Everyone here in Oregon loves
our forests. These lands — most in public ownership — are the
cornerstone for both the economic and ecological health of the
state, and are central to our identity. Indeed, more and more of us
are making our homes in the woods every year, in the so-called
“wildlands-urban interface.” And so, whether we are
loggers, conservationists or vacation-home owners, we all share a
common fear: fire. Uncontrolled, stand-replacing wildfire can
destroy in a day all the forest values that took centuries to
develop. Therefore, it’s hard to believe that the Bureau of
Land Management would propose to drastically increase the risk of
wildfire on their forestlands in Oregon. Yet that is exactly what
the agency is doing.
This burning secret is hidden deep
within the BLM’s recently-released Draft Environmental Impact
statement for its Western Oregon Plan Revisions, or WOPR,
pronounced “whopper” by just about everyone. Arising
from an out-of-court settlement between the Bush administration and
a timber industry group, the plan discards the present management
framework governing 2.5 million acres of low-elevation forests
throughout western Oregon and the Klamath Basin.
Current
management includes an extensive network of reserves that were
established to assure the survival of the threatened Northern
Spotted Owl, and that are off-limits to commercial logging. The
draft plan would eliminate those reserves, drastically reduce
no-cut buffers along streams, and instead designate commercial
logging as the “predominant” use.
BLM is
promoting this change as a way to dramatically increase timber
revenues. That prospect is very tempting to Oregon counties, which
have financed public services for decades on their portion of
federal-land timber receipts. Unfortunately, few county officials
have apparently had the patience to read all the way to page 769 in
the Draft Environmental Impact statement, to the section called
“Fire severity, hazard, and resiliency in the south.”
There, the agency shows just how much the plan would cost Oregon in
terms of fire.
BLM analyzes three “action
alternatives” in comparison with continuation of present
management, the “no action alternative.” The data are
clear: a continuation of present management would provide Oregon
with the best fire future. What about the preferred second
alternative? This is the very worst in terms of fire. For example,
in southern Oregon’s Medford District, where I live, it would
result in approximately 200,000 more acres in the “high-fire
severity” category than would continuation of present
management.
But the bad news doesn’t end there.
What about “fire resiliency,” the ability of a forest
to survive a wildfire? Here again, BLM’s preferred
alternative offers Oregon the worst fire future. Alternative 2
would accomplish almost all its logging by clearcutting, creating
even-aged plantations without any standing large trees. The draft
plan acknowledges that these forests are the worst in every fire
category: high fire severity, high fire hazard, and low fire
resiliency. In my BLM district, the second alternative would reduce
the acreage of fire-resilient forests by two-thirds compared to
current management. That’s well over half a million more
acres without the ability to survive wildfire.
BLM’s western Oregon forests are in a checkerboard ownership
pattern, intermingled with private property. BLM’s preferred
alternative would be a catastrophe for this wildland-urban
interface, exposing the residents of Oregon to drastically
increased fire risk over the coming decades.
Finally,
there is the very real possibility that BLM’s plan may
backfire, even in its stated goal of increasing timber revenues.
Given the increased fire hazard and severity that would result from
adoption of BLM’s preferred alternative, Oregon forests may
burn up before they can be logged. BLM’s timber revenue
projections fail to take this possibility into account. The draft
plan also fails to analyze the impact of global warming over the
hundred-year projections in the plan. This is indefensible, given
the many studies predicting increasing fire severity throughout the
West due to global warming.
The Bureau of Land Management
knows very well that clearcut logging and reduction of stream
buffers increase fire danger. They can’t deny these truths,
but they can bury them in the middle of their 1,300-page
“whopper.” It is up to us — the owners of our public
lands — to insist that federal land managers reject management
options that increase fire danger over the long term. This plan
fails that fire test. If it is adopted, we will all get burned.
Pepper Trail is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a biologist
and writer who lives in Ashland, Oregon.
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