Preforests in the American West, Part 2: “Reforestation,” By Gawd?

 This is the second of a two-post exploration of the stage of forest succession that occurs after a stand-replacing event and before the canopy again closes and dominates the site. Part 1 discussed why preforests are valuable, if undervalued. Part 2 addresses management of preforests to preserve their ecological value.

Figure 1. Mountain (shown here) and western bluebirds strongly prefer preforests. Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service.

If net present value of timber production is your goal, you want the preforest stage to be as short as inhumanely possible. Whether the trees were killed by clear-cutting or nature, by all means send as much of the forest to the mill as possible. Then densely plant a monoculture of Douglas-fir (or ponderosa pine, depending upon where you are) seedlings and spray the plantation with herbicides and/or hand-slash so any broadleaf vegetation doesn’t compete with the new conifer seedlings. Since time is money and forty years is the most profitable rotation age for production forestry, you cannot be wasting any of those years on the preforest stage.

The traditional response of the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and private industry after a stand-replacing event has been to immediately salvage log it (akin to mugging a burn victim) and then densely plant it with a monoculture of one species, usually Douglas-fir. The intent has been to short-circuit this stage of natural forest succession and reestablish the young forest stage. Of course, ecologically the plantation is more akin to a cornfield than a forest, but it has been “reforested,” by gawd.

Fortunately, the times are a-changin’ as understanding of preforests improves.

Complex Versus Simplistic Early Successional Forest Ecosystems

Not all preforests are created equal.

If the disturbance was natural—wildfire, wind, insect, avalanche, or volcano—the preforest stage is rich in the legacy of trees (living or dead, standing or fallen) that continue to influence the structure and function of the ecosystem. This is a complex preforest.

If salvage logging followed a natural disturbance or if the stand was clear-cut—perhaps accompanied by one or more doses of prejudicial herbicides and then a precommercial thinning to remove the excess conifers that were established due to the herbicides—it is a simplistic preforest.

The Douglas-fir region abounds in simplistic preforest but is rather short on complex preforest. Simplistic preforest on private timberlands has some—but not a lot—of habitat value. Certain species and ecological processes just won’t be found in simplistic preforest. However, as there is a lot of simplistic preforest, there is significant total value on a whole-landscape basis.

Figure 2. The poster plant for complex preforests is Vaccinium membranaceum (that’s mountain huckleberry, mountain bilberry, black huckleberry, tall huckleberry, big huckleberry, thin-leaved huckleberry, globe huckleberry, or Montana huckleberry to you). Source: Wikipedia.

Depending upon the cause of the stand-replacing event, combinations of various biological legacies, including live standing trees, dead standing trees (snags), and fallen trees (large woody material), can be found in the preforest stage (Table 1). Some events leave the understory undisturbed, while others do not. In the American West, besides the legacy of large wood (living and dead, both standing and fallen), preforests often host hardwood trees as well as conifers, along with herbs (pronounced “wildflowers”), shrubs, and graminoids (“sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses are hollow”).

Table 1. Biological legacies by disturbance agent. Additional disturbance agents include volcanic eruptions, snow avalanches, and severe floods. Source: Ecological Forest Management.

Bring Back the Black-Backeds

In “The Forgotten Stage of Forest Succession: Early-Successional Ecosystems on Forest Sites,” Swanson et al. report:

Naturally occurring early-seral pre-forest communities appear to constitute a unique system on the seral spectrum for forested lands of the [Pacific Northwest]. The structural attributes offered by this set of conditions provide habitat for a number of conservation-dependent species, as well as many species that are not rare, but are of substantial social and economic value (i.e., game animals such as deer, elk, and bear).

Furthermore:

Our research, while exploratory in nature, suggests that complex early-seral communities have importance on par with complex late-seral forests in providing habitat for conservation-listed species. . . . While not final due to the evolving state of knowledge on early-seral communities and the habitat dependencies of many wildlife species, the conclusions presented here suggest that early-seral conditions play an important role in maintaining a number of societally important values, including rare or conservation-dependent species.

