by Mike Barnes and Alan Wittbecker
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is currently conducting regional processes across Canada and the United States to develop standards for the certification of forestry management which seek to maintain and restore natural forests. The FSC is an international body that accredits certification organizations to guarantee the authenticity of their claims of ecologically responsible forest use and forestry management practices. The Ecoforestry Institute (EI) is an active participant in the FSC regional process for the Pacific Coast of the U.S., and the Ecoforestry Institute Society is active in the regional process for British Columbia. The regional standards are based on ten global Principles and Criteria (P&C) of the FSC that apply to all tropical, temperate, and boreal forests and are intended to complement laws, regulations, and other initiatives for sustainability. The regional standards are intended to make the global P&C specific in order to provide guidance to certification organizations. The ten P&C deal with the maintenance of forests ecosystems, environmental impacts, management of forestry activities in natural forests and plantations, as well compliance, tenure, rights, and worker and community relations.
There is considerable debate among the members of the FSC Pacific Coast (U.S.) Regional Working Group (PCWG) about a number of issues, such as levels of protection of old-growth within different forest types and whether clearcutting is a certifiable practice at "an acceptable size." However, underlying these debates about practices are deeper philosophical debates, which need to be considered (see the article in this issue on philosophy, which delineates some of these assumptions and provides a context for this discussion).
We want to address several philosophical questions here to provide a necessary context for this discussion of certification standards for old growth and clearcutting. First, we want to examine the contradictions inherent in the "management paradigm." Namely, how can we manage forest ecosystems which are more complex than we can understand in the first place? Management tends to simplify ecosystems, using approaches like clearcutting. We need to approach forests with a degree of humility (from the Latin word, humus, meaning dirt). While we cannot really "manage" forests, it is critical that we "manage" our interventions in forests so that we can minimize our impact and, hopefully, use our human intelligence and creativity to work with the processes and patterns of the forest in order to augment its natural abundance‹so that present and future generations can continue to live from the increase. This is sustainability.
Second, we need to distinguish between ecologically responsible "forest use" and "forestry and restoration management and practices." The concept of "forest use" includes nonuse: forests where we want to conserve biodiversity and wild lands. The FSC Certification movement needs to heed the urgent calls of Conservation Biologists and Landscape Ecologist to protect and restore a continental network of wild forests, wild lands and wild rivers, each with connecting corridors. Once we decide where wild forests, including those with their old-growth characteristics, need to be protected and restored across the landscape, then we can decide where it is appropriate to harvest forest goods to meet vital human needs. Ecologically responsible forestry management planning and timber harvesting must take place within the context of ecologically responsible Forest Use Plans. Such a perspective provides an ecological context necessary for a consensus to emerge on such issues as old growth, clearcutting and others.
Clearcutting Some proponents of clearcutting have suggested that clearcutting, a tool of even-aged forestry management, should be certified as a sustainable practice. Arguments to support clearcutting are often supported with three classic arguments:
1. Natural disturbances. Clearcuts are sometimes said to be appropriately applied in a forest type characterized by natural, whole-stand replacement by disturbances, such as wildfires and hurricanes. Some scientists and foresters argue that since these disturbances are natural, humans can mimic them by clearcutting.1 But does clearcutting mimic natural disturbances? Mimicry in the forest itself is an evolutionary strategy that results in the superficial resemblance of one organism to another, without having the same function, for possible survival advantage. For instance, sweet-tasting butterflies that look like sour-tasting butterflies (to the eyes of predators) may live longer and breed. Perhaps clearcutting has a superficial resemblance to a wildfire or windstorm. The function of a disturbed forest, however, is to "exist," whereas the function of a clearcut is to provide resources for removal. Subsequent plantations may resemble regenerated natural forests, without providing most of the functions of a wild forest; in that sense there is mimicry.
The word mimic is also used to mean to ridicule by imitation or to imitate. Taking Gregory Bateson's advice that we should not mock nature, perhaps clearcutting is only imitation, which means to follow a pattern. Does clearcutting follow the pattern of nature? Superficially perhaps, but not really. Nature is not as neat or selective as we are. Hurricanes may blow down many trees, but they do not haul them off on trucks, as Herb Hammond notes.
