Draft Logging Research?

[near horse]

Forest service fire suppression policy was based in part on the economic value of the timber that might be lost in a given fire event. I don’t think that’s evidence for our inability to indentify a natural ecosystem but more, our desire/willingness to disregard it in the face of economics.

Also, years of observation by “unbiased” foresters/loggers/land managers IS some of the data collected and used to prove/disprove a hypothesis. People who work in the woods daily are an invaluable source of observational data.

[Carl Russell]

Andy, you just made my point perfectly. The reason that fire was suppressed was specifically to protect the timber. Following ecological principles would have easily outlined that naturally occurring phenomenon should be expected, and any actions to interfere to protect human economic interests would be contrary to the values provided by that ecosystem. The fact that USFS implemented those policies does not mean that there were not people who could see it was poor judgement. The fact that these policies couldn’t be changed without decades of study to determine what was clear to begin with, is exactly what I am saying.

USFS is a perfect example of perpetuation misconceptions about the forest. The USFS was founded purposefully as a way to convince the US public that public forestlands could be used to produce forest resources. They developed a scientific approach to managing the biological components of the forest to produce an agricultural-type crop of wood. The application of the science only considers those variables that are considered viable in economic terms. The science of how trees grow is at the basis for the policies that drive that approach, because trees are seen as the resource, and management is the manipulation of the forest.

An ecological approach would acknowledge that there are systems beyond comprehension at play in the forest, including massive phenomenon such as fires, floods, and hurricanes, but also many that are subtle and unseen as well. Manipulating any of those components, or effects, could have destructive effects on other parts, or the entire system. Rather than intensive management of the desired crop, an ecological approach would actually manage the manner of interaction……. making as little change in the current situation as possible. Surgical harvest is one way to manage your impact as opposed to managing the forest.

Trees growing in a field does not constitute a forest, and yet a forest does not exist without trees. To grow trees like an agricultural product, to be grown at the highest rate of return, and with the ultimate objective to be harvested, is to ignore the biological communities of interaction that make up the forest. The forest exists without definition, or measurement, but it can’t exist if the naturally occurring interactions are incomplete. Setting human oriented objectives on certain components of the forest, like uniform tree growth, that naturally would not occur homogeneously across the landscape without human intervention, is asking for ecological imbalance.

The habit of humans to assume that we can change our environment to suit our needs is archaic. It has served us well at times in the past. Now we need to recognize the inherent “wisdom” in natural systems without needing to measure every part to make sure. It means shedding the humanistic view of the Earth, and having more sensibility to the unseen, and the unknown, by leaving options open.

We are not looking beyond the obvious and easily observed. We are using science to measure what exists in the current context. Believing we have uncovered the most important details, we make assumptions based on those discoveries, and institute policies and methods that last for decades before a measurable defect is calculated, which drives us to investigate more deeply until we hit something that seems to be significant and can be backed up by science….. and we start all over again. We are working our way down into a hole with blinders on.

What is obvious and easily observed is that there is more to the natural forest than can be easily seen, or even understood. So being prudent in one’s approach would be the reasonable, responsible thing to do. Looking for scientific justification for intensive reordering of biological interacting components is an undeveloped rationale.

Carl

[Andy Carson]

I am not sure I understand your argument, Geoff. Are you saying that when the forest service instituted thier zero tolerance policy for fire, but few of the foresters believed in it? I have a reliable referance saying it was part of “the ecological theory of the time.” Do you have a reliable referance saying otherwise, or is this pure speculation?

http://web.archive.org/web/20070810191055/http://www.nifc.gov/fire_policy/docs/chp1.pdf

[Andy Carson]

With reguard to the role of fire in western forests, I say “hats off” to the scientists and researchers who proved that the ‘fire is bad” hypothesis is wrong. This ended the possibility that economic minded foresters could say that they were truly interested in fire prevention as an ecological tool. Where they lying? I don’t know how we would ever know… I will leave this point/argument behind for now, because it speculates that people who are long dead believe one thing but say another. This is more than speculative and it is unneccessary because there are more modern examples all around us.

