Old Growth and the New Forestry

Dr. Jerry F. FranklinBloedel Professor of Ecosystem Analysis,

College of Forest Resources, University of Washington andChief Plant Ecologist. USDA Forest Service

Pacific Northwest Research Station

Abstract. Research on old-growth and other natural forests during the last two decades has provided a weahhof new Information and perspectives on forest ecosystems and how they function. Among the findings are a greatlyenhanced appreciation of the complexity of natural forest ecosystems. mechanisms for ecosystem recovery followingnatural disturbances, and the necessity to consider larger spatial scales. Natural forests have a richness of organismsand processes, much of which Is linked to their characteristic structural complexity. Recent research on naturaldisturbances has Increasingly clarified the importance of biological legacies of living organisms and organically-derivedstructures, such as snags and down logs. in providing for perpetuation of complex natural ecosystems. The importanceof larg..cale or landscape perspectives has been clarified by research on issues such as cumulative effects and forestfragmentation.

There are strong Indicationsthat altemative approaches to forest management are needed. These should reflecttheneed to base stewardship on the most current scientificinformation;and to incorporate societies' increasing concemwith sustained productivityand ecological values, including biological diversity. 'New Forestry' is a concept withattempts to do this.

The objective in New Forestry is development of forest management systems which better integrate commodityproductionwithmaintenance of ecologicalvalues. Atthe stand levelthe basic principleof NewForestryis maintenanceof structurallycomplex managed forest systems; this contrasts withthe structuraland compositionalsimplificationthatIs characteristic of current intensive forest management practices. At the landscape level the basic principle of NewForestryisto consider effectsof management practices overlarge spatial and temporal scales. This includes such issuesas the arrangement of different patch types and sizes, and integration of reserved areas with commodity lands toproduce a diversifiedlandscape.

Based on a talk given on January 19, 1990 at 'Forests Wild and managed: differences and consequences'. a symposiumat the University of British Columbia

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Introduction ..

I appreciate being here tonight and havingthis opportunity to talk to you about old-growth forestsas well as some different ways of looking at ourmanaged forests. I want to begin by simply remindingyou that here on the northwestern coast of NorthAmerica, we share the most incredible temperateforests in the world,bar none. They reallydo not take aback seat even to the tropical forests in terms of theircomplexity and richness. This Pacific coastal regionsupports the most massive and among the mostproductive forests that exist anywhere in the world. Theyrepresentthe largest organicaccumulationsof any ofthe world'secosystems.The trees species composingthe forest are both the largest and longest-livedrepresentatives of their genera and are furthernoteworthy because of their abilityto sustain significantgrowth for several centuries.

The use of these forests has becomeincreasingly controversial. Indeed, what we're lookingat, in forestry and in forest resources management is arevolution.This is not very surprising when you reflectupon it, because the practices that we're using todaywere, in their fundamentals, laid down many decadesago inthe late 1940's on nationalforest lands in Oregonand Washington.

So much has happened in the last fewdecades-in terms of increased knowledge about theseforests and changes in our societal objectives-that areassessment of forest practices is long overdue. Weneed to step back and take a fresh look at what we'redoing and why we're doing it.

I think that most parties to the controversiesrecognize the need to develop some practices whichdoa better job of accommodating ecological vC!-luesat thesame time that we're trying to provide for some levelofcommodityproduction;to create what I'vesometimescalled a "kinder and gentler" forestry or, as it is popularlyknown, as "New Forestry".

Tonight Iwant to talk about old-growth, someof the controversies, and the potential role of NewForestry.

Scientific Underpinnings of New Forestry

The scientific knowledge that is both drivingthe need, and providingthe basis, for some changes inour forestry practices is a good place to begin. I

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emphasize the scientific underpinning because thereare people on both sides of the issue who suggest thatnew forestry is a facade-smoke and mirrors-lackingscientific substance. In fact, it is most emphaticallybased on peer-reviewed scientificresearch, particularlyresearch during the last 20 years on natural forestecosystems and how they work.

It Is only very recently that we examinedthese forests as ecosystems. Indeed, seriousecosystem research on natural forests in the PacificNorthwestbegan just a littleover two decades ago, withNational Science Foundation Support of theInternational Biological Program's Coniferous ForestBiomeproject in1969.This project and other ecosystemresearch programs have yielded a tremendous wealthof new knowledge. Iwillpresent, some of it here underthree topical headings: (1) ecosystem complexity; (2)"biological legacies" or aspects of ecosystemregeneration followingcatastrophic disturbances; and(3) landscape ecology perspectives. While thesesubject areas are not new, Ithinkthat the richness ofthescientific informationbase and its relevance to forestmanagement issues really is new.

Ecosystem Complexity

We have discovered from our research thatnatural forests are verycomplex,more complex than wecould have imagined, as Chris Maser is fond of saying.To begin with,these natural forests contain a richnessof species. We can take mammalian species as oneexample. Diversity of mammal species varies withsuccessional stages in Douglas-firforests (Fig.1).Thispattern exhibitshigh levelsofdiversity(manyspecies) inthe open ecosystem prior to tree canopy closure. Thisdiversity is a mixtureof both forest species and weedypioneer species. Diversity collapses to much lowerspecies numbers when the forest canopy closes andthen recovers to intermediate levels of diversity in themature and old-growthstages. This is a very commonpattern; it is similarfor many other groups of organismsincluding birds, fishes and many types of invertebrates.