Perhaps we are counterfeiting natural processes (that is, imitating with the intent to deceive). We do not believe this. What foresters often mean is that clearcutting duplicates, or is the same as, natural disturbances. Yet, this is not true for several reasons. Disturbances are generally stochastic, partial, unselective, and nonevictive (they do not remove the biomass). By disturbance, we are referring to events that do not destroy the entire ecosystem or forest, like glaciers or meteorites, which we prefer to call interference. Do we really want to duplicate events that cause large-scale destruction or interference?
Clearcutting does not mimic most disturbances, even large-scale disturbances. Stand-replacing disturbances, such as crown fires in lodgepole pine, only remove some of the biomass, which is the most important consideration for the re-establishment of forests. Furthermore, fire and winds tend to skip around only burning patches, in from 2-50 percent of the forest. Even in a fire, much of the biomass remains. The differences between natural disturbances and human management are quite noticeable; even when we pretend we are mimicking disturbance, our interpretation does not seem to encourage forest reproduction. One forester about to retire, who chooses to remain anonymous, expressed some sadness that every plantation he had planted in the 1940s and 50s has not survived him.
Lertzman, Spies, and Swanson suggest that our objective should not be merely to "mimic" natural disturbances, "but to incorporate the attributes of natural disturbance that allowed species and ecological processes to persist through or recover from disturbances in the past." We forget that in nature, recovery from disturbance can take thousands of years. Do we want to mimic the time-frame also?
Much of the language in this debate also focuses on stand-initiation. Why should we want to reinitiate stands every time? For concentrations of intolerant species like Douglas-fir, perhaps, although Douglas-fir was able to live in and dominate many old growth forests without human management. Re-initiation is a very expensive (especially in terms of biomass) and time-consuming process.
Many reasons are offered for clearcutting. According to Charles Stoddard, clearcutting should be applied to meet one or more of these conditions: To grow "intolerant trees that need full sunlight for germination and development;" for "shallow-rooted species" or in "exposed places" in danger of windthrow; to establish even-aged stands that must develop uniformly "to be merchantable;" where cutover areas can be regenerated by windborn "light-seeded species;" where stands are "overmature" and "waste" is to be avoided; and where shrubs do not out compete seedlings. Richard Jordan contends that "current science and technology indicate that the widely used practice of clearcutting is the best prescription for renewing forestland ecosystems" for the northwest coast and southeast plain. David Smith concludes that clearcutting is necessary because stands "are too old and decrepit to endure regimes of partial cutting." Can a stand that endures lightning, fire, windstorms, and beetle epidemics be too weak for a few trees to be removed by horse?
Stoddard, Smith, Jordan, and others claim that clearcutting has numerous advantages: Simplicity‹no planning, thought, or selection is required, it occurs in one place and one time, without residual trees to damage (the easy argument); efficiency in terms of machinery and labor (the machine efficiency argument); it makes good economic sense in a demented, short-term economy, especially if you are an indifferent corporation that answers only to the "bottom-line" (the economic argument); it is an easy way to create a need for monoculture plantations of a desired, usually intolerant, commercial species (the silvicultural argument); protection of workers is increased if all dangerous trees, like widow-makers and snags,2 are removed, and, furthermore, the subsequent plantation lowers harvest risks (the safety argument);3 and reduction of impacts and roads with cable logging systems, such as the skyline (the environmental argument‹our personal favorite; it reduces the harm to trees and their soil by cutting and removing all of them). Clearcutting is favored by one forester as a biological imperative for shade intolerance and its effects on the nature and composition of forests, but the illustration of shade intolerance is out of context; shade intolerance is part of forest regimes and cycles‹not an imperative to be selected for by cutting.
These conditions listed to justify clearcutting could be met by single-tree or group selection. Many of the advantages of clearcutting are linked with economic limitations and incentives, rather than ecological benefits to the forest‹the forest should not have to suffer as a result of our economic immaturity. Other advantages, such as cable systems, are applicable to all kinds of logging; the idea that clearcutting reduces the number of roads and associated damage is faintly ridiculous, especially when you consider the planting intrusions afterwards. Light may be at a minimum for intolerant species in a forest, but cutting the entire forest to get light to intolerant species is also ridiculous, since it removes other things that are required minimally, such as water, fungi, nutrients, and animals.