Take PA for example. Many who live in PA are suprized to find out that the state tree of PA is the eastern hemlock. It may also suprize many pennsylvannians that hemlock was once one of the most common trees in PA, and was found in many old growth forests thoughout PA. In 1896 alone over 1.3 BILLION board feet of hemlock was harvested from PA, and by 1923 most had been logged. A drive around here today (especially in winter) quickly demonstrates that this once common tree (and any other evergreens) is conspicuously absent. What grew in it’s place is a complex mix of cherry, maple, oak, and other trees. With these trees, deer and turkey bear and other wildlife thrive. Is it “natural” -not really!

Giving that this is the natural history and evolution of trees in PA, what is an ecological conservationist to do with former old growth forest in PA??? Does one simply “let it go,” knowing full well that the cherry, and maples that regrow do not represent the true historical makup of trees in PA? Does one ignore that this is actually a manmade secondary growth forest ecosystem, take those cherries to the bank, and call it “ecology”? Or does one try to emulate the distant past by encouraging the growth of eastern hemlock, even though it is a economic “trash tree,” grows slowly, and you know deep down that future heirs will cut it down before it’s a true “old growth” forest? Add to this the introduction of hemlock woolly adelgid, and big tracks of eastern hemlock look even less sustainable. I can see how both and neither practices are truly “ecology.” The most “ecological” path forward is certainly not clear to me. To me, it seems that everyone seems to want a piece of this forest “pie,” and has reasons to support this or that scientific statement. I think it is more useful to address the merits of the argument, rather than sink to defaming the messager of this or that statement.

ref: http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/allegheny/about-forest
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/hwa/pubs/proceedings/1999_proceedings/p161.pdf

To get back to the origional point. I am not looking for an argument that draft animals have to be economically better. I think most landowners would appreciate that. I am looking for an argument that draft animals are better in some documentable, verifiable way. I feel that this factor is out there and would carry weight with many landowners, especially if they dont really need to money that a mechanical harvest of thier trees would bring.

[Michael Colby]

Really well said, Carl. Keep it up. There’s a certain poetry to your words — and the woods.

[Carl Russell]

@Countymouse 38146 wrote:

…….

To get back to the origional point. I am not looking for an argument that draft animals have to be economically better. I think most landowners would appreciate that. I am looking for an argument that draft animals are better in some documentable, verifiable way. I feel that this factor is out there and would carry weight with many landowners, especially if they dont really need to money that a mechanical harvest of thier trees would bring.

I will be working with resource economists at UVM, not to prove that horses are better, but that the forestry practiced to support mechanized forestry is ecologically destructive. Then we can show that draft animals are better suited to putting into practice forestry based on ecological principles.

We won’t need to verify superiority, just clarify the difference in approaches, and let the work speak for itself.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

@Countymouse 38146 wrote:

……To get back to the origional point. I am not looking for an argument that draft animals have to be economically better. I think most landowners would appreciate that. I am looking for an argument that draft animals are better in some documentable, verifiable way. I feel that this factor is out there and would carry weight with many landowners, especially if they dont really need to money that a mechanical harvest of thier trees would bring.

Andy, I appreciate your desire to get a measurable outcome to your question. I am just trying to explain that this may be more of a qualitative evaluation. Since forestry is “applied” through harvest, if horses and machines are applied in the same way, then there should be no difference in the qualitative outcome.

The current norm for timber harvest, forestry in application, is based on many factors associated with the economy of scale possible with the use of machinery, for example marking high volume per acre, practicing even-aged management, and whole tree removal. If we use horses in a similar method we will be offering nothing better. Since there are no forestry principles that actually support economy of scale harvesting, I contend that given the limitations of horses to compete in that manner, then we should look qualitatively at how we can apply forestry in a way that favors the horse, and improves the effect of our choices as forest managers.

I regularly employ machinery loggers. I pay them nearly as much as I do the horse loggers who work for me. Access is the biggest factor. Compensating the horse logger to move logs long distances ensures that they will have enough income to do the work. The machines are better suited to moving logs long distances, but in the woods I find myself, while adhering to my primary objectives, marking wider skid trails, marking groups of trees to facilitate felling and hitching, and a variety of other compromises. The jobs are not comparable. The skidder operators I work with are good guys, but they are limited by their equipment as far as what they can accomplish for me, while the horse-loggers as a rule have much better results.