A critical point is that, although the earlysuccessional (precanopy closure) stage has more total

. species, manyofthe species foundin the matureandthe old-growth forests have specialized habitatrequirements. They often require conditions that areonly found in older stages of forest succession and,hence, are found primarilyinthose kinds of forests. Thenorthern spotted owl is a good example of that kind oforganism.

Equally or perhaps more important, and asyet largely unrecognized, are the incredible levels ofinvisible or "hidden" diversity which exist in naturalforests, diversity which is critical to the functioning ofthese forests. The diversity of invertebrates, forexample, and of fungal species, groups of organismsthat we really don't think much about, let alone catalogand study. For example, old-growth forests, to thedegree that they have been studied, appear to be veryrich in invertebrate species. Schowalter (1988) found 61species of arthropods in canopies of old-growth forestsand only 16 species in adjacent young, managedstands. Furthermore, most of the old-growthinvertebrates were species that prey upon or parasitizeother kinds of invertebrates-insects that kill barkbeetles or aphids, for example.This is a much healthiersituation than in the young stands where invertebratecommunities were dominated by organisms that preyon plants, such as the aphids. So, there is not only arichness of species in these natural forests, but manythat do specialized and very important kinds of "work".

The studies of species richness boils down tothe simple recognition that mature and old-growthforests are biologically diverse ecosystems and notbiological deserts. They never were deserts; they onlyseemed to be, as viewed from such narrow perspectivesas production of some game species.

We also see in natural forests a greatrichness of process. Sources of nitrogen for the forestecosystem provides a good illustration. Thirty yearsago, we had few ideas about how nitrogen was broughtinto these systems; as you know, the air is full ofelemental nitrogen but a few organisms can convert or"fix" it into biologically useful forms. In recent yearsecosystem scientists have identified numerouspathways by which nature provides for nitrogenadditions to the ecosystem. An important earlydiscovery in IBP was the role of foliose lichens, largeleafy lichens, which live in the canopies of old-growthDouglas-fir trees in nitrogen cycling. These lichens areestimated to fix five to nine kg/ha,lyr of nitrogen, asignificant addition to these forest systems. Otherroutes for nitrogen additions include fixation bymicrobes living in rotting logs and in the rhizosphere orregions immediately around the tree roots.

Scientists have also discovered that themature and old forests are very productive by any kindof ecological or biological definition. It really couldn't beany other way given the amount of "green" or chlorophyllthat's out there in those old-growth forests.

Trees do not retain leaves that lack a netbenefit in terms of photosynthesis. And there are a lot ofleaves out there, as anyone can see! So the older

forests are, in ecological terms, as productive as mostyoung forests. The difference is that in older forests a lotof the productivity is being used in respiration tomaintain the incredible accumulated biomass ratherthan for production of additional wood. Hence, from aforester's perspective, older forests are viewed asunproductive forests because they are not growingmany additional "boards". Much of the tree growth isoffset by tree mortality. To the degree it has beenstudied, however, older forests are very stable in termsof wood volumes and many even continue to graduallyaccumulate additional merchantable wood. Virtually allof these old forests continue to have net accumulationsof organic matter (stored carbon). .

Another thing that we see increasingly arethe incredible linkages that exist In these forestecosystems; the richness of webs of various kinds, offunctional relationships. One very fine example is thepart of the forest that exists below ground. Although thebelow ground subsystem makesup only twenty percentof the biomass of the forest, it has such high rates ofturnover that as much as fifty to seventy percent of thephotosynthate produced by the forest may be requiredfor its maintenance. This certainly underlines theimportance of trees as energy sources fueling the soilsubsystem. DavePerry identifies the tree roots as "whiteholes" providing the very lifeblood of soils by pumpingenergy into them. And, of course, there are themycorrhizae and mycorrhizal relationships which areincreasingly recognized as critical linkages not justbetween trees and their soil environment but alsobetween trees and between plants in the overstory andin the understory. Through fungi and other organismsthe soil subsystem is, in fact, a highly interlinked livingsystem.

The extremely high-quality water yielded byold-growth forest systems is a consequence of thecomplexity and richness of the below-ground system.Tight biological linkages reduce nutrient leaching and,hence. levels of dissolved materials in these water. Theextensive root mass helps reduce levelsof various kindsof erosional events thereby reducing sediment levels insurface waters.

The forest canopy is a second subsystemthat is exciting because of its richness and complexity.The canopies in old-growth Douglas-fir forestsrepresent truly immense surface areas which areinterfaces between the forest and the atmosphere. Wecan imagine the canopy as a giant atmosphericscavenger which condenses large amounts of moisturefrom the atmosphere and precipitates dust and otheratmospherical particulates, bringing these materialsinto the ecosystem. Of course, these canopies also

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provide large and diverse areas of habitat for variouskind of organisms.

Imaginethe volumeof space that is occupiedby one of these ecosystems where the canopy extendsseventy or eight metres into the atmosphere. A singleold-growthDouglas-firtree, has around an acre of foliarsurface area! So you can imagine the canopy surfacearea of a whole forest of these trees. That is one reasonthat these forests are so effective at scavenging theatmosphere. In some of our forests condensation fromfog and low clouds adds very significantly-a net ofmmJyrin one case (Harr )-to the moisture inputs intoold-growth dominated watersheds and, consequently,to the level of streamflow.

