A unit of Lasting Forests evolving since March 30, 1999
A Total Forest Management Plan and Wildland Management Decision Support System
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Clearcutting and the "Square-Knot System"

Clearcutting is very controversial. It is a word with connotations that make it a word-pair impossible to use with meaning It is a word for a logging practice, a final condition, a silvicultural system, a landscape "view", and people will discuss or argue for hours its merits without defining the topic. For some people, the topic, however defined, is one that is evil and to be resisted. It is a phrase, similar to "group selection" (relating to harvests and logging systems) that have such mixed meaning and perversions in practice that threy are no longer useful.

One observer suggested that in a small region, no one could find more than five actual examples of a single named silvicultural practice followed over many years.

Within this web unit, we discuss clearcutting, but we no longer use the word because it is so mis-interpreted and has more connotations than any useful denotations. We describe our square-knot system of managing land with trees. The name derives from the knot being well-known, complicated but simple, easy, but something that has to be done right to be effective. We propose to outline a system practiced on private lands that includes removing trees, "logging", but it also includes public education about plans and practices, planting or managing the emerging new forest, opportunities for thinning, careful removal of commercial growth, cost-effective road system management, cleanup and tops management, saving proper snags,fire control, watershed protection, select-species wild animal resource management, stream side zone protection, managed recreation, and in some areas, visual barriers. It is a system operated with special computer designed rotations to provide sustained quality wood with profits as well as other resource benefits. It may be the only way to achieve lasting biodiversity in forested areas for it can provide the age classes within types that are required if that objective is to be achieved (a concept supported by Oliver 1992, Journal of Forestry).

Clearcutting as one of the four major silvicultural practices is discussed in Forest Faunal Systems. Calling it a "silvicultural practice" creates some of the problems for silviculture itself has debated meaning but typically emphasizes tree characteristics as related to changes in stand structure and site characteristics.

The four main silvicultural methods are:

1. Single tree selection
2. Group selection
3. group selection
4. Clearcutting

From one perspective, there is simply a continuum in an intensity of harvest from complete preservation (the silviculture of the wilderness advocate and part manager, never discussed in silviculture classes), to single tree selection, then on to clearcutting. These can be and usually are different when practiced on public lands. On private lands "cutting all of the timber" sounds like "clearcutting" but the latter, to foresters. implies a total system imcluding management, controlled use of the harvest, and compulsory replanting of the forest by one of several means.

All of the practices surrounding tree removals are highly related to current wood prices on private lands. We acknowledge this but operate a system that require many years to grow and we have carefully crafted means for financial gains to be made by the landowner while "waiting around" for the tree to grow to maturity.

Within The Trevey we use results of studies in all of these areas and call our work the square-knot system. It has a fancy name because it is a complex set of concepts, assumptions, and tasks. It is what a thoughtful personn on land having treee to achieve his/her pre-stated objectives ... given the existing conditions of the forest and its history and expectations about the future. We have tried to understand the differences between forest ecology and silviculture, and between forest management and forest economics, or among the four silvicultureal systems as classically taught and cannot do so. We therefore merge them and engage a complex set of concepts, assumptions, and tasks which are primarily:

1. We determine the desired forest in a realtively homogeneous area, an area where things now called "stands" occur. These are called "knots" and while they may be the same as a "stand", they may be larger or smaller than the current stands in an area. These are areas to be managed as a single unit. They, unlike stands, may not appear to be uniform and may not be conspicuously different from adjacent units. They are composed of alpha units. They may be about 50 acres (± 20 acres).
2. We call all such areas (or sub-areas) with modal slope greater than 15% "steep" and give them special attention (described later).
3. We mark stream-side zones in flat areas (not in steep areas as described above, there being no need to do so because they are already protected and marking is costly. Inside these zones (50-70 feet from the baseflow water edge) we reduce roads, take out select stand-improving valuable trees near roads, provide camp and recreational sites, and strive to gain riparian volume values (insects, softmast, sonfbirds, mammals, edge values).
4. We work within this zone to build barriers, dams, stairsteps, and diversions to regain and restore low-energy stream gradients.
5. Using our maps and forest inventory, and with our knowledge of likely returns on product sales and costs of logging and transportation and costs of regeneration, we conservatively designate all areas within which we cannot clear the current bank interest rate. These are designated "reserve areas" and may be harvested if processing costs or sale prices (or their combination) change drastically in the future. These are described to the public along with streamside zones and steep areas as Special Areas for wildlife, nature study, and other wildland activities. These become the "setting" for much diverse work described within Lasting Forests.
6. We acknowledge that the conditions after intensive logging do not appeal to many people. We know that such areas are judged "ugly!" Accepting this, we:
   • educate
   • use signs
   • use visual barriers
   • exclude the general public
   • conduct tours
   • clean up the work sites and maintain cleanliness
   • clean main entrances
   • depict the future forest
   • drop non-merchantable stems
   • distribute tops and slash
   • retain snags for animals
   • avoid over-flights if possible
   • make plantings but mark these individual trees and well as planting zones with large colorful flags so that they can be easily seen by the public and those on tours of the area
7. We do intensive pine pulp and energy wood production on select sites that are not steep. These are typically plantations, usually thinned at some one or more intermediate ages, fertilized, and harvested at an early age reducing any opportunity for insect or disease loss. These are immediately re-planted ot coppice confirmed. All such Knots are managed as a unit and, as a unit, is area regulated to achieve equal areas in each 2-3 year age class in a 40-year or less rotation. (The 40-year limit will be determined by computer analysis for each ownership or team of owners). These beautiful areas are primarily for crops of wood but have birding and hiking trails, signs, bridges, and features of interest (e.g., overlooks, resting spots, bench areas, and picnic areas).
8. In steep areas and streamside zones near roads we select superior old trees near roads and remove them to produce superior rapid growth within remaining old trees. We also produce scattered functional gaps in which we distribute tops and limbs. We favor 1-2 select (marked) trees in the center of the produced opening or scarify an area in the center 5-10 ft radius. We "fence" the tree or spot with tops or limbs to reduce the odds of animal damage.
9. In coves or predominant 60-plus age stands near roads, we do select and remove individual trees seeking high gains in the growth on quality logs of the remaining trees. We continue to develop hyperhardwoods.
10. In most other areas we develop a stable road/trail system and progressively remove trees in long horizontal areas along the contour, usually leaving a 10-20 foot width of residual trees between each "long cut." Logs and pulp sticks in each long-cut are usually moved to a central point on the road. All trees are taken and allyoung stock >2 inches in diameter are slashed and left or removed in a "pole-wood" or fence-wood harvest. The intent is to produce an even aged coppice-growth forest in long-cut areas. Loggers are assigned cut areas and progress through them to achieve areas of desired ages and types as specified in the computer-produced plan for the area. Knot area management is zeta regulation within the active areas. Within the thin horizontal strips between harvest areas, there is watershed (soil and runoff) protection, birding areas, tree seed production, forage variety, understory herbage propagules, and cavity/snag units. Later (20 years) these may be removerd in selection cuts but they are restorataion and re-generation strips with wind blowdown and epicormic branching common. Trees in them can be felled on the contour, left to rebuild an organic soil base, or assigned to firewood gatherers.

    Typically these strips will buffer road runoff (lower side) and visual effects (upper). They are sediment filters, water retainers, land protectors in the periods after harvest, sources of biodiversity recharge, habitat for select animals. Total tree removals to achieve a single age Knot, one of many Knots, each of a different age within a rotation, are often done in 20-50 acre units. The size is determined by the planned future forest and how each Knot achieves annual growth needs for sustained production in a rotation and contributes to annual profits from other enterprises on the land. The size of the area harvested tends to be increased by the production units per unit cost estimates, but decreased by the characteristics of the site, the silvics of the species in the desired future forest, and the site-sspecific limitations such as steepness, presence of streamside zones, distance to roads, and presence of select features.

11. Any long-cuts are separated by older age-class areas (more that 30 years or 6, 5-year age classes). This provides additional edge and interspersion and prevents the formation of long, continuous single-age strips.

The above achieve the typical requests of wildlife resource experts (e.g., Samuel P. Shaw, Forester, USFS 1972) to keep "clearcuts":

1. small and scattered
2. with a good balance of age classes
3. with interspersed age classes
4. with abundant edge (irregular edges)
5. with the target species in mind.

Once again the "target species" or objective of management looms. The Trevey staff see harvesting timber as one way to achieve future conditions that are essential for each species.Cutting trees is "habitat management." Unless a forest is well regulated, the wide variety of species believed to be in the minds of many people as their objective cannot be achieved. Sparrows require openings; ovenbirds require mature forest stands. To have both species requires having both age-classes of forests. The amounts do not have to be equal, only well planned and placed so that in the future forest, every year, there are superior conditions for all of the species ... or for a select group with high resource value.