I recognize that we live in a landscape that is man-affected. I am not managing forests, I am managing my interaction with them. I don’t care for species composition. I don’t try to prevent disease complexes. I am not looking at the components of the forest, I am looking at the processes of the forest. Those processes are the forest. They exist in every successional stage of the forest, and in any species composition. I practice impact based on mimicking the natural, observable, processes that make the forest the forest.

While I appreciate your tendency toward quantitative review, there is an equally valid process of qualitative review that has been dismissed by the lovers of the mechanical mathematical methodology of science. Many more people have the ability to use qualitative evaluation then people who are trained in quantitative methods. There continue to be many instances where science is questioned on a daily basis on qualitative concerns, but since those values cannot be added to the formula, then they are dismissed.

I am taking the intent of the original search seriously. I do not believe that the answer is to compare horses to machines, the answer is to compare the way we apply the two different methodologies to the landscape. Ecological processes are hidden to most modern people, but given a chance to observe them, most people I have taken into the woods have quickly understood what is at stake. There is a part of our human organism, even in these modern times, that innately connects to the unseen value of nature.

Given the choice between having their woods worked in a way that protects that “feeling”, versus work that completely disrupts it, most people hands-down go with the horses. If I take the call from someone looking to make as much money as possible, they are not interested in taking that walk with me. I don’t work with them. If I take the owner into the woods and talk about all the money they can make, that is all they hear from me, and they dismiss any misgivings they may have about the “feelings” they have when they spend time in their woods.

But, let me spend some time with them validating those “feelings”, empowering them to find their own sense of value in the woods, to wrap themselves in the unseen blanket of natural processes going on around them, then there is no amount of money that can get a machine in those woods…..

Carl

[Carl Russell]

As far as whether natural ecological processes continue in a human-affected landscape, one merely needs to observe migratory songbirds feeding on the seeds of trees growing in vacant lots on Manhattan Island to realize that no matter how we change the components of our environs, we remain in the midst of a vast wilderness of mysterious coincidences as a consequence of strange interactions of processes inherent to this funny little rock floating in space.

Carl

[Andy Carson]

I think I see. So ecology, to you, means being “hands off” and let nature go where it will in our modern mixed up world. If it goes to diseased trees and multifloral rose, so be it. Ecology, to you, does not mean trying to recapitulate a system that would be similar to what the system would be like if man had not interferred. I can see how this could be unmeasureable as it is not really goal oriented, but rather seeks to let things be as they will be. I would say that everything is always as it will be, but this is getting very philosophical. In truth, I was more interested in understanding the logic of your position than challenging it. This lets me understand, I think, a lot.

[near horse]

Frankenstein say – “Fire no bad or goood. Is necessary part of some (or many) ecosystems though.”

Look, I don’t want to get into a pissing match over this but as a student in zoology I took a Fire Ecology course (along with countless other ecology courses) and spent plenty of time trapping and collecting data on small mammal succession after a burn (in a chaparral and coastal sage scrub environment). It was made very clear by those instructors and researchers that there is, was and always will be an economic component to fire policy ….. sometimes in direct conflict with ecological principles.

“In the context of the ecological theory of the time, fire exclusion wasbelieved to promote ecological stability. In addition, fire exclusion could also reduce
commodity damages and economic losses.”

I don’t see that this says anything about foresters believing or not. I think the “context” they refer to is really a smaller subset of ecology known as “conservationism”.

But a quote from here (Fire Prevention and Control in the National Forests — 1911) indicates that economics was a large part of the mindset ….
“If the crop is to be harvested, it must be protected from fire during the time of its growth. It is worse than useless to devise plans to assure future growth if this future growth is to be burned up.”

Also, there’s a whole paragraph discussing the catastrophic economic losses associated with the 1910 fires here and the Fernie fire in BC. Some great old pictures too.
http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Policy/Fire/Suppression/Silcox_Fire_1910.pdf

With regard to evergreens in PA (or anywhere) – In a larger time frame, the conifers are considered successionally relic populations giving way to the flowering trees (hardwoods). Now, humans can manage these trees to keep resetting the successional stage and that is certainly something to consider.

