Forest management
Forest managementForest management is the maintaining and management of not only the
trees in the forest, but the streams, habitat, watersheds, and even the
decaying trees or logs on the forest floor. Managing our forests is not only
important to the wildlife, but to our future economy and way of life. We need
to continue to save the Oregon forests and help the ecosystems within them
because human beings are also part of the ecosystem.
By using forest management, it can help certain species of wildlife.
Some species of birds, such as the pileated woodpecker, which need large
snags to build nest cavities(7). But the worst possible approach to maintaining
a wide diversity of species would be to manage every acre of the forest the
same way. Any change in forest habitat creates “winners” and “losers.” As
forests go through natural cycles of growth, death and regeneration, species
may inhabit or be absent from a given area partly in response to natural
changes in the structure of trees and other forest vegetation(4). The same
occurs when forest stands are managed by humans.
Unless future credible research indicates otherwise, effort should be
made to manage a wide range of forest structures. Maintaining diversity would
be best served by using a broader range of management tools. Those would
include harvesting on federal land - not simply thinning - and increasing the
commitment to old-growth attributes on private forest land through
techniques such as retaining large trees and snags. As long as federal lands
are substantially committed to providing late successional habitat, private
forest land can be substantially committed to younger, intensively managed
stands, provided critical habitat characteristics are available.
The federal lands make up more than 50% to 60% of the forests in
Oregon(3). Because timber harvest in now dramatically reduced on federal
lands, those lands represent a sizable, well distributed pool of both old-growth
forests and forests that could become old-growth, providing habitat to those
species associated with forests with old-growth characteristics. While a large
portion of federal land is committed to sustaining species that need
old-growth, the difficult question remains, how much is enough? Leaving these
forests completely unharvested invites unacceptable, large-scale insect
infestations and catastrophic fires(6).
Because federal lands comprise nearly 50 to 60 percent of Oregon’s
forests, practices on these lands have a major impact on forest-dwelling
vertebrates(2). These lands are well distributed throughout the state.
Private land ownership accounts for approximately 40 percent of the states
forests(5). Of this private ownership, over half is in industrial ownership and
the rest is held mostly by small woodland owners(7).
Since 1992 harvesting on federal lands has dropped sharply. In contrast,
many industrial private lands are intensively managed(6). Oregon law requires
prompt replanting, and stands are often fertilized and thinned. This split
ownership, in addition to diverse management practices on private lands,
results in a...
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