Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
JULY 27, 1999, TUESDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
3044 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
THOMAS
R. JERVIS, PH.D.,
PRESIDENT
NEW MEXICO AUDUBON COUNCIL
BEFORE THE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND PUBLIC LANDS MANAGEMENT
SUBJECT - S. 719,
NEVADA PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT ACT OF 1999
AND S. 1030, 60 BAR LAND EXCHANGE
ACT
BODY:
Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Committee:
My name is Thomas Jervis and I am President of the New Mexico
Audubon Council, representing five chapters of the National Audubon Society in
New Mexico and over 4,000 New Mexicans who are dedicated to conserving and
restoring natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their
habitats for the benefit of humanity and the Earth's biological diversity. I am
also presenting this testimony on behalf of the Southwest Forest Alliance, the
Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, and National Audubon Society-New
Mexico. We appreciate the opportunity to testify on behalf of S. 1288, the
Community Forest Restoration Act.
This is a piece of legislation that could
have great significance for New Mexico. Past management practices, including the
high-grading of the largest and ecologically most important trees on our public
national forest lands, have altered important forest structures and processes.
These changes are far beyond the normal range of variability of these naturally
resilient forests. As a result, frequent low-intensity fires are now uncommon,
while stand-replacing fires are increasing in number, size, and severity.
Nutrient dynamics and hydrologic cycles have also been altered. Grass cover has
decreased, further altering the fire regime. Too many species of plants and
animals have declined in abundance, and some are endangered.
There is
general agreement that our forests would benefit by returning to a more natural
state, one in which natural ecological processes dominate and provide resiliency
to both natural and human-caused disruption. This recognition is leading to the
development of a science of restoration forestry which this bill seeks to
promote. The organizations I listed above have been working in New Mexico and
Arizona to find solutions that preserve and restore the biological integrity of
the Southwest's magnificent forest resources while helping to meet the natural
resource needs of local communities.
There are three points which I wish to
make in this testimony:
1. As a result of past forest management practices,
there are far too many small trees and not enough large ones, particularly
Ponderosa Pines, in the Southwest. This condition is an unnatural one from the
standpoint of the overall health of the forest and requires restoration of the
natural processes that help create resiliency in the forest and sustain a
properly functioning and productive ecosystem. The most important of these
absent processes is periodic fire, which serves to thin the forest and creates
the conditions beneficial to wildlife and people alike.2. The techniques and
prescriptions used to accomplish restoration of natural processes are very
important to the success of the effort. Projects must not be developed on an ad
hoc basis but on a scientific understanding of the ecological processes that
must be reestablished in the forest. Significantly missing from this legislation
are ecological criteria and objectives for the design, selection,
implementation, and monitoring of projects funded under this legislation.
3.
It must be understood that the national forests of the Southwest are national,
as well as community resources. The Technical Advisory Panel created by this
legislation is heavily weighted toward local participation with only minority
representation by federal land- management agencies, scientists, or others with
a national perspective.
In 1867, Lt. Edward Beale traveled through northern
Arizona and wrote: "A vast forest of gigantic pines, intersected frequently with
open glades, sprinkled all over with mountains, meadows, and wide savannas, and
covered with the richest grasses, was traversed by our party for many days."
Today it is hard to imagine such a sight, though if you look deeply into some of
our forests, particularly in the national parks of the region, you can see the
shadows of just such sights. Many of the trees seen by Lt. Beale would still be
alive today if they had not been cut for timber. It is these ancient trees that
are the primary missing component of our forests today.
Inventories of trees
by size class in Arizona and New Mexico in 1962 and 19861, based on Forest
Service data, show the situation very clearly. From 1962 to 1986, the number of
trees with diameter greater than 15 inches has declined by 11 percent. During
the same period, the number of trees between 9 and 15 inches in diameter has
increased by 38 percent. While some of the smaller trees will eventually grow
larger, they will never reach the size that they should in these crowded
conditions. Note that this is not ancient history; we are not comparing the
primordial forests of the 18th century with those of today; these changes
occurred over a recent period of 24 years. The number of trees greater than 16
inches in diameter is less than 3% of the total, and the biggest trees are
declining the most rapidly. We need to retain all trees established in
presettlement times as they are the rarest trees in the forest. However, basing
a restoration project on the age of trees may not be a practical approach. A
more detailed analysis of this data shows that for Ponderosa Pine, the principal
timber species in New Mexico, size classes larger than 16 inches are declining
and size classes smaller than 16 inches are increasing rapidly. Based on this
data, we feel that one of the requirements of any restoration project should be
a size limit on trees removed from the forest and that that size limit should be
16 inches for Ponderosa Pine. These large trees play a particularly important
role for wildlife, including the Northern Goshawk, and are essential components
of a healthy system.
