Forest companies and the impact on canoeing

[memaquay]

For many years I have been on the local citizen's advisory committee to the forest industry. The industry has been huge up here, and the amount of lumber that is taken each year is staggering. Over the last five years I have made inroads for most of the identified canoe routes, with larger buffers around rivers, lakes and campsites. The main victory has been for in-between lake portages. In the past, they just wiped them out. I wanted a hundred metre buffer on each side of the port, they settled on 70, which is still pretty good, compared to the previous destruction.

However, policing these routes has been handed over to the companies themselves, so it's the fox in charge of the chicken coup. I can't cover the distance that I used to, so paddling routes that have been identified as having cuts has become more difficult for me.

A new development has occurred in the Greenstone region. The major pulp mill that supports most of the cutting in the Kenogami plan has shut down, possibly for good. This will be an unprecedented boon for canoeists, as worrying about routes being impacted by cutting will cease to exist.

The downside is that the entire town of Terrace Bay will now be in trouble, as 400 people will be out of work, and also many people in surrounding towns involved in the harvesting process will also be out of work. As well, the major logging highways that many of use to access routes will no longer be maintained, and they will fall into a state of disrepair quite quickly, thus limiting access for recreational users.

Should be an interesting summer to see what happens to the roads. If you are planning a trip up here this summer, check in with me for road conditions. The Ogoki up to Marshall should be fine, as they supply lumber style wood for the mill in Nakina, but major arteries in the south, like the Catlonite and the Goldfield, could be out of commission.

 

[Rob H]

Mem will this effect the Manitouwadge area as well?

 

[memaquay]

Not sure, but I think you guys are in the Pic FMU. If they take their lumber to the Terrace bay mill, it will be affected as well.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Thanks for that inside info, Mem, and for all your selfless achievements in documenting and maintaining canoe routes.

 

[ppine]

Preserving canoe routes sound like a noble cause.
As a retired forester in the western US we have major problems due to neglect. Our forests are overstocked with too many trees and subject to large mega-fires as a result. The combination of fire suppression for over 120 years and little logging since 1990 has created a disaster. Two years ago we had a one million acre fire near where I live. Both sides of Lake Tahoe nearly burned up. We have created these problems with neglect.

The two main reasons this has happened are lawsuits by well meaning groups that stop timber sales, and the NEPA, compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The US Forest System currently has net negative growth, because the mortality from fire, insects and disease exceeds the growth rate. Unbelievable but true.

I give talks with a slide protector to service and environmental groups on the subject. It is a great passion of mine, along with stopping to Forest Service offices to talk about timber sales.

 

[jdeerfoot]

I think the same thing has been going on in the greater Wabakimi area. When Phil Cotton (Uncle Phil, founder of the Wabakimi Project/Friends of Wabakimi) started to paddle in the area he became concerned that the historic canoe routes were being abandoned. He started the Project because he needed help in finding and documenting the routes.

Over 12 years I was on 23 weeks of trips in the greater Wabakimi area. As we flew in/out each year it appeared that more and more Crown Lands were being clear cut. But I could also observe the past cutover areas that had been reseeded, probably with trees having future commercial value.

 

[dogbrain]

Our forests are overstocked with too many trees and subject to large mega-fires as a result. The combination of fire suppression for over 120 years and little logging since 1990 has created a disaster. Two years ago we had a one million acre fire near where I live. Both sides of Lake Tahoe nearly burned up. We have created these problems with neglect.

The two main reasons this has happened are lawsuits by well meaning groups that stop timber sales, and the NEPA, compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The US Forest System currently has net negative growth, because the mortality from fire, insects and disease exceeds the growth rate. Unbelievable but true.

Lots of unfounded assertions in this post. I know this is a canoe forum and short posts leave out a lot of detail, but saying that "mega fires" are the result of reduced logging isn't supported by the science. If I'm wrong, I'm interested in seeing the evidence. I agree with fire suppression as a cause, but that doesn't explain everything. I notice there was no mention of climate change. The government killed large scale logging because road building and the damage it causes was a huge money loser after all the easy to get timber was gone. Enviros stepped in and put the nail in the coffin and figured out how to use NEPA to hold the government accountable for environmental damage. My narrative of is quite simplified of course.

