Our forests are in deep trouble, and if we don?t do something about it we?ll all be sorry.
That was the twofold message pounded home Tuesday by a leading academic, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon?s state forester at the outset of a two-day conference at Oregon State University.
?I don?t want you to think it?s all gloom and doom,? Yale University?s John Gordon, a member of the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry and one of the architects of the Northwest Forest Plan, said after laying out several causes for concern in his opening address.
Yet there was plenty of gloom and doom to go around as the conference ? titled ?At the Crossroads: Sustaining Oregon?s Forests in a Rapidly Changing World? ? got under way.
Forests provide a host of essential services, the speakers argued, giving us not only timber but also clean air and water, recreational opportunities, critical wildlife habitat and a way to buffer the effects of climate change by keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.
But global warming, population growth, surging demand for wood products in developing nations and conversion of forest land to other uses are all putting pressure on forests in Oregon, America and around the world.
The question, of course, is what to do about it, and all three keynote speakers had ideas on that score.
Gordon proposed a $10-per-ton federal levy on carbon emissions as a way to stem the tide of climate change while providing an incentive to preserve forest land.
Gail Kimbell, an OSU College of Forestry grad who assumed the reins of the Forest Service in January, started by paying homage to her Oregon roots.
?For a forester, Oregon is a very special place,? she said. ?For a federal forester, Oregon is a special responsibility.?
Kimbell said climate change is perhaps the greatest threat facing the world today and offered a two-part approach to combating it.
She called for public-private partnerships to strengthen the role of forests in carbon sequestration, doubling the current offset of 10 percent of U.S. carbon emissions by 2020. She also proposed increasing energy production on forest land to achieve the goal of replacing 15 percent of U.S. gasoline consumption with ethanol.
?As forest managers,? Kimbell said, ?it is our responsibility and our opportunity to do something about climate change.?
Marvin Brown, head of the Oregon Department of Forestry, cited several signs of declining forest health in the state, from fragmentation of forest lands to increasing air and water quality issues to worsening wildfire conditions.
To address those problems, Brown suggested several steps, including paying private forest owners for carbon sequestration and other ?ecosystem services,? promoting conservation easements to buy down the development value of forest property and adopting ?dynamic? management approaches that take changing conditions into account.
?We need to, and we?re trying to grow beyond just the Forest Practices Act,? he said.Corvallis Gazette Times