Riparian areas provide a third example of ahighlyinterlinkedand ecological rich subsystem whichpreviously we had not adequately appreciated. Thelinkages between forests and streams are provingnumerous, complex, and criticalto stream functioning.Forexample, we started 20 years ago by thinkingaboutforests primarily in terms of their influence ontemperature regimes of streams.

More recently we have recognized thatforests also provide the critical structural features forstreams (e.g., in the form of woody debris) and diverseallochthonus inputs (litterand other organic materials)that are the streams' energy and nutrient base.

Structural complexity or diversity in naturalforests is recognizably the key to much of the richnessof organisms, of habitat, and of processes. Some ofthisstructural complexity can be defined in terms ofindividualstructural features, as has been done in manycurrent definitions of old-growth forests. Theseindividual structures include large old-growth trees,large snags or standing dead trees, and large downedlogs.

Coarse woody debris-standing dead treesand downed logs-is an important element of structure.In reflectingon mycareer as a forester Ifind itdifficulttounderstand why it took me so long to appreciate thecontribution that dead wood structures make toecological functioning in a forest. Those contributionsrange allthe wayfromgeomorphic functions, such as ininfluencingerosional processes; to biological diversity,such as in providing habitat for a broad array ofvertebrate and invertebrate organisms; and to providinglong-term sources of energy and nutrients for thesesystems. From an evolutionarypoint ofviewwe need toremember that large, woody structures have beenaround for a long time and that there has been a lot ofanimaland microbialevolutionin association withthesekinds of habitats.

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Wood, big pieces of wood, is at least asimportantto stream as to forest ecosystems. Itis a majorelement in creation of stepped structures in thesesystems and moderates various erosional processes.Woody debris is important in the larger rivers andestuaries, as wellas in small streams although it playsdifferent roles; your fisheries people can provide youwith detailed information.

One of the keys to the overallstructure, the'.gestaJr of the old-growth forest, is the spatialheterogeneity that is present. Large trees, large snags,and large down logs are important individualstructuralcomponents of old-growthforests, but we also have torecognize that the forest as a whole has some structuralattributes. Itis not just the sum ofa fewindividualpieces.Forexample, there are gaps inthe natural forest-placeswhere light levels are higher and there is richdevelopment of the understory. And areas that are thereverse of the gap rantigaps.)-very heavily shadedlocales where a dense overstory of hemlock and cedarprevent the establishment of almost any green plant onthe forest floor:This variabilityin light conditions helpscreate the incredible complexity and richness of theunderstory in these forests. The importance of diverseand well-developed understories is illustrated by thecritical relation between old-growth forest structuresand Sitka blacktailed deer in the coastal forests of theTongass National Forest. Research by Paul Alabackand others has also shown that the development andmaintenance of these diverse understory plantcommunities is complicated-not just a matter ofallowingmore light, for example.

What can we conclude withregards to forestcomplexity?The essence is that most (all?)ofthe partsof a forest ecosystem have value fulfillsome functionalrole. That complexity has value. The inference is thatsimplificationshould be approached with considerablecaution.

Research has also shown us that old-growthforests have intrinsic value; that they perform manyfunctions, includingmany which are of direct interest tohuman beings. Old-growthforests are neither biologicaldeserts nor cellulose cemeteries; rather, they are richand diverse ecosystems that fulfillmany ecologicalfunctions very well.

Biological Legacies

.Biological legacies. is a short-handidentificationofthe second scientificconcept that Iwantto discuss. Itrelates to the wayecosystems recover fromdisturbances. Mount St. Helens provided a uniqueobject lesson to scientists,one that presumablywon't

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be repeated In my lifetime; a lesson In the way thatnature perpetuates complexity, for richness, in theregenerating ecosystems which develop following acatastrophic disturbance.

As we looked at our 1V sets on May 18, 1980we thought that Mount St Helens had provided us witha moonscape to study. "Oh, boy, we get to watchsuccession start from scratchI It's got to start all overagain." However,from our first minutes on the ground inthe devastated zone ten days later, we encounteredincredible legacies of living organisms, survivors of theeruption. As I took my first steps from a helicopter Iencountered hundreds of fireweed sprouts, antsscurrying about, the excavations of pocket gophers, etc.

We discovered that many kinds of organismshad survived within the devastated Mount Sl Helenslandscape utilizing a wide variety of strategies.Essentially the only organisms that had been lost werethe birds and the large mammals that lived aboveground. Anything which was living below ground orcould regenerate from parts protected below ground orwas buriedin a snow bank or in the mud at the bottomof a lake,or Inany of a number of other environments,was able to survive. From seeds to spores to full-sizeorganisms,an importantkey to early recovery at MountSt. Helens was survivors. In addition to that living legacy,there was also an Immense legacy of organic matterand, most Importantly, biologically-derivedstructures-snags and downed logs, large soliaggregates, etc., In the landscape.

The importance of biological legacies, bothliving and dead, stimulated us to rethink ecosystemresponses to other catastrophic events. "Now whatdoes happen following a fire? What happens followinga windstorm? What happens following clear-cutting?"Our review quickly reminded us that while naturalcatastrophes typically kill trees and other organisms,they leave behind most of the wood, most of thosestructures or dead legacies, as well as many livingorganisms.

