.”

The rubber meets the road west ofFlagstaff at the Fort Valley ExperimentalStation. Scientists from the widelyregarded Ecological RestorationInstitute are working with communitygroups, testing a variety of thinning andcontrolled burning techniques todetermine which ones best approximatethe natural processes that are thoughtto have produced the forests thousandsof pioneers found so captivating. Atissue is the number of trees that mustbe removed from stagnating ponderosa

pine forests to nudge a natural restart ofbiological processes that drove theseecosystems for eons before Europeansettlement began—before grazing, firesuppression, logging and communitydevelopment combined forces toprofoundly alter first the structure andsubsequently the vitality of the region’sforests. Most restoration ecologists agreethat more than half the standing trees inthe region’s forests must be removed,without regard to their size; but manyenvironmentalists who support thinningquestion whether the restoration mustinclude so many trees—and adamantlyoppose removing trees larger than 14inches in diameter.

Fort Valley is the oldest forestryexperimental station in the United States.What better place to solve forestry’sRubic’s Cube—that seeminglyunfathomable convergence of collapsingforests, emerging science, politicalcalculus, lost milling infrastructure, newmarket opportunity and gut-wrenchingemotion.

The station was established in 1908,just three years after the Forest Servicewas founded. Its’ assigned task was tofigure out why the region’s then wideopen ponderosa pine forests were notproducing very many seedlings. By 1919,nature delivered the answer in the form ofa wet spring and a heavy seed crop—analignment of the stars that scientistswould later determine occurs only onceevery 50 years. Most of the trees standingin Southwest forests today—even those

This ponderosa pine thicket [left] in New Mexico’s Monument Canyon Natural Area hides seven large ponderosas that are slowly dying, but could be saved if the tiponderosa pine stand in the Fort Valley Experimental Forest, which has been thinned and repeatedly burned or compare it to the even larger grove [right] we ph ot

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Jim

Pet

erse

n


that are no bigger around than yourwrist—germinated in 1919 or 1920.

The Institute, which is housed atNorthern Arizona University’s College ofEcosystem Science and Management, isdirected by Dr. Wally Covington, an earlyproponent of restoration forestry and oneof the first forest scientists in the countryto speak out about the plight of forests inthe Interior West. Environmentalists wereso enraged by his 1993 presentation at aforest health conference in Spokane,Washington that they took out a full-pageadvertisement in the Spokesman Reviewdeclaring, in a banner headline, “WhereThere’s Smoke There’s Liars.” Theysubsequently dubbed his Fort Valleyresearch “Wally’s World,” after NationalLampoon’s “Vacation” movie.

“I try not to pay much attention tothem,” he said in a February interview inFlagstaff. “It’s strange. Forest restoration’smain goal is to increase biologicaldiversity in forests. You would thinkenvironmentalists would favor it. Many do,but there is a very vocal minority thatdoesn’t. Instead they argue that thescience is bogus and that our projects aredesigned to disguise logging. It’sunfortunate they’re so misguided.”

In addition to being a fine scientist,Dr. Covington is, in his words, “a life-longenvironmentalist.” Proof of his assertionwould seem to lie in the fact that he wasfired from his first job for organizing arally in celebration of the first Earth Day.But his life underwent something of a seachange after the Spokane conference. He

wrote an article for the prestigiousJournal of Forestry in which he suggested,for a second time, that the West’s forestswere in big trouble. But he added a kicker,noting that the thinnings he advocatedwould produce a significant supply ofwood for struggling Southwest mills.

“I got a lot of establishment supportfor writing the piece,” he recalls. “But [hesays only partly in jest] the real cursecame in the form of widespread timberindustry support for forest restoration!”

These days Dr. Covington’s mainconcern is that the public will confusefuels management—thinning andburning to create firebreaks aroundcommunities—with forest restoration.

“Fuels management is certainly animportant and necessary safety measurewhere property and lives are at risk, butrestoration forestry is a much differentand far more complex proposition,” heexplained. “We begin with the evolu-tionary history of the land, assess itscarrying capacity and answer the question,‘What’s sustainable?’ Then, to create amore sustainable landscape, you departfrom the current unsustainable conditionto get what you need—hiding cover forwildlife, increased plant diversity, adecrease in the presence of insects orpathogens, increased natural reproductionin ponderosa pine, more meadows orbetter balance in the ages of trees that arepresent. The departure, or treatment, mayinvolve controlled burning or thinning ora combination of the two.”

Despite his reputation for meticulous

research, Dr. Covington readily concedesthat forest restoration does not demandthe precise re-engineering of presettle-ment forest conditions that in recent yearshave been the focal point of so muchdiscussion in scientific and popularliterature.

“We just have to be in the ballpark,” heexplained. “Treating sick forests is alot like treating sick people. Normally,bodies—and forests—can heal them-selves if the infection or disease is treated.But when human and natural systems aretotally out of whack greater interventionis necessary. Restoration forestry is thatgreater intervention. It is designed togive forests a fighting chance at naturalrecovery.”

Dr. Covington’s first large scale forestrestoration work began in 1995 at MountTrumble in the Uinkaret Mountains northof Flagstaff. Working in concert withInstitute colleagues, the federal Bureau ofLand Management and the Arizona Gameand Fish Department, he laid out four testplots in which tree density was reduced byvarying amounts. But before the plotscould be burned, years of accumulateddebris had to be hand-raked away from thebases of old trees that were left behind asa future seed source. Had debris notbeen pulled away from the trees, theburn would have quickly eaten its waythrough the duff layer and into the rootstructure, killing the trees. After thesites were burned, sophisticatedcomputer models capable of replicatingcrown fire behavior were used to

e ticket were thinned. This area has never been logged. In the absence of frequent fire it grew this dense by itself. Compare this thicket to the [center photo]h otographed on the Santa Fe National Forest in 1999.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

24 EVERGREEN

determine which plots might best survivea wind-driven wildfire. Not surprisingly,thinned stands fared much better thanuntreated control stands. Flame lengthswere reduced from 38 to 11 feet, Btu’s persquare foot fell from 1,780 to 673 and only20 percent of the forest canopy was burnedversus 68 percent in control stands.

At Fort Valley, the thinning-controlledburn combination has produced the samepositive result and the same negativeoutcry from environmentalists whosupport “Zero Cut,” a Sierra Club initiativeaimed at ending all harvesting in nationalforests, including restoration forestry. Asif on cue, one spokeswoman labeledDr. Covington’s early Fort Valley tests“clearcuts” and said the site had been“nuked.” But in fact hundreds of treeswere left behind to seed the next forest.Moreover, the remaining stand does holdabout the same number of trees it wouldhave held before European settlementbegan. If anything, Dr. Covington and hiscolleagues erred on the side of caution,leaving behind a forest that still containstoo many trees.

But the work continues despite wildexaggeration and administrativeappeals that delayed the project for twoyears. Credit the recently renamedGreater Flagstaff Forests Partnership,formerly the Grand Canyon ForestsPartnership, a collaboration which drawsparticipation from local conservationgroups, local, county, state and federalgovernment agencies, the FlagstaffChamber of Commerce, several firedepartments, the Institute and remnantsof northern Arizona’s logging industry.The partnership has been at the forefrontin more than 20 different restorationprojects—all in the Fort Valley area. Inone test plot 80 percent of the trees wereremoved, creating a park-like setting thatvirtually eliminated the risk of stand-replacing wildfire and led to an earlyincrease in plant diversity—thanks to thepresence of sunlight for the first time inperhaps 50 years.

Another thinning proved its mettle inJune when an approaching wildfire simplydied out before it could cross the open treestand into a neighboring subdivision.

“Ninety percent of the environ-mentalists we work with support thiswork,” says Brian Cottam, the partner-ship’s coordinator. “We may disagreeamongst ourselves about some of the finerpoints, but conceptually we are all on thesame page. We are engaged in every aspectof restoration: coordination with othergroups, project planning, small woodutilization and public outreach. Our

partners are working their guts out tomake this work because for themcatastrophic wildfire is an unacceptablealternative.”

But like the rest of the restorationprojects now underway in the Southwest,the Fort Valley tests are subsidized in totalby the federal government. And likeeveryone else involved in restorationinitiatives, Mr. Cottam longs for the daywhen the work can pay for itself throughthe sale of logs and other wood residues.

Numerous entrepreneurial venturesare being incubated (again with federalfunds) in both Arizona and New Mexico.

“We are well aware that the nation’sspending priorities changed in theaftermath of last September’s World TradeCenter tragedy,” he says. “It is clear wedon’t have a long time in which to turnfederally subsidized restoration into thebustling small business havens we believeit can be.”

But getting wood fiber to flowsmoothly and efficiently into brutallycompetitive and increasingly globalmarkets is difficult without sawmills—andthere are only three milling companies ofappreciable size left in the region. RioGrande Forest Products at Espanola, New

This ponderosa pine stand on the Coconino National Forest was thinned using a management prescription dof the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University. On seeing the result, radical environm e

Jim

Pet

erse

n


Mexico still buys federal timber when itcan. But the Southwest’s two tribal-ownedcompanies, White Mountain Apache-owned Fort Apache Timber Company andMescalero Apache owned Mescalero ForestProducts processes only tribal timber.

Worse, the region’s only paper mill,Canadian owned Abitibi, does not buy anywood fiber locally. Instead, it rails recycledpulp from British Columbia to itsSnowflake, Arizona mill. The mill, built inthe 1960s by Southwest Forest Industries,was for many years a major purchaser ofsmall diameter logs and mill residues, butwhen Abitibi came to town it converted

the plant to recycle-only operation. Rumoralso has it that the company did not wantto invest the estimated $100 million itwould have taken to bring the mill backinto compliance with stricter air and waterquality regulations. Others familiar withthe situation say the company would havemade the investment if it could havestruck a long-term fiber supply agreementwith the federal government.

“Perceived size is a problem,” concedesHiram “Doc” Smith, a 35-year ForestService veteran and the Institute’sprogram liason officer. “Even amongpeople who support restoration forestry

there is a concern for limiting its scope toprevent large-scale forest productsmanufacturing from regaining a foothold.

To overcome this fear, we are movingslowly rebuilding public confidence as wego. But the time is fast approaching whenwe are going to have to get seriousabout building sufficient manufacturingcapacity to process and market thewood that restoration will produce.Taxpayers aren’t going to foot this billforever, nor should they.”

Mr. Smith’s multi-faceted career madehim the perfect choice to be Instituteliason officer. He has been a district ranger,a smokejumper and a fire incident com-mander. And just two years ago he earnedan MA is forest ecology at Northern.

Though he fondly recalls his early yearsin the Forest Service, when Fortunemagazine declared the agency and theUnited States Marine Corps to be the twomost admired organizations in thecountry, he can just as easily rattle off thenames of more than 80 plant species thatthrive in Fort Valley thinnings. And he isplainly excited when he spies birds,butterflies, beetles, squirrels and micesettling in amid the woody rubblerestoration creates.

“I have been to most of the big dances,”he says of his years on the front lines ofsome of the West’s biggest wildfires. “AndI can tell you that restoration forestry is alot more fun and a lot more productivethan picking up the pieces after a big fire.”

Like Dr. Covington, Mr. Smith fretsabout federally imposed constraints on thelocation and size of restoration projectsand on the size of trees that can beremoved.

“We aren’t removing enough trees tomeaningfully alter wildfire behavior,” hesays. “We may say we’re improving forests,helping the economy and protectinghomes but in many instances we aren’t.I understand the need to accommodate asmany differing points of view as possible,but limiting the scale of restoration andthe size of trees that can be removed doeslittle for forests or the economy. Manypeople believe Southwest forests sufferfrom an overabundance of little trees, butthe fact is that we have too many trees ofevery size except the very largest. If wewant more big trees in our forests, and ifwe want to significantly reduce the risk ofcatastrophic wildfire, we have to thin thewhole forest, not just the smallest trees.”

Marlin Johnson concurs, though hesees the situation in a slightly differentlight. Mr. Johnson, who has also been withthe Forest Service for more than 30 years,is Assistant Director of Forestry for the

n developed by Dr. Wallace Covington, one of the most respected forest ecologists in the world and directorm entalists from Flagstaff called it “a clearcut” and said the stand had been “nuked.” You decide.

26 EVERGREEN

agency’s Albuquerque-based SouthwesternRegion.

“Treating or thinning trees of all sizeswithout regard to diameter limits is vitallyimportant for two reasons,” he explains.“First, we do a better job of reducing therisk of catastrophic wildfire. But second,and maybe even more important, we leavea more ecologically diverse forest in place.That’s the future.”

But it may be that the most practical ifnot politically appealing reason forthinning trees of all sizes and ages lieshidden in the fact that adding some largermore valuable trees to each projecttransforms publicly subsidized restorationinto a paying proposition. This accordingto a recently completed New Mexico studyconducted by two University of Montanaresearchers, forest ecologist Carl Fiedlerand forest economist Charles Keegan.

The study, titled “A StrategicAssessment of Fire Hazard in NewMexico,” indicates that comprehensiveforest treatment—treatments in whichtree diameter limits are not imposed—net $8 per acre after logging and haulcosts are paid. By contrast, removing alltrees nine inches in diameter or smallerrequires a $439 per acre taxpayersubsidy, while imposing a diameter limitof 16 inches costs taxpayers $368 per acre.