Many more disadvantages are apparent with clearcutting. There is a high initial cost for machinery and labor, and a high secondary cost for replanting afterwards (artificial reseeding or replanting requires greater care in form of biocides and fertilizers to try to restore balance). There is a high initial failure of planting, often due to bad matching and poor planting techniques; trees that survivor become bushy and shorter and need to be pruned to make good wood. There is a high risk of loss from fire, insects, and disease, who are all geared up to invade a thoroughly disturbed ecosystem.
Furthermore, clearcutting causes extreme damage to soil structure and microclimates (a recent study by a team of scientists, headed by Tom Spies, found that the first clearcut led to a 40-50% loss of soil nitrogen), followed by high levels of soil erosion (lowering future capacity greatly), resulting in land-slides, flooding, reduced water quality, and negative downstream impacts, which leads to loss of nutrients, loss of species diversity, and loss of interactions (for instance, after clearcuts, according to David Perry, certain microbes seem to inhibit seedlings and their mycorrhizal fungi such that the cut areas remain treeless). The forest has been fragmented, resulting in the loss of interior species. Habitats for most species have been destroyed. Temperatures and water stress become extreme, according to research by Richard Hart. Recreational values are severely reduced‹few people hike in clearcuts; clearcuts are definite aesthetic disasters.
Clearcutting is not an ecologically sustainable practice‹it is crop forestry, based on an agricultural model. Clearcutting seems to be in contradiction of FSC Principle 6, Environmental Impact, which states that "Forest management shall conserve biological diversity and its associated values, water resources, soils, and unique and fragile ecosystems and landscapes, and, by doing so, maintain the ecological functions and the integrity of the forest." Clearcutting does not conserve any of these things.
The Ecoforestry Institutes will not support the certification of the practice of clearcutting at any level. However, we do support cutting designs based on natural disturbance regimes which can remove a substantial volume of trees using selective logging and patch cuts. We suggest patch cuts of 1 to 2 tree lengths, in an appropriate shape, sufficient to naturally regenerate various species appropriate to a site, stand or landscape. For instance, if the dominant fir trees are approximately 103 feet tall on a shallow south-facing slope in the Klamath mountains in southern Oregon, then a patch cut just under an acre (.974) should be adequate for regeneration.
2. Adequate tree regeneration. Proponents of clearcutting warn that certification standards must be drafted so as not to preclude attainment of adequate regeneration, particularly of shade intolerant species. They say that categorical prohibition of even-aged management is likely to compromise the regeneration requirement that is central to sustainable forestry and to FSC-endorsed forestry. Furthermore, it is argued that single tree selection in a Douglas-fir forest type is quite likely to yield inadequate regeneration. It is known, however, that Douglas-fir can regenerate in patches. Whether the quantity is adequate for our massive need for cheap wood is an economic question.
Some foresters, such as William Beaufait, claim that we have an overwhelming record of successful regeneration in all forest regions after clearcutting, but US government and Canadian statistics do not show any such thing‹perhaps that is part of some mystical forest practice not decipherable by statistics.
Although it is argued that even-age management is needed for successful regeneration of many species, natural regeneration in multi-aged stands is superior and has many advantages that cannot be duplicated in even-aged stands; for instance, resistance to injury and soil protection. We should consider regeneration for other species that are removed or die, lichen and invertebrates for instance, when many of the trees are removed. Multi-aged stands allow for the slow movement or regeneration of many species.
There is an intimate relation between mortality (and from cutting trees) in a forest and regeneration under the resulting environmental conditions. Some of the disturbances are filtered, but the rest all influence stand development. Wind-throw, for instance is not filtered; insect damage might be if the tree responds. Even then, there may be a slight change in the vitality and competition strength of trees in the stand. This filter metaphor is quite useful to understanding the survival and evolution of forests‹everything that is not killed lives. Industrial forestry makes the filter too thick and almost everything dies.
Regeneration is one of the ecological processes that guides us in knowing how much to thin or open up a forest, while still leaving or restoring it as a fully functioning forest. The FSC criterion 6.3 states that "Ecological functions and values shall be maintained intact, enhanced, or restored, including: a) Forest regeneration and succession. b) Genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity. c) Natural cycles that affect the productivity of the forest ecosystem." This places regeneration in the proper context.