Inmost cases naturalforest systems do notreally start from scratch at all; biological legaciesprovide them with a running start at richness andcomplexity.Hence, we see young natural forests withsubstantial structural and compositional diversity. Forexample, a 70-year-old Douglas-fir stand at MountRainier National Park, developed following a wildfire,has large-standing dead trees, many large down logs,and some large and old green trees which survived thefire, as well as an abundance of young trees.

Theconcept of biologicallegacies really isn'tnew, but it has been nearly ignored in our textbooks. Wehave emphasized the need for migration and

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re-establishment of Individuals In barren areas.Although we knew about biological legacies we reallydid not appreciate their significance. (perhaps onereason Is the historical emphasis on old-fieldsuccession In ecological research; such environmentsprobably offer minimum levels of lega cies comparedwith other types of secondary succession, e.g., thosethat follow fire.) And so one of the things that we havetended to do in talking about forestry practices is topersist In representing practices like clear-cuttlng andbroadcast slash burning as being similar to naturalprocesses. This Is clearlynot an accurate portrayal. It Isnot generally the way that nature does it and neverwas.Although clear-cutting is often a very effective way ofaccomplishing some of our objectives, It Is not the waythat nature perpetuates ecosystems.

Landscape Perspectives

The landscape perspective Is the thirdscientific topic that Iwant to discuss. This refers to theneed to consider larger spatial and temporal scales thanhas traditionally been the case in forestry. It meansthinking beyond the individual stands or patches todrainages and to mosaics of patches and to long-termchanges in these mosaics.Here in cQastalnorthwesternNorth America we can recognize immediately that thekinds of landscapes that nature created were mosaicsof large heterogeneous patches. We can alsorecognize, as in the Washington Cascade Range, thatthe landscapes often had complex attenuatedboundaries between patches. This contrasts starklywith the landscape pattern that we have been creatingthrough our management practices on NationalForestlands in Oregon and Washington-small homogeneouspatches with sharp, straight boundaries.

We resource managers first began toconsider landscapes seriously in dealing withmanagement of large animals-ungulates, such as elk,or wide ranging predators, such as the grizzly bear. Isuspect that this was the first widespread recognitionthat, "Oh,yeah, we've got to think about more than just25 or 40 acres. We've got to think about large areas."

That got us into landscape ecology.Unfortunately, we've learned more about landscapeecology from dysfunctional landscapes, landscapesthat are not working well, than we have by studyingreally healthy landscapes. One example Is in thesoutheastern United States where we have createdextensive pine monocultures that are outstandingopportunities for outbreaks of the southern pine barkbeetle.

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Closer to home,the cumulative effects issuehas exposed us to another class of dysfunctionallandscapes. Many of our cumulative effects are aconsequence of the fact that, afteryou clearcut an area,there is a period of time where you have increasedpotential for certain kinds of undesirable hydrologic orgeomorphic events, such as landslides or more intenserain-on-snow flood events.

Rain-on-snow events are an Interestingphenomenon. They are a consequence of the fact thatalong the Pacific northwestern coast much of themountain landscape is a part of a -Warmsnow zone".This is an area where snowpacks develop during coldfronts; then a warm front may bring in warm air and rainwhich melts the snow pack. High flows result from thecombineed run-off of the melted snowpack plus theadditional rainfall. Essentially all significant flood eventsin northwestern North America are rain-on-snow events,from Alaska to northern California.

Looking at the hydrology of these events wefind that old-growth forests have a low potential forcontributing to rain-on snow events compared tocutovers or young forests. Several factors are involved.For one thing those huge canopies withe their stiffbranches intercept a lot of the snow which thenevaporates or sublimates back into the atmosphere.Much more of it melts, drips to the ground, and entersthe soil. Somesnow does form a snowpack on the forestfloor, of course. As any of you who've been in andold-growthforest after a wet snow knows, itgets intherein big blobs. and sets up in irregular hard snowpack inthe understory. So there is less snow and it is wellprotected by the forest cover from both thewarmairandrains in the old growth forests than in the cutovers.Hence, the contributions of old-growth forests to;rain-on-snow flood events are typicallymuch lower thanthose from recently curt areas.

In clearcuts, snows accumulate to maximaldepths because none of it is intercepted. And it isexposed to the warm air and rains which melt it andconvert it to runoff. Consequently, you can dramaticallyexacerbate flood events ifyou do not pay close attentionto how much of your landscape is in freshly cut overstate at any point in time.

Fragmentation is another example oflandscapedysfunction and a stimulusto thinkat largerspatial scales. Fragmentation results when forests coveris broken into small pieces of patchesthat cannotfunction effectively in providing interior forestsenvironments.Thishasbeena particularproblemfor uson federallands in Oregonand Washingtonwherewehaveused a dispersed clearcutting system as Iwill pointout later.Pleasenote, that ifyou create large continuous

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clearcuts,as has been done in muchof coastalBritishColumbia, there is no problem with fragmentation. Youhave to leave some forest behind in order to have aconcern with fragmentationI

One element of the problem is that when youbreak forests down into small patches, surrounded bycutovers, the patches are effectively all edge. Forexample, using dispersed patch clearcuts as adoptedby the U.S. Forest Service the forest is quickly convertedto smallpatches; the landscape maystill be half coveredwith forest but because it's all in patches of 10 to 15 ha.This is a problem because a 15 ha patches all edgeenvironments. From studies of forest edges we havefound that you must move two to four tree heights intoa forest from its boundary with a clearcut before themicroclimate returns to the conditions found In a largeIntact forest patch; this can be as much as 400 to 500min extreme cases. Hence, a landscape of small forestpatches interspersed with cutovers effectively lacksInterior forests conditions; no habitat remains suitablefor species requiring interior forest environments.