The Trevey staff has seen lumber prices and the importance of firewood change greatly over short periods. Even the importance of wildlife species has changed greatly in less time than a tree rotation. Deer, for example, once encouraged, are now a pest in some areas. "Knotty-pine" as a desired wood has changed as has the style for clear beech cabinets in kitchens. Different people want different things and even the same people change their preferences with aging. Staff should work actively to secure specific stated objectives. Unless (and until) a clear expression of specific objectives can be achieved for an ownership then we believe that national objectives expressed as "biodiversity" as well as forest, wildlife, watershed and visual objectives (autumn colors) can be achieved by forests that:

• have inoperable reserve or withdrawn areas (steep areas, wild units, parks, religeous grounds, special-protection areas)
• have equal areas
• of each 5-year age class
• within each Coil.

A Coil (cf. a rope coil) is like a SAF forest type. It is like a name for a community but does not depend on the dominant tree as the basis for naming it. It is a mapped area on a GIS composed of almost identical alpha units. Type is an artificial grouping and it over generalizes hundreds of variables, concentrating on things conspicuous to people (many having no bearing on plant or animal fitness or survival of a population over the eons). It was what was needed by scientists and students before computers and before GIS and GPS technology. For every alpha unit we now have the profound abiotic ecological variables affecting communities (slope, aspects (2), elevation, temperature in the growing period, precipitation in the growing period, and fog drip. Thus, it is possible to develop GIS maps displying these varaiables as they relate to each tree species. We can map the areas in which the tree species may occur and are likely to do well over 100 years. Or we can groups tree species as necessary, producing things similar to SAF type names or descriptions. Using the alpha unit and imagining 4 slope classes, 3 soil texture classes, 6 aspect classes, 4 elevation classes, 4 temperature classes, 4 precipitation classes, and 3 fog-drip classes, then there are for any area within the region potentially over 12,000 unique communities ... for we have defined (in fairly gross classes) the characteristics of each spot. A Coil is one of these 12,000 (or more) combinations of ecological factors. There are other factors, of course, that any good ecologist can list, but the superficial challenge is to ignore the correlations among these other recognized factors that are dynamic and often specific to an historical sequence and often site specific, and to work actively with the 12,000 different units.

It is now becomming clear that animals and most understory plants are a function of forest type or Coil, but more so of age than Coil. To meet the needs of people for a desired, poorly expressed changing variety of resources from the forest, then, within intensively managed areas, there must be equal areas of each age class within each Coil. This cannot be achieved immediately for a forest because of past practices and existing conditions. It can be, however, cost effectively with linear programming to achieve an optimum rotation.

We are well aware of the clearcutting controversies and thus do not practice it. Instead, we employ the Square-Knot System. It is grounded in studies that show:

1. Following forest cutting, streamflow increases, then declines with the logarithm of time as the forest regrows. Swift and Swank (1981) found the relationship

   flow increase = a - 190.7 log (years since cutting)

   where a is the level parameter or increase in the first year.

