| A unit of Lasting Forests
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A Total Forest Management Plan
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Sample text for a Trevey Report to a land owner.
It always comes as a surprise that to do competent forest management, clear objectives must be available ... and they rarely are. To set up a computer program to optimize a forest system, the program must be able to recognize when such a system has been achieved (assuming the recommendations will be carried out on the land in a timely manner). Do we maximize the total wood on the land? Probably not. Perhaps, get a maximum timber harvest? Perhaps not, for this standard will disregard quality of wood and profit and keep us harvesting young wood when trees are growing rapidly. Perhaps we should gain the most average profit? Selling everything now for $50,000 will result in the same average value as selling $1,000 worth of timber every year for 50 years! Which is best? What is the best statement of an objective for the forest?
The problem is further complicated. On public land, who should decide? The citizens? Local citizens only? The officer (or staff) in charge? Even on private lands there are major laws and considerations needed for neighbors and the county or province. (Studies demonstrate that there is rarely a perfect match with professional's and citizen's expressed objectives.)
Experience in agencies of many types subject to many different laws and policies and of many different landowners has shown that there is yet no central or clear solution to these questions. Every effort to date has failed in some way and has frequently resulted in litigation, delays, and high social and financial costs.
We have studied planning efforts in other public and private groups and believe the procedure we recommend here is sound and overcomes many (if not all) of the previous difficulties.
1. Our solution or prescription (to be presented in the following pages) is tentative in the sense that the system is dynamically changing as new data and approaches become available.
2. The plan is to solicit objectives from landowners and staff (see the chapter on objectives) at 5-year intervals.
3. We have formulated an objective that can be achieved by a computer program of tested utility. Often the phrasing or statement of objectives cannot be made compatible with known computer procedures.
4. We use a special type of solution system called "linear programming." Tree growth is not linear (straight-line) but when viewed (by the computer) in short 5-year increments, the lines are approximately straight and well within known limits of variability and statistical confidence.
5. We solve the problem using current best estimates of interest rates, tree growth, and wood prices. All can vary, therefore, as always, the prescriptions are made on the best available information. With "hind sight", they may be seen to have errors. The premise in all such work, with hind sight, not using the program and prescriptions would have resulted in much worse errors and greater difference from the objective than was experienced. [Recall, the objective itself was unclear, and one of the reasons for modern planning is to clarify objectives.]
6. The objective is to maximize net present value of wood harvested. Present value or discounted value is a widely used phrase by bankers and economists of many interests. Briefly, and simply put, present value is the amount that would have had to have been put in a bank at a certain rate and left there over a stated period to have achieved an amount of money in hand. For example, the present value of $50,000 over 100 years at 7% interest is $57.62. Under constant conditions, a person putting $57.62 in the bank will have an account of $50,000 in 100 years. This amount does not take into consideration the opportunities that a landowner has to invest returns in other interest-earning ventures opportunities or to invest what they might pay in taxes in interest-bearing ventures. This is overly simple because different payments, deductions, interest, etc. are likely. "Present value" brings all such considerations back to a common unit, a standard or baseline, so that reasonable comparisons can be made among very different investments (or costs). Net value is the concept of "profit", that is, discounted gains minus discounted costs. Again, we note that we use precise numbers (to the penny) but realize the changing nature of interest rates, tree growth, even the importance of time.
7. Present discounting has been criticized for it may mean little when dealing with trees of 200 or more years of age. We have reserved or pulled many such advanced-age forest areas out of the analysis and left them for unique, site-specific work and in some cases long term preservation as "old growth" or the ancient forests, the unusual communities.
8. "You cannot put a dollar value on a threatened species" it is claimed. We suggest this is possible but we do not do so herein. Where such species occur, we have reserved a relatively large area (10 acres). These are shown as star areas and not included in the harvest decisions. They may be harvested later but only on a case by case basis. In some areas it will not be profitable to harvest trees but they will be cut in order to create or stabilize conditions for threatened species. These special areas are excluded from the more conventional financial analyses.