This problem is avery serious one ifyou havean Interest in retaining interiorforest conditions, such asfor some wildlife.The fragmented landscape is alsoverywlnerable to wind-throw.

Summary of Scientific Underpinnings

We have now considered scientific findingsin ecosystem complexity, biological legacies and thelandscape perspective. There is obviously a large andrapldly-growing body ofknowledgewhich is substantial,quantitative and provides some fundamental principlesthat we might use in creating some alternative forestrypractices.

We are beginning to appreciate thecomplexity of the natural forest ecosystem.Furthermore, as each piece and process is Identifiedand studiedwe can recognize that essentially all playsignificant, often essential, roles. None can bediscarded without consequences. Hence, forestsimplificationshouldbe approachedwith cautionandhumility.

We can seethat nature provides for the rapidre-creation of ecologically complex young foreststhrough the mechanismof biological legacies. These.carryovers of live and dead organic materials helpIncure that natural young forests are structurally andcompositionally dive~e. In effect, nature perpetuatesecosystems rather than simply regenerating trees.

We can see that much larger land areas,landscapes, and time periods must be considered inforest planning. Withoutthese granderperspectiveswe

almost certainly will create undesirable cumulativeimpacts on forest resources.

Have we foresters been incorporating thisknowledge into our philosophy and recommendedpractices? In general, no; at least not to appropriatedegrees. Some concepts have been picked up by someforesters, such as providing for coarse woody debris.But we foresters have resisted the notion that majorproblems exist with traditional practices.

Traditional forest practices are based onprinciples of simplification, homogenization. Theyseems satisfactory to us until fairly recently. I wastaught, and Ithink most foresters have been taught, thatgood forests stewardship is simply regenerating newtrees that can grow freely and rapidly and produceboards. Andwe reallyfelt-and based upon the sciencethat we've had up until fairly recently-that that was areasonable assumption. A healthy forest was one thatwas growing lots of wood. What would be good forwood production would be good for other forest values!This clearly"justain't SO!8But,not knowingotherwise wedeveloped our current practices such as clear-cutting,broadcast slash burning, disposal oflarge woody debris(at very substantial costs, in the case ofthe U.S. ForestService), and establishment of even_agedmonocultures. At least we've made and effort toestablish those monocultures even though we haven'talways succeeded. (Fortunately, nature hasn't alwaysallowed us to do everything we thought that we wantedto do.) And we've been applying these practices on avery large scale.

Now, although I'm a forester I think forestersneed to acknowledge that they have been slow torecognize problems with current practices. We reallyhave been reluctant to acknowledge that a lot ofecological values are being sacrificed using traditionalforest practices and to accept the principle that what isgood forthe production of wood fibre is not necessarilygood for other resource values.

New Forestry

In the United States, foresters havediscovered that they no longer have a choice aboutdealing with these issues. Some concerns, likebiological diversity, have risen up and "bitten" theresource managers. The options left for organizationslikethe U.S.Forest Service, given current inclinationsinthe United States Congress, are considerably fewerthan they once were. Effectivelyforesters must eitherchange or will be changed. This has created atremendous incentive to think about using ecologicalperspectives to create alternative forestry systems.

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Ido want to point out that we're not going tothrow out our old tools. A lot of foresters react to NewForestry by assuming it throws out everything that hasbeen done before, assuming that these practices werewrong. That isn't the idea. Rather, we're trying to addsome new knowledge and techniques to our existing"tool kits".

I also want to acknowledge that many ofthese "new"approaches have been around a long time.Take partial retention. Partial retention cutting wassomething the Europeans were doing 100 years ago(although for very differentreasons than we have). Butwe North Americans looked at some of thesetechniques and rejected many of them, partiallybecause there really wasn't a scientific rationale forusing more complicated systems. Our objectives did notrequire the more complex silviculturalsystems nor didour scientific understanding of the forests support theneed for such practices. That has changed.

Management systems are needed at boththe stand and landscape levels which incorporate boththe new knowledge and the added societal objectivesfor forest lands. This is the New Forestry concept,management systems which better integratemaintenance of ecological values with commodityproduction. I am going to dividethis discussion of NewForestry into the stand and landscape level.

New Forestry at the Stand Level

At the level of the stand of individualpatch,there is a general principle-to create and maintainmanaged stands that are structurally andcompositionally diverse. Rather than attempting tosimplifyforests, try to retain higher levels of structuraldiversity.Maintenance ofprocesses and species shouldfollow from the structural diversity. Keep this generalprinciple in mind so that you do not hang up on specificconcepts, i.e., mentally arguing that "I don't think it'llwork in my area, etc.I The exact set of silviculturalpractices, the treatments that you develop to create ormaintain structural diversity,are going to vary.They willdepend on forest type and condition, the environment ,and on specific management objectives.