3. Economic viability.
Patch cuts of areas several tree-lengths in diameter have been used to justify small clearcuts of 3-5 acres, however, financial considerations are used to suggest justifying larger clearcuts. The FSC does promote "economically viable management" of forests in its documents, but that is not an adequate reason to increase the size of cuts.
There is also the question of being financially responsible in an unbalanced and antiquated system: Most rules, like the Scribner,4 have outlived the conditions that made them useful (rough estimates, wide kerfs, etc.). Each rule reveals a different maximum; by cubic measure, a 40-year rotation would seem to be most productive; by the International rule the rotation should be 90 years; and, by the Scribner, rotation should be over 120 years. The very thing that makes the Scribner rule a questionable guide to volume‹it underestimates volume‹makes it a better guide to rotation. Not surprisingly, the timber industry uses the Huber to argue for short rotations and as a justification to liquidate old growth. Timber companies in the US Southeast (managing loblolly pine for pulp) try to operate on a 25-year rotation.
The overturn and investment methods for calculating stumpage value were developed during an era of abundant old growth timber that did not cost anything to grow. Reforestation, fire protection, taxes and administrative costs were not part of nature's bounty. Now, however, people are raising questions and criticisms of these old methods and there is some pressure for reform.
Several new studies show that selective harvesting and other practices actually return more money to landowners than other options. In a study of the economic potential of one hectare of tropical forest in Peru, Charles Peters et al. found that a small area supported 842 trees of 275 species. The researchers found that the income from clearcutting timber (the usual practice) totaled about $1000, with an additional $3000 for its use as cattle pasture over a number of years; by comparison, income from marketable materials other than timber (oils, fibers, foods) totaled about $6000 for roughly the same time period‹with an additional $820 for selective tree-cutting. Again, $4000 for clearcutting and grazing or $6820 for selective harvesting. Of course, the $1000 is a quicker income, but the land is usually abandoned after grazing, while selective harvesting may continue indefinitely‹the forest is treated as natural capital.
Despite other arguments that sustainable exploitation of a forest has more value in the long-term, there are still "economists," such as Julian Simon, who argue that forest land is more valuable if it is clearcut and replanted in fast-growing non-native species. Simon also thinks that the removal of all tropical forests would not harm humanity‹even if half the species on the planet perish with them. Simon thinks that seed banks and genetic engineering diminish the importance of natural habitat.5 The question remains as to why corporations liquidate old growth forests rather than keep them as long-term capital. One answer might be provided by recent U.S. economic history: In the 1930s, the government tried to flatten out the boom and bust cycle of our capitalist economy by manipulating taxes, interest rates, and money supply, by subsidizing jobs, and through corporate welfare. Although the government discouraged monopolies, it did nothing to regulate oligopolies (control of the market by a few large companies); prices are set by the costs of production (including bloated bureaucracies and executive salaries), rather than by demand and supply in the free marketplace. As the automated production of goods became more efficient, goods-producing jobs declined. On the other hand a large, well-educated labor force (mostly women) was available at relatively cheap salaries. Information processing and human services proved to be far less efficient than automation, however. Marvin Harris suggests that corporate bureaucracies wasted labor and lowered productivity faster than automation could save or raise it. Corporations were no longer efficient enough to expand production out of sale-generated income and took on additional debt.
As economists point out, debt is inflationary because borrowing puts more money into circulation. Rising interest rates caused cash-flow problems, which many large corporations responded to by lowering quality and by passing the costs of borrowed money on to consumers‹which allowed them to borrow more at even higher rates (which the government had raised to cool off borrowing). Corporations have gradually increased their dependence on deficit financing to supply capital. Harris notes that corporate debt has gone up 14 times while federal government debt has gone up only 3 times (as a percentage of gross national product). As more money was owed, more was paid to service the debt and less was available for cash flow. More short-term debts were taken on to keep up cash flow. Corporations borrow faster and pay more to borrow, but can keep raising prices to consumers so they can keep borrowing‹or liquidate some of their assets, which is probably why Burlington Northern and other land-owners allow massive clearcuts: Cash flow needs due to long-term inefficiencies and massive short-term debts. The impulse to save a corporation may override the need to save old growth forests.
