The big forest that once covered the Siletz mountains is gone. That's a fact. Because the big forest is gone, watershed processes have been changed in ways that no longer support abundant salmon and trout. The complex habitat of braided channels, streams dotted with deep pools and tangled with large wood has disappeared and the Siletz salmon have crashed.
The people of the Siletz valley can restore their great salmon runs. But doing so requires restoring much of the mighty forest that once covered the land. Here is the good news: while the restoration process may be painful for big timber owners, the result will be a more productive forest for timber workers and a secure future for native salmon and local communities.
The Siletz River basin covers an area of approximately 197,000 acres. In the past -- as with all coastal watersheds--the Siletz basin contained the big forests of Western Oregon. No other factor shaped and maintained Siletz stream habitat for salmon as greatly as the forest. Unlike nearby coastal watersheds that were lost to 19th century fires, it was not until the second half of the 20th century that the last of the Siletz old-growth forest was lost to logging.
The Siletz forest supplied streams with plentiful large wood, moderated sediment and stream flows and buffered the watershed from the effects of intense winter storms. Today, the forest of the Siletz is much different, and so is the story of native fish populations. The forest is dramatically younger, big logs in the streams are all but nonexistent (something the scientists say is essential for salmon) and populations of native salmon, steelhead and eels are a fraction of their former numbers. The threat of native salmon extinction has come to the Siletz.
Scientists tell us that salmon and their habitat must be thought of as one thing. Recently, the state of Oregon appointed a blue-ribbon Independent Multi-disciplinary Science Team (IMST) to make recommendations for recovering Western Oregon's salmon. The IMST emphasized the connection between habitat and salmon by saying "Salmonids and their habitat comprise a single coevolved unit that cannot be separated for management purposes" (IMST p. 12). In other words, if we are to restore salmon populations we must restore habitat.
The best available science says that to save and recover coastal salmon--particularly coho--people must return the land closer to its historic forest condition. As the IMST stated, "the goal of [forest] management and policy should be to emulate (not duplicate) natural processes within their historic range" (IMST Preface, p. v). "We believe emulation of the historic range and distribution of conditions at the landscape level is essential to accomplishing the mission of the Oregon Plan" (IMST p. 34).
Scientists also say that each basin's unique family of salmon is necessary for the survival of the larger community of salmon along the whole Oregon coast. This means working to restore forest conditions in each basin and improving each watershed's stream habitat. Therefore, we can't write off the Siletz basin or any other Oregon watershed -- every watershed and every local population of salmon is important for long term recovery.
Recently, new information has made it possible to accurately compare historic forest conditions to current forest conditions. For example, newly published studies indicate that, historically up to half of Oregon's Coast Range forests were old growth, characterized by trees over 200 years old, and that as much as 76 percent of the land consisted of forests that were more than 80 years old. Yet, today's Siletz forest lands are dominated by plantations of seedling, saplings, or pole-size trees less than 10" at their base. What a huge change! The Siletz watershed is an example of how a very big change in forest conditions lies at the heart of today's salmon crisis.
The Report of the Siletz
(1) Explains how forested lands provided for native salmon; (2) Presents important facts about Siletz basin forests, salmon habitat, and ownership; and (3)Recommends changes in the way we do forestry in the Siletz so that native salmon will be restored, communities sustained, and jobs protected.
While all of the information in this report has been widely available to researchers, much of it has never been brought to the public's attention. The numbers are dramatic and explain much of what has happened to the Siletz native salmon. Although the situation appears bleak, there is hope because now we have a clear picture of how forestry must change. One thing is beyond debate: fundamental changes to Siletz forestry--particularly those forest lands owned by the big timber companies--must occur if salmon are to be saved. Big timber's forestry can change — and must change — for the people of Siletz, the local economy, and native salmon.
The best scientific estimates of what the original Coast Range and Siletz forest was like are based on studies of fire scars and pollen and charcoal taken from lake sediments. These site-specific analyses indicate that before European settlement, the forest was much older and contained much larger trees than today's forest. More often than not throughout its natural history, the Siletz forest was old growth, filled with trees more than 200 years old. For example, in the Coast Range in the mid-1800s old growth ranged from 40 percent to as high as 61 percent (Wimberly/Spies, p. 5). Given the close proximity to the ocean and high rainfall it is very likely that the percentage of old growth in the Siletz was higher than the regional average.