Simple multiplication yields astaggering taxpayer burden. In New Mexicoalone nearly four million acres are said tobe at high risk of crown fire. Add anothermillion acres for Arizona. Worse, in the twostates one million more lie within theurban interface and need immediatetreatment. Now multiply: 6,000,000 x $439per acre = $2.63 billion. That’s for theSouthwest alone. Pocket change comparedto the cost of pulling the entire west out ofthe frying pan: $32 billion, based on DaleBosworth’s estimate that 73 millionwestern acres are at risk. Mr. Bosworth isChief of the U.S. Forest Service.

After the disastrous 2000 fire season,Congress appropriated $2 billion-plus formop up work, fuels reduction, and to trainand equip a larger firefighting force—notquite as much as the estimated cost ofurban interface fuels management inArizona and New Mexico alone. No wonderso many federal budget watchers thinkMessrs. Keegan and Fiedler are on tosomething. Their more comprehensivethinning approach—which is similar toDr. Covington’s restoration vision—turnsa west wide $32 billion taxpayer subsidyinto a $500 million net gain. It alsotracks with Fort Valley research showingthat thinning reduces the future risk ofcrown fires by 69 percent when, as the

New Mexico study suggests, the treat-ment includes trees of all sizes.

But not all of Dr. Covington’scolleagues see forest restoration as an endunto itself. Mike Wagner, who directsresearch in NAU’s 50,000-acre CentennialForest, sees restoration as more of areference point than a destination.

“At Fort Valley and in the CentennialForest we can see what was here in theSouthwest hundreds of years ago,” hebegins. “But it is very important toremember that the old trees these forestshold are products of a completelydifferent set of environmental conditionsthan are present today. We can’t re-createall those conditions, but we can goforward. We can manage these forests inways that produce a wide variety ofsocietal benefits, including commerciallyvaluable timber. But we need to quicklyaddress the fact that southwestern forestsare so dense and so sick that seedlingreproduction is abysmal. We have tons offour to eight-inch trees and tons of 14 to20-inch trees, but too few trees over 30inches in diameter and way too fewseedlings. A comprehensive thinningprogram, with no limits on tree diameter,is the only way out of this mess—and theonly way we can add much neededbiological diversity to our forests.”

Jim

Pet

erse

n

A logger stands amid the rubble in a federally funded fuels reduction project behind several rural homes near Albuquerque, New Mexico.


Professor Wagner is beyond doubt oneof NAU’s most plainspoken scientists, a factthat he concedes periodically raiseseyebrows among his more reservedcolleagues. Most recently, he found himselfon the outs with restoration ecologists forsuggesting in a Journal of Forestry articlethat restoration could promise no moreecological benefit than traditional thinningand burning programs that have beenaround for many years.

“The common reference point in theSouthwest is the pre-European settlementperiod of roughly 1860 to the 1880s, or 60to 80 years after a 400-year dry period,” hewrote (together with three colleagues).“The climate that created this popularreference condition may never berepeated, so why should we assume thata past forest structure is better suited tothe much different climate that existstoday? Add uncertain global climatechange and Pacific (El Nino) decadaloscillations, and recreating foreststructure to reflect a unique historicalclimate seems of dubious value.”

“The article caused quite a stir,”Professor Wagner chuckles. “But I thinkwe’ve been forgiven. I don’t doubt thatrestoration prescriptions that lower standdensity and bring fire back into theequation are desirable. The question is not

whether ecological restoration is good forecosystems but rather, is it marginallybetter than other options available toimprove ecosystem health. Rather thanspending taxpayer money focusing onforest conditions that are in part productsof weather patterns we can’t possiblyreplicate, let’s focus on producing tangiblebenefits the public will recognize andsupport: clean air, clean water, abundantwildlife habitat, beautiful vistas, and aforward-looking forest products manu-facturing complex that can prosperwithout taxpayer subsidy.”

Whether the public endorses fullrestoration—which would indeed entail theremoval of significant numbers of trees—orone or more less intrusive variations of it isnot nearly as important as the morefundamental choice to be made: catas-trophic fire or science-based management.Polling data leaves no doubt about the factthat, in the Southwest at least, the publichas already rejected wildfire. But these arenational forests, and many Americans,particularly those living in cloistered urbanenvirons far from the fallout and confusion,are strong supporters of the Sierra Club’s“Zero Cut” initiative.

“We have many more options to choosefrom than the hopelessness that ‘Zero Cut’infers,” observes Dr. Marty Moore,

Executive Director of the EnvironmentalEconomic Communities Organization, acoalition of northern Arizona counties thatis incubating several entrepreneurial woodmanufacturing ventures. “The cookie-cutter solutions that characterizedwestern land management for generationsare no longer publicly acceptable. Butwe’re dealing with a very complex set ofenvironmental and economic variablesthat aren’t easily reduced to the kinds ofsix-second sound bites that have domi-nated the airwaves and print media sincethe Rodeo-Chediski broke out.”

“Fortunately, many in Congress dounderstand and are very supportive of ourcollaborative initiatives.”

The ironies in history are impossible toignore: the need to corral wildfire, just asearlier generations did; the need for vibrantcommunities, no less an imperative nowthan it was a hundred years ago; andoverriding all of it, a national worry aboutthe future of public forests that is notunlike that which led to creation of thefirst national forests more than a hundredyears ago, when men like Edward Bealeand C.E. Dutton first laid eyes on theWest’s future.

Dr. Moore flashes his trademark smile.“In a very real sense we are the Southwest’snew pioneers.”

Highly automated harvesting systems like this one are very effective thinning tools, but they are very expensive to operate.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

28 EVERGREEN

The New Pioneers

“The police and sheriff cars were broadcasting by mega-horn to ‘EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.’ I grabbed some of myphotos and filled up a backpack with books and Susan’scollection of Chinese antique teapots and my autographedpictures of Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Lou Gehrig and TyCobb and shoved as many CD ROMs into the backpack as Icould and grabbed the Lou Gehrig sculpture and some ofmy ‘hero’ photos with Colin Powell and took off back downthe hill in Susan’s car.

“The roadblock [person] wanted to know where I hadcome from and I told her I had just come back fromPhoenix. [She] hurriedly said, ‘OK,’ and waived me through,as about a dozen fire and emergency vehicles were trying toget up Copper Basin.

“A sheriff’s car came by and the deputy saw me and

It has been a god-awful fire seasonin the Southwest. Just ask BobHennkens. [See above] Mr. Hennkensnearly lost his home in Prescott lastMay when a firestorm driven by 50 milean hour winds veered close to hisneighborhood.

“The fire moved north, east and westof Prescott on a 41-mile front,” herecalls. “Had it started at nine in themorning instead of three in theafternoon our beautiful and historiccommunity would now be history and Iwould be talking to you from someplaceelse. As it was, it burned down the‘Welcome to Prescott’ sign before thewind shifted. We were very, very lucky.”

Pick a day. Any day this summer willdo. Go to the Forest Service’s NationalFire News website www.nifc.gov/fir einfo/nfn.html/ . You can pick any state youwant and get a complete briefing.Simply click on “Morning Report.”Today, August 24, things are blessedlyquiet again in the Southwest forests.Light rain is forecast. But all hell hasbroken loose in blazing hot SouthwestOregon. The Biscuit Fire has nowburned through over 492,000 acres ofheavy timber. Winter rains are still 60days away. An eternity. By then, it willhave eclipsed Arizona’s 468,638-acreRodeo-Chediski Fire. This morning’sreport: 6,775 are manning fire lines,including 32 elite Type 1 teams. Also on

By Jim PetersenEditor, Evergreen Magazine

screamed at me through the mega-horn to ‘get the hell out ofhere. Where did you come from?’ He told me to get in the car.I did, and he took off, letting me know that I was causing areal problem and that if he saw me in the quarantined areaagain he might shoot me. I did not doubt it.

“We will continue to work on the biomass and small treeinitiatives, which seem so insufficient after witnessing a fire.This one is not out as yet, but they say that it ‘only’ burnedabout 1,200 acres. The Forest Service is predicting ‘manypotential’ fires this year of 100,000 acres or more.”

the lines: 35 helicopters, 251 fireengines and 91 bulldozers. Cost totaxpayers to date: $98.7 million. Theyare on high alert in Cave Junction,Selma, O’Brien and Agness, ready toevacuate on a moment’s notice. Mostwho lived in Gasquet have already fled.

Like Pentagon briefings in the Waron Terrorism, these Morning Reportshave become standard fare in thenation’s escalating War on Wildfire. Butthey do not begin to tell all there is toknow about what is happening inwestern national forests.

You won’t learn anything aboutGordon West’s furniture factory in anold pleasure palace in Santa Clara, NewMexico. Or Steve Hall’s innovativebiomass venture on the old SouthwestForest Industries sawmill site at Eagar,Arizona. Or Rob Davis’ bustling woodpellet plant in nearby Show Low.

You also won’t learn anything aboutPhil Archuletta’s ingenious process formaking highway signs from an extrudedblend of juniper sawdust and recycledmilk cartons ground into pellets notmuch larger than the head of a pin. Forthat you will have to tour the convertedpinto bean processing plant down thestreet from his sign business inMountainair, New Mexico.

And you won’t discover how it is thatthe tragic fire that nearly destroyed BobHennkens’ house in Prescott turned outto be a fortuitous event, for as you willsoon learn, Mr. Hennkens is an advisorto the Federal Laboratory Consortium.He is currently up to his armpits inenzyme-based bio-fuel research. Wherewe see blazing infernos and senselessloss, he sees energy independence for astrategically vulnerable nation that lostits innocence last September 11.

If anything good comes of ferventhopes for saving the Southwest’s forestsfrom fiery ends it will be becausevisionaries like Bob Hennkens, GordonWest, Steve Hall, Rob Davis and PhilArchuletta figure out how to profit frommanufacturing and marketing productsmade from low quality, small diametertrees that are choking the region’s

Bob Hennkens, Prescott, Arizona; excerpted from an e-mailnote to colleagues after a May 15 wildfire nearly overranboth the town and his neighborhood.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Graham County Commissioner Mark Herringtonterms federal inaction “morally wrong.”


Former trucker Steve Hall has high hopes for hisbiomass-fueled power plant. The facility sitson the old Stone Forest Industries sawmillsite at Eagar, Arizona.

Jim Petersen


30 EVERGREEN

national forests to death.There are perhaps 50 such

businesses operating in Arizona andNew Mexico today: small entre-preneurial ventures full of hope keptafloat for now by public and privatesector grants, government-backed lowinterest loans or both. Given theenormity of the Southwest’s forestcalamity there is room for at least 20times as many small-wood ventures inthe two states, plus a few large ones.The fact that there aren’t moreunderscores the uncertain future offorest restoration, the scarcity ofprivate capital for high-riskventures, and the fact that oncecloistered U.S. wood markets arenow both global and mercilesslycompetitive.

But make no mistake. Thepolitical stranglehold that radicalenvironmentalists have held in theWest’s national forests for nearly 20years may soon be broken in theSouthwest. Credit two ships that didnot pass each other in the night.First, the bipartisan union ofArizona and New Mexico politicalleaders that led to the formation of atop level federal-state partnershipcalled the Southwest Strategy; andsecond, the emergence of severalvery determined county-levelcoalitions committed to restoringrural economies devastated by theClinton-era collapse of the federaltimber sale program. Minus theseextraordinary events, there would beno talk about biomass-to-energypower plants or furniture factoriesor signs made from junk wood andold milk cartons. Nor would therebe plans on the drawing board fora new paper mill at Belen, south ofAlbuquerque. And the Ribelin’s—one of Arizona’s most successfullogging families—would not bethinking about building a new high-speed small-log sawmill at Flagstaff.

The Southwest Strategy, created in1998 under the aegis of the Secretariesof Interior, Agriculture and the DeputyUndersecretary of Defense for Environ-mental Security, brings together 11federal agencies, both state govern-ments and the region’s Indian tribes.The goal: develop legally defensible,science-based strategies for restoringand protecting the region’s forests,woodlands and related culturalresources.

“We are a triage unit of sorts,” saysSouthwest Strategy executive director

Bill Maxon. “Ours is a multi-agency,multi-level, action oriented forum foraddressing the region’s most criticalenvironmental problems. Our job is toget things done.”

To marshal and redirect problem-solving expertise that is often burieddeep inside government agencies, theorganization is divided into tenstakeholder task forces that workcollaboratively across all levels ofgovernment. Among them: NationalFire Plan implementation, rangelandmanagement, community develop-

ment, water issues, scientific infor-mation exchange and endangeredspecies streamlining.

Thanks to the cooperative, business-like climate the Southwest Strategy hascreated, community-based collaborativeforestry—an all too clinical name givento the gut wrenching, bare-naked andgenerally politically risky process ofreplacing decades of distrust withnewfound consensus—is working.