2. Streamflow decline is related to vegetation re-growth but is highly variable, probably more a function of precipitation than forest structure (Swift and Swank 1981).
3. Forests over much of the southeastern US have been high-graded and burned several times and represent neither natural forests nor managed forests. Much of the collective forest is immature and below the size for sawtimber. Removing individual trees from the forests is now very expensive, given current labor, insurance, road building, vehicle, and other costs.
4. There is a need to bring productive forests (not "all land with trees" (as indicated above)) under control, and develop a sound harvest rotation that matches well with the growth habits of trees and the ecology of their growing places ... and regional economics and location of markets related to wood and labor.
5. We strongly favor old vigorously growing trees for the wood volume that is added annually is great and the value of such volume is especially great for it goes to veneer and higher grades of lumber.
6. Getting from the present patchy, high-graded, burn-scarred and diseased trees to a vigorous dense stand of future crop trees is the task of The Trevey. There may be modest returns from doing so (pulpwood, etc.), but the costs can be high.
7. We tend to make long-cuts or harvest contour strips in dry periods, use low soil-impact equipment, and, as already stated, avoid the steep areas (low safety, high road and harvesting costs, high soil disturbance, rapid runoff, and low site productivity).
8. In some areas removing old decadent tree stands is the only way these areas may be made safe for public use.
9. Contrary to some writers about forest practices, The Trevey staff holds that "sustained yield" is realistic only if the yield is profit. Thus, annual physical production of wood or wood products can, and is likely to, vary.
10. Under management by The Trevey, hardwoods will grow about 150 to 250 board feet per acre annually. We follow this growth and take trees when their value is high and net growth has crested. On sites where there are few crop trees, we typically start a new stand, removing individuals, and assuring good singular coppice growth and seedling densities. Where there are mixed ages from innumerable past practices, we determine whether we can develop a dense stand of healthy un-damaged crop trees by favoring superior trees and removing competitors. Often impossible (because of inadvertant damage caused by adjacent-tree removals), whole units of wood are removed within the longcuts described above.
11. Marquis (1980) (dealing with the cherry and maple hardwoods of the Allegheny) found that some species of saplings and poles left on an area after a clearcut survived and grow well. Epicormic branching did occur but those free of them before, were free after the harvest. These residual trees did not affect establishment of the regeneration but later (6 years) reduced their height growth. He said "good results from residuals are likely only if trees with at least moderately vigorous crowns and clean boles are selected for retention prior to cutting" Retaining 30 to 80 such trees per acre provides the headstart needed for light-tolerant trees (e.g., cherry) to reach mature size at the same time as new intolerant regeneration.
12. We reserve special soil areas (where slippage or mass movement is likely). Most are within "steep" areas.
13. We rarely burn debris (tops and limbs) but lay it against the ground for rapid decomposition (having little fuel build-up like occur in the dry southwestern US).
14. We attempt most harvests of trees in the leaf-on condition to provide nutrients in those leaves to the surface for the new forest growth.
15. We intensively use GPS, allowing daily up-graded maps reflecting our knowledge of the forest, its inventory, and the changes needed for the future harvests.

An extensive study of forest land owners and citizen attitudes about forestry in the nearby Tennessee Valley (Bliss 1994) provides encouragement. You are among the nonindustrial private forest land owners of the region. In the US, you, as others, are stewards of 57% of the nation's commercial forest land. The forest industry employs 1 in 10 working Americans. It turns sout that the attitudes of these people are virtually the same as the general public's.

Support for "'the environment" has grown over the past 30 years and some say it is "becomming a way of life." There is a growing perception that clean water, open speces, and general wildlife habitat are threatened and declining. With this there is a feeling that regulation and restriction on private rights, if essential, may have to be tolerated. Some 33% of citizens think of themselves as " active envoronmentalists" and an additional 52% is sympathetic to environmental concerns.

Citizens " are not opposed to forest-based economic development" said Bliss et al (1994:9). Their acceptance combined with the high priority given to environmental protection implied that citizens believe these are compatible objectives. There are no distinct lines between forestry advocates and those opposing certain practices. As usual, trying to find out what people believe in general and are willing to act on in particular is a well recognized problem. "Cutting a person is evil" but it is a "blessing" when performed by the good doctor. Everything seems true or good only in a relative sense ... the actual context.

The position of staff within The Trevey is that any and all techniques should be considered and the best one selected, subject to many constraints, policies, local conditions, laws, and of course, costs. We then provide information and education about the work. Then we go to work, knowing that everyone is unlikely to be informed, informable, or satisfied. We attempt to minimize strong dissatisfaction. In a democracy, often 49 percent of the people are dissatisfied. We attempt to reduce this by providing information, a public relations strategy, advertising, education, being as inconspicuous in displeasure-causing work as possible, and by using appropriate signs for projects.

References

Swift, L.W. Jr. and W.T. Swank. 1981. Long term responses of streamflow following clearcutting and regrowth. Hydrological Sciences Bulletin des Sciences Hydrologiques, 26 (3) 245- 255.

Marquis, D.A. 1981. Survival, growth, and quality of residual trees following clearcutting in Allegheny hardwood forests, USDA Forests Serv., Res. Paper NE-477, NE For Exp. Sta, Broomall, PA 9pp.

Minckler, L.S. 1981.The problems of clearcutting and even-aged management, Forest Planning p. 18-19,24.

Oliver, C.D. 1992. Achieving and maintaining biodiversity and economic productivity. J. Forestry :20-25

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This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision July 20, 2001.