Recent analysis by researchers at Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station provide powerful evidence to support these numbers. Their analysis of pollen and charcoal in lake sediment suggests that old growth covered an average of 48 percent of
the Coast Range over the past 3,000 years, and that forests containing trees greater than 80 years old covered an average of 71 percent of the land. (Wimberly/ Spies, p. 31). Timber industry "information" stating that Coast Range fires occurred frequently and that the natural forest was lacking a substantial amount of old growth and late-successional forest is, at best, less than helpful and, at worse, downright misleading.
Pause a moment and think about the above numbers. The change to the Siletz forest has been nothing less than dramatic.
Large forests slow sediments moving from the hillsides to the streams. When landslides in forests or debris torrents in upper-watershed streams occur, they both may deliver large wood along with coarse sediment (rocks and gravel) to lower watershed streams. In the lower, gentler streams, large wood interacts with sediment to create the complex channels that provide good rearing habitat for juvenile salmon. The complex habitat created by the interaction of sediment and large wood provides the safe habitat necessary during relentless Siletz winter rains.
Large wood also controls the way sediment moves through the stream system. Large wood and coarse sediment, including rocks and small boulders, are the building materials of stream beds that enable a stream to connect with its flood plain, form side channels, and exchange nutrients with riparian vegetation and the flood plain water table. Beavers add to the complexity by creating pools within the low-gradient streams. The important point to remember is that the complex habitat created by large wood and sediment plays an important protective role during winter storms — storms that may prove fatal for salmon in today's simplified stream conditions.
Our brief description of how forests provide for salmon habitat is well established in the technical literature and is familiar to many folks working in coastal watershed councils like the Mid-Coast and Siletz. The role of large wood in salmon habitat is well described in numerous credible publications and the state's Oregon Watershed Assessment Manual (Watershed Professionals Network, 1999).
Coho salmon and steelhead trout require a variety of stream conditions for reproducing and rearing. Spawning and rearing generally take place in small tributary streams, usually with a gradient of less than 3 percent. Streams such as Jaybird Creek, Cerine Creek, Rock Creek, Reed Creek and Scott Creek are examples of low gradient streams.
For spawning, coho require clean gravel, ranging from the size of a pea to the size of an orange. Rearing requires cool water temperatures: the fish prefer the water between 53 degrees and 58 degrees Fahrenheit, but may tolerate temperatures up to 68 degrees. Young coho and steelhead (fry) emerge between February and early June, and occupy backwater pools and the margins of streams. During summer, coho prefer pools in small streams. In winter, they prefer off-channel alcoves, beaver ponds and dam pools.
The critical component in creating good salmon habitat — clean gravel, backwater pools, side channels, and off-channel alcoves — is the large conifer wood provided by forests that are older than 80 years. The importance of large wood for coastal streams can hardly be overstated. According to Upstream: Salmon and Society in the Pacific Northwest, a 1996 report produced by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, "Perhaps no other structural component of the environment is as important to salmon habitat as is large woody debris, particularly in [Northwest] coastal watersheds…" (Upstream, p. 194).
A forest of large trees is the key element that creates coastal stream habitat. In ways that are complex and not completely understood, a mature forest landscape moderates sediment, provides nutrients, supports water insects, and allows for pockets of cool water that give salmon places to hide from the heat (IMST p. 18; NMFS White Paper, p. 17-18). The National Marine Fisheries Service suggests that at least 80 pieces of wood larger than 24" in diameter and 20 feet long, considered key large wood, should be present in each mile of stream. Poor habitat has fewer than 30 pieces of key large wood per mile, and sections with fewer than 15 such pieces per mile are considered nonfunctioning. Take a look at any Siletz stream and see if 20" or larger logs are present. Chances are you will not see one piece.
Locally, large wood enters Siletz streams when trees die from disease, are knocked down by wind, come rushing down steep slopes in landslides or are released from steep upper streams in debris torrents. Not all large wood is the same. Very large pieces are particularly important and come from the big spruce, hemlocks and Douglas firs. Large wood enters streams primarily from within 300 feet (98 meters) of the water. But scientists note that unstable upper slopes and stream beds are also an important source of large wood (IMST p. 23).
