What is happening?
The Forest Resiliency on Ashland Loop is a forest restoration project. Its goals are fire risk reduction and habitat restoration.
Thinning is the first step, designed to promote the health of dry climate adapted species (ponderosa and sugar pine, black and white oak, madrone) and to break up the continuity of potential fire fuels.
Why is it happening?
Fire suppression has allowed species that are not dry climate adapted to proliferate outside their sustainable habitat, and species suited to the landscape have been suppressed or nearly eliminated from some areas of the ecosystem.
The present ecosystem might be called “unnatural,” maladapted to the land it inhabits in both its structure and its species composition.
Is this a clearcut?
No. The largest clearing on this project is around one and one half acre. Small openings like this provide a valuable ecological function to plants and animals that require full sunlight.
Are logs being sold? Is this being done for profit?
The thinning phase of this project is commercial. The logs removed will be sold to a local mill. The sale of timber will pay for some of the cost of thinning the declining and infested trees. Remaining funds beyond cost if any, will be applied to other phases of the project.
Is there grant funding involved?
Yes. Oregon Department of Forestry Fire Fuels Reduction Grant Funding will be used to cover the cost of fire fuels treatments that timber revenue doesn't cover. Typically this grant covers fuels that are 4-6 inches and smaller, up to 8 inches in some circumstances.
Why take so many trees? Why not leave more? Why not wait until the trees die to remove them?
Researchers are learning that “less is more” in dry forests.
Tree density is directly proportional to tree mortality due to water stress among competing trees. Leaving any tree within close proximity to a tree we want to save (oaks and pines) puts that climate-adapted tree under stress from competition for water.
If we left all the trees that are exhibiting decline and insect infestation, the forest would be full of dead wood, and that will create an extremely dangerous situation. When a fire does occur on such a landscape it would be uncontrollable and would end up burning severely enough to completely destroy all the plants and wildlife within the affected area. No more forest after that. We would have to start over.
Coming back multiple times to remove trees as they become completely dead is not an option. For one it would end up costing far more and two, it would be an even greater impact to the landscape because of the equipment moving in more times than once. Also, removing the trees while they are still useable as timber is helping to pay for the removal.
As far as leaving trees is concerned, we are leaving 99% of all the Oaks, Pines, Madrones and all the Douglas Fir trees that appear to have the best chance, although we are confident that most of the Douglas Fir we leave will die. Which is fine because a healthy forest has a healthy number of dead standing trees.
Are live trees being removed?
Yes. and No. We are removing 99% of the Douglas Fir trees that are exhibiting decline and/or insect infestation. These trees are not yet completely dead but they will not survive the current decline.
Why Doug fir?
Doug Firs are not dry climate adapted and are fast-growing and thirsty. They shade out their competition and deplete ground water to support their rapid growth. This ends up being harmful to dry climate adapted trees and plants.
This site is severely overstocked with Douglas Fir. Due to a lack of fire on the landscape, Douglas Fir has spread beyond its sustainable habitat of deeper, moisture retaining soils and higher elevations. Also, Douglas Fir on this site has outlasted its young vigorous stage of 50-100 years and along with climatic warming trends("Climate Change"), has begun to exhibit severe decline and mortality. Just because a tree can be planted or sprout on a site and grow while it's young, doesn't mean that the site can sustain it for the full duration of that trees life. Especially in such large quantities.
Additionally, the site is infested with flathead fir borers. By the time these insects kill a tree, they have already spread to neighboring trees. If you had one of these infested trees in your yard, wouldn’t you want to remove it before the problem spread?
Many Environmental Professionals, Foresters and Scientists agree that the Fir die off is going to get worse and terms like "Firmageddon" and "Fir Apocalypse" are being used because that is what is happening. Walk around the watershed and look closely at the Fir trees, many of them are in decline and many show signs of insect infestation. This is true for all of Southwest Oregon from Lakeview to the Kalmiopsis and north to Eugene. It's expected that more than 95% of Fir trees below 4000 feet elevation will die off in the next 5 to 10 years.
We are leaving the largest Douglas Fir trees as a last ditch hope that some of them will survive and at least, to keep some standing dead wood on the landscape.
What’s the next step? Are you going to replant?
That depends on what the objectives would be.
If the objective is to grow another round of a forest that is overstocked, then that is not advised.
Ecologically, it would be best to plant Oak trees every 40 to 60 feet. Don't plant too densely due to the availability of water.
As far as the landowners are concerned, one of them has decided that they would replant lightly and the others either don't need to or have not decided yet.
Do you care about the land? Are you trying to make money from this project?
Rogue Siskiyou Contracting cares deeply about the land, and has roots in environmental activism, management policy and law, and collaborative resource management.
Our goal is to build restoration capacity through education and cooperation with organizations we partner with.
We are a for-profit business, and we do need to pay our bills, but this project is designed to maximize restoration outcomes rather than profits.
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