Map to be supplied for each area.Figure 1. Forest stands and units where endangered species have been reported to occur. Within each of these unit, 10 acres have been reserved from computations about optimum harvests. These are temporary "reserve" areas and need species-specific analyses for the endangered species reported to be present in each area.
9. The philosophy behind the harvests is that, given old-growth areas that are set aside and threatened areas set aside or reserved, on the remainder of the land with trees we try to achieve within 100 years equal areas in all age classes. This is an modified "area-regulation" philosophy of forest management, an ancient procedure of foresters. It is rarely financially maximum but we have imposed the conditions for success due to national laws and public sentiment for biodiversity. Given the equal-area objective, the program operates to select prescriptions that achieve it and produce the maximum profit.
Animals and plants are very much related to age of forest stands. Each age group has its own set of species. "Ecological succession" is a phrase recognizing the transition of species composition from one age class to another.
Since we are unlikely to get great deviation in owner or citizen-weighted values for over 100 species on the area, the best long-term strategy is to prepare the total area so that all species will have conditions in which they may survive and prosper.
10. Arrangement is a concern. Can a stand recently cut be re-populated by animals and plants appropriate for that first age class? To increase this probability we suggest harvests and thinnings in small-areas. We propose cutting in small units, several acres here, several there, within the prescribed areas, up to the amount prescribed. We propose to work, year-after-year within the 10-year-age-class units of the prescriptions.
11. We do not prescribe a particular silvicultural system; none is suitable for the unique conditions of the area. Many practices and approaches are biologically reasonable and we can operate them. There are, however, substantial differences among them in their appearance, sustained levels of wood production, profit production, economic effectiveness, and the types and levels of other (not-directly-related-to-wood) benefits and opportunities that result.
12. We anticipate that security and related objectives will change. These objectives and their changes will be paramount and will affect implementation of the plan throughout the 50-year planning period.
13. We follow the Lasting Forests guidelines for logging.
Forest Resource
Land may be covered by trees. Land that was once covered by trees may have no trees but may still be called "forest land" or the forest resource. . We start with land as the fundamental unit, then discuss whether it has trees; their size, age, and type. For legal and other reasons, forest land is defined as land area with a minimum size of one acre and 100 feet in width which is at least 10 percent stocked with trees of any size.
Vegetation is composed mainly of .......hardwoods and some pine. Approximately xxx acres of the xxxxxx is covered-with trees, and the remainder is marshlands and developed facilities.
Minimum stocking is determined by either crown cover or basal area (definitions may be found in the Glossary):
The plan outlines forest management objectives, harvest rates, and reforest techniques. All forested lands were divided into forest compartment units and assigned forest stand numbers.
Hardwood and hardwood-mix land occupies xxx acres (Fig. 6). The total forested area is xxx acres (Table 1). Managing this forested area is important for all of the many well-recognized values of forests (soil stabilization to water and wind forces, cooling effects, noise attenuation, visual quality, landscape value, quality of life of employees, human recreation and education, and use by hundreds of wildlife species -- plants and animals, ). There are other yet-to-be-developed and recognized products and services of the forests.
The Forest Group knows how to grow trees, to harvest them, and to assure a continuing forest that produces many desired benefits. It has honed its skills at producing profits and other benefits related to wood on many types of terrain as well as varying climates and soils. It works at producing the exact demand. By careful management, the forest can provide financial benefits to the land owner. Only by careful management can a full array of types and ages of stands be made available to produce the diversity of life forms so-often expressed as the desire for biodiversity.
The wetland forests are particularly important. Nationally they have undergone substantial reduction -- 112 million acres in 1780 to 57 million acres in 1980 and 42 to 29 million acres (non-federal) from 1980 to 1987.
