Sunday, December 04, 2011

Peaches and Pines: Forest Management Drift


Forest Management Drift
Peaches and Pines
Government of (some of) the people for (some of) the people
By Stephen L. Wilmeth

 
     When Hugh Reed swung down off his then new saddle and dropped the reins to ground tie a pet bay horse, he had disgustedly proclaimed, “I am sick and tired of breaking brush!”  He had laid there on the grass in the morning sun on the south slope of Hummingbird Saddle where the divide drops into the West Fork drainage of the Gila.  “My Gosh, this country is so thick you can’t ride through it,” he had concluded.
     That incident took place 42 years ago.  That old pet horse, Snooper, is now long deceased and the policies of the United States Forest Service have made the problem of unhealthy and unproductive forests only worse. 
     Lesson in peaches
     When I met Xavier Salinas, my world was changing dramatically.  I had left my native New Mexico for any opportunity to find employment.  From a world of the underemployed and government domination, the San Joaquin Valley was like a walk on the dark side of the moon.  It was there that people actually grew wealth and expanded employment without government in the picture.  It was a world that I grew to appreciate and prefer.  I found I liked Americans who put themselves at risk to achieve great things.
     We had been in an orchard in Madera and I was getting my first lessons in stonefruit production.  “You can leave 5000 pieces of fruit on these trees or you can leave a 1000,” Xavier had pronounced.  “The difference is you can’t sell any of those from the tree that you left 5000 and you can get rich on those that you left 1000.” 
     “Necitè tamańo, Esteban (You need size, Steve),” were his words that still ring in my head.
     He was right.  You can produce 35,000 pounds of fruit per acre and you can do it with size 42 peaches or size ‘96s, but the difference is day and night.  It can be measured in a happy banker or a foreclosure notice.  It is success or failure. 
    Timber production is no different. 
     The Cutting
     In a Forest Service discussion, I asked about harvest cycles in New Mexico forests.  I was armed with enough knowledge of harvest cycles to be dangerous.  My suggestion that all cycles could be economic if the right conditions were allowed was denounced by the official.  He indicated the cycle would be in excess of 75 years and that it has been deemed uneconomic.  Huh?
     In front of me is a wedge of Douglas fir that came from the tree that Congressman Steve Pearce (R-NM) cut in a ceremonial event held in Cloudcroft, New Mexico recently.  It was at that event the Otero County Commission symbolically took over the forest management of the Lincoln National Forest from the Forest Service.  Notwithstanding the obligatory approval by the Forest Service (in order not to have to order the arrest of a sitting Congressman), the consequences are immense.  The issue is American life and property safety. The issue is forest health and productivity. The issue is American jobs.  The issue is government for the people . . . not government for the government!
     The wedge itself is a story.  Why is it a Douglas fir wedge?  Why isn’t it a Ponderosa pine wedge?  The tree was cut on a south and western facing slope where, in a healthy forest, it should have been a Ponderosa pine tree that germinated from a sun drenched seedbed.
     Necitè tamańo!
     As the chain saw throttled up, and Steve Pearce, in his near OSHA approved attire, was scattering saw dust, you couldn’t help but look around.  In remarks that morning, there was the mention that Lincoln National Forest is a direct contradiction to the best example of southwestern forest management, the Mescalero Apache Reservation, immediately across the fence. 
     On the Mescalero, Ponderosa pine seedlings can germinate and grow in the sun of an open seed bed.  It is there that healthy tree density is running about 55 trees per acre compared to the Lincoln where trees are ranging upwards of 2500 per acre! 
     We know there is no excuse all southwestern forests don’t resemble the Mescalero Reservation.  For the Lincoln, the model is next door.  Both have the same latitude, rainfall, altitude and degree day accumulations.  The only difference is the management agenda.
      With 2500 trees per acre, there is no chance that any lumber business can be sustained.  For success, there must be an expansive change of direction and mission within the agency that was created with the intent and vision of the management of healthy and productive forests.
     The agenda
     When the Forest Service was established in 1905 under the provisions of US Legal Code 475, the mandate was simple.  Codified law stated no forest was to be established except to secure favorable conditions of water flows and a continuous supply of timber for the citizens of the United States.  It also stated that no lands were to be included if they were more valuable for mineral extraction or agriculture than for forest use.
     The agency’s web site no longer references those words.  Rather, an anecdotal quote is substituted for the historical genesis of the agency.  It comes from the Father of American Forestry, Gifford Pinchot, when he spoke of the Forest Service’s obligation, “. . . to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people for the long run.”  Is this true to intent, and, if so, who are those people? 
     An argument can be made the people aren’t average American tax payers because most forest visitations are declining.  It certainly isn’t the logging industry because places like New Mexico, where 20 logging companies employed local citizenry just over a decade ago, only one part time mill is operating.  It isn’t the cattle business because, in places like the Gila National Forest, cattle numbers have been reduced up to 70% from the numbers a generation ago.
     An argument can be made the true beneficiaries exist in two categories.  The first are folks in the fire suppression business.  The second is the environmental movement.
      Fire suppression is a growth industry.  It is one of two huge budget categories (the other is legal).  It also borders on dedication to a worrisome bureaucratic objective.  Buried at number eight in the organization’s pledges for serving the people is to “provide work for unemployed, underemployed, elderly, youth and disadvantaged people.”  Since when is the Forest Service a social service agency?
    More troubling is the fact that the people mentioned are not just Americans.  Number five in the pledges is to provide international assistance to sustain healthy world ecosystems.  The United States is in the business of subsidizing world forests! 
      Prompted by that realization, a brief review of recent year American Forestry Ph.D. dissertations was done.  In the brief search, not a single recent university dissertation on forest production could be found!  There were dissertations, though, from Wisconsin, Montana, Cornell, Minnesota, Michigan, and Colorado State that covered the following subjects:
1.      Simulation of food production and environmental changes.
2.      Managing public lands as common property.
3.      Public land management and subsistent economies.
4.      Ecological and sociological aspects of human/ big cat conflicts.
5.      Improved fodder tree management in agro-forestry systems.
6.      Ecology of forests across the human induced disturbance gradient.
7.      And, works done relating to the ecology of hog and mush deer in royal parks!
     The latter must give away the fact that this work was done with American dollars to support world forest health.  The dissertations were for Nepalese forests!
     Cattle again    
     The cattle phenomenon remains a major marker of forest management in environmental industry collaborations.  Currently, two philanthropic giants, the heirs of the Anheuser-Busch fortune and Ted Turner, are collaborating with the Forest Service to retire forest allotments.   In five allotments in the Gila and Coronado Forests in New Mexico and four allotments on the eastern slope of the Sequoia National Forest in California, these powerful advocates are partnering in studies that will demonstrate that cattle are the historic factors of forest health decline.
     The Forest Service notes the California study alternatives to determine whether cattle can be reintroduced are to extend the experiment, eliminate grazing altogether, or to forge an agreement with the ranchers to allow grazing one year in five.  Which factor among them adheres to the original Congressional premise for establishing the agency? 
     The word stakeholder was once the individual American.  That is no longer fact.  The Forest Service is the best example that agency management and the promises of laws often have little in common.  Our government is what it is . . .  a government of some of the people . . . for some of the people.


Steve Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.  “Even if Congress demanded a different direction, this agency has a dearth of production expertise.  It has been replaced by environmental sensitivity.” 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The environmental response would be that the timber business has been poorly managed and they have put themselves out of business. Most would not even understand what Wilmeth has presented. Then they would get goosey about how they want to preserve the heritage for their kids. Theres a bunch of us getting awful sick of gray bearded, pony tailed pensioned tree huggers.