As the northern spotted owl is to old-growth forests, so the black-backed woodpecker is to preforests. The bird’s back is black so it doesn’t stand out when dining on insects found under the scorched bark. As the Center for Biological Diversity notes:

An intensely burned forest of dense, fire-killed trees is perhaps the most maligned, misunderstood and imperiled habitat. Far from being destroyed, a naturally burned forest harbors extraordinarily rich biological diversity, and there’s no better flagship species to help us embrace that than the black-backed woodpecker. . . .

[T]he woodpecker prefers its mature and old-growth trees to be snags—because it loves to eat the wood-boring beetles that flock to large dead and moribund trees, responding to insect outbreaks following fires, windfall, and large-scale drought- or beetle-induced mortality events.

Black-backed woodpeckers depend upon an unpredictable and ephemeral environment that may remain suitable for at most seven to 10 years after fire; their populations are clearly regulated by the extent of fires and insect outbreaks—and by the management actions people choose to take in those affected forests.

Figure 3. The black-backed woodpecker is the spotted owl of the preforest. Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Salvage logging is deadly to Picoides arcticus. Complex preforest is also the required or preferred home of many other wildlife species, including several that are “species of concern” due to trends of population decline, including bluebirds (western and mountain). Butterflies and moths of all kinds as well as deer and elk thrive in complex preforest.

The Good News, the Bad News, and My Recommendations

The good news is that the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are doing far less salvage logging after stand-replacing events. Public opposition, a lack of industry capacity to absorb the large pulse of logs, and other bureaucratic factors have combined so that the amount of complex preforest on federal public lands is on the increase (a rare bit of good news).

The bad news is that some federal forest managers, while not salvage logging after a stand-replacement event, are nonetheless planting nursery seedlings in a misguided attempt to be (seen to be) doing something after a wildfire.

My recommendations to address concerns about preserving the ecological value of preforests follow.

On private lands: (1) State laws that require the prompt planting of conifers after clear-cutting on private lands should be repealed. While industrial private timberland owners will continue to so plant, there are nonindustrial owners who desire to apply the principles of ecological forestry, which honor the preforest stage. (2) For a variety of reasons—public health, ecological health, and watershed health—herbicide application on preforests should be banned.

On public lands: Salvage logging should never occur after a stand-replacing event (and neither should planting nursery seedlings).

On all lands: The Forest Service, as part of its Forest Inventory and Assessment Program, should inventory and assess the extent and quality of preforest across all ownerships and site classes. One cannot value or manage what one does not count.

Figure 4. The three-toed woodpecker is another aficionado of preforests. Source: Flckr.

Back to Opal Creek

Senator Mark Hatfield, who did more than anyone to facilitate the logging old-growth forests (and rapidly replanting monocultures) (see Public Lands Blog posts Mark Odom Hatfield Parts 1 and 2), nonetheless—or perhaps because of—did the right thing for Opal Creek. In one of his last acts as a US senator, the statute creating the Opal Creek Scenic Recreation Area, is this clause (included, dare I brag, by my incessant whining to Hatfield staff):

(ii) SALVAGE SALES.—The Secretary [of Agriculture {Forest Service}] may not allow a salvage sale in the Scenic Recreation Area.

Bottom Line: When I return to the Opal Creek Wilderness within the Opal Creek Scenic Recreation , I will enter bittersweet and leave happy—happy in knowing that the forest continues its natural succession.

For More Information

DellaSala et al. “Complex Early Seral Forests of the Sierra Nevada: What Are They and How Can They Be Managed for Ecological Integrity?” Natural Areas Journal 34 (July 2014):310-324.

Franklin et al. Ecological Characteristics of Old-Growth Douglas-fir Forests. USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, 1981.

Franklin et al. Ecological Forest Management. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2018.

