Restoration forestry takes root in the Siuslaw
by EPHRAIM PAYNE
photos by MATT NICHOLSON & EPHRAIM PAYNE
A utumn rains on the Oregon Coast herald the end of another parched Pacific Northwest summer. Clad in Gore-Tex and fleece, an unlikely collection of visitors to the Siuslaw National Forest greets the storm. You might expect these rural landowners, U.S. Forest Service employees, timber industry representatives, and environmentalists to be on opposite sides of a courtroom or forest protest. The stereotypes developed during the timber wars say that what’s good for the environment hurts the economy: Logging is an enemy of forest health. Loggers and tree-huggers are supposed to hate each other. Environmental conflict is supposed to flourish in timber country.
Above: Johnny Sundstrom stands in a meadow among sapling trees planted by the Siuslaw Stewardship Group to prevent erosion along the bank of the Siuslaw River. The trees, planted with funding from restoration logging, will benefit local salmon populations by stabilizing the soil and preventing erosion.
But the Siuslaw Stewardship Group is doing something revolutionary. They’re agreeing — agreeing that healthy communities need healthy forests, agreeing on the inflexibility of some environmental laws, and agreeing on the need to restore the habitat for endangered species. They’re braving the weather together on this fall day — the University of Oregon-educated environmentalist, the Oregon State University-trained timber industry man, the landowner, and the forester — to survey a forest restoration project around an area called the Misery Thin. Contrary to forest management standards, they all agree that old growth is valuable and that restoration forestry — selectively thinning over-crowded tree plantations — can help bring it back.
Johnny Sundstrom, original group member, stands out in a Carhartt jacket, cowboy boots, and blue jeans. Crows feet crease the corners of his hazel eyes, and a small stud glimmers in his left ear. His wit electrifies the whole group; carefully timed wisecracks turn uncomfortable silences into moments of shared humor.
The Siuslaw Stewardship Group was born in timber country. The hamlet of Mapleton lies on the estuary of the Siuslaw River, which slices into the bedrock of the Oregon Coast Range. Little shops and stores cluster along this stretch of Highway 126 between Eugene and Florence. Family farms sprout in the river’s bottomlands.
The Coast Range is still teething by geologic standards, shaping itself with periodic flash floods and mudslides, but its forests were ancient by human standards when logging began. A patchwork of wind-twisted pines and sharp-needled spruce clung to the foggy river. Towering Douglas-firs and western redcedars ruled inland. Giant trees more than 250 years old housed rare animals including northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets, and northern flying squirrels. A patchy canopy covered an under-story of moss-cloaked western hemlocks and a carpet of evergreen shrubs and sword fern. Beneath the canopy stretched a web of interlaced roots and mycorrhizal fungus, weaving the biotic community together in tight interdependence. Steep-sloped mountains protected the forest community until new technology opened the Coast Range to logging after World War II.
Above Left: A machine measures and cuts a log from an over-crowded plot in the Siuslaw National Forest.Thinning is used to reduce the number of young trees that were densely replanted after clear-cutting. This reduces the risk of forest fires and provides room for trees to mature into old growth. Above Right: A machine lowers a cut log onto a logging truck to be taken to the mill.
Thanks to its old growth, the Siuslaw National Forest was the most productive national forest in the country at its peak in the mid eighties. The Mapleton Ranger District cut two billion board feet of timber between 1960 and 1990. Five mills operated at the industry’s peak. When lumber prices fell or logs fetched more money overseas, mills closed and the timber economy slumped. The fishing fleet in nearby Florence provided extra work for loggers.
Things changed radically when a lawsuit halted the Siuslaw’s timber flow in 1988. Clear-cuts in the watershed’s headwaters triggered landslides, killing salmon fingerlings and destroying spawning beds. Slides became so common that Sundstrom — a longtime area resident who manages a livestock and forest management cooperative when he’s not acting as an ambassador for the Siuslaw National Forest — could recognize the sound of one over the telephone. The local landowners sued the government, stopping the flood of timber from federal land.
“Our timber industry was dependent on Forest Service wood,” Sundstrom says. “It ground to a halt.”
The economic and social fabric of the community began to unravel. People moved away to find jobs. The national forest transferred its district office from Mapleton to the coast, taking forestry and service industry jobs with it.