We need to manage our forests.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By John Prendergast For The Register-Guard

AMarch 28 guest viewpoint tries to claim the moral high ground while arguing that federal payments to rural counties are needed primarily due to a pattern of poor forest management. The sweeping generalizations, the pointed references to public figures, and even mention of the Iraq war, reveal this as little more than a biased political commentary.

Let's consider some of these points more objectively, including the idea that the current fiscal and ecological crises are a result of the timber industry's `cut-and-get-out mentality' as well as the `narrow utilitarian' views of federal land managers.

It wasn't the timber industry's decision to effectively abandon sustained yield forest management and reduce federal harvest levels by over 80 percent. This is the direct result of 20 years of interest-group litigation and lobbying that effectively turned federal forest management over to lawyers and judges.

This is the same kind of interest-group politics called `outrageous' in the March 28 column. Well-intentioned legislation such as the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act has been abused, much to the detriment of our forests and communities.

The court rulings cited as evidence for ecologically unsustainable management are a far cry from facts about the resources in question. Consider some real data and trends: The most recent inventory of the former Oregon & California Railroad forest lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management shows more forest volume today than the previous two inventories from the 1970s and '80s. How could this be if these lands were managed under a `cut-and-get-out mentality'?

A study commissioned by the Oregon Forest Resources Institute shows that while management was greatly restricted on federal lands in western Oregon (1993-2004), the volume lost from mortality (insects, disease and fire) exceeded harvests by six times on those lands. Is this ecologically sustainable?

In less than a decade (2000-05) five Western states, including Oregon, recorded their largest wildfires ever with many homes destroyed, critical wildlife habitat lost and community infrastructure and morale severely damaged. The majority of the spotted owl habitat on the west side of the Deschutes National Forest has been destroyed not by logging, but by three large wildfires within the last six years. Is this evidence of ecological and social sustainability?

While this has been occurring, an important rural industry and a community culture have been lost from parts of Oregon. Demand for forest products hasn't gone away - in fact, it has grown, and is increasingly being met by timber imports. Is this the result of a `just society' that thinks globally and acts locally?

As living systems, forests annually produce substantial biomass. Prior to white settlement, disturbances such as wildfire limited the biomass that accumulated in our forests. Wildfires no longer can run unchecked, but active forest management can maintain a balance between growth, mortality and rebirth.

The current policy of locking up our federal forests has been shown to be just as environmentally unsustainable as unchecked logging, and may ultimately doom species such as the spotted owl. This is a key ecological concept lost on many interest groups, lawyers and judges.

This concept was not lost on the framers of the O&C Act, a law ignored in the March 28 column. In 1937, an insightful and visionary decision was made to manage forest growth by providing timber resources for the benefit of our communities. The O&C Act and other federal laws require a sustainability principle that allows harvest of timber no greater than the amount of annual growth, thereby promoting the long-term viability of both the forests and communities. In my opinion, this is the firm moral basis of U.S. timber payments to Oregon counties.

We have exported our timber jobs, and we are importing our lumber. Forest health on federal forests in Oregon is declining and some western Oregon counties are closing libraries, opening jail doors and laying off sheriff's deputies. It is time to return to a balance in the management of Oregon's federal forestlands. It is also time to take back the management of these lands from lawyers, judges and isolated interest groups and return it to natural resources professionals.

John Prendergast of Medford, a forester and wildland firefighter, is Oregon chairman of the Society of American Foresters.