BLM will disregard 3 parts of forest plan.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

The director of the Bureau of Land Management assured Oregon loggers on Friday that the agency is committed to supporting rural communities and will disregard some elements of the Northwest Forest Plan as it finalizes its management strategy for Western Oregon forests.

Jim Caswell - nominated by President Bush last summer to head the BLM - gave the keynote speech at a sustainability forestry convention organized by Associated Oregon Loggers Inc., a trade association with more than 1,000 member firms. Caswell spent a few days in Oregon this week as part of a tour of several Western states. The BLM manages 258 million acres of public lands.

At the gathering of Oregon loggers, Caswell said that under a new management strategy being crafted by the agency, some of the old rules of the Northwest Forest Plan would no longer apply on the 2.2 million acres of Western Oregon forests the agency manages.

Caswell is no stranger to the Oregon woods. His first job out of college was as a forester in the Roseburg district in the 1970s. In his 20 years in Oregon, he also worked for the U.S. Forest Service, stationed for a period of time on the Blue River Ranger District of the Willamette National Forest.

Caswell - a tall broad-shouldered man with a self-effacing sense of humor - described his first day on the job as a forester in Douglas County, a tale that involved a wad of chewing tobacco, a steep hike up to a ridge and a behind-the-tree vomit session that drew laughs from the crowd of several hundred men and women.

"I've sat in this audience many times, never ever thinking I might be invited to speak to this group," he said.

Caswell described his pleasure at seeing thick stands of trees in areas that had been cut during his tenure in Oregon.

"It is true," he said. "Timber is a renewable resource. It will grow back."

Caswell told the gathering that he believes in multiple uses of public lands, expressed support for rural communities and confirmed that Western Oregon forests should be managed for the benefit of those counties that have relied on them for revenue since the passage of a 1937 law.

He noted that forest policy has gotten more complicated during his decades of public service, but said that Oregon's forests could be managed to meet a variety of needs, preserving the ecological health, biodiversity and scenic beauty, maintaining old growth and a mix of age classes while still providing a revenue stream to Oregon counties.

The Western Oregon Plan Revision could almost triple logging on BLM forests if the agency adopts its preferred alternative spelled out in a draft released last year.

Caswell said the new strategy would put an end to three provisions of the Northwest Forest Plan - which has guided logging on public lands in Washington, Oregon and California since 1994.

The new plan will end watershed assessments, surveys of plants and animals before an area is logged, and upper management review of decisions made at the regional level, Caswell said.

While the loggers welcomed the possibility of an increase in timber production on federal land, the proposal has drawn a raft of criticism from private citizens, environmental groups and other federal agencies. The Environmental Protection Agency has said the BLM plan will harm water quality, and the National Marine Fisheries Service said the plan will harm salmon, according to an Associated Press story.

Caswell later met with local BLM staff and about 30 people gathered outside the Eugene District office to express their concern over the increased logging, especially of old-growth trees.

Many are residents who live beside BLM land in the Coast Range. They warned that they could rally several thousand protesters if the final BLM plan looks similar to the agency's preferred alternative.

In a brief interview after his remarks, Caswell said that he's very interested in Oregon's forests despite the fact that they represent just a tiny fraction of the acreage under his jurisdiction.

Part of his interest comes from his 20 years in Oregon, he said, but the other part is his recognition that the forests play a key role for rural communities.

"It affects the abilities of the counties to function," he said. "It's a contract we have with them."