What constitutes a 'healthy' forest?
George Wuerthner  The U.S. Forest Service continuously justifies logging our forests based on what it calls "forest health." The agency claims logging will restore resiliency. But few ask what exactly constitutes a healthy forest ecosystem. The agency defines forest health as a lack of tree mortality, mainly from wildfire, bark beetles, root rot, mistletoe, drought and a host of other natural agents. To the Forest Service, such biological agents are "destructive," but this demonstrates a complete failure to understand how forest ecosystems work. This Industrial Forestry Paradigm espoused by the Forest Service views any mortality as unacceptable other than that resulting from a chainsaw. This perspective is analogous to how fish and game agencies used to view the influence of natural predators like wolves and cougars on elk and deer. Over time, biologists learned that culling of the less fit animals by predators enhanced the survival of the prey species. Similarly, wildfire, bark beetles and other natural sources of mortality enhance the long-term resilience of the forest ecosystem. For example, the snag forests resulting from a high-severity fire have the second-highest biodiversity found in forested landscapes. Large, high-severity fires promote more birds, bees, butterflies, wildflowers, bats, fungi, small rodents, trout, grizzly bears, deer, elk and moose. Many species of wildlife and plants are so dependent on snags and down wood that they live in mortal fear of green forests. Some estimates suggest that as much as two-thirds of all wildlife species utilize dead trees at some point in their lifecycle. Even worse for forest ecosystems, the Forest Service emphasizes chainsaw medicine to "fix" what they define incorrectly as a "health" problem. Chainsaw medicine ignores the long-lasting effects of logging on forest genetics. Research has demonstrated that all trees vary in their genetic ability to adapt to various stress agents. Some lodgepole pine and ponderosa pine have a genetic resistance to bark beetles, others are better adapted to deal with drought and so forth. Yet, a forester with a paint gun marking trees for logging has no idea which trees have such adaptive genetics. Research has shown that thinning even 50% of a forest stand can remove half of the genetic diversity because it is the rare alleles  genes  that are important in the time of environmental stress. Perhaps 1 in 100 trees may have a genetic ability to survive drought or slightly thicker bark that enables it to survive a fire. There are numerous other known ecological impacts associated with logging that are minimized, overlooked or ignored by the Forest Service. For instance, one of the primary vectors for the spread of weeds into the forest ecosystem is logging roads. Logging roads also are a primary chronic source of sedimentation that degrades aquatic ecosystems. Logging removes carbon that would otherwise be stored on site. Even burnt forests store far more carbon than a logged/thinned forest. So far, the agency is more a handmaiden of the industry than a custodian of the public trust. George Wuerthner has published numerous books on environmental issues including fire ecology. He lives in Bend. Submit a letter to the editor of 200 words or fewer to rgletters@registerguard.com. Include your full name, mailing address and phone number for purposes of verification. If accepted, only your name and city will be published. Letters are edited for style, clarity and are fact checked. Please provide any relevant links to your research. Each writer may only publish one letter per 30 days. Submit a guest view by emailing bomeara@registerguard.com your draft of either 525 words or 725 words, not in between. Include any relevant links to resources and research. Also, be sure to include a short biography explaining who you are, what you do and where you live. Writers may publish one guest view per 90 days.