There is a groundswell of conver-sation among people who are clearlyexcited about rebuilding the region’swood processing and marketingcapacity—not in the likeness of theoversized wood monster that chompedthrough region’s forests for more than a

hundred years—but a new industry:smaller, generally (though not always)less labor and capital intensive, gearedto profit from a steady diet of smalldiameter trees and sufficiently fleet offoot to be able to weather here today-gone tomorrow wood fiber shortagescaused by shifting political winds oractivist judges who have the power tonix Forest Service management plans.

“Reestablishing trust is our majorchallenge,” says Dr. Marty Moore,executive director of the much admiredEnvironmental Economic Communities

Organization [EECO], a St. Johns,Arizona non-profit grouprepresenting five rural countiesthat are involved in a half dozencollaborations in which localgovernments, federal and state landmanagers, Indian tribes, localbusinesses and environmentalistsall have seats at the table. “Our successes rest on a strongshared willingness to shedpretense,” Dr. Moore says of thosewith whom EECO works. “There isno posturing or politicking. Wework together on constructive ideasfor restoring forests and creatingthe kinds of businesses that canutilize small diameter wood fiber.” It is widely believed that EECOis filling a void created by environ-mental groups that have been lessthan honest with the public aboutthe condition of their forests andwhat can be done about it.Dr. Moore concedes the point butquickly adds that he works withmany environmentalists who shareEECO’s interest in incubatingbusinesses that can utilize smalldiameter wood fiber. “We’re not that far apart fromwhat I would call the new

environmentalists,” EECO boardchairman Ron Christensen observes.“They see the same communities andforests at risk that we see. We’re alllooking for constructive community-based solutions that balance oureconomic and environmental needs.” Mr. Christensen, who is alsochairman of the Gila County board ofsupervisors, and chairman of thePublic Lands Steering Committee forthe National Association of Counties,believes organizations like EECO havethree to four years—and probably nomore—in which to create a frameworkfor developing community-levelsolutions to federal land managementproblems.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

New Mexico State Forester Toby Martinez is one of thedriving forces behind the success of community-basedcollaborative forestry in the Southwest


Gordon West, Santa Clara Woodworking, displays a beautiful high-back chair he fashioned from small-diameter ponderosa pine no one else wanted. “I am a scavenger,” he says of the success of his NewMexico venture. “You have to be in this part of the country or you aren’t likely to get any wood.”

Jim

Pet

erse

n


32 EVERGREEN

“Our country is facingsome very expensive globalchallenges,” he observes.“Thanks to tremendoussupport from the Arizonaand New Mexicodelegations we’ve beensuccessful in generatingstartup funding for lots ofdifferent approaches toforest restoration, but weneed to move quickly pastsubsidies and intobusinesses that can prosperin our forests.”

Fellow EECO directorsPete Shumway and vicechairman Mark Herringtonshare Mr. Christensen’sbelief that success rests onplumbing the depths ofcounty-federal cooperation,on befriending federalagencies while also holdingthem accountable.

“We are the unit ofgovernment that is closestto the ground and closest tothose whose livelihoodsdepend on how well theground is managed,”declares Mr. Shumway, aNavajo County supervisor.“The land belongs to thefederal government but itsdecisions impact local folks.We cannot accept ‘No’ for ananswer and we cannotexclude anyone who wantsto work toward commonground.”

Mr. Herrington, who is chairman ofGraham County’s board of supervisors,is even more direct. “We have said tothe federal agencies, ‘We want to beyour partner, but if you don’t want topartner with us we are prepared to goaround you’.” The Forest Service fearsenvironmentalist litigation more than itfears catastrophic fire. I say the agencyhas a larger mission and a larger publicthat it needs to accommodate.”

Doing nothing is not an option forMr. Herrington, who terms federalinaction “morally wrong.” “Oureconomies are so rural and so fragile. Ourcommunities are rooted in farming,ranching, mining and logging. We are notgoing to become hi-tech parks no matterhow hard we try. Nor can we survive onthe minimum-wage jobs that tourismprovides, and even if we could, tourismand persistent wildfire don’t mix.”

Of all the partnership possibilities

EECO is exploring, none seems togenerate greater enthusiasm thanbiomass utilization—the conversionof low quality wood fiber into energy.“Most of the wood fiber that needs tocome out of our forests is of such poorquality no one wants to buy it,” explainsDr. Moore. “We have to develop com-mercial markets for this material orforest restoration can’t go forwardwithout long-term federal subsidies,which none of us want. Commerciallyviable biomass technologies hold greatpotential for alleviating the West’sworsening energy shortage while alsoreducing our dependence on airpolluting fossil fuels.”

In the hope of laying a properbiomass foundation, EECO haspartnered with Steve Hall, a formertrucker who, with his family, ownsEnvironmental Forest Solutions atEagar. Mr. Hall is erecting a small

woody biomass power planton the old Southwest ForestIndustries-Stone ForestIndustries sawmill site justwest of the tiny northernArizona community. 250Eagar area workers losttheir jobs when the collapseof the federal timber saleprogram forced Stone toclose the mill in 1999.Stone made him a deal onthe 133-acre sitehe could not refuse.

“It is the perfect placeto build an energy park,” heexplains. “We want toattract businesses engagedin biomass-based researchand development. So thepower plant becomes both arevenue stream and amarketing tool.”

Mr. Hall learned hisbiomass lessons the hardway. He nearly went brokehauling wood chips to aCalifornia biomass-firedpower plant that filed forbankruptcy. “The plant was too bigfor the available supply offuel,” he says. “They wentbroke trying to haul woodfiber farther than the priceof power allowed for. It costus a lot of money, but Ilearned a valuable lesson:wood is heavy. You can’tafford to haul it very far andexpect to make a profit.”

It is clear that Mr. Hall is not easilydiscouraged. Despite nearly losing hisbusiness, he quietly set about the taskof learning all he could about biomassenergy development. The result is asix-inch thick three-ring binder filledwith government reports, newspaperclippings and research documents.

“Knowledge is our roadmap to anexciting future,” he says of the binder. No doubt it is, but Mr. Hall is alsoturning out to be an exceptionallyskilled fundraiser. After negotiating a30-year buyout agreement with Stone,he secured a $415,000 grant from theForest Service to retrofit the old millboiler and add a turbine. Then he signeda $2.56 million power and technologytransfer agreement with Arizona PublicService. Now the Department ofCommerce, the Small Business Adminis-tration and the Department of Energy areon his call list.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

[Top] Malcolm Cajero, right, runs a portable sawmill for the Pueblo ofJemez. New Mexico staff forester Todd Haines helps him find logsincluding those in the background, salvaged from the Los Alamos Fire.[Below] Former logger Ted Heath has been supervising a thinningprogram at a Girl Scout camp north of Albuquerque. When we caught upwith him he was inspecting burn piles with his dog, Dixie.


“You would be amazedwho is interested in whatwe are trying to do,” hesays with some satisfaction.One of them is PresidentBush, who shook handswith Mr. Hall during hisJune 25 visit to Rodeo-Chediski fire lines. “Ilooked him in the eye andtold him we could not livelike this,” Mr. Hall latersaid of his moment withthe President. “Wepromised we would helpeach other make some bigchanges in forest policy.”

Another is BobHennkens. Mr. Hennkenswas nearly burned out ofhis home by a May 16firestorm.

While he is not thePresident, he is clearly ina position to help Mr. Hall.In his capacity as consultantto the Federal LaboratoryConsortium, Mr. Hennkensspends his days ferretingout possible commercialapplications for govern-ment-funded research.Last year, the 711laboratories he representsfiled nearly 3,800 patents.Among them: promisingtechnologies for usingenzymes—compoundsproduced in living cellsthat are capable ofproducing chemicalchanges in organic substances—todigest cellulose, the carbohydratethat forms the cell walls in plants,including trees. Once digested,research suggests cellulose can bereformed into a wide variety ofcompounds including bio-fuels.

“I’d like to see some of this researchadvanced at Eagar,” Mr. Hennkens says.“The location is perfect—close to majorlaboratories and right in the middle of ahuge supply of fiber with tremendousenergy possibilities.”

With Mr. Hennkens help, Mr. Hall’ssite is now in the running to be nameda national demonstration site for thefederal Department of Energy. Such adesignation would quickly transform theold Eagar mill site into an energyresearch park—a possibility that Mr. Halladmits strains even his imagination.

“I have to remind myself that not solong ago I was trying to sell 25 chip

trucks, so that I could start over again,”he says. “But if you stop to think aboutit for a moment, Bob’s idea makesperfect sense. The Forest Service isswimming in trees it can’t get rid of andthe Department Energy wants todiversify its energy portfolio for reasonsof national security. Wouldn’t you thinkthey’d get together and talk about it?”Mr. Hennkens agrees, but unlike mostof us, who can only ask questions thatgo unanswered, he has at his finger-tips the resources necessary to dosomething meaningful about what ishappening to the Southwest’s forests.And he intends to make the most of hisconsiderable network with both theFederal Laboratory Consortium andthe Department of Energy. As theRodeo-Chediski neared Show Low hesent an e-mail note to severalcolleagues declaring his intent toaggressively promote bio-fuels, bio-

products and bio-energyprojects he believes wouldprovide a significanteconomic stimulus for anestimated 23,000 ruralcommunities facingwildfire risks. “I’m going to doeverything in my power tospeed technology transfer tosmall entrepreneurialventures that can helpdevelop products made fromsmall diameter wood,including chopsticks ifnecessary,” he said in asubsequent Evergreeninterview. “We’re alreadyup to our armpits inenvironmental assess-ments. Now we need someaction to reduce thewildfire risks thesecommunities are facing.We’ve got to find mixes ofproducts and strategiesthat turn more of ouradversaries into allies.” Few people are moreskilled at turningadversaries into allies thanNew Mexico State ForesterToby Martinez. Though herefuses to take credit, he isundeniably the driving forcebehind the Four CornersSustainable ForestsPartnership, a multi-stateforest collaboration thatremains the largest suchproject ever undertaken.

The partnership, which started in 1997,takes its name from the geographicpoint where the borders of New Mexico,Arizona, Colorado and Utah converge. Itworks in several venues: rural economicdevelopment, small wood utilizationand marketing and community-basedforest restoration. Funded largely by thefederal government, Four Corners hasthus far disbursed funding to 39community-run demonstrationprojects. Among them: Phil Archuletta’ssign company at Mountainair and RobDavis’ pellet plant at Show Low,Arizona. Also, Gila WoodNet at SilverCity, New Mexico and the Navajo tribe’sHogan Project in northern Arizona. “We are focused on developingmarketing solutions to the region’sforest health problem,” says Mr.Martinez. “Wood processing ventureshave to be sized so that they are insynch with the community and able

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Talk about irony. A coal train made up of cars that once belonged to now longgone Southwest Forest Industries sits on a siding at Holbrook, Arizona,destined for the furnaces at the coal-fired power plant at nearby Joseph City.Meanwhile, less than an hour away, woody biomass—dead and dying trees nobigger around than your forearm—choke what’s left of a forest near Pine Top.

34 EVERGREEN

to prosper in sustainablymanaged forests.”

It may sound easy, butMr. Martinez will be thefirst to admit it is not. “Scale is a problem,” heconcedes. “Even incommunities where forestrestoration is popular,recruiting sufficientindustry to deal with theproblem is unpopular.Everyone loves cottageindustries, but most stillresist the presence of largermanufacturing plants. Ibelieve small-wood tech-nologies hold the answer.Rather than have one ortwo large manufacturers wemay have 100 smaller ones,each utilizing a differentpart of the tree.”

To raise publicawareness of the high riskof catastrophic fire, Mr.Martinez has turned to fireassessments—documentsthat quantify the risk andforecast likely outcomes ofstand-replacing wildfires.Initially no one paid muchattention, but the LosAlamos Fire changedeverything. The May 2000conflagration began as acontrolled burn set by theNational Park Service in theBandelier National Monu-ment south of Los Alamos. High windsdrove it northward across 47,000 acres. Theentire town was evacuated and 405 homeswere destroyed before firefighters got itstopped.

“Good sometimes comes of greattragedy,” Mr. Martinez says. “We seem tomove forward in the aftermath of big fires.Los Alamos stimulated renewed com-munity interest in forest restoration.”

To assist businesses interested inevaluating the wood manufacturingpotential in New Mexico, Mr. Martinez’sstaff is now utilizing forest inventory datadeveloped by the U.S. Forest Service, whichhas been monitoring growth, harvest andmortality in the nation’s public andprivately owned forests for nearly 50 years.

“Companies interested in makinginvestments in new wood manufacturingfacilities need hard numbers they cantake to their bankers,” Mr. Martinez says.“We try to show them in some detail whatis out there that is available for purchaseand harvest.”

Unlike Arizona, which has littleprivately owned timberland, individuals andIndian tribes own 41 percent of NewMexico’s 4.2 million acre timberland base.The state employs a cadre of professionalforesters whose job it is to help landownerscope with the risk of catastrophic wildfire.Reducing the risk generally meansthinning—a process that requires a permitunder the state’s forest practices act.

“Our primary goal is to promote goodforest stewardship,” says Todd Haines of thestate’s forest practices act. Mr. Haines, atimber staff forester in the state’s Bernalillooffice, somewhat sheepishly admits that heused to try to scare neglectful landownerswith “horror stories” about wildfires.