Nowhere is the regional shift from an abundant forest to a small timber-poor forest clearer than in
the Siletz River watershed. An analysis of forest vegetation conducted in 1995 by the Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study (CLAMS) project of the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest (PNW) research office in Corvallis--offers a bleak picture of the Siletz. Of the basin's 197,591 acres,
64 percent is covered with trees less than 10" in diameter at breast height (DBH), or by non-conifer trees of all DBH sizes. Lands that are covered with non-conifer or small conifer trees are a poor source of large wood for streams. Another 18 percent of the landscape is covered with conifers and mixed stands between 10" and 20" DBH, which have only a moderate potential to recruit large-wood. Only 18 percent of the basin's land contains conifer or mixed stands over 20" DBH. We consider forests with trees 20" and larger DBH good land for recruiting large wood to streams.
Current stream conditions mirror the change in the Siletz forest. Over the past decade the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) conducted 181 stream habitat surveys within the Siletz
watershed. When the stream survey data is interpreted using the standards described in the Oregon Watershed Assessment Manual, Siletz stream habitat appears to be in severe trouble. The results show that less than 1 percent of all Siletz stream reaches contain desirable levels of key large wood. The surveys found that 88 percent of the reaches had undesirable levels of key large wood, and 12 percent were at risk. The same pattern held for complex pools--pools with a large wood component-- where 91 percent were found to be in an undesirable condition and 4 percent were at risk.
It is important to stop for a moment and review what the above numbers mean. Habitat elements failing at 88 percent and 99 percent levels isn't the kind of information for scratching one's head and saying "gee, I don't know." These are locomotive size numbers that shout to the Board of Forestry
"do something!"
What Was the Original Siletz Forest Like?
How Does the Forest Shape Salmon Habitat?
What Do Salmon and Trout Need to Thrive?
Large Wood
The Current State of the Siletz Watershed
Potential for Siletz Forest Land to Recruit Large Wood to Streams
Poor
Moderate
Good
Acres
126,047
36,409
35,135
Percentage
64%
>18%
18%
A Coast Range Association interpretation of the 1995 CLAMS vegetation layer for stream large wood recruitment
Siletz Stream Habitat Conditions
181 Total Stream Surveys (1991-1998)
| Habitat Element | Undesirable | At Risk | Desirable | % Desirable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Stream Wood Conditions |
||||
| Complex Pools | 85 | 3 | 5 | 5% |
| Large Wood | 96 | 43 | 27 | 16% |
| Wood Volume | 103 | 25 | 38 | 23% |
| Key Large Wood | 143 | 19 | 1 | >1% |
Stream Pool Conditions |
||||
| % Pools | 52 | 68 | 61 | 34% |
| Pool Depth | 34 | 87 | 60 | 33% |
| Pool Ratio | 67 | 48 | 18 | 14% |
Other Stream Habitat Conditions |
||||
| Stream Bottom (silt, sand, etc.) |
66 | 49 | 66 | 37% |
| Width to Depth Ratio | 44 | 90 | 46 | 25% |
| % Gravel | 33 | 79 | 69 | 38% |
| Shade | 0 | 0 | 181 | 100% |
Unfortunately, the problems with stream habitat aren't limited to just the large wood. Of the eleven stream habitat elements benchmarked by the Oregon Watershed Assessment Manual, the Siletz ranked best in shade. The high marks for shade, however, appear to be an artifact of where ODFW chose to conduct their surveys. The second best habitat element is gravel. Even so, only 38 percent, a little more than one third of the reaches surveyed, were found to be desirable in gravel. In nine other critical habitat elements, the Siletz was deficient 63 percent to 99 percent of the time. We suggest the reader review carefully the Siletz Habitat Condition form above. The numbers are astounding.
The state of native fish abundance for the Siletz watershed area shows the predictable effect of the extreme habitat loss. Scientists say they can't be certain exactly how many fish returned to coastal basins a century or more ago, but canning records offer us a hint. In 1981 the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife published a report on the historic cannery catch for coastal Oregon and the lower Columbia (Mullen, 1981). Cannery records give an indication of the number of salmon returning to the local watersheds. Recently, the journal Fisheries published an article on historic and current salmon abundance for the Northwest and British Columbia (Gresh, 2000). In that report the authors provide ODFW estimates from the 1950's that indicate the commercial catch rate for coastal Oregon was, on average, 40 percent of total salmon abundance. A Coast Range Association analysis of aforementioned two reports indicates that approximately 4.5 acres of coastal watershed land area provided for 1 returning coho salmon.
