NEWS
For Immediate Release
September 22, 2000

Contact: Stefany Bales
(208) 667-4641

New approach needed to restore forests

Intermountain Forest Association Wildlife Biologist Testifies Before

Senate Subcommittee

BILLINGS, MT – Testifying today before the Senate Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management, chaired by Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) and co-chaired by Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), Greg Schildwachter, Wildlife Biologist for the Intermountain Forest Association, described the role foresters can play in restoring overstocked, and unhealthy national forests in the wake of the worst fire season in the interior west in 50 years.

"We have before us a great opportunity to avoid future disasters and achieve many benefits for air, water, wildlife, fish, and trees," Schildwachter said. "We can help deliver the goods for which so many interest groups are clamoring," he said.

The fires of 2000 highlight the problem that has been so well documented in the west: unnaturally heavy loads of trees in the forest. We have seen that in dry weather, even our most skilled firefighters cannot contain the explosion of which the forest is capable. But this is not the only problem, and we must go forward from this year’s dramatic lesson with comprehensive and priority attention to the entire forest, Schildwachter said.

"The current health crisis in our forests is not a timber industry issue," he said, "but we can help."

"Modern forest businesses are willing and able to play a role in restoring the forests. More to the point: conservation needs forest businesses," Schildwachter said. "Modern foresters have the expertise, equipment, and desire to help with all major objectives in forest conservation: roads, streams, and trees," he said.

"We recognize that many existing roads are unnecessary, creating problems for elk, grizzly bears, and fishes; Douglas-fir trees are taking ground from other native trees, changing habitats and creating new and dangerous wildfire hazards; and, some stream courses have been disrupted by removal of wood and stone, constrained by bottomland roads, or made impassable to fish. These issues must be combined in order to be solved," he said.

This approach to conservation is best seen through partnership efforts in the Clearwater Elk Initiative in Idaho, and in the Flathead Common Ground project in Montana. Both these partnership efforts have assembled state and federal agencies with private citizens and groups. After detailed, scientific, map-based negotiations, these partnerships have recommended plans to the Forest Service. One Flathead Common Ground project resulted in a plan on the Flathead National Forest that would have removed 100+ miles of unwanted roads, moved a road that was constraining a trout stream, stopped dangerous erosion, restored western larch and white pine, and improved growing conditions for huckleberries and other food plants. This project would have made the first real progress for grizzly bear advocates, trout enthusiasts, or forest business, or anyone else since the "timber wars" began.

"This is restoration forestry," Schildwachter said. "It plays a part in conservation by working side-by-side with other disciplines, and it focuses on ecological features of forests: the density of trees, their ages and heights, and their mix of species. Restoration forestry is designed according to what we want to leave on the land, not what we take," he said.

Schildwachter implored the Committee to work quickly to begin the needed restoration work. "Time has run out," he said. "There is no place now for blame or political posturing. An opportunity lies before us to come together and begin the active thinning and restoration work we must do now to ensure our forests are able to survive wildfire. Western forestry professionals stand ready to offer our expertise, resources and partnership in crafting the right way to ensure our forests are alive and healthy," he said.

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