“Montana’s National Forests BURNING AN EMPIRE” is the title of the Spring 2016 edition of “Evergreen” magazine. The title creates a dire picture facing Montana forests. According to Montana State Forester Bob Harrington, “Nearly 50 percent of Montana’s forest lands have been significantly affected by insects, diseases and wildfire.”
Many factors come into play creating today’s forestry issues. Early day logging practices took the best quality trees, fire suppression and a cool, wet period that began in the 1930s allowed a growth in shade tolerant species which are not genetically suited to the warming climate. Add to that the abundance of fuel on the ground creating a “cooking” effect of soil nutrients during today’s forest fires.
“Evergreen” magazine paints a very clear picture of efforts being made by many individuals and scores of collaborative groups. These groups are preparing today’s forests for a changing climate, improvement of the trees’ resilience to insect and disease infestation and addressing fire issues.
One topic, climate change...how it has and how it is affecting Montana’s forest was particularly interesting. Peter Kolb, a PhD Forest Ecologist and Adjunct Forest Ecology and Management Professor at the University of Montana, is a recognized authority on the complex cause and effect of climate change on today’s mixture of mixed conifer, dry site forests in Montana. Kolb shares that cooling/warming cycles have been cycling since the end of the Ice Age. He goes on to elaborate that a cooling cycle existed from about 1940 to 1980. During this time the climate was ripe for wet, shade tolerant trees such as Douglas fir. Over the last 30 years, the climate has warmed again and as a result there is a major transformation in forest types. Therefore, forests are experiencing a major die-off in trees because of limited water and overly dense forests. In identifying many forests of today as being “genetically simplified”, Kolb goes on, in some detail, explaining the need for “assisted adaptation” where harvesting is used to assist nature in selecting the most ecologically robust and resilient trees for every specie across our forested landscapes.
When asked about collaboration, Kolb gave examples of the Europeans and Native Americans that have been managing forest landscapes since the last Ice Age ended. He added, “…collaboration can work if collaboratives are allowed to make decisions based on good information as well as local knowledge, local needs and a commitment to do what is best for both the forest and the community.”
He went on to say, “The application of local knowledge is the key to collaborative success. Forest management across the northern Rockies must be site specific, because our landscape is so variable and geology, soils, microclimate, hydrology and species mixtures create unique scenarios for every location. Only someone who intimately knows the land they are managing can make quality decisions where timing and cumulative effects are critical.”
Trying to give a visual example of the mortality rate of the national forests in Montana, “Evergreen” magazine enlisted the help of the Washington Grizzly Stadium in Missoula. The stadium spans 57,600 square feet. It would take 57,600 wooden blocks measuring one cubic foot to cover the stadium field. In order to show the death rate of 510 million cubic feet of wood that die annually in Montana forests…one would have to stack 8,854 rows on top of each other…that is 1.67 miles lost in a year…and another 1.67 miles lost next year…and so on. Compare that to the 26 million cubic feet of wood that is harvested every year.
According to Todd Morgan, Director of Forest Industry Research at the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research only .05 percent of all forestland acres across Region 1 have some type of harvesting activity annually.
To gain a better understanding of what is going on in Montana forests and to read all of “Evergreen’s” indepth interviews go to http://www.evergreenmagazine.com or to http://www.montanaforest.com. There are complete interviews by Montana Governor Steve Bullock; former Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth; Chris Savage, current Forest Supervisor on Kootenai National Forest; Christine Dawe, Director of Renewable Resource Management in the Forest Service’s Northern Region; David Allen, President and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; Gary Burnett, Executive Director of the Blackfoot Challenge as well as a host of other people who are stakeholders in keeping Montana’s forests alive and healthy.
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