“It didn’t work,” he admits. “Now Istress pride of ownership and get muchbetter results. No private landowner wantsto be thought of as not taking responsibilityfor the land he buys.”

Mr. Haines is particularly proud of workhe oversaw at a Girl Scout camp northwestof Albuquerque. The 900-acre thinning

was completed without ahitch despite some handwringing from ChaparralCouncil members who fearedthinning might despoil thecamp.

“It’s understandable,” Mr.Haines says. “Most people haveno idea that this kind of workcan be done with so littlevisual impact. The nice thingabout the camp is that it islarge enough to provide aperpetual harvesting incomestream for the scouts. Thisround of thinning generated$120,000. That’s not bad.”

Down the road at JemezPueblo, Mr. Haines wears adifferent hat. The state istrying to help the Pueblo ofJemez market products milledby a small portable sawmillerected on an old landfilldumpsite. Malcolm Cajero,who runs the mill, explainsthat the tribe has rejectedgambling as a revenue source,and now hopes that itsWalatowa Woodlands Initiativewill generate sufficient revenueto support a variety of tribalactivities.

Walatowa, which means“human” in the tribe’s nativelanguage, is funded in part bythe Four Corners partnership.The mill’s output, which isharvested mainly from the

tribe’s 45,000 acres of forests and wood-lands, includes custom-cut timbers andbeams, dimension lumber, firewood, peeledpoles, vigas, patio furniture and inter-locking sidewalk kits cut from scraps ofwood. To boost employment on the reser-vation, the tribe also contracts trucking andrestoration services for landowners. “We do it all here,” Mr. Cajero says witha broad grin. “What can I sell you today?We deliver.” If Malcolm Cajero is a natural bornsalesman, then Gordon West is a naturalborn tinkerer. Very simply, he can makealmost anything from practically nothing.A visit to his small furniture factory atSanta Clara, about four hours south ofAlbuquerque, proves the point. Amonghis creations, beautiful hand-craftedantique-style high back chairs cut fromponderosa pine no one else wanted.

“I am a scavenger,” he says. “You haveto be in this part of the country or youaren’t likely to get any wood.”

Most of the furniture Mr. West has

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Phil Archuletta, P&M Signs, Mountainair, New Mexico demonstrates hisprototype extruder. Using a blend of finely ground juniper and pellets madefrom recycled plastic milk cartons he presses signs – including the ForestService ensign you see here.


turned out in his shop nowgraces Bear Mountain Lodge,a Nature Conservancy ownedbed and breakfast inn herenovated from an oldschoolhouse, outfitting itwith some 250 mission-style pieces includingtables, bookcases, armoires,night stands and frames foreasy chairs, couches andbed frames, all beautifullycrafted from smalldiameter ponderosa pine.

“I guess we had the rightpedigree,” he says. “You know,local, small business doingforest restoration work,making nice things for peopleto use and enjoy.”

In Mr. West’s neighbor-hood timber harvesting istaboo, a result of thepresence of the Tucson-based Center for BiologicalDiversity. The Center,which has a long history oflitigating proposed ForestService projects has scaredoff most who might other-wise bring small-logmilling technologies to theSouth-west’s implodingrural economy. But theyhave not scared off Mr.West.

“We get along fine,” hesays of his relationship withthe Center. “I take what theygive me and try to make somethinguseful out of it. They really aren’t againstcutting trees, but they opposecommodity-influenced forestmanagement.”

To overcome the Center’s resistanceto commercialism, Mr. West incor-porated Gila WoodNet, a non-profit thatsearches for markets for by-productsthat forest restoration yields. LastJanuary the organization received a$356,400 federal grant to restore MillProject, a rundown 1,400-acre GilaNational Forest site 18 miles northwestof Silver City. It has U.S. Sen. JeffBingaman to thank for its goodfortune. The New Mexico Democratauthored the Community ForestRestoration Act, which funnels about$5 million a year into the state forcollaborative forestry projects.

Mr. West, who is also WoodNetexecutive director, expects that just tenpercent of Mill Project’s trees will be ofsufficient quality to be used in furniture

making. The rest will go to other smallwood ventures. Among them: a non-profit pellet plant at Silver City thathelps low-income workers startbusinesses. On the strength of theplant’s social mission, the FordFoundation gave WoodNet a $750,000five-year grant to develop its chip supply.

“The Ford grant really raised ourprofile,” Mr. West says. “The com-petition for this kind of money is fierce.”

It has also helped immeasurably atthe Silver City/Grant County EconomicDevelopment Corporation (SIGRED),which is the interface between WoodNetand Ford.

“Ford is clearly committed to oursuccess,” say SIGRED assistant directorJudy Ward. “I do not doubt the sincerityof their effort to help our communitydevelop small businesses that can utilizethe fiber forest restoration is producing.” Mr. West is using the Ford grant—andanother from Four Corners—to develop aminiaturized harvesting system he hopes

to test this summer on theMill Project, assumingextreme fire danger does notkeep him out of the woods. Hehas also erected a metalbuilding that will house hisdebarking and chippingoperations. Over time, hehopes to incubate otherentrepreneurial ventures onthe six-acre industrial site.

“Traditional lenders won’teven look at this stuff,” he saysof his prototype operation. “It’stoo theoretical. I think we’vescaled our equipment forefficient operation, but grantmonies will remain ourlifeblood until we know thatthe operation can sustain itselfwithout subsidy. Meanwhile,we’ll take what we can get.”

Phil Archuletta knows allabout taking what you can get.P&M Signs, his Mountainair,New Mexico sign companyhas perfected an extruder thatcan transform a steaming hotblend of recycled milkcartons and finely groundjuniper wood into an allweather sign.

Armed with asbestos gloves,tongs and dark goggles, hehappily demonstrates hisinvention to anyone who canhelp promote it. And voila, itworks. As proof he offers freesamples: brown and yellow

Forest Service chevrons that are part ofhis strategy for prodding the agency intobuying his composite signs as replace-ments for the old growth redwood signsthat were standard fare for decades.

Mr. Archuletta clearly knows howthe political game is played. His officewalls are lined with photographsshowing him shaking hands with somevery important people he considers tobe his friends: Ronald Reagan, GeorgeW. Bush (I and II) and New Mexico Sen.Pete Domenici to name only four. Healso appears to be extraordinarilypatient, having already invested aprincely sum in a process that is justnow able to turn out a single 12-inchby 20-inch panel every five minutes.

It took even longer before the FourCorners Sustainable Forests Part-nership stepped forward with a grant topay engineers at Sandia Laboratory inAlbuquerque to modify Mr. Archuletta’sprototype extruder. Now he says it istime to ramp up.

Rob Davis, Forest Energy Corporation, Show Low, Arizona, turns lowquality wood fiber into wood pellets and other products including cat litterand animal bedding. Assuming public support for thinning he hopes to buildother plants in New Mexico and Colorado.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

36 EVERGREEN

“Independent materials testingconfirms that the composite is a very solidproduct,” says Mr. Archuletta, adding thathe believes the wood-plastic blend mayoutlast the conventional aluminum andplywood-backed signs P&M builds by thethousands.

“I’d like to build a composite assemblyline this year,” he says, “But first we needto nail down ourfinancing.”

Help may be onthe way. P&M is inthe running for a$360,000 grant fromthe CollaborativeForest RestorationProgram—the sameoutfit that fundedMr. West’s 1,400-acre thinningproject on the GilaNational Forest. Mr.Archuletta will addanother $100,000 tocomplete theinstallation and, ifall goes according toplan, his companywill soon be mass-producing com-posite signs, notjust for the ForestService but also theNational ParkService, the Bureauof Land Manage-ment and statehighway depart-ments.

“It’s verygratifying for us,”he says. “We’ve hadthe unselfish helpof a lot of peoplewho share ourbelief this productcan provide a viablemarket for juniperfiber that will becoming fromwoodlands restor-ation projects inour area.

Two hours westof Mountainair,over the Manzano Mountains, 90-year-oldTed Wilbert is placing another big bet. Mr.Wilbert, who made his fortune buildingpaper mills, hopes to build his last mill atBelen, an hour south of Albuquerque inthe Rio Grande Valley. He has thus farspent $3.5 million on feasibility studies.And he has found two able partners—an

engineering firm that designs papermills and a company that buildspapermaking machines.

Forest industry analysts familiar withthe Southwest say that national forestrestoration cannot go forward withouttaxpayer subsidies unless sufficient newmanufacturing capacity can be developedto process and market the millions of

tons of low quality fiber that must beremoved from the region’s forests. Mosthave suggested a pulp or paper mill,which would no doubt spawn some sortof associated lumber manufacturingcomplex, or perhaps two or threeoriented strand board or medium-density

fiberboard plants. But even amongenvironmentalists who favor forestrestoration support for the re-emergenceof such large capital-intensive facilities isat best lukewarm. No wonder then thatone of Mr. Wilbert’s consultants saysthat the availability of federal fiber willnot be a consideration in the finaldecision to build or not build the mill.

“We intend torun the mill on fiberpurchased fromstate, tribal andprivate sources,”says Martin Devere,a long-time industryconsultant fromTombstone. “Wewould buy federalwood if it wereavailable—and weexpect that somewill be—but youcannot makeinvestments thislarge on the basisof governmentpromises. Thepolitical climate istoo uncertain. Nolender in his rightmind would talkto you.”

Mr. Devere saysNuera Ford Productshopes to breakground on its $750million odorless,chlorine-freethermo-mechan-ical paper millearly next year andbe on-line in 2005.The facility, whichwill make fine-coated paper for themagazine and officeproducts markets,will consume about400,000 bone drytons of wood fiberannually.

Nearly 180 milessoutheast of Belen,back across theManzanoMountains, lay two

small sawmills that attest to the extra-ordinary difficulty associated withoperating in an environment that lacks apaper mill or some other outlet that canannually soak up thousands of tons ofwood chips and waste. “We’d be very interested in selling chips

Jim

Pet

erse

nJi

m P

eter

sen

[Top] Just completed fuels treatment project near Flagstaff, Arizona. Logger Allen Ribelin, whoseHigh Desert Investments did the work, said the stand was so thick he doubted sunlight had reachedthe forest floor here in more than 25 years. [Below] Mr. Ribelin stands beside decked logs thethinning produced. With no mills nearby, there is virtually no market for these logs in the Southwest.


and pulpwood to Nuera,” says Jim Bridge,manager of Mescalero Forest Productssawmills at Mescalero and Alamogordo.

“We currently rail our chips toLouisiana, but everything used to go toStone’s pulp mill at Snowflake, Arizona.”

When Abitibi bought Stone’s Snowflakemill and converted it to recycled pulp,which it rails fromCanada, the South-west’s pulp marketvanished overnight.

“Now there isno market in theSouthwest forchips, pulpwood orthe waste streamcreated by smalldiameter logs,” Mr.Bridge laments.“We really needsomething downhere to smooth outthe fiber flow.”

MescaleroForest Productsbelongs to theMescalero ApacheTribe. Virtually allof the 28 millionboard feet of logsthat annually feedits two sawmillscome from tribalor private land.“We buy anoccasional ForestService salvagesale,” Mr. Bridgesays. “But youcan’t make planson the basis ofwhat the federalgovernment saysit might do,” headds, echoingMr. Devere’ssentiment.

True enough,but the triberecently closed adeal with thefederal govern-ment thatsignificantlyimproves its long-term forest man-agement prospects. The U.S. Fish andWildfire Service approved the tribe’sMexican spotted owl management planin an agreement that waives thenormally imposed critical habitatdesignation. Nor will the tribe have tocontend with diameter cut limits

imposed on the Forest Service.“The way we manage the forest is

more for multiple species, not a singlespecies,” explained tribal member ThoraPadilla, a silviculturist and projectmanager for the tribe’s Division ofResource Management and Protection.“It’s not one way across the forest. It’s a

mosaic with different managementtreatments.”

To close the loop on its long-termmanagement plan, Mescalero ForestProducts has secured a $250,000Bingaman grant to purchase a polepeeling and merchandizing system that

will permit improved utilization ofsmall diameter trees the tribe intendsto harvest as part of its plan for in-creasing habitat and age-classdiversity in its forests.”

“But what a process!” Mr. Bridgedeclares. “I don’t want to seemungrateful but the hoops we had to

jump through toget the moneywere amazing. Wemight have givenup had it not beenfor the help ofsome very deter-mined state andcounty folks.” Clearly, not everynew wood pro-cessing business inthe Southwestneeds federal help.In fact, some don’twant it. Put RobDavis in the lattergroup. Mr. Davis ispresident of ForestEnergy Corpora-tion, a wood pelletmanufacturerbased at ShowLow, jumping offpoint for northernArizona’s mostpopular recreationarea.

“I’ve neverbeen keen ongovernmentmoney,” he says.“Huge amounts ofwell intendedpublic and privatemoney are flowinginto ventures thathave no futurewithout perma-nent subsidy,” heexplains. “Thesudden fervor isunderstandablegiven our forestfire problem, butI don’t thinkCongress willbankroll themindefinitely.”

