The state of the forest: an historical perspective.

The Salmon River Road winds south from US Highway 26 near Welches, OR, and leads to a Wilderness trailhead in the Mount Hood National Forest. A leisurely half-mile stroll along the trail brings the casual hiker to a pristine grove of centuries-old Douglas fir, hemlock and western red cedar. Skipped over by fires that burned thousands of acres of forest on all sides, this old-growth stand is a prime example of the cathedral-like ancient forests that have become the center of debate over United States forest management.While the debate over management has grown much louder in the past decade, the forests themselves have been managed, in some way, for thousands of years.

The Past

The original forests of the U.S. covered roughly 1 billion acres of. land (including Alaska). The popular myth is that before European settlement these forests were relatively uniform, virgin woods, a virtual "sea of old growth." The reality is that, for perhaps as long as 14,000 years, Native Americans used fire and other tools to manipulate forests to serve their needs. Large areas around villages were cleared for growing crops and thousands of acres were burned regularly to enhance game habitat, make travel easier and improve growing conditions for berries.

With European settlement, man's impact on the forest increased tremendously. As the New World grew more populated, Colonists viewed the forest as a mixed blessing - an "inexhaustible" resource and an obstacle to the preferred use of the land for agriculture. At the same time, forest resources represented a booming economy. Lumber very quickly became one of the first exports and the fur trade, which depended heavily on forest wildlife, became one of America's first lucrative industries.

Between 1785 and 1850 the nation's population multiplied by seven times. To provide for this booming growth, large areas of forest were converted to other uses, such as agriculture. By the early 1800s so much forest had been converted to other uses that a traveler on the 240-mile trip from New York City to Boston, would pass through less than 20 miles of woodland.

Meanwhile, the growing population was expanding across the continent. "Manifest Destiny" had become a popular notion by the 1840s, and throughout the 19th century the government saw transfer of public lands to private ownership as the means, by which to best utilize the continent's vast resources.

During this time the lumber business grew dramatically. Thanks in part to increased demand from expanded railroad construction, lumber production in the U.S. expanded from 5.4 billion board feet in 1850 to 44.5 billion board feet in 1910. Little thought was given to conservation or reforestation, as the lumbermen viewed the forest as endless, with more trees to cut just over the next hill. While land was-readily available and relatively cheap, reforestation efforts were expensive and unproven. Prevailing wisdom was to log off the commercially valuable trees on a parcel then convert the land to agricultural use or leave the "worthless" acreage for the tax collector and move on to greener (in every sense of the word) pastures.

Such thinking remained prevalent right up through the early part of this century. In 1939, the Northwestern corner of Oregon experienced its third massive wildfire of that decade. The series of fires blackened more than 300,000 acres of privately held timberland. In typical fashion for the day, the various owners deemed the acreage a total loss and walked away, leaving it for the counties in lieu of property taxes. The counties affected embarked on one of the earliest large-scale reforestation efforts. Some 50 years later, the effort has paid off. The area, now known as the Tillamook State Forest, contains about $2 billion worth of standing timber growing at the rate of 570 million board feet per year.

The Dawn of the Conservation Movement

By the mid-1800s some people had begun to be concerned with the effects of forest conversion and utilization. As early as 1865, Frederic Starr predicted an impending "national famine of wood." Various conservation groups formed and began to successfully set land aside in protected areas: Yosemite in California (1864); Yellowstone in Wyoming (1872); the Adirondack Preserve in New York (1885).

At the same time the federal government began to recognize the need to retain some public domain lands, a move which signaled a shift away from three centuries of national policy designed to transfer public land to private ownership. The result was a federal forest reserve management mandate (via the 1897 Organic Act) to "preserve and protect the forests to secure favorable conditions of water flows .... [and] furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of the citizens of the United States."

Ultimately, these federal forest reserves became what is now known as the U.S. National Forest System.

A view of the forest condition in the U.S. in 1900 helps frame the natural resource issues the country faced at that time and lays the groundwork for what has happened since:

* Wildfire commonly burned 20 million to 50 million acres each year.

* There were about 80 million acres of "cutovers" that continued to be either idle or lacked desirable trees.

* The volume of timber cut far exceeded forest growth.

* There were no provisions for reforestation and long-term forest management was generally not practiced.

* Wood was relatively inexpensive; as a result large volumes of lesser quality wood was left after logging, sawmills were inefficient and there was little incentive to devise innovative ways to extend the resource.

* Massive conversion of forest land to agricultural use continued; forest cover east of the Mississippi had fallen from 70 percent to 20 percent or less; farmers cleared forest land at a rate of 13.5 square miles per day.

* Formerly abundant forest wildlife species were severely depleted or near extinction. These included whitetail deer, wild turkey, pronghorn, moose, black bear, bighorn sheep, beaver and many species of birds.

The overall state of U.S. forests at this time was perhaps at its lowest point in history.

One reaction was for early conservation groups such as the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society to call for land preservation. To its credit, the federal government recognized the need to preserve special places and the National Park System was born with the dedication of Yellowstone National Park in 1872. In later years, several such "crown jewels of the American landscape" were preserved and protected as national parks.

