Draft Logging Research?

[dominiquer60]

Customer Education is key. We have to teach people to think differently, outside the box, to see “owning” a forest as a responsibility rather than a resource to rape.

[Andy Carson]

@Carl Russell 38209 wrote:

However, I am not sure, and I have questioned this for many years, that we actually have enough time to wait for scientific methods to quantify the complicated nature of an ecosystem.

I agree this is a challange, and a challenge faced by researchers in a number of fields. One way to address this limitation is to do retrospective studies. If I was designing these studies, I would focus heavily on dynamics in old growth forests. These are our best examples of what forests looked like before man started to “mess around.” This is the best example we have of a system that “works” long term, and I believe our best model to emulate going forward. An example of a study like this would be to ask several questions of old growth forests in particular veins. How old are the trees? What is the species makeup of the trees? Do the young trees grow in a pattern that is indicative of a single adult tree falling, or are there patchy acres of young trees indicating a more widespread destruction? What is the relative species makeup around young vs old trees? The answers to these questions would let one which plant or animal species are good indicators of these processes. Next, one can study old impacts and look at these indicator species. Maybe at some time, there was a powerline, road, or gas line cut through virgin timber that got later transitioned to a protected forest. Maybe in another area of forest people cut a few trees down illegally. Maybe in another area, there was a disease or fire that killed a patch of trees. These become case studies that can be looked at retroactively. How long do these indicator species take to come after these types of impacts??? Comapring this will let one know, how to minimize long term damage in a scientific way. This is real research.

@Carl Russell 38209 wrote:

That is why I argue that a qualitative approach may make more sense. Qualitative evaluation can bring a vast array of “values” together, and at the same time make room for values assigned to unknowns, in a way that science cannot. Breaking an ecosystem apart into measurables denies the existence of interrelationships that support the shared existence of each of those measurable components, which is actually what an ecosystem is.

I think there is some confusion here between holistic science and reductionist science. Not all science is reductionist. Science does not deny that components of an ecosystem are interdependant. In fact, over and over again science has proved that these are interdependant. I think it is good to point out that extreme scientific reductionism fails in complex systems because it can focus too strongly on one factor. Extreme holistic science (whihc I would call “holism”) can also fail in complex systems because is fails to produce testable hypotheses. If a methodolgy does not produce testable hypotheses, it is not able to be criticied. I can imagine that producing hypothesis that are not able to be disproven might be attractive to some, it also means these ideas are not critically examined and not verified. This produces a belief system, which I would say is more like a religion that a science. Because it cannot be verified, and can only be spread to or explained to, people that share this belief system and can be converted to it. Moreover is takes on a smell of snakeoil, when, in fact this is not snakeoil. I believe extreme holism is not a way forward, but actually a step back. I believe is is a movement back to the dark ages where pointing out that the earth rotates around sun (which can be proven by careful observations of stars, not holistic oggling) could get one burnt at the stake.

PS. This is not to say that holism is all bad, just extreme holism. Anything that does not produce a testable hypothesis is not science, no matter how much scientific sounding language they use.

@Carl Russell 38209 wrote:

That is why this is not an easy endeavor. Any success at changing cultural norms, or even success at the personal level of trying to apply draft animals to forestry, is probably going to have to rely on comparable evaluation, personal experience shared with landowners and other loggers and foresters.

It is not easy, but it is important. Some people are greatly impacted by untested personal experiences of others. Many are more skeptical. I think many people want to “buy” this forestry product, but how can they explain to themselves and thier families why they want it and why they should pay for it. Purely subjective terms do not carry weight with many people. Being able to explain yourself in many ways to many people is very important.

[Tim Harrigan]

Forest ecology is not an area that I have tried to pursue as far as published research papers are concerned, but I am certain a lot of this work is being done. I am aware of some of it on the ground at the Kellogg Biological Station here in MI. The Kellogg forest was logged off (clear cut) in the 1920’s. Severely eroded, it was bought by W.K. Kellogg the cereal guy for restoration work and was eventually given to MSU as forestry research station. I know they have untouched areas as well as comparison sites in various degrees of harvest intensity, included a site that was clear cut again ten years ago or so. I am certain the research extends beyond the trees alone into other woody vegetation, plant and animal life, etc including soil quality and microbiology.