Despite his belief many subsidizedbusinesses will eventually fail, Mr. Davisthinks the political climate has improvedso much since the Bush Administrationcame to Washington that he recentlydusted off an eight-year-old plan forbuilding a biomass-fired power plant that

[Top] This is the No.1 fairway at a golf course development under construction near Flagstaff. HighDesert Investments cleared the golf course and thinned home sites for the developer. Permanentclearcuts like these don’t cause nearly as much debate as does thinning in nearby forests. [Bottom]With no mills nearby, a High Desert log truck is loaded for the 460-mile trip to Terra Bella, California.

Jim

Pet

erse

nJi

m P

eter

sen

38 EVERGREEN

would draw some of its fiber fromnational forest thinnings and fuelsmanagement projects.

“It looks like there will be sufficientfiber available,” he says. “There’s talkabout making the Apache-SitgreavesNational Forest a Pilot Forest, whichwould mean a stronger local voice in howthe forest is managed. We’re also seeing alot more activity among the regionalbiomass folks in the Forest Service. Andnow the Department of Energy hasentered the picture. These areall positive developments. Iexpect we’ll make a decisionwithin two or three months.”

Currently, Forest Energymanufactures about 30,000tons of pellets annually forsale in residential wood stovemarkets in Arizona, NewMexico, Colorado, Utah,Nevada and southernCalifornia. They also makeand market cat litter,animal bedding, fuel logsand absorbents that soak upoil spills.

Mr. Davis understands thepolitics that are drivingrestoration forestry as well asanyone can. And he hascrafted a marketing strategythat takes full advantages ofits many nuances: the fear oflarge scale wood manu-facturing infrastructure, the desire tohelp small businesses prosper, globalwarming worries, a fossil fuel dread andthe quest to blend sustainable forestrywith sustainable communitydevelopment.

“Heat your homes, your hospitals,your offices, your schools and yourcommunities with a refined fuel thatcomes from your land,” he urgedattendees at the recent National IndianTimber Symposium.

If Mr. Davis’ words sound like a call toarms it is by design. Unlike moistureheavy green wood chips, which yieldabout 85,000 Btu’s per cubic foot, bone-dry wood pellets generate a whopping350,000 Btu’s per foot. And the wholesaleprice of pellets hasn’t varied more thanten percent in ten years. Such price andperformance benefits would seem to beworth considering perennially chaoticenergy markets.

“The stars have lined up,” he explains.“We have unhealthy forests, air pollu-tion from forest fires, global warmingconcerns, rural economies in ruin andan unsustainable lifestyle. We can

positively impact all these negatives, andcontrol our forest and energy destinies,by simply substituting wood wasteheating for fossil fuels.”

In the hope of capitalizing on what hebelieves to be a bright future for biomassenergy products, Mr. Davis has begun aquiet search for private capital needed todevelop commercial markets and buildcogeneration facilities and additionalpellet plants as markets develop—one atAlamogordo, New Mexico, another at

Trinidad, Colorado and a third in westernColorado. He’s also mulling constructionof a pellet plant in nearby forests thatwould provide fuel to co-fire wood pelletswith coal at Arizona Public Service’s coal-fired power plant at Joseph City.“The future potential is huge,” he says.“We hope to be a part of it.”

So does Alpine, Arizona logger JerroldReidhead. But Mr. Reidhead is in thethroes of an odd dilemma. He is therecipient of a $75,000 Four Corners grantmade to help him buy a used $165,000mechanized logging system ideally suitedto efficiently thinning dense forests. Thetrouble is he has no work for themachines, so he’s not sure if he shouldclaim the grant. He thinks he might, buthe’s having trouble reading the ForestService’s tea leaves.

“There’s a 5,000-acre urban interfacethinning coming up for bid here in Alpinelate this fall,” he says, “but I don’t know ifthere’s enough money in the project topay the difference between the grant andthe cost of the machine. The rest of ourforest is shut down so I have to make mydecision on the basis of what I think I

might make from this one project.”Mr. Reidhead, a third generation

logger, has until December 2003 toassess the future for a harvestingmachine that costs as much as aMercedes sedan and might only bedriven once. Meanwhile, he’s makingends meet hauling sand and gravel forbuilding contractors who are making asmall fortune building vacation homesfor affluent customers who findnorthern Arizona’s forested environs

irresistible.But in trademark

logger fashion, Mr. Reidheadrefuses to give up hope. Andaround Alpine hope has aname and his name is SteveHall. The earlier profiled Mr.Hall is a shirttail relative ofMr. Reidhead. Assuming hisbiomass power plant andenergy park at Egar aresuccesses, there will beplenty of work for Mr.Reidhead. So to be surehe has left no stoneunturned in his quest tokeep his culture alive, hehas applied for yetanother governmentgrant—this one to helphim buy a portablechipper he will pair withhis yet to be purchasedmechanical harvester: one

machine to quickly dispatch dyingtrees and the second to give themnew life in chip form.

“It is what I know how to do,” hesays. “We used to log six million boardfeet a year. Now we log less than onemillion. We are all hoping next year willbe better.”

Allen Ribelin used to hope for betterdays too. But now he thinks it might bea waste of time. He can afford the luxury.The Ribelin’s, one of Arizona’s mostsuccessful logging family, will be justfine no matter what the future holds forrestoration forestry. Make no mistake,Mr. Ribelin and his brother Kenny wouldlike to continue logging, but it isn’t theend of the world if they don’t. In fact,they’re doing just fine clearing land forgolf courses and roadside rights of wayfor the Arizona highway department. Sowhy on earth are the brothers and theirfather even considering a severalmillion-dollar investment in a high-speed sawmill in Flagstaff? “Because we see a market for one ifthe Forest Service ever gets its acttogether,” declares the plainspoken Mr.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Logger Jerrold Reidhead is dwarfed by a sea of trees that he thinned fromForest Service land near Alpine, Arizona, where he lives. Mr. Reidheadqualified for a $75,000 matching federal grant to purchase a usedmechanical harvester he needs, but faced with so many politicaluncertainties he isn’t sure he’ll take the money.


Ribelin. “But we’re not going to do itwithout some assurance that ourinvestment is protected.” Just how the Forest Service might offersuch an assurance isn’t clear, but the elderMr. Ribelin has an idea whose time mayhave come. “If the federal government can’tguarantee a set log supply for investorswho are trying to help them then theyought to guarantee the investment,” hesays. “If I invest in a small log sawmilland a lawsuit is filed to stopthe project the governmenthands me a check for the fullamount the next day. ‘Here’syour money Mr. Logger.Thanks for trying to help yourcountry. Sorry for theinconvenience’.”

George Ribelin is not yourrun of the mill logger. He is amaverick who, some yearsback, told the Forest Serviceit was headed for politicaltrouble if it took too many bigtrees from northern Arizonaforests.

“I opposed the heaviercuts and I said so publicly,”he recalls. “It was not apopular thing to say at thetime but I still believe I wasright. I liked the old pickand pluck method we usedyears ago. You took oldtrees that were dying and other treesthat were defective and you left the bestquality trees as a seed source for thefuture.”

The Ribelin family’s fingerprints are allover northern Arizona’s forests, but you’dbe hard pressed to see them. Over theyears their company, High DesertInvestments, has logged most of bothsides of the highway between Flagstaffand the Grand Canyon, a distance ofsome 70 miles.

“You can do a lot when you arecareful,” Mr. Ribelin says. “Trees growmuch faster here than most folksbelieve. Don’t forget, the pulp mill atSnow Flake ran day and night for 40years and never made a dent in ourstand density problem.”

Like many others, including Mr.Davis, Mr. Ribelin believes biomassdevelopment is essential to any seriouseffort to reduce stand density in theSouthwest.

“We have to thin and we can’t leavethe limbs and tops in the woods to fuelnew forest fires,” he explains. “The bestsolution is to haul as much as the market

will bear to a pulp mill or to biomassgenerators.”

The near-total lack of woodmanufacturing infrastructure in theSouthwest is undermining the alreadyslim profit margin that thinning smalldiameter trees yields. High Desertrecently completed an interface thinningin the Flagstaff area—and ended uptrucking the larger logs 460 miles toTerra Bella, California. No wonder thefamily is pondering the merits of a high-

speed small-log sawmill.“You could run a high-speed sawmill

here forever on 16-inch diameter trees,”says Allen Ribelin. “Or you could getstuck with $8.5 million in useless iron ifthe ‘Zero Cut’ radicals have their way.”

Lawrence Crane would have loved tobuy the Ribelin’s logs, but lousy pinemarkets and distance—440 miles oneway—make such a long haul aneconomic impossibility. Mr. Crane isresource forester for Rio Grande ForestProducts at Espanola, 25 miles north ofSanta Fe, New Mexico.

“I look at every sale within a 200-mile radius of the mill, but realisticallyyou can’t afford to haul logs much morethan a hundred miles and expect tomake any money. Flagstaff might aswell be on the moon.”

Rio Grande is the state’s largestsawmill. It employs about 100 workersand cuts some 48 million board feet ofdimension lumber annually. Mr. Cranebuys most of the mill’s logs from privateand tribal timberlands, though he doestry to buy Forest Service thinning saleswhenever he can. But many of them are

of such poor quality they have little value.“You end up running the logs throughthe mill just to stay open,” he says.

Mr. Crane expects 2002 will be adifficult year for Rio Grande. Thecompany’s log inventory is low and hedoes not see many new sales on thehorizon.

“The Santa Fe National Forestexpects to offer some salvage contractson the Viveash but the trees have beenstanding dead for two years. I doubt

there’s much left.”The speed and ferocity

of the July 2000 Viveash Fireastonished fire fighters andfire behavior experts. On awindless day it consumed28,000 acres of mixed-conifer, pine and aspen in amatter of hours. Subsequentflooding in one ravinescoured a stream channel tobedrock. Across many south-facing slopes organic topsoilwas vaporized by intenseheat, leaving nothing butsterile mineral soil. Mr.Crane just shakes his head. “The private timber thatburned here was quicklysalvaged, but we’re stillwaiting to see what theForest Service might do—if anything,” he says.Salvaging fire-killed timber

from national forests is controversial.Invariably, environmentalists immedi-ately appeal most such proposals, furtherdelaying federal planning and consult-ation processes that often require theapproval of several different agencies—a difficult task under the best of circum-stances given the fact that these agenciesoften have conflicting mandates. Oncecourt arguments is added to the timeframe, salvage work is rarely completedbefore insects or decay render the wooduseless. “I understand the public’s desire toprotect its forests, but that isn’t what’shappening out here,” Mr. Crane says.“Why, for example, are we leaving oldtrees that are dying and removing youngtrees that are healthy? We should beharvesting unhealthy trees withoutregard to their age or diameter andretaining healthy trees as a seed source.It doesn’t make sense to make cut-no cutdecisions solely on the basis of treediameter.”

Ed Collins understands Mr. Crane’sdispleasure, but isn’t quite sure what todo about it. Mr. Collins, who is the

Three generations of Walker’s posed for this picture near Show Low,Arizona where they were completing a thinning job for the Forest Service.The family made a name for itself logging for Ted Turner on his NewMexico ranch. Even so, Dwayne Walker [center] thinks the future is brighterin pipeline construction than logging.

Jim

Pet

erse

n

40 EVERGREEN

district ranger on the Apache-SitgreavesLakeside District, has been involved inone of northern Arizona’s more notableforest restoration projects—the BlueRidge Demonstration Project—since itsformation in 1997. The project, whichspans 17,000 acres just east of Lakesideand Pine Top, is notable for two reasons:it has not been appealed by environ-mentalists and it has not sold a singlestick of timber despite the fact that theproject’s three timber sales were twiceoffered for sale.

“There simply aren’t anyviable commercial marketsfor trees this small,” Mr.Collins admits. “Now we’repaying loggers to do thework.”

He is neverthelessexcited about Blue Ridge’sfuture prospects.

“We came together in1997 to find ways to movethe natural resourcemanagement dialoguebeyond the courtroom,” heexplains. “We have beensuccessful in that regard.Now we need to moveforward.”

Richard Remingtonagrees. Mr. Remington isRegion 1 supervisor for theArizona Game and Fish De-partment and was, togetherwith Mr. Collins, one of the drivingforces behind formation of the BlueRidge project.

“We all felt trapped,” he says of theimpetus for early meetings between thevarious state and federal agencies nowinvolved at Blue Ridge. “We began toask one another what we could do tostay out of court—and it dawned on usthat catastrophic fire was the catalystwe needed to bring folks together oncommon ground.”

Throughout the 17,000-acre BlueRidge Demonstration area that is anoverabundance of pole-sized trees (five to12 inches in diameter), a shortage of treesin every other diameter class and, thus, ashortage of the various forest structuresused by both goshawks and owls.

Blue Ridge’s partners—local, stateand federal agencies, environ-mentalists, ranchers, academics andbusiness leaders—agreed to test threedifferent restoration treatments: onereplicating the Apache-Sitgreaves forestplan with Mexican spotted owl andnorthern goshawk guidelines added; asecond that is a watered down version of

Dr. Wally Covington’s forest restorationmodel and a third laid out by environ-mental groups.