The forests of the Area vary greatly and over xxx different stands are mapped. Data are available on each stand (Table 2). The differences in type are caused, usually, by small differences in elevation, thus in site quality and this is largely related to water available in the rooting zone. Rates of soil deposition are similarly affected by elevation and these depths influence species that can survive and do well at each part of the Area. It is highly probably that each square meter of the Area is unique. Computer power and the available data base now provide a potential to avoid over generalizing and to allow each unit to be treated uniquely.
There is now a data base for xxx stands. These are shown as pine, mixed hardwood and pine, and hardwoods. For each stand the data in Table 2 are available.
Fig. 2. A GIS map of all forested stands of the ownership.
Fig. 3. Hardwood stands are most frequent on the Area.
Figure 4. Many of the stands are more than 50 years old and harvests and thinning are appropriate to stabilize healthful productive forests of the area. Many of these stands will have large units of 10 or more acres reserved for later analyses of the management needed for endangered plants and animals.
Fig. 5. Pine stands occupy a small part of the xxx. Mixed pine and hardwood stands are more common.
Fig. 6. Stands of the Area with a mix of pines and hardwoods.
Table 1. Forested areas of the Area, 48.6% of the total Area.
Type, Forest Stands, Total Acres, Area by Stand, Hectares, Percent
Pines
Mixed Pine
Hardwood
Other (Fragmented, etc.)
Total
Table 2. Forest stand description factors.
Other TABLES GO HERE.
Silviculture
Operators of silvicultural systems seek to regenerate forests, use intermediate operations to improve forest, and harvest trees effectively. The objectives vary greatly (maximizing profit, maximizing biomass, maximizing presence of desirable wildlife species, maximizing the abundance of a particular animals or plant species, etc.) and are often vaguely stated and poorly decided.
Select parts of the area, no longer in active use, might be studied for reforeArea. Some sites currently mowed can be re-forested. By on-site field decisions these can be handled to avoid conflicts with regulations and guidelines about height of vegetation within select areas and the amount of vegetation allowed around propellant storage areas. On the dry upland sites, pines are likely to be preferred. High deer numbers and their foraging will require protection of the seedlings and efforts at herd reduction, at least for the period of reforeArea.
Assuming that dry upland sites with pines will be harvested when they reach a profitable size (see the later section on optimum stand and harvest prescription over time), then regeneration may be by the seed tree or shelterwood method. The latter is favored due to the need to assure rapid, complete re-vegetation to protect the grounds. There are few such sites now. The mixed pine-hardwood forest stands (Fig. 6) can be converted to pine stands and a continual forestry operation conducted on them (while protecting the shoreline and select groups of trees, snags, etc.). The hardwoods may be taken and combined shelterwood culture and seed trees may be left to assure the new pine forest. Intermediate thinnings will be needed and attention given to wide spacing to avoid soil moisture stress on these sandy soils. Thinnings can be used in erosion control and for general soil improvement.
Select hardwood stands need to be protected because of the occurrence of threatened species and these need special attention by the manager. Typically, many rare plants or animals are those that occur in old, very-mature forests. Creating snags, doing improvement cuts (for visual quality and later high-value single-tree selection cuts), and on-the-contour grounds stabilization are all feasible operations to benefit the trees, the future forest, and its associates.
General guidelines for thinnings in bottomland hardwood stands include :
(1) begin thinning early in the life of the stand;
(2) favor the largest trees with well-developed crowns;
(3) thin from below whenever possible to remove trees with inferior crowns;
(4) use frequent, light thinnings instead of infrequent, heavy thinnings; and
(5) avoid excessive logging damage to residual trees.
More specific guidelines are available and presented in Figures 7 and 8. There are graphs well known by foresters. The general suggestion is to thin each hardwood stand, given its characteristics, back to the B line. Thinning guides for pines are shown in Tables 3 and 4. Other partial cutting employed today in bottomland hardwood forests typically involve some form of crop-tree release, in which individual crop trees are selected early in the life of the stand and are periodically released from competition to promote maximum growth.
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Last revision January 17, 2000.