Providing a continuing supply of coarse,woody debris-large standing dead and downedmaterial-is an obvious stand-level practice to maintainhigher levels of structural diversity. Again, how cananyone look at these structures-their size andabundance-and not understand intuitivelythat theyhave ecological value in a forest, that they are doingsomething?! Retaining large standing dead trees anddowned logs is a practice that is now extensively

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applied on federal, state, and private forest lands inOregon and Washington. Note that this objective is notbest achieved by simply leaving behind a heterogenoussea of slash.

Management of young- stands providesanother set of opportunities to modify practices forecological values. To begin with we could aggressivelycreate stands of mixed composition-mixtures, forexample, of conifers and hardwoods. You can do a lotfor species diversity, for example, by providing anoccasional bigleaf maple within an otherwiseconifer-dominated landscape. And, of course, there arethe nitrogen-fIXerslike alder. But we also need to thinkabout mixtures of conifers. Cedars are greatsoil-building species in addition to providing valuableproducts. All Cupressaceae are foliar calciumaccumulators. Consequently they produce very highquality litter which increases base saturation, reducesacidity, and encourages high rates of nitrogenmineralization in soils. We need to be thinking muchmore about mixtures as we design our forests. We alsoneed to be thinking about creating young forests ofmixed structure, but I'll come back to that momentarily.

Delaying the process of canopy closure canalso be of value in some young stands. Intensive forestmanagement has traditionally sought rapid canopyclosure, full reoccupancy of the site by commmercialtrees. In fact, I've suggested that foresters would haveinstant canopy closure if they could get it-full forestoccupancy of a site one year following broadcastburning! But there are a lot of ecological valuesassociated with the early period of succession prior totree canopy closure. This stage is rich in plant andanimal species as I pointed out earlier, and many ofthese are organisms of interest to humans. Forexample,many game species use the pre-canopy closure stageand nitrogen-fixing species are often abundant at thattime. Canopy closure is probably the most dramaticand, in terms of some processes, traumatic single eventin the whole life of the stand, other than its ultimatedestruction by some catastrophe. Many things changevery rapidly and significantly at the time of closure. So,we can consider using wider spacings to delay canopyclosure in order to obtain more of the values associatedwith early successional conditions. And, based onspacing studies, we can probably do that with little or nosacrifice in commercial wood volume production. Wecan also think about related practices, such as pruning,in order to produce higher-quality wood. Interestingly,the approach of vary wide early spacings and pruningresembles the intensive Monterey pine forestry carriedout by the New Zealanders.

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Retention of large green trees on cut-overareas is another practice which creates greater levelsofstructural diversity in managed stands. Of course thiscan't be done everywhere.You cannot do it with somespecies, some topographic situations, and certain kindsof soils, for example. But there are many places wherewe could leave large green trees behind.

I haveto be careful in talking about green treeretention because I am enthusiastic about it and peoplecould go away thinking, "Ah, new forestry at the standlevel is just leaving green trees behind." It is notllt is justone of many techniques that we can use to enhancestructural diversity of managed stands. But green treeretention is an important approach and one that hasbeen largely ignored. Beliefsnotwithstanding, nowhereis it writtin in stone tablets that we must clean-cut-cutdown all of the trees-not even in the Douglas-fir region.On many (most?) sites we could choose to leave greentrees behind.

Why would we leave merchantable greentrees behind? Well, there are many things that can beaccomplished by such practices, so many that itboggles the mind. Green trees are, of course, sourcesof coarse woody debris, of snags and downed logs,especially where safety concerns do not allow forretention of snags. In fact, the first green tree retentioncutting that Ilaid out was done with the idea of providinggreen trees as sources of snags.

Retaining large green trees can accomplishother goals. They are potential wildlife trees. We canretain them in order to grow high-quality wood fiberduring the next rotation. For example, 80-year-oldDouglas-fir trees continue to grow very well for the nextcentury of their life and are producing much higherquality wood during that time.

Another potentially important value of greentrees on cutovers is as refugia and inocula for much ofthat hidden diversity.This concept greatly intrigues me.Many species of that rich invertebratefauna found in theold-growth forests do not disperse well; they arespecies that either fly poorly or not at all. Hence, they donot recolonize areas well after being eliminated byclearcutting. We can provide refugia for some of theosorganisms by leaving behind host trees. This alsoprovides an innoculum of a "seed source" of theseorganisms for the newstand. The same phenomenon is

. true with manymycorrhizalfungi.Someof those fungireally can disappear very quickly if you eliminate theirhosts. By leaving some of their hosts behind, the fungalcommunities can be conserved and become a source ofinnoculum for the young stands.

. This is the flip side of the foresters' lamentabout green tree retention, which is-"Well, we can't

leave those treesl They've got mistletoe,they're sourcesof diseases and insectsl" Well, some of thoseinvertebrates and some ofthose fungiare organisms wewant, and green tree retention may be a useful tool forpreserving that biological diversity.

Green tree retention also alters themicroenvironment of the cutover area. That is whatshelterwood cutting isabout. Byleavingan overstorywemoderate climate, allowingregeneration oftrees whereclearcutting would be too severe. An area with greentrees has a mellowerenvironment; frost and insolationproblems are ameliorated. Guess what-if it works fortrees, it may work of other organisms as well; in otherwords, other components of forest ecosystems willalmost certainly be able to survive on cut-over areaswith green trees that would not be able to survive on aclearcut. Many other organisms will be able to movethrough a cutover landscape, again, because ofameliorated environments and protective cover.Perhaps the whole landscape can be made moreporous, the cutovers less of a sterile environment thatisolates organisms and forest patches, by leavinggreentrees.

