Seeing the Forest Through the Trees

Photo courtesy of : http://roberthodgin.com/portfolio/work/into-the-trees/

Watching the short documentary titled “Seeing the Forest”drives home the perspective that we (society) see all our natural resources as being ours for the taking. We could be speaking of our water resources, our land or maybe our fish or other land animals. What we fail to recognize is our short term withdrawal has wide spread and long standing implications on the environmental webs in our ecosystem.

The Siuslaw National Forest is one such web that society impacted over the previous 40 or more years. The forests of the Siuslaw area were decimated over time in part by clear cutting and irresponsible or uninformed logging practices.

Trees play a vital role in our environmental web that go far beyond their role in absorbing carbon, stabilizing our soils or providing important habitat for birds and other animals. The influence and impact on trees branches out into other areas of our ecosystems like streams and rivers in the forest regions.

• Trees slow the rushing waters during floods that not only protect against erosion but they also provide hiding spots for fish and other species.

• Trees create pools and trap gravel for spawning fish.

• Trees hold onto organic matter that provide important parts necessary for various life in within each environmental cycle

• Trees naturally create log jams to slow streams down and ultimately provide habitat for small fish.

Mismanagement of the Siuslaw forest area didn’t occur simply by over foresting. It also came as a result of well-intended actions such as post logging forest restoration. Unfortunately, the densely replanted trees worked against natural systems in some cases as the forests were no longer in balance with natural environmental cycles. Ultimately, the tipping point for the Siuslaw came in 1991 as a result of the impact to the spotted owl and other native species. 

What resulted from this halt of logging was the development the 1993 Forest Summit. This collaborative (logging industry, government, community, environmentalists) summit started a new way of working together toward the development of a long term policy on land management and conservation. This partnership resulted in the Northwest Forest Plan that set aside areas no harvesting areas with a special attention to barrier zones around rivers and water ways that could be impacted by logging practices. It also led to other recovery and management practices that weren’t directed towards logging practices. The group started looking at the whole ecosystem across the watershed with a focus on restoring and sustaining this area in its entirety. This came in the form of diverse actions such as looking at the roads in the forest area in an effort to identify their role and impact on the ecosystem. Examples of changes/practices included:

Implementation water barring on existing roads
Storing or decommissioning of unused roads
Building of larger culverts

These practices were implemented because studies performed highlighted the fact that road building and clear cutting forests have a dramatic impact on:

a.       Increased the frequency and severity of landslides

b.      Increased the impacts on fish bearing streams

In summary, environmentalists and government actually partnered in a “long view” of our mismanagement problem in this forest region. This collaborative group created different types of conversations than previously were utilized. The group created a shift in the relationship that:

a.       Created a new sense of “right” amongst the group

b.      Awarded victory to all sides which depolarized the fight

c.       Group action to add value on both sides

d.      Allowed the group to find a new way , new ideas to make life better for both sides

e.      An opportunity for government collaboration and mediation

f.        An environment where the parties involved don’t dwell on the differences because they focus on the common ground – restoration and management

g.       Focused on the salmon as a common goal

Ultimately recovery and management solutions were developed in collaboration that benefited the people, forest and salmon while generating money, timber and jobs. This was all accomplished though practices that minimized the overall impact on the environment. Finally, this group and their actions have provided a real life, long standing example of positive transition and collaboration between traditionally conflicting groups. We can learn a lot from this example and our learnings can help us find opportunities to communicate and spread these best practices of collaboration.