Financing seems complex (and it is), but most benefit patterns from the use of a forest are determined by the constraints of interest rates and public demand. For instance, if the interest rate is low, future discount rates are low, which favors long-term projects, such as single-tree selection below forest renewal rates. If the discount is high, financial analysts suggest immediate returns, as from clearcutting. Furthermore, if people do not want to buy your product, e.g., lichen or fern for floral shops, then the price, reflective of financial value, drops, and you will not be able to sell much and you may have to cut more wood.
The economy itself does not value trees or wood sufficiently. Changes need to be made towards an ecological economy that makes it economical to harvest fewer trees from a location. Certification reflects the public perception of the value of trees and forests.
A major focus of certification as a strategy is to be able to follow, through a chain of custody, a range of forest goods sold as certified products, coming from forests that are being protected, maintained and restored as fully functioning forests. When the public demands this and is willing to pay extra for wood from sustainably managed forests, as appears, then landowners will get a premium for practicing ecologically responsible forestry‹and landowners who do not will have an incentive to do so.
Old Growth. Old-growth forest, treated as interchangeable for mature, late successional, or primary forest, is defined as an "ecosystem characterized by an abundance of mature trees, relatively undisturbed by human activity." A more complete definition might be: A forest landscape (not stand or ecosystem) that is characterized by specific, complex structures and mature associations of organisms, including a complete size and age distribution of trees, in sufficient distribution in stands and corridors, unique pit and mound topography, the presence of snags, downed trees and woody debris, and characterized by regular disturbances to which it is adapted. The landscape is needed not just for the processes, but to provide suitable habitat for species. In this sense old growth was the norm and the matrix before forests were modified on a large-scale. Old growth is part of the cycle of forests. The definition is still ambiguous, but that is okay. We now have tools, such as fuzzy set theory, that can deal with ambiguity.
FSC Principle 9, Maintenance of Natural Forests, states that: "Primary forests, well-developed secondary forests and sites of major environmental, social or cultural significance shall be conserved. Such areas shall not be replaced by tree plantations or other land uses." The two criteria appended to it deal with replanting in natural forests. The language is ambiguous; conservation does not preclude use. The degree and amount of preservation should be addressed.
FSC Criterion 6.2 goes further. It states "Safeguards shall exist which protect rare, threatened and endangered species and their habitats (e.g. nesting and feeding areas). Conservation zones and protection areas shall be established, appropriate to the scale and intensity of forest management and the uniqueness of affected resources. Inappropriate hunting, fishing, trapping, and collecting shall be controlled." Old growth habitats and species are certainly rare. This allows for setting up protection areas.
Another FSC criterion, 6.4, is more direct: "Representative samples of existing ecosystems within the landscape shall be protected in their natural state and recorded on maps, appropriate to the scale and intensity of operations and the uniqueness of the affected resources." Obviously, the FSC has allowed for protection areas and related them to the scale of operations. Taken as a continent, a series of bioregions, all old growth regions in North America should be protected. Taken at the stand level, however, only part of old growth would need to be protected. This disjunction needs to be resolved. Lertzman et al. conclude: "In general, forest landscape planning has been plagued by too little analysis of the long-term and large-scale consequences of planning rules conceived with small-scale, short-term variables in mind." We should start with the landscape level.
Old growth is refined into types by FSC definition:
Type 1 old-growth: late successional forest that has not been logged, but may include some roads.
Type 2: old growth forest that has been logged, but retains significant old-growth structure.
Type 3: A managed forest with residual old trees and some old growth characteristics.
Type 4: A forest where old growth remnants or characteristics are absent.
The FSC specifies that all remaining primary forests including Type 1 old growth shall be fully protected; no timber operations or new roads in Type 1 areas. Also that operations adjacent to primary and Type 1 forests should be conducted in such a way to minimize edge effects and other negative impacts on their ecological integrity. Because all members of an ecological community contribute to the integrity of the whole, which is vital to maintaining what we humans consider important‹charismatic animals, pharmacological sources, a moderate climate, and clean air and water‹and because many members require old growth, we should preserve an satisfactory amount of old growth for them.6
Timber harvest is permitted in Type 2 and 3 areas, provided the old growth structure, function, and components are maintained. Where possible, forestry activities in Type 3 forests should be managed to attain the characteristics of Type 2 forests‹this is an important goal of the FSC. Forestry activities in Type 4 forests should be managed so that they attain characteristics of Type 3 forests. Landowners are encouraged to develop new late successional stands so they are contiguous and maximize interior habitat and old growth function; but it is not specified how. Under the FSC criteria, landowners could harvest up to two-thirds of "new old growth stands." We talk about moving type 4 forests into type 3, but obviously it would be easier to do less with Types 3, 2 and 1. With Type 1 forest components, should we preserve them all? By definition, Type 1 can never be restored. After all, there are so few Type 1 old growth forests left in the region of the Pacific Coast (U.S.). The goal of old growth is existence, not eventual use. As many of the participants in the process have already pointed out, the wording is vague enough such that a landowner could cut most Type 1 old growth and later be certified if she managed for Type 2 old growth. EI proposes that the wording be changed so that, under constant ownership, Type 1 must be preserved according to a percentage (50-100%?) to be certified, depending on landscape constraints.