So Andy, I think you are right, there is probably room for studies that tie current with historical research. There are a lot of challenges with that and I could list many but to no practical end. But Andy, in the academic world this is the work equivalent to the lonely DAPNet post that get 1 views per year. Not going to be on the news, not in any magazine, bring it up with almost anyone and their eyes will turn to pinwheels, they may even pass out from boredom from lack of interest and comprehension. In MI, most woodlots are most valued as a place to put up a deer stand. For most folks, there is little difference in value between long-term, well managed lots and those that have been hit hard and abused because they don’t understand where the value is. That is, until the timber buyer visits the well-managed lot.

I think there are ways to integrate the quantitative and qualitative aspect in research, it is just really hard to get the data you need to make the analysis. It is time consuming and expensive. The qualitative aspect will have its level of frustration because it will come down to placing values on the qualitative components. So think of a matrix with timber value, botanical diversity, water quality, viewscape, wildlife habitat, whatever you value in the forest, versus value, could be $ or from 1-10, you still will have to end up with a ranking system to come up with an overall combined value. And the values we place will vary with the location of the site, if it is environmentally sensitive, are there competing uses etc. It will be really hard to separate it from the fact that it is managed land, and with management come certain expectations, most of them relatively short-term.

Forest ecology from a purely scientific perspective? Interesting and informative, and in the long run it can influence management, but it is maybe unrealistic to expect for much else in our lifetime.

[Rick Alger]

Hi Erica.

I agree that education is the key. You phrased your point well. I am very grateful to Carl, Jason and others who have taken it upon themselves to help the public see the value of animal power.

But in my neck of the woods the old culture lives on. As logger I am looked upon by a landowner as a buyer of their “valuable” wood not as a seller of a valuable service.

I think Andy’s idea of quantifying what animal power can do could result in powerful selling points for us folks who still log in the old dispensation.

[mitchmaine]

right rick,
up here forty years ago, stumpage was hard to find, most neighbors cut their own wood. took a generation, but that changed. hardly anyone cuts their own wood, but they still expect compusation or fair stumpage for taxes spent. so it is logical to expect that another generation could swing to our mindset of forest stewardship. i am not expecting to see it, but i believe it might happen.

[near horse]

Old growth forests are just one example of what forest looked like pre-human disturbance. The heterogeneity of habitats/species in stands of varying ages is the diversity that makes the system robust enough to continue to exist. Fire events were one of the disturbances that generated patches of younger timber.

I’m pulling form old memory again but the methods we need to employ to be profitable with high overhead demand high output per unit time (at current prices). Where draft animal logging can fit in best (IMO) is where harvest is ONE of the goals of the landowner not just the only goal. Many of the ecological principles that I recall enhancing the diversity of an ecosystem – edge effect, patchiness of a resource … – would be perfectly suited to use of animal power. One example in the UI experimental forest is what they called a “postage stamp clearcut” – a 1 acre clearcut surrounded by uneven age stands that may have been logged selectively or not at all. Those practices would be very difficult to perform and justify ($$) using conventional means but the landowner(s) need to see the “added value” of using this method and be willing to pay for it. Funny that in the local food movement ” value-added” is a pretty common term. Maybe that’s another way/buzz word to use with potential clients?

[Andy Carson]

I agree that fire events provide another historical model. In some ways, this is a good model of what happens when trees are removed by logging. I recognize that it is not exactly the same, but probably a good natural model in in some forests. I would guess these studies would be particularly well suited to some western forests, where fires seem to occur with high severity at a regular frequency. I am less convinced about it’s applicability to eastern forests. I am not sure how frequent fire was in virgin eastern forests, if it was severe enough to kill large trees, and how widespread the damage was from a single fire. This info would let one know what naturally happens after a fire (and parhaps a logging event), but also how much of this is going on at a steady state level in a natural environment. All useful info. Without it, one could argue “1) Fire is natural 2) Recovery from fire is beneficial 3)clearcut logging is like a fire, and thusly, 4) there is a ecological benefit to clearcutting everything I see.” To counter this argument, one needs both qualitative and quantitative information. It is a good example, actually, of why both are important.

[Andy Carson]

@Rick Alger 38225 wrote:

I think Andy’s idea of quantifying what animal power can do could result in powerful selling points for us folks who still log in the old dispensation.