Oliver, C. D, and B. C. Larson. Forest Stand Dynamics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990.

Smith et al. “Peak Plant Diversity During Early Forest Development in the Western United States.” Forest Ecology and Management 475 (November 2020):118410.

Swanson et al. “The Forgotten Stage of Forest Succession: Early-Successional Ecosystems on Forest Sites.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (March 2011, first published online March 2010):117–125.

Swanson et al. “Biological associates of early-seral pre-forest in the Pacific Northwest.” Forest Ecology and Management Volume 324 (15 July 2014): 160-171

Ulappa et al. “Silvicultural Herbicides and Forest Succession Influence Understory Vegetation and Nutritional Ecology of Black-Tailed Deer in Managed Forests.” Forest Ecology and Management 470–471 (August 2020):118216.

Remembering Ecowarrior Dave Foreman, Part 2: Moving the Needle

Note: This is the second part of a two-part tribute to Dave Foreman, who recently shuffled off this mortal coil. Part 1 recounted Dave’s contribution to stopping the infamous Bald Mountain Road, a dagger into the heart of the Kalmiopsis wildlands in southwestern Oregon. Part 2 is my take on Dave’s unique contributions to the conservation and restoration of nature.

Figure 1. Dave Foreman never failed to give a hell of a speech. It was often more like a sermon full of information, wisdom, provocation, humor, and inspiration—but never damnation—delivered by a preacher who sought to save not human souls but life on Earth. Source: The Rewilding Institute.

The North Kalmiopsis wildlands, the lands Dave Foreman nearly lost his life trying to save from the bulldozer and the chainsaw, are still not, some four decades later, fully protected for the benefit of this and future generations. The remaining roadless wildlands have not yet been added to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, but a good portion is somewhat administratively protected as Forest Service inventoried roadless areas. Some of the North Kalmiopsis lands have received wild and scenic river status, with more in the offing for the entire Kalmiopsis wildlands. Perhaps the mature and old-growth forests therewill be administratively protected by the Biden administration.

It can take a lot of time to save a piece of nature. Dave Foreman knew this. Dave also knew that given the rate of the human assault on nature, nature doesn’t have the luxury of time.

In my view, Dave Foreman’s greatest contributions to saving the wild were

·      getting conservationists, and then society, to think bigger;

·      popularizing science to save wilderness, when the science was still emerging; and

·      having a large and secure enough ego to let others take credit for and run with ideas he first popularized.

Moving the Overton Window

I didn’t know it at the time, and probably neither did Dave, but Dave’s fundamental course was trying to move what the sociopolitical chattering class now calls the Overton window. The Overton window is the thinking of Joseph P. Overton of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank. According to Wikipedia, the Overton window is “the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time.”

When Dave started his conservation career, wilderness designation was within the Overton window, but generally more because of human recreation than nature conservation. Wilderness also had to encompass relatively large areas, and generally more rock and ice than low-elevation forests or desert grasslands.

The Overton window is not moved by politicians; rather it is moved by think tanks and activists who advocate for policy solutions that start outside the current range of public acceptability. As the unpopular, if not previously unspoken, idea moves to become more popular, the Overton window moves to reflect that that policy solution is now within the realm of political discussion. Politicians only look out of Overton windows.

I recall a conversation with Dave that hit home with me. The public lands conservation movement generally came out of the progressive movement, and more on Republican than Democratic wings. Early twentieth-century public lands conservationists like John Muir, Stephen Mather, Horace Albright, Gifford Pinchot, and their ilk were all white, Republican (things were different back then), and rich. They didn’t want to rock the sociopolitical boat but rather just change its course a bit. Not turn the boat around—and if any rocking was required, not too much rocking.

“Where would Martin Luther King [Jr.] have been without Malcolm X?” thundered Dave, just to me at that point, but it was a line from a speech that he had given or would give many times. The radical Malcolm X did make MLK appear more reasonable in the public arena.

