May 11, 2010
The Jackson Advisory Group (JAG) was appointed by the Director of CAL FIRE, with the concurrence of the Board of Forestry, in April of 2008. The Group was given a broad charter to review the management plan for 50,000-acre Jackson Demonstration State Forest in Mendocino County and to recommend changes to the Director and Board of Forestry.
The deadline for the JAG's recommendation is January 2011, three years after the current management plan for Jackson Forest was approved. To meet this deadline, the JAG has set a goal of having an initial draft report ready by June of this year--a very short time away, given the present lack of agreement on the most important issue facing the JAG.
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A committee of the JAG, the Landscape Committee, has designated areas of the forest to preserve (e.g. all old-growth stands), to manage for developing old-growth characteristics ("late seral" in forestry terminology), and for developing older forest characteristics while still maintaining some timber harvesting. The designated areas lie mostly within a relatively narrow band that runs along the northern edge of the forest and drops down to the southern edge about 5 miles from the western edge.
These older forest areas comprise only about 12,000 of Jackson Forest's 48,000 acres. What is to happen on the remaining acres?
The Landscape Committee recommended to the JAG in the summer of 2009 that "Natural Forestry" be the basic management approach in all areas of the forest not specifically designated for different management, such as research and demonstration areas, special concern areas, reserves, and old-growth development areas (where timber harvesting will be more limited).
Simply put, Natural Forestry aims to promote older forest characteristics and aesthetic values while maintaining timber production. A workshop was held at Jackson Forest in November 2008 that brought together about ten forest managers who use techniques that would form the basis of Natural Forestry: single-tree selection to promote larger trees, light entries that don't greatly open the canopy, and attention to maintaining aesthetic values. These managers were unanimous in their opinion that their form of forestry could be practiced successfully on Jackson State.
The recommendation to apply Natural Forestry to all stands not otherwise designated for special management has created an ongoing controversy in the JAG. Despite the Committee's repeated insistence that it expects significant portions of the forest to be allocated to research and demonstration projects, a common perception is that accepting the Landscape Committee's Natural Forestry proposal would lead to all of Jackson being turned into old growth.
The Research Committee, which is charged with developing recommendations to support a world-class research and demonstration program at Jackson State, has been particularly upset. Several of its members felt that the uniformity of Natural Forestry management would not provide the variety of stand conditions necessary for a first-class research program. The Landscape Committee responded that the "research and demonstration will always trump Natural Forestry", and that allocations made for research and demonstration would lead to a variety of stand structures on the forest.
To help gain advice on how research needs should be reflected in landscape allocation recommendations, the JAG convened a Science Workshop, with participants drawn from a variety of scientific specialties associated with forestry.
The consensus of the workshop was that Jackson should develop a research program focused on a few "Centers of Excellence" such as forest restoration while maintaining timber production, urgently restoring the salmon populations in forest streams, and quantitatively modeling the relationships between forest stand conditions and wildlife populations. With respect to the allocation issue, most participants felt that the management treatments given to different stands should be decided as part of the design of the research program.
The JAG so far has been unable to reach agreement on the crucial landscape allocation issue. The conclusions of the scientists at the workshop seem to provide a sensible solution to the allocation issue:
Initially, before the research program is developed, use Natural Forestry for all timber harvests. Then, as the research program is established and research projects defined for parts of the landscape, use the management methods specified in the research protocols on the stands involved.
As I write, the JAG has scheduled a meeting (April 15) designed to end the stalemate. A small group is drawing upon the work of the Research and Landscape committees and the Science Workshop to draft a policy recommendation on landscape allocation. At the same time, all JAG members have been asked to list their "core needs" for Jackson Forest, needs that if not met would prevent them from supporting the package of JAG recommendations.
The goal and the hope for the upcoming meeting is that the JAG will agree on the allocation policy recommendation and identify any other key issues where further work is needed to reach consensus. If this goal is achieved, it will clear the way for the JAG to move forward quickly. The June deadline for the JAG's draft report will be a realistic possibility. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
For current information on developments at Jackson Forest, visit www.jacksonforest.org.
Vince Taylor is a member of the Jackson Advisory Group. The opinions expressed here are solely his own. Copyright Vince Taylor 2010
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