If you do compare the situation today with that in
1910, the situation is of course much more dramatic. In the intervening 75
years, trees in the same large size classes have decreased by 33 percent, the
small size class increased by 180 percent. What is more, in 1910, the most
common tree in the forest was between 19 and 29 inches in diameter. You are hard
pressed to find a tree that size today.
For example, in the Monument Canyon
Research Natural Area, an unlogged area located in the Jemez Mountains, the
situation is particularly apparent.2 The stand has an old-growth component of
approximately 100 stems per hectare, representing trees that were
well-established before the introduction of large-scale grazing or fire
suppression. However, there is also a much younger component of this stand, with
a density of well over 21,000 stems per hectare. Trees in this younger component
were established after fire suppression became a feature of Forest Service
management. While these "doghair" thickets may be extreme, similar patterns are
seen throughout the Ponderosa Pine forests of the Southwest.
Not just the
forests are affected. Since 1935, large montane grasslands in the Jemez
mountains have declined substantially.3 Several small grassland areas have
disappeared completely and even the larger ones have been fragmented. These
changes began with the introduction of industrial-scale grazing and the
exclusion of fire and can be reversed by a combination of mechanical removal and
reintroduction of fire.
This situation has repercussions for all of the many
values that our national forests provide.
The dense growth of the
forests has changed the habitat for many species of wildlife in ways that has
not helped their struggle for survival. Dense forests of small trees have also
impoverished the watersheds that our rivers and farmers depend on in an arid
climate. The forests are not even as conducive to recreation as they might be-
one certainly can no longer travel for "many days" through % vast forest of
gigantic pines."
The forests of the American Southwest are in the condition
they are because the natural processes that sustained them for hundreds of years
prior to the end of the 19th century are no longer operating properly.
Recognition of this situation makes it important that one of the principle
purposes of the legislation, as outlined in Section 3 should be to develop,
demonstrate, and evaluate ecologically sound forest restoration techniques.
For the Ponderosa Pine forests of the Southwest, the keystone ecological
process is fire. Without fire, these forests stagnate and begin to die. The
ancient forests of the region evolved with frequent periodic fire. Research has
shown that fire intervals were between 7 and 15 years prior to the 1880s. These
fires thinned the forest and encouraged the production of the open glades of
which Lt. Beale wrote so eloquently. The introduction of grazing in the late
1880s in New Mexico and throughout the Southwest dramatically changed this fire
history. The record shows that after 1890, fires was largely absent from
southwest forests, even though no particular effort was made to suppress fires
until the 1920s. Large numbers of sheep, and later cattle, ate the grasses that
had sustained the low level fires that in turn kept the forest floor open so
grass could grow. When large-scale grazing collapsed in the 1920s, the Forest
Service stepped in and quite effectively suppressed forest fires all across the
nation.
In the absence of fire, and under silvicultural management that
emphasized the removal of large trees for timber, we have created a highly
unstable situation in many of our forests. For the last 50 years at least, the
management of our national forests has been governed by what historian Paul
Hirt/4 has called a "conspiracy of optimism," a triumph of silvicultural theory
over clear and irreducible facts on the ground. Professor Hirt has documented
that this well-meaning conspiracy has masked the fact that high levels of
resource extraction have been destroying our forest ecosystems. Despite years of
"scientific forest management," fires of greater intensity than any that are
found in the historical record are becoming commonplace. Where fire was once the
process that helped stabilize and renew the forest, it is now often highly
destructive.
Today, while it has realized to some extent the nature of the
problem, the Forest Service finds it difficult to respond. The Service is faced
with thousands of acres of overstocked forest and the trees that need to be
removed are, for the most part, not of merchantable size. The Forest Service
therefore finds it difficult or impossible to use its traditional means of
management--the timber sale--to accomplish even worthy ecosystem goals.
Silviculturists will tell you that they can create whatever forest conditions
are desired, and perhaps they can. But the conditions they can create represent
only a moment in time and they are not the result of natural processes. We
cannot always foresee the implications of these actions for those natural
processes that provide resiliency to fire, drought, and disease.
It is
tempting to try to create conditions on the forest through silviculture that
"look like" conditions that are the result of natural processes--for example
conditions like those described by Lt. Beale, but if the processes are not
really there and functioning properly, the result is inevitably failure. As the
ecologist C. S. Holling found in a 1986/5 study of managed ecosystems "any
attempt to manage ecological variables inexorably led to less resilient
ecosystems, more rigid management institutions, and more dependent societies."
What we must do is learn how to reestablish natural processes, and then learn to
manage our needs within the parameters set by the natural processes.
To do
otherwise is to try to manage the forest to one set of variables or another,
defining success in terms of those variables and thereby failing to see the
unintended consequences. In order to successfully meet the challenge of
ecosystem management, a set of criteria for the functioning of ecosystems--for
ecosystem processes--must be established that will guide the evaluation and
monitoring of the success of the projects.
