By Theresa Hausser and Kate McMichael
Perspective is a funny thing. Kids, too.
As members of Oregon Women in Timber, a statewide, all-volunteer nonprofit organization dedicated to forestry education, we were interviewing one of our members, Kit LaBelle, for our Women Who Know the Woods video series (find the YouTube link at orwit.org).
It turned out that her daughter was instrumental in Kit joining OWIT, having responded to a classmate’s question, “What does your mother do?” with “My mother kills trees.”
(For the sake of accuracy, Kit works in a mill. The trees are already dead.) This exchange highlights not only the need for forestry education but also for the tradeoffs inherent in the dynamic process of trees becoming wood products.
Forest literacy and tradeoffs are inherent in forest management as well. In fact, there are almost countless choices and consequences (tradeoffs) involved in every aspect of nurturing a healthy, resilient forest.
For example, in our post-fire reality, we opted not to pay a saw crew to drop a stand of 20-year-old standing dead trees. On the one hand, yes, they fell on their own, saving us money we’d never recoup. So, good choice.
On the other hand, when they fell was unpredictable – and messy. We spent many hours sawing through jackstrawed, downed trees to get them off the road (usually in early-morning winter darkness) so our neighbors could drive to work, and many more to get to actual soil to do (yet another) replant. Still a good choice?
Well … certainly a tradeoff.
We know that sometimes you cut struggling trees so that other trees can flourish. We know there’s a ticking clock to getting wood products out of standing dead trees, and that some dead trees on the landscape are essential for the ecosystem, and too many are a fire hazard. We understand that without income (from, say, a harvest), there is no way to afford necessary actions to care for the land (like riparian restoration or fuels mitigation). We can understand some of the tradeoffs involved in forest management because we’re having to navigate among them.
Not inherently bad
Tradeoffs are not inherently a problem; they’re just reality. The problem is when we fail to acknowledge the whole equation.
What happens when one element of a tradeoff, without including the other, becomes law – or a lawsuit?
On the federal level, choosing to reduce harvests and increase roadless areas aimed to improve forest health and increase wildlife habitat—good things. At the same time, it has turned out that roadless areas also slow fire response; overstocked forests are vulnerable to biotic and abiotic attacks; dead and dying unmanaged forests, along with drier and hotter seasons, fuel even more fire, which kills more trees and destroys habitat.
Again, tradeoffs.
Similar tradeoff challenges emerge when considering more local issues, from a tax levy for Extension to protecting our water and watersheds.
Saying yes to a levy means a higher property tax bill. That said, Extension programs – from 4H to Small Farms to Master Gardener to Food Pantry to Master Woodland Manager – benefit urban and rural dwellers alike.
Tradeoffs.
Healthy watersheds and clean water are obviously good things, but how best to protect them? Trust in the good work of land managers (who also rely on the health of watersheds and water systems) and watershed councils and restoration programs and existing regulation, or on individual citizens whose mistrust of business or government and fear of perceived threat, whether or not actual or scientifically verifiable, can result in lawsuits and unclear costs?
Again, tradeoffs.
The reality of tradeoffs, from elections to forest management, is complex and demanding—like a resilient forest or watershed.
We miss our beautiful pre-fire forest – and its simplicity – every single day. That said, every day since the fire, we are blessed to witness and relish the complex, demanding, and diverse ecosystem growing around us, challenging us to name and claim all the trade-offs that have been – and will be – navigated on our shared journey toward recovery.
Theresa Hausser and Kate McMichael are small woodland owners and members of Lane Families for Farms & Forests. They contribute columns to The Chronicle.