Obviously, there are many things that couldbe accomplished by green tree retention. Perhaps itcould even be utilized to mitigate the potential forrain-on-snow events or to retain sufficient root strengthto reduce erosional failures on cutovers.

Partial cut stands contrast markedly withtraditional even-aged management even where just oneage class is retained (Fig.2). Ateach cutting cyclewhenyou enter the stand for harvest, you would leave behindsome larger trees. The structural diversity that isgenerated is obvious. It contrasts. sharply with what isdone using even-aged intensive managementpractices.

Green tree retention has immediaterelevance in Oregon and Washington withregard to thenorthern spotted owl issue. Most disturbances, whetherfireor wind, do leave behind a significantcomponent ofgreen trees (Fig. 3). Even though the old-growthcondition doesn't occur until about age 200 years, wefind that many of these stands begin to provide habitatfor northern spotted owls at around seventy or eightyyears. On the OlympicPeninsula, for example, there's alarge area called the "21BloW"which blewdown in 1921.Today it is dominantly a 70-year-old hemlock stand, butit contains large residual old-growth trees and snagsand downed logs. And portions of the 21 Blow areprovidingviable northern spotted owlhabitat. There aremany other examples of dominantly young butstructurally diverse (because of legacies) forests thatprovide owl habitat in the Pacific Northwest.

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We can think, then, about the possibility ofcreating similar mixed-structure forests on rotations of,for example, 120 years. This would provide 40 to 50years of suitable habitat for some of the old-growthrelated species, and very much resembles some kindsof stands that nature created. It appears to be a realalternative to either total preservation of stands toprovide habitat for old-growth related species or,alternatively,rotations of 250 or 300 years which wouldbe necessary to recreate old-growth-like conditionsfollowingclean-cutting.

Green tree or partial retention cutting cantake a wide variety of forms depending upon standconditions and objectives. Forexample, the density andtype of leave trees some stands will resemble ashelterwood-cutting (although it is not ashelterwood-cutting inthe traditionalsense because theover-story remains until the next rotation). In othercases, it may be better to leave groups of trees ratherthan individuals. Plum Creek Timber Co. is doingsubstantial experimentation in leaving small patches,groups, and corridors so as to retain green trees whileminimizingadded logging costs and safety problems.

I want to emphasize that green retention isnot selection cutting, although selection systems alsowillhave a significant place in New Forestry. However,in selection forestry individualtrees or small groups oftrees are removed, stands are entered on a relativelyfrequent cycle often or fifteenyears, and an uneven-agestand is the objective rather than just a two- orthree-aged stand. This is very different than what Ienvision with partial retention, which would have onlyone entry per rotation and during which the majorityofthe stand would be removed. We foresters currentlydon't even have a general term for this silviculturalapproach. But partial retention is distinct; it is notclear-cutting, it is not shelterwood-cutting, it is noteven-aged management and it is not selection cuttingand uneven-aged management. It has its own identity,whatever we choose to call it.

New Forestry at the Landscape Level

New Forestry at the landscape level has itsown general principle-individual activities must beplanned and integrated at larger spatial and longertemporal scales. We must think about how mosaics ofpatches work rather than just about individualpatches;how to allocate lands and treatments at the landscapelevel so as to maintain the numbers and distribution ofpatch types (interms of sizes and conditions) needed toachieve management objectives. Including, of course,the objectiveof avoidingundesirable cumulativeeffects.

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like accentuatedrain-on-snowevents and acceleratedand excessive erosional activity.

Animportantlandscape consideration on thecommodity lands is providing for areas. Some peopleinterpret New Forestry as meaning we don't need anyreserved areas. But we do if we are going to achieveecologicalobjectives such as maintenance of biologicaldiversity.Unfortunatelythe emphasis has been on thelarge reserved areas, areas that are set apart from everything else including the commodity lands. We mustthink more about designing reserved areas into thecommodity landscape, about the various kinds ofreserved and semi-reserved forest areas that must bebuiltintoand be a part of a commodity landscape. Andwe need to plan the reserves as a network of areasrather than as isolated units.

In National Forest landscapes we alreadyhave designated or planned many set-asides orreserved areas of various types-streamside corridors,spotted owl management areas, unstable soil areas,regeneration-problem areas, etc. But until the spottedowl came along, these had never been examined as anetwork with consideration of their geographicdistributionand linkages.

Hence, pan of NewForestryat the landscapelevel is the creation of an appropriate network of areasreserved form intensive forestry practices. The criticalelements here are viewing set asides as a network andas apart of the commodity landscape rather than apartfrom it.

Appropriate patch sizes are anotherlandscape issue. Solutions are going to vary with thelandscape, the forest type, and the organisms whichyou are managing. On federal lands in Oregon andWashington, we originally selected a system whichdispersed smallclearcuts; this approach maximizedtheamount of edge and the degree offragmentation in thelandscape. Youcouldn't design a system that does doa better job of breaking a forest matrixintosmallpieces.

This approach-dispersed clear-cuttng withapatch size of 10 to 15 h-does not fit the Douglas-firecosystem of many of the resident organisms. Hence,one practice that we are considering iscreation oflargercut-over areas or aggregating some of our cut-overareas so that the patch sizes of both our reserved andcut-overareas are larger-perhaps up to 100 ha or morein size. This would reduce the amount of edge andcreate forest patches that provide for interior foresttenvironments. One approach to aggregated cutting iscalled "minimumfragmentation".