Without valid criteria for the
functioning of ecosystems, no management system will be able to adapt to the
uncertainties inherent in any natural system. This caution suggests that the
most conservative approach be taken with respect to the restoration of natural
forest processes. Instead of vague statements involving forest health, we
believe the objectives listed in Section 5. (b) (1) of the proposed legislation
should be strengthened and include the following specific objectives in order to
ensure that conservative approach.
(A) In order to restore ecosystem
function, structures, and species composition to reduce the negative effects of
excessive competition between trees and the threat of destructive crown fires,
establish fire regimes approximating those that shaped forest ecosystems prior
to fire-suppression and industrial-scale logging and livestock grazing;
(B)
In order to reestablish historical tree size-class inventories, preserve all
trees which are over 16 inches in diameter at breast height or were established
prior to 1900;
(C) In order to provide long-term data on the success of
these restoration demonstrations, protect areas subject to restoration
treatments from future logging activities;
(D) In order to minimize
disturbance to wildlife and to re-establish the large-scale pattern of fire
across the landscape, reduce road densities in project areas, build no new
roads, and proscribe activities in roadless areas; and
(E)
In order to restore deforested areas, replant trees in these areas where
appropriate.
Recognition is needed that the nature of our forests has
changed; we no longer have a resource base of large trees that can support a
large local timber industry (which in any case exports its most valuable
resources). We must concentrate on developing forest products that are
consistent with the products the naturally functioning forest offers and which
keep the majority of the work in the local area. Small scale timber harvest,
through a restoration effort, can be part of this if managed properly using the
kinds of ecologically based criteria discussed above. But we must realize that
the dominant product of the forest today and for the foreseeable future is
small-diameter logs-- posts, poles, and firewood--that result from thinning from
below undertaken to make it possible to reintroduce fire and other significant
biological processes to the system. This is labor intensive work, and there are
generations of it to be done. Markets for these products are not yet well
developed, but there are many potential opportunities for locally-based
industries. Firewood collecting, recreation, and watershed protection,
traditional uses of the forest in northern New Mexico, are other valid uses of
national forest lands when properly managed to prevent environmental damage. But
the underlying goal must be to restore the health and functioning of the
ecological processes that guarantee a resilient and productive forest.
While
we support the inclusion of local representation and the community goals of the
legislation, we believe that the legislation provides too great a bias towards
the local as opposed to the national character particularly of national forest
resources. The fact that these projects must undergo review under NEPA and other
forest management legislation provides some balance. However because these
projects are relatively small demonstrations, and jointly funded, there will be
a temptation to bend them to specific local needs that are perhaps in opposition
to larger-, landscape-scale ecosystem requirements envisioned by the
legislation.
The development of ecological criteria for the success of these
projects also requires the substantial involvement of scientists with the
expertise needed to provide guidance for the selection and later evaluation of
the projects. These criteria must be established before the projects are
designed and implemented, otherwise they will be of little use. It is therefore
not sufficient to leave this to a subsequent monitoring and evaluation process.
We therefore believe that the Technical Advisory Panel established in Section 6.
should include at least three independent scientists with expertise in aspects
of forest ecology and restoration in the Southwest. The monitoring and
evaluation program must also be specifically charged to evaluate the short- and
long-term ecological effects of the restoration treatments.
When a problem
has been over 100 years in development, no remedy can be put in place in just a
few years. While we have much to argue with the Forest Service in terms of
individual management decisions, we believe that the federal land-management
system, with its inherent checks and balances, is fundamentally sound. The
legislation before you today is a step in the right direction, one towards
building the conditions that will allow the restoration of natural processes to
the forest. By restoring natural processes to these ecosystems, the natural
resiliency of the forests of the Southwest can once again allow future
generations of Americans to experience the vision of grandeur that Lt. Beale
described almost 150 years ago.
We laud the restoration goals of this
legislation and encourage community participation in the demonstration projects
proposed. If the changes we have recommended are adopted to provide balance and
scientific guidance, we would be happy to support this legislation. Thank you
for the opportunity to present these ideas on behalf of the organizations I am
representing today.
FOOTNOTES:
1 Spencer, J. S. Jr. Arizona's forests.
USDA-FS, Wash. DC. Tech Bull. 247 p. 27 (1966) (for 1962 data).
2 Van
Hooser, D. D., D.C. Collins, and R. A. O'brien. Forest Resources of NM. USDA-FS,
Int. Res. Stn., Ogden, Utah p. 80 (1992) (for 1986 data). 2 C.D. Allen, Changes
in the Landscape of the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, Ph.D. Dissertation,
University of California, Berkeley, 1989
3 C.D. Allen, op. cit..
4 Paul
W. Hirt, A Conspiracy of Optimism, The University of Nebraska Press, 1994
5
L. Gunderson, C. S. Holling, S. Light (eds.) Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal
of Ecosystems and Institutions, New York, Columbia University Press, 1986
END
LOAD-DATE: July 28, 1999
