Coast Range Association
Sustainable Forestry
No other issue is arguably more important to our regional well being then achieving a sustainable forestry that providesfor people and the natural world. The CRA's main focus for sustainable forestry currently involves supporting the Oregon Coast Community Forest Project (OCCF). Visit the OCCF web page and learn more about the project.
Learn more: OCCF Page
Assessing the Response of Streams to Contemporary Forest Practices:
A Conference on Paired Watershed Studies
October 13-14, 2008 - CH2M Hill Alumni Center
Oregon State University - Corvallis, OROver the past several decades in response to environmental concerns, the annual harvest in the timber-producing states of the Pacific Northwest was reduced and forest practices were improved. However, there is still concern that the intensity of contemporary forest practices used to manage commercial forest land is not environmentally sustainable. To address this concern, the Watersheds Research Cooperative (WRC), under the administration of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, is conducting research on the impacts of contemporary forest practices on aquatic ecosystems. This research is carried out in three paired watershed studies in western Oregon: Hinkle Creek, the Alsea Study, and the Trask Watershed.
The purpose of this conference is to report on the state-of-the-science of the environmental effectiveness of contemporary forest practices. The conference will feature reports on preliminary results, current status, and future directions for the three WRC paired watershed studies. Also, results will be presented from similar research from throughout the Pacific Northwest.Register Online Now to secure the EARLY Registration rate!
Photo by Reed Wilson
Coast Range Association Foresry Reports
Forests That Work: The Problem of Investor Driven Forestry
Investor driven forestry businesses--operating under the pressure of financial return --do a poor job of growing high-quality wood, and sacrifice much productive capacity. We believe that strict financial return forestry poorly serves the interests of timber workers and rural communities for three reasons:
(a) Trees are cut too early, thereby losing up to 50% of the land's productive capacity for saw timber. This loss of productive capacity has barely been mentioned in the press and is never advertised by timberland owners. This loss of production is the simple result of cutting before what foresters call the Cumulation of Mean Annual Increment, or CMI.
(b) Logging costs increase per thousand board foot (mbf) with smaller tree harvest, while revenues declines due to the historically lower sale price of small logs per board foot. Add in the lost productivity of early cutting and it is understandable why timber companies seek to reduce costs. For example, when adjusted for inflation, the wages of timber worker fell by 38% between 1978 and 1994.
(c) Coast Range industrial forests have been biologically simplified in structure and composition compared to the historic range of variability (HRV) of the historic coast range forest.
Learn more: Forests That Work
The Economics of Forestry
Quality and quantity of ecosystem services, the production of quality timber outputs, and job opportunities are not priorities for today's industrial forest owners. It is important to remind ourselves of what actually determines the forestry practiced in Oregon. The normal business goal of profit maximization drives private Coast Range forest management. This translates into short harvest rotations and silvicultural practices designed to minimize costs. Private forestry's singular emphasis on financial efficiency occurs with far-reaching consequences for the silviculture practiced and the range of potential goods and services available from the forested landscape. It is important to understand that profit maximization is not about profits per se, but rather about achieving the greatest amount of profit relative to the amount of capital invested. Therefore, return on equity is the actual goal of forest-growing firms.
Competition for investment dollars within financial markets requires that industrial forest companies continually demonstrate that their profit from investments is equal to or greater than that of other alternative uses of capital. To compare the relative value of various investment projects in consistent terms, managers "discount" projected profits by a rate of interest (profit) expected to apply to their alternative opportunities. This ordinary business practice of discounting is a huge burden to the on-the-ground foresters who must justify their decisions to senior managers.
We assume that the primary driver of industrial forestry is the rate of return on capital and the subsequent use of a discount rate by firms when considering forest investments and silvicultural strategies.
Learn more: The Economics of Forestry
Photo by Reed Wilson