By monitoring the three differenttreatments, scientists hope todetermine which treatment yields thebest growth response in residual trees.Preliminary results suggest the mostaggressive thinnings yield the greatestincrease in tree growth while trees inthe least aggressive treatment areas arecontinuing to decline.

“It is a reality that will take sometime to settle in,” Mr. Collins says. “Ifwe are serious about restoration, abouthabitat, about protecting and creatingolder forests we are going to have tomake some hard choices very soon.”

Mr. Remington agrees.“In some quarters we’re still dealing

with a ‘let nature take its course’mindset, but the demonstrationprojects are helping to built trust andunderstanding both internally andexternally.” he says. “But the scale atwhich we are currently working isinsignificant compared to the size ofthe problem.”

But as much as Mr. Remingtonwould like to do more, especially forwildlife, he’s fearful that the public willhave little stomach for the degree ofthinning that will be necessary toachieve the much sought after pre-settlement model.

“Frankly, it worries some folks inmy own office,” he says. “Everyoneunderstands the need to create morestructural diversity in forests as a firststep in the process of creating more

biological and species diversity, butthere is a deeply felt desire to moveslowly so that we don’t make anymistakes. “That’s fine, but we’ve madea great deal of progress in speciesrecovery in Arizona in recent years and Idon’t want to see all of our gains sweptaway by catastrophic wildfire.”

The Blue Ridge area, which adjoinsLakeside and neighboring Pine Top, isnorthern Arizona’s most popularforest hideaway.

A stand-replacing wildfirehere would destroy muchmore than wildlife habitat.Thousands of summerhomes would also be lost,perhaps the entire two-community enclave.(Thanks to previous fuelsmanagement and harvestingactivity, the Rodeo-ChediskiFire was stopped at the edgeof Show Low, which isadjacent to Lakeside.) “I am scared to death,”admits John Bedell, Apache-Sitgreaves supervisor.“Stand density on this forestis many times what it was acentury ago. We could easilylose lives and towns. Somehow the gravity ofour situation has got to getconveyed to the public in away they will understand.”

Mr. Bedell has spent 37 of his 38Forest Service years in the Southwestand knows the region’s forests as wellas anyone. And he is plainly very con-cerned that the fire season everyone hasfeared for years has finally arrived. Buthe also worries about the ForestService’s inability to embrace forestrestoration on a meaningful scale. “Some of us understand the foresthealth problem and feel a great senseof urgency,” Mr. Bedell says. “But thereis so much public suspicion swirlingaround restoration forestry that I’m nolonger certain the Forest Service canovercome it. We’re doing a decent job atthe local level, but how do you unravelsuch a complex story with so manynational implications in a media worlddominated by six-second sound bites?”

Not easily. But Mr. Bedell long agoembraced the problem the only way heknew how. He assembled a planningstaff capable of producing timber saleplans that could survive court appeals.

“I decided that if we acquired thenecessary skill sets we could preparethinning sales that passed muster with

Loggers Raymond Cordova and his father, Louis, near Cuba, New Mexico.The elder Cordova, who has been working in the woods for nearly 40years, is dismayed over the fact that young healthy trees are being thinnedwhile old dying trees are not because of politically imposed limits on thesize of trees that can be harvested.

Jim

Pet

erse

n


judges,” he says. “We did it and theresult is that we have 100,000 acresready for thinning.”

But because of other regulatoryconstraints, forest management activityon the Apache-Sitgreaves is generallylimited to about 30,000 acres annually,less than five percent of the 772,000acres labeled suitable for management.

“It isn’t much compared to the sizeof the forest,” Mr. Bedell concedes. “Butit is enough acreage to support aperpetual thinning programthat would in turn supportseveral small woodprocessing businesses.”

My, how times havechanged. When Mr. Bedellwas named Apache-Sitgreaves supervisor 12years ago, there were sevensawmills vying for the 75 to80 million board feet oftimber the forest offered forsale every year. Now thereare no sawmills.

“But we still have a jobto do,” he says. “We have tocreate markets for the smalldiameter trees that need tocome off this forest.”

But Mr. Bedell does notthink the larger morecapital-intensive forestproducts companies willever return to the region.

“We can’t promise them what theywant most which is a guaranteed annualvolume or a long term contract,” hesays. “So I don’t think you will see apulp mill or an OSB plant here. But youwill see lots of smaller less capital-intensive business that can roll with thepunches, businesses with ten to 25employees that dominate small market,small diameter niches.”

And to retain experienced loggers ina business that is by nature capitalintensive Mr. Bedell expects the federalgovernment is going to have to do whatit has never done before. It is going tohave to bankroll equipment with grantsand pay loggers to do the necessarythinning work.

“I don’t see how else it can work,” hesays. “We’re not in the timber businessanymore. We can’t expect loggers to goin hock for half-million dollar machinesthen ask them to park the machines intheir front yards while appeals areresolved. No, this is a national forestproblem and the national forests—meaning the nation’s taxpayers—aregoing to have to pay the bill.”

Everything changes 25 miles southof the Lakeside Ranger Station. Here, atFort Apache, on the White MountainApache Reservation, the tribe operatesthe Southwest’s largest sawmill and theonly large mill in Arizona.

But unlike Rio Grande ForestProducts, New Mexico’s largest sawmill,the Fort Apache Timber Company doesnot buy federal timber. It gets all thewood it needs from the tribe’s 800,000-acre forest; considered by many to be

one of the best managed tribal forests inthe United States.

You will see two things on WhiteMountain land that you will not see inany Southwest national forest today: acommercial timber harvesting programand a thinning program that is notdriven by diameter limits.

“We are working to create a morenatural appearing forest and greaterstructural diversity,” says tribal foresterJim Pitts. “Rather than thin from belowas the Forest Service does, we thin inevery age class. Stands are thinned at10-20 year intervals, depending on site-specific objectives. We retain the bestquality trees as a seed source. The resultwill be a multi-aged stand capable ofhosting greater biological and speciesdiversity.” Timber landowning tribes holdseveral advantages over the U.S. ForestService where their managementdecisions are concerned. First, theirdecisions are not subject to adminis-trative appeal. Second, while tribalforestry actions must be consistent withthe federal Endangered Species Act—

and other federal environmental laws aswell—they are not burdened by theadditional layers of costly process andanalysis the U.S. Department ofAgriculture has heaped on the ForestService over the years. Moreover, tribalforest management decisions cannot beoverturned by other federal agencies—as is the case in the Forest Service’soften stormy relationships with the U.S.Fish & Wildlife Service and the NationalMarine Fisheries Service. Finally,

tribes don’t face thedaunting task of having todevise managementprograms that please anentire nation—a nationthat has grown increas-ingly queasy about loggingin national forests. Tribesneed only please tribalmembers, no one else. Andat White Mountain supportfor sustainable commer-cial timber management isrock solid. “We do enjoy strongsupport from tribemembers,” says TribalForester Paul DeClay Jr. “Ithas allowed us to move wellbeyond small demonstrationprojects.”

Because White Mountainforestry decisions are notsubject to federal adminis-

trative appeal environmental groupshave not been able to stop the tribefrom harvesting timber on their land.In fact, environmentalists can’t evengain access to tribal timberland withoutpermission.

“They’ve tried,” Mr. DeClay says.“Our unwillingness to give them accessupsets them quite a bit, but these areour lands, not theirs.”

When the Mexican spotted owl waslisted as a threatened species—adecision many still question—triballeaders quickly demonstrated theirpolitical skills by signing a memoran-dum of understanding with thenInterior Secretary Bruce Babbitt,setting aside reserve areas that do notimpede the tribe’s overall managementprogram.

“We don’t accept the idea that ifyou manage for species you can’t alsomanage for timber,” Mr. DeClayexplains. “It’s true you can’t have everyforest value on every acre all of thetime, but you can do what we do,which is to manage our forests inperpetuity for productivity, products,

Forest Service district ranger Ed Collins stands beside a biomass pile onthe 17,000-acre Blue Ridge Demonstration Project near Lakeside,Arizona. “There simply aren’t any viable commercial markets for trees thissmall,” he says of the highly praised thinning project. “So we are payingloggers to do the work.”

Jim

Pet

erse

n

42 EVERGREEN

habitat and cultural resources.”The tribe currently harvests about

50 million board feet annually, wellbelow the 110 million board footharvest of a few years ago, but enoughto supply Fort Apache TimberCompany with all of the fiber it needs.The mill, which was built in 1963, cutsdimension lumber and employs about330 tribal members. A few years agothe tribe added a remanufacturingfacility. It makes several high valueproducts for the door andwindow industries plustongue and groove log-cabin siding, house logsand a variety of poles andtimbers used in land-scaping. And just recently,a portable bark peelingoperation was added toutilize small diametertrees harvested from fuelsmanagement zones thatborder tribal communities.

But unlike most westernsawmills, Fort Apache doesnot have a co-generatingplant for disposing of itswood waste. Instead, it railsits best chips all the way toLongview, Washington.Lesser grades heat themill’s lumber driers or aresold to Forest EnergyCorporation at Show Low. Stillmore decaying sawdust is sold toWestern Organics, a wood wastemarketer with operations in sixwestern cities. But the accumulatingpile of sawdust behind the mill atteststo a huge untapped potential the tribehas yet to consider: the biomass powerbusiness.

“We enjoy the best of all possibleworlds,” says Fort Apache controllerMike Humphrey. “Great location, greatpine, great customers and just abouteveryone else has been run out ofbusiness. What more could you ask for?”

The end to an already very costlyfire season would certainly be worthasking for. The tribe lost about 25percent of its timberland in thedisastrous Rodeo-Chediski Fire, whichstarted on reservation land. Tribalforesters are currently consideringseveral salvage logging options, and itappears that it will take about twoyears for the mill to process all of thetribe’s burned timber.

Meanwhile, forest closure firerestrictions have forced tribal leadersto temporarily shut down the mill—a

misfortune that is costing $10,000 aday according to general manager MaryClassay, who also estimates the mill hasalready lost at least $52 million in salesof its highly prized ponderosa pinelumber. And now the mill’s 400 workersare unemployed—an especially devas-tating hardship on a reservation thatalready has 60 percent unemployment.

As the crow flies, it is 130 milesfrom Fort Apache to Phoenix, 170 toEgar, 140 to Show Low and 120 to

Flagstaff. But the cultural distancefrom Arizona’s largest city to itsforested outposts might as well bemeasured in light years. No one ismore painfully aware of this fact thanArizona Deputy State Forester KirkRowdabaugh.

“Most people living in themetropolitan area don’t have a cluewhat is happening in northernArizona,” he says. “The forestry storyisn’t on their radar screen and firesonly make news when they areburning. Television stations get prettyexcited about ecological consequenceswhen fires explode but when the smokeclears they’re gone.”

Mr. Rowdabaugh, who is a foresterby training, spends most of his timeputting out forest fires and worryingabout where the next one will occur. “We’re trying to save lives and keephomes from burning to the ground,”he says of the state’s primary mission.“If the butterflies come back laterthat’s nice, but it isn’t our mission.”

Though he is mainly engaged infighting and preventing forest fires,

Mr. Rowdabaugh is well aware of whatneeds to happen to reduce the risk of whathe believes to be inevitable calamity. “We are at a crossroads and indesperate need of a long-term thinningprogram,” he explains. “In another tenyears it won’t matter. We’ll lose it all.Too many Arizonans don’t seem tounderstand that when it’s gone it’sgone for 300 to 400 years. As thingsnow stand, we aren’t even able to keepup with growth much less reduce tree

density to a point whereforests can recover.” Both Mr. Rowdabaughand the Arizona StateLands Department areheavily involved in effortsto create and recruit newbusinesses that can utilizesmall diameter treesharvested from forests inArizona. Among theinitiatives the state issupporting: EECO(including a grant insupport of this report), theFour Corners SustainableForest Partnership and theGreater Flagstaff ForestPartnership, for whom Mr.Rowdabaugh is trying tofind state land the Partner-ship can use to merchan-dize logs for highest value.

Despite clear progresson several fronts, he’d worried aboutthe fact that major companies seemdisinterested in restoration forestryand its marketing possibilities.

“The companies with deep pockets,technological know how and access toglobal markets haven’t resurfaced yet,”he observes. “I know that trust is a bigissue and I don’t know what more wecan realistically do to reassure them,but we could surely put their expertiseto work down here. And I do believethere is a future here for those who arewilling to step up to the plate.”

Marty Moore agrees.“Forests and rural communities are

a natural match,” EECO’s very deter-mined executive director declares. “Wesee all sorts of opportunities for theformation of successful partnershipsinvolving businesses engaged in smallwood utilization.”

Brian Cottam also agrees.Mr. Cottam, who heads the non-

profit Greater Flagstaff ForestsPartnership, sees opportunity almosteverywhere he looks, but he readilyconcedes he has had great difficulty

Jim

Pet

erse

n

This thinning project on White Mountain Apache timberland near Honda,Arizona stands in sharp contrast to nearby Forest Service thinnings.Because radical environmentalists cannot appeal or litigate tribal timbermanagement programs, tribal foresters can thin trees of all ages, creatingmore diverse forests.


finding suitable markets for wood fiberthe partnership is harvesting fromseveral demonstration tracts in theFort Valley area just west of Flagstaff.

