Practicing with Landscape Scale Forest Management

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Practicing with Landscape Scale Forest Management

• Thomas R. Crow
• IUFRO Working Party 8.01.03
• September 26-29, 2006
• Locorotondo, Bari, ITALY

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United States Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service

• Established in 1905
• Manages public lands in 155 national forests and
  20 grasslands
• 77.3 million ha of land and water (size of Texas)
• National Forest System, Research and Development,
  State and Private Forestry

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Issues
biodiversity, urbanization, forest health, fire,
sustainability, ecosystem services, restoration,
clean water, endangered species, endangered
ecosystems, roads, energy
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Large-scale assessments of forestland
conditions and trends
Past Large scale assessment of forest policy
focused on commercial timber supply, typically
seeking a sustained yield or even flow of wood
Present More comprehensive assessments for a
variety of forestland benefits and values
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Examples

• Southern Forest Resource Assessment
• Northwest Forest Plan
• Sierra Nevada Accord
• Southern Appalachian Assessment
• Northern Forest Lands Study (Maine, New
  Hampshire, New York, and Vermont)
• Great Lakes Regional Assessment
• Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management
  Project

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Southern Forest Resource Assessment

• Initiated in 1999 because of concerns about
  status, trends, and likely future conditions of
  forests in the South
• East Texas, Kentucky, Virginia, Florida 87
  million ha (214 million acres) forest area
• Forces of change rapid urbanization, increasing
  timber demand, disease and insects, pollution

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Ownership
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Finding Total forest area within the South is
forecast to remain stable, present to 2040
The South has rebounded from widespread
deforestation in the early 1900s to become
heavily forested. While the total area of forest
has remained relatively constant over the past 30
years, 1 to 2 of forest land moves in or out of
forest cover each year.
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Finding Urbanization presents a substantial
impact on the extent, condition, and health of
forests

• Among forces of change, it will have the most
  direct, immediate, and permanent effects. While
  urban uses currently represent a small share of
  land in the South, they are expanding rapidly.
  Forecast models predict that about 4.8 million ha
  (12 million acres) of southern forests (8) will
  be urbanized between 1992 and 2020.

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Timber Production

• Forest fragmentation and parcelization
• Concentration of timber harvest on fewer
  hectares, e.g., in U.S., about 70 timber is
  harvested from 10 of the timberland base
• Thresholds of operability, decreased likelihood
  of active timber management

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390 people per square km probability of timber
management 0180 .25115 .50 50 .75
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Northwest Forest Plan 12 years later

• Washington, Oregon, n. California
• Reserve, matrix, adaptive management areas on
  public lands
• Forests are maturing on public lands
• Private lands intensively managed
• Significant changes in regional economy
• 3.4 average annual decline for spotted owl
  population

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Washington Post, September 14, 2006

• Wildfires across the country have scorched more
  land in 2006 than in any year since at least
  1960, burning an area twice the size of New
  Jersey

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Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003

• Hazardous Fuel Reduction on Federal Land
• Wildland-urban interface
• Fuel reduction focused largely on small diameter
  trees, thinning, strategic fuel breaks, and
  prescribed fire
• Specific targets expressed as area treated
• Where and when to treat?
• Effectiveness?

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Spatial Tools
Treatment
No Treatment
Year 200
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Mandate for landscape management

• Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960

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Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act

• Multiple use means the management of all the
  various renewable surface resources of the
  National Forests so that they are utilized in the
  combination that will best meet the needs of the
  American people..

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Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act

• Making the most judicious use of the land for
  some or all of these resources or related
  services over areas large enough to provide
  sufficient latitude for periodic adjustments in
  use to conform to changing needs and conditions.

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Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act

• That some land will be used for less than all of
  the resources.

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Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act

• And harmonious and coordinated management of the
  various resources, each with the other, without
  impairment of the productivity of the land, with
  consideration being given to the relative values
  of the various resources, and not necessarily the
  combination of uses that will give the greatest
  dollar return or the greatest unit output.

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Moving toward landscape management

• The USDA Forest Service is moving toward
  landscape management because of the nature of the
  problems that resource managers need to address,
  not because of any statutory requirement.

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Moving toward landscape management

• It is a bottom-up and not a top-down phenomenon.

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Moving toward landscape management

• It is happening because advances in technology
  allow us to do so.

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Moving toward landscape management

• It is happening because a landscape perspective
  meets a need and helps managers solve problems.

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Moving toward landscape management

• And it is happening because scientists such as
  you are showing the way forward.