Based on the above 4.5 to 1 ratio it appears that the Siletz watersheds likely had a native coho salmon abundance of approximately 43,700 fish. This calculation holds if we look at the actual Siletz cannery records. From 1923 to 1940 the average number of coho packed at the Siletz cannery was 17,100 fish. Using the 40 percent figure for total abundance calculates out to 42,700 coho.
During the 1990s the ODFW conducted surveys of returning native coho for coastal streams. ODFW random fish surveys for the years 1990 to 1999 for the Siletz basins counted, on average, 857 spawning coho each year. In 1996, the watershed saw its lowest coho return for the decade counting only 336 wild fish. Even the 2,447 wild coho that returned to the watersheds in 1992, that decade's high, are but a pale shadow of historic numbers.
| Collapse of Siletz Native Coho | |
| Estimated Historic Yearly Abundance of Coho |
1990 to 1999 Average Annual Coho Return |
| 43,000 | 857 |
The remaining Siletz native coho are not evenly present throughout the watershed. This is borne out by the Rapid Bio-Assessment of fish presence conducted by Steve Trask during summer months under the auspices of the Midcoast Watershed Council. According to that assessment coho and other native salmon appear to be concentrated in limited watershed stream areas. Most likely, fry and juvinile coho are congregating in the few best remaining stream areas for summer conditions. Low population numbers and concentration in small portions of the stream system expose the population to catastrophic loss from a singular event such as a landslide or debris torrent. That's why the scientists tell us it is important to identify the best remaining places, known as refugia or core areas, and protect the landscape from any further destabilizing activity that threatens the fish.
It's no secret why forest health, salmon habitat, and fish numbers look so bleak on the Siletz: industrial forestry has radically transformed the landscape upsetting natural patterns that are key to salmon survival — and a sustainable human economy. According to Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) records, 75 percent of the Siletz basin's acreage is owned by private, industrial forest companies. Of the industrial forest owners, Georgia-Pacific and Boise Cascade dominate the ownership. After decades of forest liquidation, Georgia-Pacific recently sold its lands to Plum Creek Timber. Georgia-Pacific, like any corporation, gave the profits to its investor shareholders and left us, the people of Siletz and Lincoln County, with the cost of restoring the watershed. In effect, they privatized the gain realized through timber sales and transferred much of the cost to society at large.
| Siletz Forest Ownership | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private | Federal | State & Other | ||||
| Industrial | Non- Industrial |
BLM | Forest Service |
State | Misc. | Total |
| 144,921 | 18,847 | 14,347 | 4,284 | 8,045 | 3,313 | 193,757 |
| 75% | 10% | 7% | 2% | 4% | 2% | 100% |
Not all Siletz lands are owned by industrial forest owners. Ten percent of the watershed is owned by private, non-industrial owners, defined as those owning less than 5,000 acres. These are the folks generally referred to as small woodlot owners. The federal government owns 9 percent of the watershed and the state owns 4 percent. The ODF data classifies the remaining ownership as "miscellaneous". Given the predominance of private industrial ownership of Siletz lands, industrial forest management is a critical issue of concern.
Because the Siletz has such fertile timberlands, industrial forest owners can grow a marketable log in a very short time. Siletz industrial owners cut their forests on extremely short rotations of 30 to 60 years. If we assume Siletz industrial owners manage for a forty-five year rotation, the average age of Siletz basin industrial land trees is twenty two and half years of age. This means that on 75 percent of the basin's land area, the age and size of the forest has been shifted radically — from one that averaged hundreds of years of age to a forest one-tenth as old, whose trees are primarily saplings and pole-stand size. Given the prior discussion of the role of large wood in salmon habitat, the condition of stream habitat becomes fully understandable in light of the land management practices of a few industrial owners.
The Siletz forest has been transformed by a handful of profit-seeking companies from a huge old growth landscape to one of a permanent small plantation forest. The watershed's forest has been changed to the detriment of public values. No one asked our permission or explained the consequences. We are now paying the price in poor stream habitat conditions.
Many people ask, "how much has been lost in the Siletz basin?" We know native coho salmon have declined by over 95 percent. Important elements of once-excellent stream habitat have declined by a similar amount. As explained earlier, Coast Range stream habitat is maintained by the constant recruitment of large wood into streams from adjacent and upslope forest land areas. A good indicator for potential large wood availability is the timber industry's standard measure of saw timber, the Scribner board foot (bf), which measures 1 inch thick by 1 square foot. Calculating the decline in Scribner board foot volume for Siletz industrial timberlands provides a sense of the background forest condition driving stream habitat decline.
