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FOREST MANAGEMENT

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Lessons From Eagle Creek
Jim Petersen -

We can learn much from our nation's forest priorities, policies and practices, which have always tracked with our country’s ever-shifting felt necessities. But the blame game is a useless and unhelpful exercise. What would be helpful is a more constructive rural-urban dialogue about the losses we are all suffering, and what we can do collectively [politically] to mitigate them.

MITCH FRIEDMAN: RESTORING RESILIENCY
Jim Petersen -

Mitch Friedman is the Founder and Executive Director of Conservation Northwest, a Seattle-based conservation group...In this interview, Friedman discusses Conservation Northwest's collaborative successes, still bothersome regrets from his Earth First years and his belief that collaboration offers the best hope for resolving still contentious issues concerning the management of the West’s National Forests.

GOVERNOR BUTCH OTTER: IDAHO'S FORESTS...LEADING THE WAY FOR CHANGE
Jim Petersen -

Change. In this exclusive and quite timely Evergreen interview, Governor Otter offers his thoughts on the significance of President-elect Trump's improbable victory and the millions of acres of federal forest and rangeland that is in environmental crisis. Somewhere between 80 and 90 million acres of federal forest land in the West are on the brink of ecological collapse. These lands are vital to our entire nation’s social, economic and environmental health. We have a lot of work to do and not much time left in which to get it done.

Ryan Haugo: Washington's National Forests - East of the Cascades...Good Fire, Bad Fire
Jim Petersen -

In forests that have traditionally supported timber economies, we can use ecological restoration strategies that rely on mechanical thinning and prescribed fire. Elsewhere, we advocate for managing wildfires at the right place and time – when conditions are right. Just as there is no simple answer to the good-fire bad-fire question, there is also no single approach to conserving the forested landscapes we all treasure.”

Susan Jones: Washington's Forests - East of the Cascades...The Evolution Of CLT
Jim Petersen -

CLT is an engineered wood product. By that, I mean that it is a product assembled from pieces of lumber, usually two-by-sixes, eight feet wide, 40' feet long, layered at right angles to one another, like the layering of thinly sliced veneer used to make sheets of plywood. Picture a laminated wood beam, with the layers all running one direction. Now remind yourself that, in CLT, the layers run at right angles to one another, like plywood. The product is incredibly strong for its weight, which is about one-third that of steel. Some refer to CLT “plywood on steroids.” It’s a very apt description.

IDAHO'S FOREST FAMILIES: DANNY SCHWARTZ
Jim Petersen -

“It was downright scary in the beginning,” Schwartz says of what it was like the first time he navigated 80,000 pounds up and down winding, one-lane roads with turnouts that allowed loaded and empty trucks to pass within a whisker of one another. “You're in mud or slush or snow or dust all of the time. You keep an open mind and learn everything you can from more experienced drivers, or you won’t make it.”

IDAHO'S FOREST FAMILIES: TERA KING
Jim Petersen -

I would absolutely encourage anyone to pursue a career in forestry or any other natural resource-based career. The more we can introduce local kids to the career opportunities available in their backyard, the better. There's also a shortage of professional truck drivers.  We need young people to bring their families back to their hometowns to fill those jobs, especially in light of recent mill closures that will have serious social and economic impacts on communities.

GOVERNOR STEVE BULLOCK - MONTANA FORESTS IN FOCUS...IT'S WORKING!
Jim Petersen -

We are at a crossroads with forest health, our mills and the future condition of our forests. The aftermath of a years-long mountain pine beetle epidemic, stalled projects on thousands of acres of national forests, and continued threats from wildfires provide a strong basis for increased focus on how we manage forests and how we ensure we have a vibrant wood products industry providing good-paying jobs for Montanans.

PETER KOLB: CLIMATE CHANGE, SHIFTING PARADIGMS
Jim Petersen -

f we use insect and disease attacks as indicators of genetic simplicity, and resilience to these pests as indicators of genetic robustness, we can use harvesting to assist natural selection to build a more resilient forest ecosystem with a greater ability to survive climate fluctuations and associated perturbations. This may mean changing certain silvicultural paradigms and not selecting for the fastest growing or tallest trees - but intermediate sized trees that use their energy reserves for defense and water conservation as well as growth.