Seeing the Forests Through the Plantations

While we still have them.

Crowded, diseased tinderbox? Citizen in a legacy forest called Bessie.

Readers of this site will be familiar with my state of Washington’s recent Public Lands Commissioner race. As I was happily able to report, Dave Upthegrove (real name), who campaigned on protecting legacy forests, won. However, many of the claims made by his opponent, particularly the notion that legacy forests had become “crowded, diseased tinderboxes,” were perpetuated by some of the region’s newspapers. In this piece, published yesterday by Salish Current, I address some of those claims, while providing some update on what appears to an attempt by the Department of Natural Resource to rush legacy forests to market before the new administration takes over.

You can read the piece in Salish Current here, or just continue on to read the reprinted text.

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Seeing the Forests Through the Plantations

A common assertion heard during the Public Lands commissioner race was that as forests age they “fall into disrepair” and need to “be cleaned up” (logged) or else they will burn. “Too many of our forests have been undermanaged or outright neglected, and they’ve turned into crowded, diseased tinderboxes, just waiting for a spark,” Jaime Herrera Beutler told the Seattle Times in October.

This argument lost at the ballot box, but was nonetheless repeated on the editorial pages of numerous Washington newspapers, largely without question, which is troubling because there are many questions that need asking.

For instance, what type of forest is being referenced? In Washington, you must differentiate between dry, east-side forests and wet, west-side forests, as they experience different fire regimes, with legacy forests identified only on the west side. Then you must differentiate between forests that are naturally regenerated and those already converted to timber plantations. Legacy forests are found almost entirely under naturally regenerated conditions.

I got some on-the-ground insight into the matter when I joined a group visiting a legacy forest in Whatcom County named Bessie. To get there, we had to hike up some logging roads through Department of Natural Resources (DNR) tree plantations. Firs passed on either side, but that was all, just uniformly-sized trees crowded with other trees, branches jutting into branches, little light or life between them. The crowding decried by logging proponents was plain to see.

Then we came to the end of a spur and plunged in. After crossing a ravine and traversing the side of a hill, we suddenly entered spaciousness and light, with fewer trees but each one individual. Some rose from yard-wide trunks, others were slender and lacy, like the hemlocks filling the understory. Snags and fall-down blazed in a green profusion of mosses and lichen. We were standing in Bessie.

Very quickly I saw evidence of what I had come to learn, that mature, diverse forests propagate the one thing that matters most when it comes to fire: water. Around me were fallen, habitat-rich logs acting as massive sponges, soaking up water from winter rains and banking it for the drier summer. Thickly piled, moss-covered soil sank under my steps, storing not only carbon, but water. The air was calm, due to the layered canopy and rich understory slowing down desiccating winds. Around me giant Douglas fir sank deep roots, tapping aquifers, bringing water up into the forest. Mushrooms abounded, indicating a rich underground network of fungal hyphae, dispersing resources and information, helping the forest deal with pathogens and climate change. And I noticed that while the air through the monocrop plantation was clear, it became foggy with mist as soon as we approached Bessie.

I also saw why such places are critical for wildlife. Everywhere was the evidence: mossy snags drilled out by woodpeckers, larger cavities where nests were carved out. On the moss carpet elk droppings were followed by bright, freshly pecked chips of wood.

What industry wants to “clean up” looked to me like wildlife habitat. And rather than forests “falling into disrepair,” what I witnessed was the opposite: a forest repairing itself, on its way to recreating the old-growth splendor that once carpeted the lowlands. As far as “crowded, diseased tinderboxes” are concerned, such conditions appeared more likely in DNR’s plantations than Bessie. Were arguments that may make sense for managed plantations applied to legacy forests, where they don’t make sense?

DNR, meanwhile, has been rushing as many legacy forests to auction as they can in the weeks remaining before Dave Upthegrove takes the helm. Five weeks ago, at the Nov. 5 Bureau of Natural Resources meeting, they put 11 legacy forests forward for auction, around twice the usual. At the December meeting they put forward 10 more legacy forests and approved a resolution that, as far as I can tell, is something of an accounting trick. DNR is required to maintain 10–15% of its forest in a mature, structurally-complex state, such as legacy forest. But rather than preserve such forest-land outright, DNR wants to stretch its obligation out “over time” (100 years!), allowing them to count young plantation-forest toward the targets, with the idea they will eventually get there. This of course releases current mature/complex forests for immediate harvest.

We see this was never really about fire, but about the high commercial value of these forests with their big trees. And as we saw, voters rejected the idea of valuing such forests simply according to stumpage rates, insisting instead that they be valued as well for the life that is there. Dave Upthegrove seems ready to represent those values, but he will face an administrative culture long accustomed to the industrial point of view. Old ways die hard. Continued citizen involvement in the process remains as important as ever.

Sources:

• “The Power of Trees,” Greystone Books, 2023

• “Water in Plain Sight: Hope for a Thirsty World,” St. Martin’s Press, 2016; Chelsea Green Publishing, 2019

• “Nature’s Temples: A Natural History of Old-Growth Forests Revised and Expanded,” Princeton University Press, 2023

• “Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate,” The University Press of Kentucky, 2021

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