Here is the math based on fair assumptions of forest size and composition for just the 144,921 acres of Siletz industrial forest land.
Of the total 197,000 Siletz watershed acres (308 square miles), industrial timber companies own 145,000 or 75 percent. Of that 145,000 acres, about 88 percent, or 128,000 acres, are actually trees. Rivers, roads, and rock make up the rest. Assuming a forty-five year cut, the average amount of Scribner board foot of timber per industry acre is about 12,000 bf. For small trees, Scribner board foot volume understates actual wood volume. So, to be generous to the timber industry, we will double the figure to 24,000 bf per acre. Therefore, current industry timber volume in the Siletz stands at approximately 3,062,000,000 bf.
Before conversion to industrial plantations, the forest that stood on Siletz industrial land was old growth. A coastal old growth stand, depending on age and condition, may have anywhere from 60,000 bf to 200,000 bf per acre. For this analysis we will use 120,000 bf per acre. While the old growth forest certainly had rivers and rock it did not have roads. We will assume that the natural forest condition of Siletz industrial land was 95 percent forested which calculates out to 137,750 acres. Therefore, the Siletz industrial lands originally contained 16,530,000,000 bf of virgin timber.
The Siletz' timber industry has re-grown slightly over three billion board foot of timber and not re-grown 13,468,000,000 bf of timber. And, because the timber industry practices rotations of 40 to 50 years, they never will re-grow more than what they have today. Current and past timber industry owners have trucked off slightly over 81 percent of the forest never to replace it.
Is it any wonder that the watershed has a large wood crisis in its stream habitat? Current industrial timber volume is roughly 19 percent of the original natural volume. It is no surprise that the average value of the four large wood habitat criteria (above) finds the condition Desirable in only 11 percent
of the surveyed areas.
Watershed Disturbance
Short rotations not only maintain the forest in a permanent small tree size, the frequency of clearcutting creates a disturbance regime far in excess of past natural levels. In the past, watershed disturbance was driven by large, infrequent replacements of stands by fires and periodic, intense storms. In either case -- storm or fire -- the huge wood volume of large trees remained. Today, clearcutting leaves the land barren of large wood while at the same time exposing the freshly cut-over land to the impact of intense storms.
With the source of large wood for Siletz streams depleted, the prospect for native salmon recovery is grim. The IMST concluded that "Oregon streams and adjacent forests currently contain much lower levels of larger wood than they did historically, and under current management practices, the potential for recruitment will not result in its replacement" (IMST p. 22). Habitat so radically different from historical conditions, the team continued, "is seriously hindering the recovery of wild salmonids" (IMST p. 23).
Logging practices in the Siletz are directly responsible for reducing the size of wood in streams; and the size of wood in streams is directly related to how much habitat is available for salmon. Studies have found that juvenile coho are more abundant in areas where large pools are abundant. But as logging increases sediments and reduces large wood in streams, the large pools are disappearing. One study on federal lands found a 60 percent reduction in large pools in western Oregon and Washington. In Oregon, those losses approached 80 percent (Upstream, p. 181). Another study found that the size of wood moving into streams decreased as logging increased. According to the IMST, "Since the size of wood in the channel is directly related to pool size, this represented a direct loss of critical salmon habitat" (IMST p. 72).
The rock-bottom loss of old, mature forest in the Siletz — and resulting loss of salmon habitat — is unprecedented. Scientists say natural conditions and processes are the best for fish; unnatural conditions and processes such as those we see in the Siletz, eventually will drive the native salmon to extinction. While salmon may be able to survive unnatural conditions in the short term, "the longer the habitat stays in a reduced state, the greater the risk to the population" (Wimberly/Spies, p. 20). In other words, chronic habitat loss can drive — and is driving — Siletz native coho salmon to extinction.
The numbers we have cited are powerful and challenge the Board of Forestry to respond and uphold the public's interests in the Siletz watershed. Forest condition and stream habitat reflect an unprecedented degradation of the environment. The burden to recover Siletz salmon rests on industrial timber owners and the responsibility rests with the Board of Forestry. Siletz industrial forestry is destructive beyond anything a watershed can withstand. Current industrial forest owners, even if not directly responsible for the liquidation of the Siletz forests, must accept the burden of recovering the forest and stream habitat.
