The US Forest Circus

I feel the need to preface this post with stating that I do not have an issue with the United States Forest Service as a whole; in fact, I love most of what they do (the title of this post stems from a phrase that many individuals use to refer to the agency). Much of my leisure time is spent tromping through the National Forests of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. I would even venture to guess that at some point in my career I will be employed by the US Forest Service in some capacity. However, due to an upbringing in a very proactive forestry family, I have a fundamental issue with the way the Forest Service is practicing forestry, particularly in the Lake States.

“Providing technical and financial assistance to cities and communities to improve their natural environment by planting trees and caring for their forests,” is one of the ways the Forest Service lists on its website for how it will fulfill its mission statement which focuses on health, diversity, and productivity. The aspect of productivity seems to have been lost upon the Forest Service and there are many who share the same opinion. In July of 2011, the Forest Service hosted the Great Lakes National Forest Conference in the upper peninsula of Michigan; the conference was so well attended that there was only standing room left. Legislators and industry members alike shared their thoughts and concerns over the state of the Great Lakes National Forests and their declining production. According to the Lake States Lumber Association (LSLA), the National Forest now loses three times more trees to old age than to harvesting, a fact that has been felt by many local communities. The National Forests, which were once a source of economic revenue for the communities they reside near, are now a drain on the whole nation as they were included in the collection of agencies that received bailout funding during the recent economic downturn. At the Great Lakes National Forest Conference, a former superintendent correlated declining enrolment to declining federal timber sales and it was mentioned by the LSLA president that due to the Forest Service’s unmet goals for the Lake States, the Midwest has had to import lumber from Canada and the eastern United States to meet their needs.

I rifle hunt in the 1.5 million acre Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Northern Wisconsin and have done so since I was legally old enough to do so. Over my 10 years hunting the same area, I have seen remarkably little timber management performed, yet I have seen many stands of aspen and spruce become so old and so thick that they begin to strangle themselves, the spruce becoming stunted and the aspen falling over, dead, leaving a thick, brushy mess that even the deer avoid. Why doesn’t the Forest Service capitalize on this mature timber and harvest it before it kills itself? Price County (which is home to a large portion of the Chequamegon-Nicolet) is also home to 90,000 acres of county forest that is actively managed. Since 2006, county timber sales have generated over half a million dollars each year, with the surplus revenue reaching $850,000 in 2009. This surplus revenue is then returned to the county to offset costs of other services such as the highway department or health and human services. If a small county government can generate nearly a million dollars each year on 90,000 acres, why can’t the Forest Service do something similar on the 1.5 million acres in the Chequamegon-Nicolet? The Forest Service can, and should, manage their forests not just for health and diversity, but productivity as well.

On a final note, I realize that this decline in production may have causes outside of the Forest Service’s power. As a federal agency, their actions are under scrutiny from many environmental organizations and many of their timber sales (especially in the western states) are “sued” by these organizations and thus held up for years in red tape from the time they are created to the time they can be cut, if they are cut at all. In the Midwest, however, we are relatively free from such limitations and the Forest Service should have no problem assessing the forests that it controls and realizing that they could be much healthier and better suited to wildlife habitat and recreation were they harvested more aggressively and made to be productive once again.