Another reaction came from the timber industry itself. Early pioneers of the modern day industry recognized the potential future value of previously cut over land and began purchasing parcels and rehabilitating those lands back into productive timber land. In the South, where cotton had been king for over a century, defunct cotton plantations were snatched up and restored to southern pine plantations, helping fuel a timber resurgence that has made the Southern region responsible for nearly half of the country's timber output today.

At roughly the same time, reforestation became much more prevalent. In 1910, the U.S. Forest Service established the first forest nursery in the U.S. near Carson, WA. Since then, the technology and the volume of work in forest nurseries has changed dramatically, but the purpose - to provide a stable and adequate supply of tree seedlings to replenish harvested and otherwise depleted forest lands - has not changed. Since 1910, nearly 100 billion trees have been planted on commercial forest lands in the U.S.

Later in the century, reforestation became the cornerstone of state forest practices laws and best management practices. Such laws and guidelines today are universally accepted and followed, ensuring a commitment to maintaining forests forever. As a result, the amount of forest land in the U.S has essentially stabilized at 737 million acres, or about two-thirds of what existed prior to European settlement. Over time these laws and guidelines have expanded to include watershed protection measures, wildlife habitat protection and enhancement and protection of a wide variety of other, nonproduct-related forest values.

The desire to protect forests from fire became a national priority. A tremendous effort on the part of public agencies and private landowners, embodied most visibly by Smokey Bear, resulted in a reduction in the acres burned by 90 percent, from greater than 50 million acres per year in 1930 to 3 million to 5 million acres by the 1960s. This effort would come to have a profound effect on the future state of the forest.

As the century went on, it became more obvious that values other than timber production were increasingly affecting the way people viewed forests. As a result, industry worked to technologically improve wood utilization. Preservative treatments and other methods were developed to extend wood's service life. New products such as plywood and glue-laminated beams allowed wood products to be used more efficiently and effectively. This innovative thinking has continued into the present, spawning such ideas as particle-board, medium density fiberboard, oriented strand board and structural engineered wood products.

Today, the wood products industry has advanced to the point where better than 95 percent of each log removed from the forest is used in the manufacturing of a wood or paper product. And virtually all the residual material is burned to generate power, offsetting energy consumed in the manufacturing process.

The Present

As it relates to the state of the forest, the "present day" dates back to about 1964. That's when the first of a series of Congressional actions was passed to designate federal Wilderness Areas. These actions are a response to continued calls from various environmental organizations for additional land preservation. By 1984 the National Wilderness System encompassed 190 million acres.

In the late 1980s, the debate turned to habitat preservation and species protection, coming to a head with the well-worn debate over the northern spotted owl. Ultimately, this leg of the debate has resulted in tremendous changes in the relationship between people and the forests. Public lands are seen less and less as sources of natural resource production. Large numbers of wood products companies that previously depended on public land for their raw materials have gone out of business. Since 1987, some 350 such lumber mills in the western U.S. have permanently closed operations.

As a result, the responsibility for forest management to provide wood products has shifted significantly to privately-owned forest lands. And the major forest products companies have taken a long-term approach to this responsibility. While the primary purpose is to grow the maximum amount of wood per acre each year, major landowners such as Willamette Industries, Weyerhaeuser, Crown-Pacific and Georgia-Pacific employ wildlife biologists, hydrologists, soil scientists and other experts to ensure their forest practices are compatible with other forest values. Across the board, management plans call for sustainable harvest levels designed to maintain long-term forest health and growth.

The exclusion of fire from the forest ecosystem has resulted in a tremendous amount of forest in unnatural and unhealthy condition. In recent years, this has resulted in huge acreages suffering the ravages of insect infestation and, ultimately, catastrophic wildfire. The biggest current threat facing forests today may well be poor forest health. Decades of fire exclusion, combined with a number of other contributing factors, have resulted in extremely unhealthy conditions across much of the West. Decades in the making, these conditions will take years to reverse. In the meantime, millions of acres are threatened with catastrophic fires the likes of which haven't been seen since the early 1900s.

In contrast to conditions in 1900, today:

* Total forested area has stabilized and growth exceeds harvest by 30 percent or more.

* Wood use has become significantly more effective and dependence on wood for inefficient uses, such as a fuel source has decreased dramatically.

* Forest conservation preservation has resulted in more than 250 million acres of land set aside in National Parks and Wilderness Areas.

* Forest management has taken on holistic approaches that recognize natural processes and the interrelationships between forest values.

* Reforestation is commonplace, with more than 1.7 billion trees planted on commercial forest lands every year.

* Most forest wildlife species populations have recovered to unprecedented levels, and management plans are in place to adequately protect and enhance those species which remain threatened.

* Overall, U.S. forests are more healthy and vibrant, but some areas, particularly in the West, face serious health threats.

Ironically, the current trend to provide for wildlife species protection through habitat designation is sure to fail. Forests are constantly changing and cannot be preserved in time. The old growth grove on the Salmon River Trail will, in half a millennium, become a stand of hemlock, or perhaps a newly-seeded thicket of Douglas fir; certainly something other than the spotted owl habitat it currently serves as.

A few things may never change. Trees will always be renewable and people will always depend on products from the forest.

Editor's Note: Timm Locke is public relations director for Knoll & Co., a Portland, OR-based advertising and public relations firm with deep roots in the wood industry. Locke has worked in the industry for 10 years, spending five of those years as publicity manager for Western Wood Products Assn.