Mark

 

[ppine]

dogbrain,
I am a retired forester and I have been working with these issues for 50 years.
I totally disagree with your post.
I have not worked in Canada but the problems on Crown Land in BC are similar to those in the US.
The amount of literature that exists is long. North American forests are in trouble due to neglect.
Climate change has little effect on forests. The US Forest Service stood behind climate change as the reason for all of the problems in the National Forest System. They have since abandoned that strategy.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

we have major problems due to neglect

North American forests are in trouble due to neglect.

Ppine, it might help inform us if you would more specifically define what you mean "neglect." I think of neglect as behavior (or non-behavior) that can only be engaged in by humans. Before mankind, were North American forests in trouble?

there was no mention of climate change

Unfortunately, since the current climate change issues are about 10% science and 90% politics, in my opinion, I doubt we can discuss much about it here. But as a purely empirical matter, have there historically been more forest wildfires in warmer climate zones than in colder climate zones?

 

[dogbrain]

I am a retired forester and I have been working with these issues for 50 years.

The amount of literature that exists is long. North American forests are in trouble due to neglect.

Climate change has little effect on forests. The US Forest Service stood behind climate change as the reason for all of the problems in the National Forest System. They have since abandoned that strategy.

I have no interest in arguing or comparing credentials, or the new assertions, but you didn't answer the question. I'll try again. What convinced you that "neglect" of the forest has led to large catastrophic fires (a million acres or more??).

 

[dogbrain]

Unfortunately, since the current climate change issues are about 10% science and 90% politics, in my opinion, I doubt we can discuss much about it here. But as a purely empirical matter, have there historically been more forest wildfires in warmer climate zones than in colder climate zones?

That ratio is probably about right. Unless someone works in the natural sciences, there's no reason or ability for them to intelligently argue or discuss the science. The barrier of entry to that conversation is a specialized education in the field, knowledge of causal relationships, terminology, experience, etc. It's the same for any field of expertise: plumbing, auto mechanics, lab science etc. Since we know global climate is changing quickly, most likely as a result of humans burning stuff, the only thing available to us is the political discussion. Science is the best, and as far as I know, the only way we have of telling us what is and why. Politics is for making decisions about what to do in regards to the human causes, if we decide to do anything.

Mark

 

[ppine]

I define neglect as 110 years of complete fire suppression, and little logging since the owl controversies in the early 1990s. The USFS annual allowable cut is 10 billion board feet. That is established as the amount of wood that can be harvested for a sustainable resource. They are currently harvesting at the rate of around 2.5 billion board feet. Forests that historically had 50-75 stems per acre like ponderosa pine, now have 300-600 stems per acre or more.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Ppine, thanks for the additional detail.

I define neglect as 110 years of complete fire suppression

This I've heard of--the position that forests would be healthier if allowed to burn naturally, as they did before mankind. I don't know if this is a majority or minority position among forestry experts. Do some still advocate for aggressive fire suppression?

Forests that historically had 50-75 stems per acre like ponderosa pine, now have 300-600 stems per acre or more.

This is new to me and I'd like to understand it a little better. Are you saying that forests, undisturbed by mankind, would naturally have X stems per acre? And, second, that they now have a lot more than X stems per acre because of close re-planting by man after harvesting? And, third, that these too-close stems are now not being sufficiently harvested because of environmental concerns or other changes in forestry philosophy?

 

[tketcham]

This I've heard of--the position that forests would be healthier if allowed to burn naturally, as they did before mankind.