“We need viable small businessescapable of turning small diametertrees into marketable products,” hesays of the environmental group’squest to restore area national forests.“Restoration isn’t going anywherewithout markets and infrastructure.”

Mr. Cottam is right. But there isconsiderable rancor overthe size of businesses thatare needed. Most environ-mentalists who supportrestoration favor smallventures and fear thatmore sizeable operationswill lead the Southwestback down the road towardincreasing dependence onan ever-increasing federalharvest.

But while Mr. Cottamalso favors a suite ofsmaller businesses capableof filling multiple nichemarkets he clearlyrecognizes the need for alarger complex capable ofprocessing significantquantities of low qualityfiber. “Our members wouldbe very uncomfortablewith something as large as anoriented strand board plant oranything else on that scale,” he says.“But it is a good sign that most alsoagree that restoration forestry needsto be addressed on a much largerscale that it has been thus far.”

Mr. Cottam reports biomass-to-energy projects are particularlypopular with his members becausethey offer hope for mitigating smoke-filled skies and associated cardiac andrespiratory problems. So too are mid-sized businesses that make molding,windows, doors and other value-added products from small diametertrees.

“We need to start building newmilling capacity on a scale that willallow us to meaningfully address bothour forest problem and our forestfuture,” he declares. “Creatingfirebreaks around communities andcalling it ‘forest restoration’ isn’tgoing to get the job done. I am onrecord in support of someonebuilding a high-speed sawmill in ourarea. It’s time to get moving!”

But many in Congress apparentlysee no urgency. Despite strongsupport from New Mexico Sen. PeteDomenici and Arizona Sen. John Kyl,provisions for including 75 foreststewardship projects and a biomassgrant program in the $190 billionFarm Bill were dropped at the lastminute. The failure of House-Senateconferees to reach consensusprompted House Forestry Sub-committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte

(R-VA) to angrily criticize SenatorsTom Daschle (D-SD) and Tom Harkin(D-IA) for caving in to extremistenvironmental groups who opposedthe pilot programs. “Today, Senate Democrat Farm BillConferees put at risk millions ofpeople who are facing the threat ofcatastrophic wildfire,” Rep. Goodlattesaid in a prepared press release.“Instead of reaching out to thecommunities at risk, the SenateDemocrats reached out to extremeenvironmental groups who areopposed to cutting trees at any cost,even if that cost is human life.”

But both Messrs. Daschle andHarkin drew strong praise fromAmerican Lands, an environmentalcoalition that opposes forestrestoration on federal lands. In amemo to other activists who lobbiedagainst the Farm Bill’s stewardshipcontacting provisions, the group’scampaign coordinator, Steve Holmer,wrote “my deepest gratitude for all ofyour out-standing work to stop thisdangerous legislation.”

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Dr. Marty Moore,left, Executive Director, Environmental EconomicsCommunities Organization (EECO), with Apache-Sitgreaves NationalForest Supervisor, John Bedell, on a wood tour near Lakeside, Arizona. Asbad as the 2002 fire season has been, Mr. Bedell believes the worst is yetto come in the Southwest.

“It’s all politics,” declares ChrisWest, vice president of the AmericanForest Resource Council, anindustry coalition that lobbied hardfor the provisions. “Radical environ-mentalists and their friends in theU.S. Senate don’t like stewardshipcontacting because it is a very costeffective tool for getting forestrestoration and fuels managementwork done. They know they’ve lostthe ‘Zero Cut’ battle publicly so now

they’re working behindthe scenes to scuttle us.” “It is a major setbackfor us,” concedes EECO’sDr. Moore. “However,forest restoration willonly be history after weare all dead and buried,not before.” The defeat wouldseem to be a majorsetback for the BushAdministration too. OnMay 23 it signed anagreement with theWestern Governor’sAssociation endorsingthe association’s ten-yearplan for reducing therisk of catastrophic firein western nationalforests and, con-currently, developingnew uses for small

diameter wood fiber. But minusproject monies that were removedfrom the Farm Bill, many initiativesare now in limbo. If anything, the entire incidenthas only hardened the resolve of theassociation’s incoming chairman,Montana Governor Judy Martz. “It’s political terrorism—and wehave no intention of giving in,” shesaid in a June Evergreen interview.“Many in Congress don’t yet under-stand the grave danger wildfirespose in the rural West. The westerngovernors do. Someone recentlyreminded me that our federalgovernment rightfully spendsmillions protecting historicbuildings and documents. Wewouldn’t dream of squabbling whilethe Lincoln Monument crumbled.So why are we fighting amongourselves while our treasurednational forests burn to the ground?These forests do not belong to apolitical party or a special interestgroup. They belong to all of us—andthey are crumbling.”

44 EVERGREEN

“The choice we have is clear. We can treat the forestswith environmentally sound applications, such asforest thinning, or risk losing forest ecosystems andcritical habitat for centuries. As long as we allow fuelsto gather on our forest floor these outbreaks are

inevitable. Yet our federal government devotes nearly75 cents of every dollar to containing fires once theybreak out, rather than investing in treatmentprograms that we know will deter such dangerousoutbreaks before they ignite.”

Closing Thoughts: Society’s Felt Necessities

U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona, from “Spurious Lawsuits Stifle Sensible Management of National Forests,” a June 24 Arizona Tribune editorial byKaren Wittmer, publisher

Jim

Pet

erse

n

Montana Gov. Judy Martz, chair of the Western Governor’s Association, saysnational forests are public assets—and don’t belong to special interest groups

The skies havecleared over northernArizona and New Mexico,marking the end of theworst Southwest forest fireseason in anyone’smemory.

This year, the first bigdance began at Show Low,a lovely resort communityin northern Arizona’s bigpine country. On June 23,the Rodeo and Chediskifires blew together west ofShow Low, creating a 50-mile-wide wall of flamethat eventually destroyed468,000 acres of forest andrangeland and 423 homes.Thankfully, firefighterswere able to save the townwhen the fire slowed afterit entered an area that hadbeen previously thinned.

At this writing (August 11),southwest Oregon is on fire andColorado is still burning, just as it wasin May. Idaho, Montana and Wyominghave dodged the big bullets this year,though September is often the worstforest fire month in these states.

Next year the big dance will besomewhere else. No one can say forsure where, but with some 73 millionnational forest acres at risk no greatskill is required to pinpoint thelocation. A dartboard in the outline ofthe 11 western states will do just fine.

The Rodeo-Chediski Fire addedsubstantially to an already sizeable bodypolitic demanding federal interventionin at-risk national forests. But publicoutrage in the aftermath of big forestfires is fleeting. Here today. Gonetomorrow. Come spring, black turns togreen, television news crews flock tothe scene and the public swoons over

the seeming miracle. Life is good again.And the time bomb ticks on.

But this post-fire outrage differsfrom past cries in one very importantaspect: radical environmentalists havenot been successful in explaining awaythe damage done or the reasons why.The “It’s natural” argument no longerflies. Neither does the “Blame it onlogging” assertion. Like the little boywho cried “Wolf!” once too often,radical environmentalists have run outof good stories. And the public has runout of patience.

Society’s felt necessities—those at-first gentle urgings that eventuallybecome overwhelming publicmandates—are also changing. Our onceutilitarian view of forests has beenreplaced by a near reverence for all ofnature’s wonders. As a society, we quitelikely feel closer to nature than we everhave before. No wonder we don’t wantour forests to burn to the ground if we

can prevent it. And weclearly can.

This new feltnecessity—a by-Godcertainty that caring for theWest’s desperately illnational forests beatsstanding by helplessly whilethey burn to the ground—has been a long timecoming. Our ownexperience dates back 15years to the 1987 SilverFire—a southwest Oregonmonstrosity that destroyedmore than 200,000 acres ofold growth pine and fir.Long before the smoke hadcleared Oregon environ-mentalists declared, “Notone black stick would beharvested because [in theirwords] harvesting fire-killed timber is like

mugging a burn victim.”Over the last 15 years the public has

had ample time to autopsy the remainsof some pretty big forest fires. And therehas been plenty of time to considerarguments for and against thinning inforests that have become so dense anddecadent they are firetraps. In at leastthree recent surveys of registered voterswesterners have signaled a strongpreference for thinning before mur-derous wildfires kill everything in sight.

Given growing public anger over theterrible damage wildfires are doing—and a rising fear about where the nextfire might occur and what damage itmight do to any of an estimated 6,000 atrisk communities—we weren’t surprisedto see so many elected officials line upto criticize radical environmentalists forappealing and litigating restoration andfuels projects designed to help reducethe risk of catastrophic wildfire. U.S.Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona, no doubt spoke


for many in a July 10 opinion piece hewrote for the Arizona Republic(“Sensible Environmentalism Has aPlace in Managing Forests”).

“[How] do we explain a case filed bythe Center for Biological Diversity in2000 that sought to stop forestrestoration and fuel reduction efforts atthe Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest,which was the site of a wildfire whichrecently incinerated 465,000 acres ofthat forest,” he wrote. “Ground crewsestimate that as much as 90 percent ofthe trees that were to be treated underthe plan are now destroyed by theRodeo-Chediski Fire. Or what aboutthree separate appeals filed by theSierra Club, the Southwest ForestAlliance, Forest Guardians and othergroups to stop a restoration project atFort Valley in the Coconino NationalForest that enjoyed widespread publicinvolvement and comment and wasendorsed by the Grant Canyon Trust?”

The Senator’s comments—andearlier criticism from Arizona GovernorJane Dee Hull—prompted angry denialsfrom several environmental groups.Among them: the Sierra Club, theWilderness Society and the Center forBiological Diversity. “It would havebeen good if the governor had gottenher facts straight before spouting off,”sniffed the Sierra Club’s Sandy Bahr,citing a GAO report that less than onepercent of hazardous fuels reductionprojects had been appealed.

But as it turns out, Governor Hulldid have her facts straight. In asubsequent interview the report’sauthor, Barry T. Hill, GAO Director ofNatural Resources and the Environ-ment, said, “The numbers are beingmisrepresented.”

Mr. Hill told Holly Fretwell, aresearcher with PERC: The Center ForFree Market Environmentalism that theGAO report did not consider projectsthat had already been through theenvironmental assessment and appealsprocesses. Suffice it to say, hisclarification jibes with a new ForestService report that 155 of 326 proposedhazardous fuels reduction projects wereappealed in fiscal 2001 and 2002. That’s48 percent of all proposed projects, notless than one percent as originallyreported by GAO.

Twice this summer the Wall StreetJournal has weighed in with incisiveeditorial comments concerning boththe underlying causes of the West’sincreasingly ferocious wildfires and therole radical environmentalists haveplayed in thwarting science-basedefforts to reduce the risk of catastrophicwildfire.

“If there’s been any benefit to theseawful fires, it’s the education they’reproviding to suburban voters,” theJournal wrote in a July 2 editorial.[“Greens Go Up In Smoke”]. “Theiranger is spilling over into this year’selection campaigns, and is causing thegreens to deny their own handiwork. AsColorado Governor Bill Owens told usrecently regarding the need for moreforest management: ‘The debate islargely over’.”

Of course, the West’s wildfires teachmany lessons. Among them: nature’sindifference to human need. Also, theunintended environmental conse-quences of the public’s still widelysupported policy of excluding wildfirefrom forests. Despite the ecological

benefits of fire, most Americans see bigwildfires as serious threats to thenation’s economic and environmentalfuture. Moreover, fire ecologists haverepeatedly warned that there is nothingnatural about the wildfires that areroaming the West’s forests today. Worse,there is ample evidence that our mostat-risk forests also provide criticalhabitat for many threatened species:grizzly bears, spotted owls, goshawks,salmon and bull trout. What possiblebenefit could there be in letting firesdestroy these forests—as some environ-mentalists continue to insist we do?

With their increasing frequency andferocity these wildfires have exposedprofound philosophical change withinmany marquee environmental groups.Not so many years ago the Sierra Club,the Wilderness Society, the NationalWildlife Federation and the AudubonSociety were among the most respectedconservation groups in the country. Notanymore. Today, it’s hard to figure outwhat these groups stand for, but itcertainly isn’t conservation. How toexplain groups that claim to love forestsand wildlife but find nothing wrongwith firestorms that incinerate bothanimals and their hiding places?

Fortunately new environmentalgroups that aren’t the least bitinterested in defending the indefensibleare stepping in with well-reasonedscience-based solutions. Among them:the Greater Flagstaff ForestsPartnership and the EnvironmentalEconomics Communities Organization.Having conquered the moral high


46 EVERGREEN

ground, both groups are hard at workon strategies for marketing smalldiameter trees and biomass residues theForest Service and the public would liketo see removed from national forestsbefore inevitable wildfires strike.

From this vantage point—and beforethis god-awful fire season is gone andforgotten—we’d like to restate somepoints we’ve made on these pages inpast issues.

First, limiting the diameter of treesthat can be harvested from theSouthwest’s forests is a prescription fordisaster. Trees of every age should beharvested, especially if they arediseased. It makes no sense to removeyoung healthy trees but leave old dyingtrees just because they have reached acertain diameter.