Yes, Rick, that’s the idea. Do you have any idea what factors your folks might care about other than money? A lot of people around here also care about hunting. Many would be attracted to spending some money (or making less) on low impact logging if it could be shown that increases populations or quality of deer, turkey, bear, or other game animals. Mast production from mature trees would seem to support this wildlife. I understand, by the way, that this is not ecology in the spirit of ecology. I am just looking at alternate arguments that might be allied with ecology.

[mitchmaine]

Hey andy,
Its very frustrating. I’ve been watching the wood business go over the horizon for a long time and keep trying to come up with solutions that fit me and my particular needs.
The coast line down here is full of lots of new wealthy residents, who don’t need a lot of money, and could benefit greatly from our experiment. A problem seems to be that houselots(even 3-5 acres) don’t usually have enough marketable wood to warrant a cut. cutting in and around buildings and powerlines gets tricky. So its landscaping that we end up doing and that’s fine until you have two really nice saw logs or two cord of hardwood and three cord of pulp, not enough wood to pay for trucking. Saw mills balk when they hear you are cutting next to buildings cause the logs can and usually are full of iron. It can be a real hastle.
So what do you do? My favorite daydream is finding a few benevolent woodland owners, not necessarily in the same area(but that would be better), with 5-600 acres of wood between them, and agree to be their practitioner for good. A man(or woman) with a pair of horses could cruise that amount of land forever. It would take five years to cover that amount of land, just in time to start thinning it over again. The better the wood got, the higher the browse, and less inviting to your deer and so on, so you might have to devise an alternative plan to open up areas to sun and grow some berries and popple, and birch, or whatever you and your landowner and his or her forester came up with for a life plan for the woodlot but…………the key is you are the steward. Without the stumpage issue, I think a guy might just make it, once you get your roads laid out and yards and brows built.
The reality, for me, was after a few cuts, and the wood started to come, someone else would come along and offer huge money and strip the place. But if you could find the right people………………..

[Rick Alger]

Hi Andy,

Yeah, people connect to wildlife more readily than they do to the more complex issues of ecology.

In my area enhanced game populations would be a plus as would restored populations of deep woods species that thrive on retained canopy with intermittent openings such as pine martins, lynx, spruce grouse, various song birds and maybe even the woodland caribou.

But these are species adapted to a specific forest type and habitat in northeastern US and south east Canada. No easy extrapolation or application country wide.

Maybe some fungus or something in the ground could be studied as an indicator of system function or dysfunction.

[Carl Russell]

@Rick Alger 38225 wrote:

…..I think Andy’s idea of quantifying what animal power can do could result in powerful selling points for us folks who still log in the old dispensation.

So, I’ll go back to my original point……. If we use horses to apply the exact same forestry as is being applied by mechanical operators, then we will not be offering an alternative.

I really feel that the difference comes down to applying forestry in ways that suit the capability of draft animals,( ie. protecting ecological integrity), then measure how the ecosystem benefits from not having to recover from the impact, not only from machines, but from the economic withdrawal reflected by the short-cuts to minimize operational expense.

You can high-grade with horses. You can clear-cut with horses. Heck you can even practice ultra-utilization (modification on the term, whole tree harvesting). But the minimal difference in soil disturbance between the two methods will not add up to squat.

We need to truly and frankly evaluate the system-wide impacts of this modern application of forestry to get a real sense of how the money in the landowner’s pocket is reflected on the landscape. Then we need to show how draft animals can effectively apply a different method of timber harvest/forestry, and put a numeric value on what the ecosystem has in reserve, or more importantly what it doesn’t have to spend to recover.

My theory is that what the landowner earns the ecosystem has to spend to recover…..

On another note, Rick I apologize for the short incomplete answer, but I was headed out the door….. pulling 3-4 log pine….

I would really like to work on developing a northeast horseloggers association, or something like that, in the model of Healing Harvest’s Biological Woodsmen, so that we could develop some standards that we can all agree on. As members we would be certified to practice draft animal forestry that has some demonstrated measures, and similar to HHFF, we institute a 3rd party review that includes informed community members that can verify that we are doing what we say we will do.

Have some level of broader association, adhere to legitimate forestry principles, backed up by verifiable review, then actually have something to sell.

I realize that it comes down to the clientele. It is a hard nut to crack, but doing it alone is even more difficult.