How do we categorize by size? Average across the whole? No. There is no minimum viable size for a stand because the whole landscape and restoration plan needs to be considered. The classification should be percentages of each age-class, in order to maintain a range of age-classes in a dynamic system, from regeneration to old growth. While we need to preserve all Type 1, as a goal aim for Type 2 across ownerships. However, it is not sufficient to only preserve old growth forests, we must also recruit future old growth. We do not consider it "optional" for certification whether or not old growth is restored. Restoration provides the conditions for old growth, not just the trees or species. The entire suite of old-growth characteristics must be addressed. We need to focus more on the restoration of old growth through restoration of the processes. EI supports P&C which require 25-35% of the trees in a forest need to be allowed to become old growth, die standing, become snags, and eventually fall to the forest floor to become soil‹and start the process of regeneration over again. Initially, this sounds startling. However, if we visualize a dynamic forest which over Œforest-time¹ maintains a permanent over-story of old growth groves and individual trees, with intermediate-aged and younger trees beneath. Horizontal separation can be maintained to reduce fire hazard.
EI supports harvesting some quality, old-growth trees in Type 2 and 3 forests, as long as 25-35% of the trees are being protected and recruited to maintain an old growth component within the forest. We encourage Conservation Easements which protect and recruit a continuous old growth component within all certified forests. As old growth areas become smaller, they become more valuable as heritage sites and sources of inspiration. If we cannot make old-growth areas sustainable, it is questionable that we can make any forest sustainable.
Summary
Although the FSC principles and criteria are a step in the right direction, they are still based on many of the assumptions of industrial forestry, specifically, a resource perspective, a prescriptive logic, a focus on stand initiation, and the idea that all change and disturbance (even whole forest removal) is natural and desirable. Missing from, or inadequately emphasized by, the FSC Principles and Criteria are: Mention of minimum viable sizes (population, processes, landscape, etc.), a landscape perspective (although the language is there), a proscriptive logic, and an understanding of limits.
Regarding limits, it is quite likely that harvesting a limited number of trees in a predominantly natural forest could reduce the probability of disturbance as well as stimulate new growth, although it may equally possible that the regular removal of trees for human use may result in the gradual and long-term decline of a forest. The forest offers constraints on what we can remove and how much‹we do not know all the limits yet. We have to be cautious; we should do only those things that do not undermine integrity. Integrity means keeping the components (populations of species), structures (types, etc.), and maintaining the processes or functions. We also know that clearcutting on any scale can compromise integrity. We know that intruding on any old growth can compromise integrity.
Prescriptive logic is of the form Œwhat is not allowed is forbidden¹ while proscriptive is Œwhat is not forbidden is allowed.¹ For instance, natural selection is described as a prescriptive process that improves fitness; the proscriptive alternative would be an operation that discards forms that cannot survive.
The regional FSC standards-development process is an opportunity to further ground certification in ecological reality. We must continually ask ourselves: what is the purpose of certification? Is the purpose of certification only to slow down forest destruction while allowing people to feel good about doing it? Is the purpose to certify "well managed" forests or to certify ecologically responsible forest use planning, and forestry and restoration management practices that protect, maintain and restore fully functioning forests while harvesting a range of forest goods to meet vital human needs?
At the recent "Forest for Life" conference in San Francisco, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, Reed Noss and others presented a powerful case for the adoption of an ecocentric landscape perspective by the FSC Certification movement. Without an ecocentric perspective, in which humans see ourselves as part of nature, and without Forest Use Plans which protect and restore wild forests and streams across the landscape, the FSC Certification strategy will simply fall back into the current anthropocentric management paradigm and, in the end, do little to shift forestry practices towards true sustainability.