A criticalelement in enlarged cut-over patchsizes is the need to retain much higher levels ofstructural heterogeneity on cut-over areas in order to

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protect ecologicalvalues. Iam definitelynot advocatinggreat big clean-cuts; I am talking about large cut-overareas on which there are high levels of standing deadand downed material, green trees, patChes ofregeneration, etc. This will provide organisms withthermal and hiding cover, provide refugia and innoculafor the new stands, and avoid creating large blocks ofsterile environment.

I am not going to suggest that you needlarger cut-over areas up here in British CoIumbialAnyonethat's flownover Vancouver Island can see thatyour problem is just the reverse. You do not have anyproblems with fragmentation because you rarely leaveany forest patches behindI And your cut-overs areclearcuts which do not provide the desirable levels ofstructural diversity.

Given what I know about B.C. landscapes, Ithinkthat one ofthe most importantthings needed ittheinclusion of reserves within the commodity landscapeso as to reduce the extent of extremely homogeneousand relativelysterile cutover tracts. Further, I think thatmuch more structural heterogeneity needs to be builtinto your cut-over areas. In any case, bigger andstructurallycleaner cut-overs isclearly not the desirablething for B.C.ecologically.Youdo need to look at yourmix of reserved and commodity lands and the level oflegacies that are being lefton those cut-over areas.

There are other concerns at the landscapelevel.Connectivityamong reserved areas and withinthelandscape as a whole is a critical issue. Green treeretention may be one way of improving the"permeability" of the commodity land matrix, i.e.,cut-overswithsome cover may be easier for organismsto move through than clean-cuts. Another issue is theneed to recognize that allportions of the landscape areof equal value. Althoughthis seems obvious, foresterssometimes forget this fact. For example, problems havearisen on the Tongass National Forest because theproductive alluvial Sitka spruce-western hemlockforests are critical habitat for Sitka blacktailed deer,anadromous fish, and grizzlybear as wellas the highestvolumetimberstands; hence, these forestscannotjustbe allocatedtotimberproductionwhileotherresourcesare accommodatedon the less productivelands.

Conclualons

These, then, are some of the practices that Iidentifywith a NewForestry. Myvision is one of a verydifferent kind of landscape pattern and of a differentdominant cutting pattern on commodity lands withpartial retention replacing clear-cutting as the dominantpractice on the federal lands in the Pacific Northwest.

The stand-and-landscape-Ievel principlesdo have a broad application. Itis important everywhereto maintaining structural diversity in managed forestsand analyzing effects at larger spatial and temporalscales is importanteverywhere.These concepts are notjust relevant to old-growthissues or to the forests of thePacific Northwest.

Modified practices are being used now.Changes are occurring very,very rapidlyinwhat we aredoing in Oregon and Washington on the federal, state,and private lands.

For example, on National Forest lands theguidelines for FY 1991 timber sales are very differentthan forpreviousyears. Some changes anticipate listingof the spotted owl as a threatened species. Otherssimply reflect the commitment that the U.S. ForestService has now made to NewForestrypractices (whichthey referto as NewPerspectives inForestry) and to theidea of integrating ecological values with commodityproduction.

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There's certainly going to be a lot of learningalong the way because many practices are conceptualat this point. We have a lot to learn. And it'scertainlygoing to be traumatic because allowable cutsare unquestionably going to decline. Maintainingecological values means reinvesting some of theproductivity-includingwood-back into the ecosystem.

In conclusion, I think that in the interests ofmaintaining options for future generations, in theinterest of sustainable productivity, in the interests ofbiological diversity, and, fundamentally, in terms ofresponsible global stewardship, we need to take a freshlook at natural resource management. We forestersneed to reconsider our practices withincreased respectfor the complexity of these forest systems and with ahumilitythat reflects our true level of knowledge aboutthose systems and how they work.

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The Alaska RegionU.s. Department of AgricultureForest Service

Proceedings of theNew Perspectives WorkshopPetersburg, AlaskaJuly 17-19, 1990

PROCEEDINGS OF THENEW PERSPECTIVES WORKSHOP

PETERSBURG,ALASKAJuly 17-20, 1990

MaxJ. CopenhagenEditor

November 1991

USDA Forest ServiceAlaska RegionP.O. Box 21628

Juneau, AK 99802-1628

Layout by RosaJee Quinn and Maren Cole

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PROCEEDINGS OF THENEW PERSPECTIVES WORKSHOP

PETERSBURG, ALASKAJuly 17-20, 1990

Table of Contents

Introduction. Robert Williams

Opening Remarks .0 RonHumphrey

Opening Remarks. Gary Morrison

New Perspectives for Managing the NationalForest System .Dr. HalSalwasser

Old Growth and the New Forestry Dr. Jerry Franklin

Forest Management and Bear Conservation Dr. John Schoen

Ancient Forests-Priceless Treasures Chris Maser

New Perspectives in Forestry-An ObjectivesBased Approach Dr. Miles Hemstrom

Integrated Forest Management Mel Greenup

New Perspectives In the Alaska Region Mel Greenup

Incorporation of New PerspectivesIn the Etolin Island ImplementationAnalysis Proposed Action Alternatives Chris Iverson

Richard Strauss

Closing Comments Ron Humphrey

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