Foreman helped the public lands conservation community think (and act) “outside the box,” another metaphor for the limits of public acceptability.

Dave taught me that while ecological realities are immutable, political realities are mutable. Only if one has one’s idea aperture too small and/or time horizon too short does it appear that political realities cannot be changed.

Figure 2. Dave Foreman inspired many a wildlands advocate, including John Davis, now executive director of the Rewilding Institute. Since I have known him, John has always had one foot in something big and the other in something Adirondacks. Source: The Rewilding Institute.

Presaging 30x30 . . . and 50x50

Foreman was not a scientist, but early on in his conservation career, he knew—in his gut if not yet in his head—if we’re to have functioning ecosystems across the landscape (and seascape) and over time, that at least half of every ecosystem needs to be conserved and, in some cases, restored. Later Foreman came to know this not only in his gut but also in his head. As the discipline of conservation biology emerged, Dave embraced and popularized the science that provided objective evidence for what was previously just his personal testimony.

Today, the conservation buzz is all about 30x30, or conserving 30 percent of the world’s, nations’, states’ lands and waters by 2030. Don’t tell anyone, but 30x30 is simply an interim goal on the way to 50x50, which is where the science points. Yep, 50 percent by 2050. 

Urging Colleagues to Steal His Ideas

As Dave helped move nature conservation’s Overton window, he was genuinely pleased when others took credit for his work—credit either for moving the political window or for taking advantage of the concept/idea/notion/necessity that the moved Overton window exposed. More than one chief executive officer of a national conservation organization told Dave to his face that they were embracing/stealing “his” idea (of course, without crediting him). Foreman’s response was always “Go for it!” rather than “You’re welcome” and never “Hey, that’s my idea!”

While Foreman did radical things on behalf of nature, in his chest beat the heart of a reactionary deeply opposed to any so-called progress that came at a cost to the wild. It is not that he opposed civilization or was misanthropic. Rather, Foreman realized that for there to be fine cigars and exquisite liquors and the many other economic goods and services that we enjoy, and for our children to inhabit the earth and prosper, that the earth must continue to provide fundamental ecosystem goods and services. 

Figure 3. In 2004, Dave made the case for rewilding (a term he coined) the continent. By today’s scientific standards, his vision was rather conservative. Dave knew the Overton window doesn’t move all at once. Source: Island Press.

So did Dave Foreman end up damning or praising me when he came to southwestern Oregon? Depending on his audience, either one. It worked for me, it worked for him, and most important, it worked for nature.

Foreman moved the needle.

Thanks, Dave.

Bottom line: No one can replace Dave Foreman. But others must and will carry on working for the wild.

For More Information

Astor, Maggie. February 26, 2019. “How the Politically Unthinkable Can Become Mainstream.” New York Times.

Foreman, Dave. 1991. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. Crown.

———. 1992. The Big Outside: A Descriptive Inventory of the Big Wilderness Areas of the United States. Three Rivers Press.

———. 2004. Rewilding North America: A Vision for Conservation in the 21st Century. Island Press.

———. 2004. The Lobo Outback Funeral Home: A Novel. Bower House.

———. 2011. Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife. Raven’s Eye Press.

———. 2012. Take Back Conservation. Raven’s Eye Press.

———. 2012. “The Great Backtrack,“ in Philip Cafaro and Eileen Crist (eds.), . Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation. University of Georgia Press.

———. 2014. The Great Conservation Divide: Conservation vs. Resourcism on America’s Public Lands. Raven’s Eye Press.

Rewilding Institute. “Dave Foreman (1946–2022).”

Risen, Clay. September 28, 2022. “David Foreman, Hard-Line Environmentalist, Dies at 75.” New York Times.

Wikipedia. Dave Foreman.

Zakin, Susan. September 21, 2022. “Dave Foreman, American.” Journal of the Plague Years.