BTW, I have been working closely with Jason to develop a NE Draftwood program, so I am neither stealing, nor trying to bypass him.

Carl

[near horse]

@Countymouse 38230 wrote:

I agree that fire events provide another historical model. In some ways, this is a good model of what happens when trees are removed by logging. I recognize that it is not exactly the same, but probably a good natural model in in some forests. I would guess these studies would be particularly well suited to some western forests, where fires seem to occur with high severity at a regular frequency. I am less convinced about it’s applicability to eastern forests. I am not sure how frequent fire was in virgin eastern forests, if it was severe enough to kill large trees, and how widespread the damage was from a single fire. This info would let one know what naturally happens after a fire (and parhaps a logging event), but also how much of this is going on at a steady state level in a natural environment. All useful info. Without it, one could argue “1) Fire is natural 2) Recovery from fire is beneficial 3)clearcut logging is like a fire, and thusly, 4) there is a ecological benefit to clearcutting everything I see.” To counter this argument, one needs both qualitative and quantitative information. It is a good example, actually, of why both are important.

I think I may have not clearly made my point. Fire was just one example of how nature “creates” heterogeneity in an ecosystem. And that increases niches for various species (plant and animal) to “make a living” — diversity. Old growth forests are important because they support some specific lifeforms, take a long time to replace, and are relatively rare now. But thet are not necessarily the “gold standard” to manage towards.
The hypothetical argument that if fire is good then so is clearcutting is pretty weak and shouldn’t need any data to refute. The similarities exist in the benefits/drawbacks lie in the scale …”how big; how severe”.

“Many would be attracted to spending some money (or making less) on low impact logging if it could be shown that increases populations or quality of deer, turkey, bear, or other game animals.”

My question here is aren’t we just substituting a desirable animal species for a tree (or trees) in our management plan?

” If we use horses to apply the exact same forestry as is being applied by mechanical operators, then we will not be offering an alternative.”
To add to Carl’s point here – to try to use horses in a system based on mechanical harvest is destined to fail economically. If you have to market/get paid at the same rate as guys running line machines, skidders and feller/bunchers
because you are really offering nothing different, the game is over. I think Mitch’s example on the 3-5 acres pieces sort of speaks to that.

Carl – are you thinking of perhaps a 3rd party post-harvest score/grade system where the results are “scored” vs the original management plan? Would pay be scaled to how closely you met the desired goals? WOuld like to hear more details of how the system might work …. it sounds interesting to me.

[Rick Alger]

Hi Carl,

A northeast animal loggers group sounds like great idea.

My interest in comparative research is on a simple level. I would like data to show a landowner that would indicate, for example, that horses can do his prescribed 30% overstory removal with less ecological disruption and greater long-term payback than machines.

Regarding system analysis of mechanical harvesting’s degradation of the ecosystem, isn’t your theory about mechanization’s advantage being the environmental cost an effort to quantify?

Anyway, good luck with the pine.

[Baystatetom]

Carl’s third party certification idea sounds great but it reminds me of the “Green Certification” we have now. Massachusetts had a big push to get properties SFC certified a while ago. I certified my own land as well as several clients properties. So far it has only added time and expense through additional paperwork, inspections and site visits. I still have not sold a single stick of Green Cert wood for a penny more then noncert wood. Don’t get me wrong I think its a great idea but so far it remains a feel good thing for those who can afford to feel good. If the wood market can’t accept and pay more for mechanically produced wood harvested under a higher standard how can it do it for draft power.
P.S.
Its a bit off topic but the native people of the northeast used fire to manage our forests for thousands of years before Europeans ever got here. We really have no idea what things would have looked like prehuman because even our virgin forest were managed.
~Tom

[Jim Ostergard]

Third party certification is tough. I have done audits in the past for Master Logger Certification, CLP in Maine, MOFGA for organic certification and seafood safety inspections. They are pretty costly to administer but they have their place I guess. Meaning that I became somewhat disenchanted as each of these programs grew and the bureaucracy administer them or making up the guidelines/regulations etc. grew even faster. Some straight forward way say to certify the standards set up by Draftwood would be a good place to start. I have two wood lots which probably would keep me busy for the next ten years due to their size and I would really like to get the landowners to agree to move in this direction.

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