Consider for a moment thesurvivability of a community composedonly of old people. Without youngpeople, what future is there for thiscommunity? Where will the nextgeneration come from? Who can carryforward this town’s rich history?Without seedlings, saplings, pole-sizedtrees and middle-aged and older stands—the literal and the figurative—forestsand communities cannot sustainthemselves through time.

It’s true that for a time big oldponderosas dominated most forests innorthern Arizona and New Mexico. Butscientists aren’t completely sure whythis was. It may have been the result ofa once-in-eons combination of weatherpatterns and forest growth cycles. Inother words, a natural condition that isnot likely to occur again anytime soon.

Second, hazardous fuels reductionwork—the removal of brush and deadtrees next to homes and communities—is critically important. But is must notbe confused with restoration forestry.Radical environmentalists support fuelsreduction work because they knowopposing it would be ridiculous. Butwith their allegiance to “Zero Cut” theyroutinely appeal large-scale thinningprojects in forests that lie beyondcommunities. By their own admission,they fear a return of the timber industrythey despise. But the old industry islong gone—and unlikely to reappearbecause the federal timber sale programthat was its economic lifeblood is alsolong gone and unlikely to reappear.

Third, community basedcollaborative forestry—the driving forcebehind all of the startup woodprocessing businesses localgovernments are incubating in the

Southwest—needs some help fromCongress. Unless a way can be found tolimit forest appeals to matters ofscientific substance, these businesseswon’t survive. And if they don’t survive—and prosper—forest restoration isitself doomed. The record here is clear.

Look at the lack of progresscollaborative forestry has made inCalifornia, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.Radical environmentalists will continueto argue that these local groups cannotbe trusted to make the right decisionswhere national forests are concerned.But there is no evidence to support thisassertion. There is, however, ampleevidence to support the oppositeconclusion: that radical appellants areundermining the cause of forestrestoration all over the West.

Fourth, cottage industries—vitalthough they are to forest restorationhopes in the Southwest—cannot beginto consume the enormous amount ofwood fiber that must be removed fromthe region’s desperately ill forests overthe next 25 years. But there is yet someundefined level of public resistance torecruiting manufacturing complexeslarge enough to efficiently process andmarket large quantities of low qualitywood fiber. These apparent objectionsneed to be probed and clearly under-stood. Until then, there is little chancethat wary investors or lenders will riskcapital on politically unacceptablemanufacturing ventures. If the publiccould get comfortable with the idea oftwo or three large facilities—say a pulpor paper mill, an oriented strand boardplant or several strategically positionedsawmills of some size—their presencewould spawn many more cottageindustries that could indeed prosper.

The list of products that can be madefrom small diameter trees that have noother apparent commercial value ishuge. Given the West’s energy woes, it’sonly natural that biomass-fired powerplants are getting lots of play in thepress, but energy is but one of perhapshundreds of uses for processed fiber.Composite building materials that blendwood fiber and recycled plastic also holdhuge potential. So, too, do bio-engineered products including woodpreservatives. But the key to profit-ability lies in understanding whatsawmill owners have known for years.Put simply, wood is heavy. You can’tafford to haul it very far and expect tomake any money. This argues in favor ofpositioning new processing plants inoften-remote communities that really

need an economic shot in the arm.Once value is added throughmanufacturing, higher transportationcosts can be justified.

Fifth, the regulatory andadministrative processes that aresupposed to guide the way the U.S.Forest Service makes planning andmanagement decisions is in shambles.Witness the fact that the agency nowspends well over half of its entire annualbudget putting out forest fires anddefending itself in court. At this writing,the agency’s $321.3 million annualfirefighting budget is nearly gone. Weare spending $3.87 million a daybattling fires in the West’s nationalforests. If only we were spending thisamount on a long-term thinning andfuels reduction program.

We will soon be treated to yetanother example of just how flawed theForest Service’s bewildering regulatorymaze has become. The agency wants tosalvage about 75,000 acres of timberkilled by the Rodeo-Chediski Fire. Butradical environmentalists are alreadylining up against the proposal, allegingthat salvage logging would do moreenvironmental harm than good. Troubleis, there is little evidence to support thisclaim. Yes, any salvage effort can gobad, but the vast majority of suchprojects are successfully completed. Therecord here stretches back more than50 years. And post-salvage monitoringprograms put in place in recent yearsconfirm the benefits. Among them:minimal soil erosion, improved waterquality, better insect and disease controland less risk that a re-burn will do evenmore damage. As evidence we cite thefact that one of the areas least impactedby the Rodeo-Chediski Fire was a WhiteMountain Apache forest that had beensalvaged logged after an earlier fire.Before the site was replanted loggingdebris was removed and the area wasburned to eliminate more woody debris.Most of the replanted trees survivedRodeo-Chediski.

The governors of Arizona, NewMexico, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho andUtah put the entire process problem inperspective in a June 24 letter to ForestService Chief Dale Bosworth, a manwho is intimately familiar with theWest’s wildfire crisis.

“Dale, time is of the essence,” theywrote. “Simply put, the process isbroken. We spend too much timelitigating the finer points of process andnot enough time focusing on creating,restoring and maintaining the health of

46 EVERGREEN


our forests. We simply cannot promote the health of ourforests, the health of our wildlife, the health of ourcitizens and the safety of our property by letting ourforests burn to the ground.”

Forest Service chiefs have for years pleaded withCongress to streamline these processes, butenvironmentalists have resisted changes that wouldmake it more difficult for them to litigate managementproposals. A new Forest Service study, “The ProcessPredicament,” explains the problem in heartbreakingdetail, citing numerous examples of proposedrestoration projects that never got off the ground.While lawyers argued over which “I’s” should havebeen dotted and which “T’s” weren’t crossed, forestfires settled the matter once and for all.

Montana Governor Judy Martz, who chairs theWestern Governors’ Association, got it right in alate June interview. Lost amid the court fightsand the doomsday rhetoric is the fact thatnational forests are public assets. As such,they belong to everyone and no one inparticular, just like all of the nation’s publictreasures: the Capitol, the LincolnMonument, the Vietnam Wall, theDeclaration of Independence and manyof our country’s finest museums and artgalleries. We would never allow any ofthese assets to fall into disrepair, muchless burn to the ground. So why arewe allowing a small but very vocalminority to block efforts to thinforests before they burn? Thepublic’s forests do not end infirebreaks cut through the woodsat the edge of town. They extendthousands of miles across theWest. Why are we ceding this vasttreasure to groups that opposeforest restoration?

In has taken six months tocomplete this report. In thattime the Southwest’s nationalforest have continued tometastasize. The footballfield-sized mile-high pileof wood that grows in theregion’s forests every yearnow stretches another halfmile into the sky. Timehas run out. We have buttwo choices: we can sidewith “Zero Cut”advocates and watchour treasured nationalforests burn to theground or we can jointhe “New Pioneers”in their quest torestore our forestsbefore they burn.

- Jim Petersen,Editor, Evergreen

Postscript:On July 25 we learned that South Dakota Sen. Tom

Daschle had managed to exclude thinning and fuelsmanagement work in his state’s Black Hills National Forestfrom appeal and judicial review. The exclusion, tucked awayin a defense supplemental spending bill the House passedthe night before, has raised the ire of western solons whowant the same exemption for national forests in their states.

Arizona Rep. J.D. Hayworth was furious on hearingnews of Mr. Daschle’s clandestine circumvention ofenvironmental laws that have hamstrung national forestmanagers in the Southwest.

“It certainly can only be described as blatant hypocrisyon behalf of the Senate leader to claim on one hand to bethe champion of the environment and then, on the otherhand, cut a special deal for his home state,” he declared.“We’re trying to rebound from the worst fires in our history—hundreds of homes and thousands of lives shattered.Believe me, if we had the option to take advantage of thisfor Arizona, you better believe we would have.”

Sen. Daschle attempted to explain his actions in anAugust 7 Wall Street Journal Letter to The Editor in whichhe said his amendment “implements an agreementnegotiated by local stakeholders, including the timberindustry and environmental groups such as the Sierra Cluband the Wilderness Society.”

But out-of-state groups have successfully appealedmany similar local agreements forged over the last decadein Arizona, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Idaho andMontana. Mr. Daschle’s legislative end run exempts theBlack Hills National Forest from such chicanery—and 15of his Senate colleagues are not happy about it.

“If it can happen in South Dakota, it can happen allover the West,” they declared in a joint August 1 pressrelease.

Among the signers: Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico; JonKyl, R-Arizona; Ron Wyden, D-Oregon; Gordon Smith, R-Oregon; Diane Feinstein, D-California; Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming; Craig Thomas, R-Wyoming; Ben NighthorseCampbell, R-Colorado; Conrad Burns, R-Montana; LarryCraig, R-Idaho; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska; Ted Stevens, R-Alaska; Blanche Lincoln, D-Arkansasand Chris Bond, R-Missouri.

Today, August 22, President Bush was in Medford,Oregon. Amid cheers from a crowd that has been chokingon smoke from the Biscuit fire for more than a month, hereferenced Sen. Daschle’s end-up, saying that what’s goodenough for South Dakota ought to be good for Oregon andthe rest of the West as well.

To build bipartisan support for hid forest healthinitiative, which would both expand the accelerate thethinning process in at-risk forests, the President alsocalled for implementing the Clinton Administration’s 1994Northwest Forest Plan—a never implemented proposalthat enjoyed the enthusiastic support of environmentalgroups that worked on it with Vice President Gore.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Bush’s peace offering sparked acoast-to-coast round of doomsday rhetoric from radicalenvironmentalists. There were even well orchestrated andwell-covered street riots in Portland. At long last, theWest’s national forest crisis has made its way on to a verypublic stage. Let the debate begin; radical environmen-talism on one side and society’s felt necessities on theother.


The Evergreen Foundation is a non-profit forestry research and educationalorganization dedicated to the advance-ment of science-based forestry andforest policy.

We publish Evergreen Magazine, aperiodic journal designed to keepFoundation members and others abreastof issues and events impacting forests,forestry and forest communities. For thebenefit of students engaged in researchand others interested in learning moreabout forests and forestry.

Funding comes from members andother public and private sector non-profitorganizations that share our commit-ment to science-based forestry. Weoperate under Internal Revenue Service501 (c)(3) guidelines governing theconduct of organizations created forcharitable, educational, religious orscientific purposes. Contributions are taxdeductible to the full extent allowed by law.

Contact us:e-mail: [email protected] orTelephone: (406) 837-0966Fax: (406) 837-1385.P.O. Box 1290, Bigfork, Montana 59911

Other Wildfire Links:www.fs.fed.us/fire/fire_new/www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.htmlwww.fs.fed.us/r3/fire/www.fireplan.gov/10yrlPfinal.cfmwww.wildlandfire.com/www.nmforestry.comwww.fourcornersforests.orghttp://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.htmlhttp://www.nifc.gov/stats/

“The Truth About America’s Forests”—an update of the most popular issue ofEvergreen ever published—will becompleted late this fall. We feature thelatest federal statistics for public andprivately owned forests in the U.S., plusseveral thought provoking essays byleading environmental writers. Orderreprints at www.evergreenmagazine.com.

To Become An Evergreen FoundationMember, log on to our website and clickon our Foundation Store. Or completethe membership/reprint order formcard in this magazine

Our Daily Wood - Our popular pie-shaped wood block, beautifully hand-finished. Its size approximates theamount of wood, by volume,consumed every 24 hoursby every person onEarth. Silkscreenedmessage explainsthe environ-mentaladvantagesof wood.$35.00

www.evergreenmagazine.com

To order reprints of “The New Pioneers”Summer 2002, log on to our website atwww.evergreenmagazine.com

THE NEW PIONEERS

Two earlier Evergreen reports—“TheWest Is Burning Up!” and “Should WeLet Diseased National Forests Die andBurn?”— can also be ordered on-line.

We want to thank the Ford MotorCompany, the Montana Ford DealersAdvertising Association [MFDAA],Depratu Ford, Whitefish, Montana andTimberline Auto Center, Libby,Montana, for their ongoing support forour educational mission. We’re pleasedto be driving a 2001 Ford-250 donatedto the Foundation by MFDAA.

Support for “The New Pioneers” was provided by the following organizations:

• Arizona State Lands Department• Bureau of Indian Affairs• Environmental Economics Communities Organization• Idaho Timber Company• New Mexico State Forestry Dept.• Northern Arizona Loggers Assoc.• Northern Arizona University Ecological Restoration Institute• Pacific Logging Congress• Ponderosa Fire Advisory Council• Society of American Foresters• The Evergreen Foundation• USDA Forest Service

P.O. Box 1290Bigfork, MT 59911

The Evergreen Foundation

The Foundation Store

Next In Evergreen

Hope Rises From The Ashes In Southwestern Forests

Layout and production by E.T. Graphics, Medford, ORCharts by Shawn Shaffer, Ashland, OR

THE NEW PIONEERS - Amazon S3€¦ · since 1910, more than 53 million acres burned. But it was the...

Documents

Transcript of THE NEW PIONEERS - Amazon S3€¦ · since 1910, more than 53 million acres burned. But it was the...