These concepts and issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the FSC Pacific Coast Regional Working Group, September 15-16, 1997 in Seattle. The Ecoforestry Institute urges the members of the FSC/PCWG to adopt P&C which support a shift from a human-centered, mechanistic, industrial forestry which manages forests, to an earth-centered, organic, ecological responsible approach to forest use, which protects wild forests and streams while managing forestry and restoration practices in appropriate places.
[Editor's note: We look forward to reporting in the next issue of the IJE on what's happening in FSC regional processes in other parts of Canada and the U.S., as well as updating you about developments in the Pacific Coast (U.S.) region. Let us know what's going on in your neck of the woods.]
Notes:
1. We are reluctant even to use wild fires as an example of natural disturbances, since humans now cause over 90 percent of the fires in forests, according to Charles Stoddard.
2. Leaving widow-makers and snags for seed trees and wildlife would reduce the danger.
3. Logging can be dangerous if done quickly and badly; clearcutting seems to be an excuse to log quickly and badly while minimizing danger - by the way, should all danger be removed from the forest? We personally rather like working with trees that could crush us and with animals that could kill us if we are not careful or respectful‹it makes things seem more equal. Danger is negatively correlated with boredom, and boredom leads to emotional distancing, which leads to indifference, which leads to a confusion of use with abuse, and to the loss of unique places to the mass values of efficiency and equality. So, you see, some of the ills of society are due to the attempt to eliminate personal danger from the natural environment.
4. Log rules are used to build volume tables, which measure the amount of lumber contained in a whole tree. To determine the number of board feet in standing trees, you can simply refer to a volume table. As people have recognized that trees are not perfect cylinders, they have modified standard volume tables to account to taper (change in diameter by height) or form (especially in hardwoods). The International is considered the most accurate for calculating the actual amount of lumber in a tree; the Scribner, based on geometrical construction, is less accurate; and the Doyle Scale consistently underestimates the volumes of small logs. There are also rules, such as the Huber rule, that indicate the total content of logs in cubic feet. They all underestimate by significant percentages.
5. Economists like Simon (whose background actually is in marketing) have become the priests of the new hunger, the industrial people's hunger for money and convenience, gadgets and fame, that isolates mere hunger for food and life behind the glass wall of television. Simon is a blind optimist, but he has reason to be‹he has been seduced by technological wonder and comforted and confirmed as an over-indulged, over-consuming member of a wasteful society. Blinded by his own ignorance of human suffering, losses of habitat, history, and economics, Simon puts all his faith in numbers and technology, and mocks us as fools for not being blind.
6. We were tempted to say a minimum or optimum, but we still do not have accurate enough measures. Francisco Varela analyzes the evolutionary process as satisfying rather than optimizing; a suboptimal solution is adequate for most living beings. This idea of satisfying is a useful contrast to the morass of trying to determine maxima, optima, and minima with insufficient information.
Bibliography
Beaufait, William R. 1994. Review of Clearcut. Journal of Forestry. 9/94.
Forest Stewardship Council. 1996. Principles and Criteria for Forest Management. FSC Document No. 12. Oaxaca: FSC.
Harris, Marvin. 1981. Why Nothing Works: The Anthropology of Daily Life. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Jordan, Richard. 1994. Trees and People. Incomplete reference.
Lertzman, Ken, Tom Spies, and Fred Swanson. 1997. From Ecosystem Dynamics to Ecosystem Management. In P. K. Schoonmaker, B. von Hagen, and E. C. Wolf, eds. The Rain Forests of Home: Profile of a North American Bioregion. Washington: Island Press.
Perry, David. 1996. Personal communication.
Peters, Charles M. et al. 1989. Valuation of an Amazonian rainforest, Nature 339: 656.
Simon, Julian. 1983. Personal communication.
Smith, David M. 1986. The Practice of Silviculture. New York: John Wiley.
Stoddard, C. H. and G. M. Stoddard. 1987. Essentials of Forestry Practice, 4th ed. New York: John Wiley.
Varela, F. et al. 1974. Autopoiesis: The organization of living systems. Biosystems 5:187-196.