Some people within the timber industry believe it isn't worth the effort to recover salmon in highly damaged watersheds like the Siletz. They argue that the cost to land-owners of restoring the watershed to more natural conditions is too great to save the few remaining native fish. At the same time, many scientists urge the government to save the best remaining habitat through the immediate and strict protection of select watersheds. Special watersheds that are rich in habitat and highly protected are referred to as refugia, core areas or anchor habitat areas. Between the need for refugia watersheds and the noise of timber industry executives complaining about costs, someone unfamiliar with the overall science might think that a watershed like the Siletz is not a political priority for restoration. This isn't the case at all.
Recovering native salmon within the Siletz watershed is necessary for maintaining salmon coast wide. According to the National Research Council's Upstream report, if the salmon runs on individual rivers are lost, so too will be the larger population of salmon along the Oregon Coast: "An adequate number of returning adults for every local breeding population is needed to ensure persistence of all the reproductive units… The result of regulating fishing on a metapopulation basis [i.e.., all coho along the Oregon Coast] and ignoring the reproductive units that make up a metapopulation [i.e., Siletz River coho] is the disappearance or extirpation of some of the local breeding populations and the eventual collapse of the metapopulation's production" (Upstream, p. 363).
While the above Upstream quote is addressing fishery management , the message is clear: -- not only does a salmon population such as the coho population from the Necanicum River to Cape Blanco on the south coast need a certain amount of abundance to reproduce, it also needs to be well distributed between watersheds and within watersheds. When habitat declines, not only does the total number of fish decline but their distribution may become concentrated in the few best remaining watersheds or sub-basins. Concentration cuts them off genetically and exposes the small remaining population to potential destruction by natural and human caused threats.
We know that salmon are immutably linked to the condition of the land through watershed processes that create and maintain habitat. In the same way that maintaining each river's native salmon is critical to the survival of the species as a whole, maintaining and restoring each basin's salmon habitat is crucial to the survival of salmon as a whole. That means that native Oregon coast salmon cannot be sustained by protecting 45 percent of the habitat on public lands in a few basins and walking away from 55 percent of the habitat on private lands. Private lands therefore bear no less of a burden than public lands in ensuring the long-term survival of salmon runs as a whole.
Every salmon stock in every basin is a key brick in the house of its species as a whole. Top scientists say "emulation of the historic range and distribution of conditions at the landscape level is essential to accomplishing the mission of the Oregon Plan" (IMST p. 34)— in other words, restoring salmon. Returning the forests to more natural conditions so that salmon populations can thrive requires fundamental change to the dominant land use in the Siletz--industrial forestry. In basins dominated by private lands, such as the Siletz, no one is talking about going back to an old growth forest. An industrial forest that is sufficient to restore native salmon will likely be a far cry from natural conditions. However, we must move very quickly and far from the current model of industrial forestry in order to save native salmon.
The following recommendations for changing private forestry are tied to the current discussion occurring before the Board of Forestry in Salem. This list is based on the main points of the IMST report and other key documents.
1. Manage forestry at a whole basin scale and not at the scale of one activity.
Forest harvest must be planned at the basin scale through local planning, either through voluntary effort or regulatory mandate. Cowboy forestry must end and watershed forestry must begin. Oregon's forest practices rules must consider the entire landscape — including the cumulative effects of forest practices on private, state, and federal lands. A landscape perspective is critical for determining where and how much disturbance (i.e., clearcutting) may occur locally (one site), and how large an area may be impacted.
2. Include the recovery goals of the Oregon Plan for landscape level forest management in the Oregon Forest Practices Act.
The state's rules governing forestry are primarily intended to ensure sustainable timber harvest. Oregon's forests and native salmon are so closely linked that the practice of forestry must sustain native salmon and their habitat.
3. Increase forest harvest rotation time.
A huge opportunity exists here because current rotation times are occurring far before trees are reaching the size that maximizes log production. Increasing rotation times is a win-win for communities, the timber industry, and salmon. Increasing rotation lengths on commercial forest lands moves forest management closer to natural disturbance regimes and helps reduce — but not eliminate — many impacts to salmon habitat associated with commercial logging. By allowing forests to grow older, and therefore bigger, longer rotation management will provide large wood for streams and understory vegetation for a variety of wildlife and plants. Long rotations mean fewer acres are logged each year, reducing other cumulative impacts while helping to keep habitat connected across the landscape.