[Andy Carson]

I am not debating if economics was or is an important part of past or current fire policy. This missed the point entirely. I am debating that fire exclusion was seen as ecology at one time in history. The statement “”In the context of the ecological theory of the time, fire exclusion was believed to promote ecological stability” makes the point clearly. This is not disproven by pointing out that there are economic concerns. This is a potential source of bias, but has nothing to do with the idea in an of itself. What could disprove this statement is a statement (from early in the 19th century) that “fire exclusion was practiced despite established ecological principles.” You make my second point when you for me when you can that when you took your classes, “It was made very clear by those instructors and researchers that there is, was and always will be an economic component to fire policy ….. sometimes in direct conflict with ecological principles.” The definition and/or practice of ecology changed! That’s my entire point. Do you honestly believe that the idea of waht ecology is has not changed in the past 100 years??? Really??? This is only one example of hundreds…

I fiund it interesting that there is so much distrust of research in forestry. I am getting the feeling like this science and research was not performed correctly or was not presented properly. Real science should be understandable to everyone. It shold make conclusions that everyone can understand and these conclusions should be defendable to anyone who encounters them. If they don’t make sense to you, yell “Bullshit”!, and explain why. Keep and open mind, listen to arguments, and make counterpoints. This open participation is true science. Science is not an inaccessable tool practiced by snobs and elites and is used primarily to justify big buisness practices. If it was, than “ecology” would still include fire exclusion. We all have the ability to participate. In short, I do not believe that ecology is anti-intellectual and we do ourselves a disservice presenting it as such. Disreguarding research and the scientific process feels anti-intellectual to me.

[mitchmaine]

We had five saw mills in our town 30 years ago. Each hiring several men to roll logs and take away. Now there are only two. Each run by one man. Not very efficient, but workmans compensation made it impossible to run their mills with hired help. The next town over had a small pulp mill and a wood fiber plant that each closed down ten or fifteen years ago for similar reasons.
Half the problem of finding a nitch(niche) for successful horse logging is having a diversity of markets to cut for. There were bolt mills for trap(lobster) stock(red oak-live edge), toothpicks(yellow and paper birch), maple furniture, bobbins and spool mills and so on and so on. All gone.
Even the big boys(biomass) balance all their millions on two mills that run close to supply.
6000 men cut wood in maine in the 60’s. choppers, not forested related jobs. Now I dare to say its under 1000. Not because we ran out of wood. We ran out of diverse demand.
Forest products industry is probably 100’s of millions still here in state, but how much of that stays in state? And where does your horse fit in?

[Rick Alger]

Right on Mitch. What good is forestry if the forest is going to be chipped every fifteen years for biomass?

[Carl Russell]

@Countymouse 38159 wrote:

…..I find it interesting that there is so much distrust of research in forestry. I am getting the feeling like this science and research was not performed correctly or was not presented properly. Real science should be understandable to everyone. It shold make conclusions that everyone can understand and these conclusions should be defendable to anyone who encounters them……. .

You are exactly right….. the problem is that the research that supports modern forestry was funded by US Gov’t and indirectly by industry……. the underlying assumption in forestry research has always been to manage forests as economic engines. The “Science” of forestry is based on economics and statistics related to maximizing tree growth for the production of timber. There is also the science related to forest ecology, but this is typically not employed in the context of forestry related to timber harvest, it is usually just used so that foresters are informed about the processes that occur in the woods.

The “science” that drives timber production actually supports an agricultural approach to forest management. It is the basis for decisions about how to manipulate components of the forest so that tree growth is maximized. The blind spot is that ecological concerns are down-played. There really isn’t a science that supports timber production within an ecologically intact forest.

There have been some efforts by individuals and small groups of foresters who have tried to formulate management standards that protect natural ecological processes while improving timber assets. Very few have taken hold in the economically driven industry. Jason Rutledge and I are two who have recognized the applicability of draft animals to a harvesting method that supports such an approach.

While I do want to allow natural ecological processes, I would not describe it as “hands-off”. I do not concentrate on trying to “balance” a certain set of components in order to “manage” the forest, but I do adhere to some basic understandings about forest ecology to address the interest to improve financial assets of forest products.

Trees are the defining factor of forests. Trees that occupy a site grow until they fully occupy it. This high density leads to the development of many processes that support other aspects of the forest community. Whenever density is changed, there are effects that ripple through that community. Managing forests to maximize economic return leads us to change density homogeneously across large tracts, so that the site can be “filled” with a consistent product growing at the highest consistent rate. “Filled” is a relative term. In order to maximize tree growth, competition needs to be reduced, so stocking levels are typically reduced significantly below where they would be in a naturally occurring forest.