Your post was addressed to ppine but I'll quickly respond to this comment by pointing out that fire has been used as a tool by mankind for many hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years here in North America. Indigenous people had been using fire to promote mast production, berry production, grazing forage, and other benefits in the interior west and eastern United States and Canada. It wasn't until the indigenous populations were decimated by disease (and the survivors forced to retreat to reservations) that fire was no longer considered a land management strategy, but instead treated as a foe to be defeated. The mosaic of forested landscapes shaped by fire prior to European settlement were augmented and maintained by mankind. As evidence, there have been fire scar and forest reconstruction studies that suggest fire periodicity in some areas was more frequent than would have occurred from lightning strikes alone. Other studies indicate that bison once roamed the eastern U.S., foraging through extensive savannas maintained by indigenous people.

Allowing fires to burn naturally is a conundrum in that modern humans have so altered dryland landscapes from past fire suppression and changed the climate such that we don't really know what a "natural" fire is anymore.* Uncharted territory that's for sure.

* Besides, we have no way of managing, let alone controlling, many of the more recent fires; the fire intensities and rate of spread are far beyond what even fully functional fire suppression teams can handle.

 

[memaquay]

In recent years in Ontario, wage rates and the seasonal employment practices of MNRF for woodland fire fighters has lead to a lack of employees. It was most notable this year. At the same time, we had one of the worst fire seasons on record. I believe some of my friends in the US were the indirect victims of this, as massive amounts of smoke from the Canadian fires migrated around much of North America.

In a short time we will be able to gauge in Northern Ontario the effects of natural fires vs fire suppression, as many of the fires with no direct threat to human endeavours were allowed to burn unchecked. There was one massive fire on the north side of Ogoki Lake that burned for most of the summer. In point of fact, most fires in areas where there are no lumber operations or human populations (Indigenous reserves) are allowed to burn unchecked. These probably account for most of the fires during a summer.

In the last ten years I have noticed the water table up here has been very low. One of my chums who was an administrator in the fire fighting organization told me that we would need about three years of record breaking precipitation to bring the water table up to normal levels. He maintained that this was one of the main contributing factors to the latest outbreak of fires.

However, the cycle has been fairly steady up here for the past 35 years that I have lived here, with some summers being really bad for fires, and some summers having very few fires. Currently, there is less than two inches of snow on the ground. It is the lowest snow back on record. There is no snow forecast in the next 14 days. If this continues, it will most likely be a record breaking summer for fires, in areas where fire suppression has been practiced, and in areas where it has not.

I don't think anyone can reasonably deny climate change at this point. However, assuming that it is to blame for this or that is an evolving discussion, often times to much couched in the fires of opinion, where one side must demonstrate a win for whatever purposes.

I'm not much of a scientist, but my observations have led me to believe that something is going on. The Marshall Lake loop was always doable at anytime of the summer. For the past eight years or so, there are sections where the water is so low that the loonshit makes it almost impassable, indeed, sometimes it is impassable.

 

[ppine]

Before fire suppression, naturally occuring fires started by lightning were frequent, and mostly stayed on the ground. The fire recurrence interval in ponderosa pine forests (ppines) was around 7-15 years. Lewis and Clark talked about the smoke a lot in 1805-1806. Those fires took out the understory and seedlings and p. Larger trees were protected by their thick bark. Old trees show multiple fire scars today. Some really old trees like sequoias can have 200 fire scars.

Climate change amounts to 1.5 degrees C. Not enough to cause all of the fires and reduce the water table.

When a forest stand which historically had 60 stems per acre is protected from fire, and then there is little logging,, like today, the stand responds by growing hundreds of stems. 300-600 or more is typical. All of those trees take soil moisture and expel it through evapo-tranpiration. That pulls a lot of water out of the soil and lowers the water table. Thinning allows water tables to rise even with the same amount of precipitation.

The overstocked forest stands have trees too close together, but also lots of trees in the lower age classes. In other words seedlings, saplings and young trees which act as ladder fuels. Overstocked forests protected from fire have recurrence intervals of 40 -60 years or more. The fires burn in the crowns and take the whole forest.; Hot fires eliminate everything in the seed bank. I have been monitoring the Dixie Fire from 2 years ago near me which burned 1 million acres. The understory has recovered by I can only find 5 or less Jeffrey pine seedlings per acre. The fire was so hot, that most of the seed in the soil was destroyed. There has been little salvage logging and no plans to replant it.