A Win-Win Strategy
A Coast Range Association report-- Forests That Work --indicates that moving to 140-year rotations from 45-year rotations may increase timber inventories by more than 500 percent, reduce acres clearcut annually by 68 percent, increase the volume of timber harvested by 40 percent, and increase positive cash-flow off the land for owners by as much as 100 percent. (See the web site www.coastrange.org/ Forests_That_Work.htm). We need not fear a reduction in clearcutting because current overcutting is wasting much productive timber capacity. Industrial land-owners will harvest more sellable logs and more valuable logs by cutting less.
4. Approximate the size and pattern of natural disturbance regimes in logging areas.
For management to emulate natural landscape patterns, logging must shift to more closely resemble the size and frequency of local natural disturbance. In basins like the Siletz, fire disturbance occurred infrequently, but often affected a large swath of land. Logging will act more like a natural disturbance if timber harvest occurs in fewer places but perhaps at larger scales. While this recommendation of the IMST appears to have merit, the potential for abuse exists. More information and specificity is needed for this recommendation to be implemented.
5. Manage logging for both upslope and riparian areas.
In coastal watersheds, it is necessary to eliminate the regulatory distinction between riparian buffers and the upslope lands that feed streams. We must overcome the failed management strategy in which the buffers (comprising a small percent of the landscape) were expected to substitute for the land conditions under which salmon thrived. Integrating the upper slopes into a salmon protection strategy shifts timber management from the needs of industry to one defined by the needs of riparian biological and physical functions (IMST pp. 19-20). "Analysis and adjustment in management practices must occur in upslope forests throughout the watershed" (IMST p. 13). Such integration emulates historic disturbance patterns, is based on "our best understanding of ecosystem structure and function," and therefore helps recover imperiled salmon.
6. Protect small, high gradient streams, with or without fish.
All streams make important contributions to fish habitat — large wood, sediment, and gravel — even if they don't run throughout the year and even if they don't contain fish themselves. The IMST stresses that non-fish-bearing streams make important contributions to downstream processes (IMST p. 31). A stream that shows no fish during modern surveys may have contained them before industrial forestry wrought havoc on the land. Protecting those streams may have direct habitat benefits for salmon, or may protect salmon that stream surveys missed. Harvest rotations of 100 to 200 years will increase the watershed's amount of intact forest and will greatly protect small streams.
7. Require all landowners in all basins to restore fish habitat.
The cumulative effects of logging on all Coast Range forests has been a major factor in the salmon's demise. Restoring each basin — and each basin's salmon population — will be critical to the species' recovery. The bulk of the Siletz basin, and the Coast Range's forests in general, is in private, industrial ownership. Since the entire land area in a basin is critical to restoring individual salmon populations, and since individual salmon runs are critical to restoring the overall health of the larger salmon population, all landowners in all basins must take major steps toward restoring the landscape. The industrial timber companies whose practices brought the Coast Range forest to its knees face the biggest burden, both technically and morally.
8. Implement a scientifically valid monitoring program.
As Jack Ward Thomas, the former head of the U.S. Forest Service once said, "Ecosystems are not only more complex than we know, they are more complex than we can know." The science of salmon and their ecosystems is evolving. As we change forestry, it is extremely important to monitor the effectiveness of each improvement in management. The wise integration of the changes in scientific information with land management practices requires consistent, thorough, and scientifically sound monitoring.
9. Protect all existing core habitats while the above changes are put in place.
Immediate protection for the most important functioning or potential habitat (refugia watersheds) is critical to prevent continued losses of salmonid genetic diversity. There is no substitute for immediate protection as a hedge against the impacts of current practices and of future ones. This includes specific areas in basins such as the Siletz.
The Siletz River's once-great coho salmon now risk extinction because the forest that maintained stream habitat is greatly reduced. Through the best current science, we know much about how forests naturally function and we know much about what salmon need. This report has presented solid data on Siletz forest, stream habitat and salmon populations. We now know the general features of what's wrong on the landscape, why it's wrong and who made it that way. We also know much of how to undo it. We have a crisis of unprecedented proportions,
one that harms the land and the fish as well as the human community and its economy. The direction we need to go is clear. Road map in hand, we need only build the political will to change the timber industry and restore the forest and salmon.
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Copyright © Coast Range Association
Last updated: November 7, 2000