So with my objective to increase value on a site, I also need to reduce stocking. However, the ecological factors that are supported through high stocking are important. My solution is to release crop trees individually. Finding trees that will become high value stems in the future, then reducing direct competition without disturbing other areas where high stocking is maintained, is a simple example. Mechanical operators have a very hard time doing this, while horses are ideally suited to it.

High stocking also has other aspects that have ecological importance. Competition causes mortality, which leads to standing dead trees, and downed decomposing coarse woody debris. I leave a large amount of low quality material in the woods rather than creating traffic on the land in order to remove it. Low value wood typically is harvested in large quantities in order to make up for the relative cost of handling. Mechanical operations NEED to handle large quantities of this stuff, which leads to high harvest volume per acre, reducing stocking, and it also leads to whole tree harvesting, which reduces biomass retention.

Horses cannot move this stuff in those quantities, so it is a real deal breaker if we try, but rather than leaving these poor competitors alive, I cut them, salvage value that makes operational sense, and leave the rest. I also incorporate non-commercial thinning, cutting trees like weeding around crop trees, but not spending additional cost on removal. This method is a profit killer for mechanical operators working under the current economic model of timber harvest, but it actually makes the effort of enacting forest improvement with horses more functional.

Forests obviously are not static. Openings occur from time to time, from disease, overmaturity, or some other physical impact like wind. In some landscapes there are instances where large tracts are destroyed by fire, for example, but at least in the Northeast, the forest rarely maintains an even-aged character for very long. While managing even-aged stands makes the best economics sense, there are very few instances where this practice is supported by ecological reality. Creating small openings, 1/4 – 2 acres, releasing patches of established regeneration, and creating an irregular age distribution is much more in line with natural ecological processes. Again harvesting to create this type of forest composition is very complicated and expensive using machinery, but draft animals are ideally suited to working like this.

As far as disease or invasive species, I see these as indicators that ecological processes are compromised. Currently we are battling these conditions, assuming that what we have been doing has had no adverse effects on the productivity of our forest ecosystems. I see disease as an environmental pressure that has always sorted out the weak, but in natural systems it also provides dead and decaying contribution to the soils, bacteria, and fungi that add complexity to the ecosystem. We have been interfering with these aspects by reducing stocking, preventing disease, and removing large quantities of biomass. I am not opposed to reducing invasives, and I do cut diseased trees, but I also focus on maintaining the integrity of these processes to build resiliency in the future stands that I work in.

Currently these aspects of forest ecology are consistently overlooked, primarily to facilitate the use of mechanical harvest. There are no principles of forestry that support economy of scale harvesting. If machinery harvesters would adhere to these basic ecological principles their costs would skyrocket, and we could be able to compare the two operations more realistically.

This leads to another complication. The current avocation for forester is as agent for landowners to get the highest return on the growth of the trees on their land. The “science” that we were taught about managing forests focuses on trees, not on the ecosystem, so most foresters adhere to principles that enhance tree growth, not ecological integrity. The highest stumpage value for trees comes from timber sales that are ideally suited for economy of scale harvesting. Since ecology has already been given a back seat, then high stumpage and economy of scale are linked together as standards of modern forestry.

Also to make timber harvest more attractive to landowners foresters have developed a standard stumpage value, meaning that there is a convention to sell all trees of certain species for some regionally established value. This becomes the focus, and the harvesting systems that most effectively provide these values are then standardized. Again, there are no forestry principles that support this, just economic realities of the marketplace.

Adhering to ecological principles, using surgical harvesting to improve timber quality, and paying stumpage based on the cost of the work required to adhere to these processes are foundational to my approach to draft animal powered forestry.

Carl

[Baystatetom]

Andy, in your search for scientific proof also consider that forestry is an art and not just a science. Everyday I head out into the woods see what is there, envision what I want it to look like, and make it happen. I may have had some science based training in college but I think I practice more of an art.
This also made me think of the definition of forestry. As I remember anyway: The art and science of managing the forest for the benefit of man and nature.
This also reminds me of one time at my Uncles place when I returned home across the field and my wife asked who was fighting. I replied nobody. She then asked why we were all yelling. I just laughed and said we were all agreeing about an issue but for some reason were still compelled to yell about it.
~Tom

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