BLM Timberland Tied up in Lawsuits
The Associated Press
October 22, 2007

MEDFORD — Legal disputes over timber sales on national forests in Southern Oregon nearly disappeared in fiscal 2007, in sharp contrast to litigation that tied up most of the harvest across areas controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

None of the 50.4 million board feet of timber awarded in the Rogue River-Siskyou National Forest during the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was challenged or appealed, officials said.

But only 5.3 million board feet was available for harvest in the BLM’s Medford District during the fiscal year — far short of its goal of 57 million board feet, said district spokesman Jim Whittington.

“The reason is that the rest is tied up because of lawsuits,” he said.

The difference between the two agencies is that the national forest focuses on selling small-diameter trees while the BLM district continues to push old-growth timber, said George Sexton, conservation director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center in Ashland.

“We are seeing the Rogue River-Siskiyou putting up a significant amount of volume and having it go through because it’s non-controversial,” he said. “We’ve seen the national forest system slowly but surely moving toward small-diameter thinning and plantation thinning.”

Dave Schott, executive vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, disputes Sexton’s argument that the national forest sold more timber because it offered more small diameter sales in fiscal 2007.

He also noted falling lumber prices are also taking their toll.

“We’re seeing some of the lowest prices for fir and white fir on a national basis that we’ve seen for years and years,” Schott said. “Log prices have plummeted. The market has gone to heck.”

Whittington said the BLM is not trying to be confrontational or to focus on harvesting old-growth trees.

“Just about everything we offer is a mix,” he said, noting that includes thinning smaller trees as well as harvesting some of the larger ones.

For example, four timber sales sold in the 2007 fiscal year included two that were exclusively commercial thinnings, one was a salvage and the fourth an “80 percent regeneration harvest.” The latter is often referred to as a “clearcut” by opponents to that method of logging.

Whittington also noted the 2006 fiscal year saw twice as many commercial thinning sales as regenerational harvests on the district.

He said definitions of old-growth timber vary, just as the same species of trees grow at different rates in different parts of the state.

“We look at a whole host of factors before we offer a timber sale,” he said, noting the agency considers everything from the ecological and economic impact to the federal laws that have jurisdiction over a sale.

Sexton said environmental activists would rather not be confrontational but they will continue to try to stop old-growth logging projects wherever they find them.

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