April 2, 2025 • 60 mins
In this week's interview episode Cal talks with Terry Baker CEO of the Society of American Foresters. They discuss what forest management is, prescribed burns, catastrophic fire, houses built in stupid places, and what to expect from the Timber Harvest executive order.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Col's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calai. Here's Cal. Hey, everybody,
welcome to another episode of the cal the Wild podcast.
We have another super informative guest today, mister Terry Baker
(00:33):
for the Society of American Foresters. Our topic is going
to be one that we've been working on for a
while here, and it is the state of our forests,
our national forests here in the US of A. Obviously,
what we'd like to get into is we have had
(00:55):
some interesting things that have jumped off this topic at
the federal level, layoffs, rehirings, the mandate to lighten staff
at all of our federal agencies, and we've also had
(01:15):
an executive order to produce more timber on our working
for us here in America. I can take guesses, but
I am by no means an expert, So we have
reached out to uh Terry Baker, CEO of the Society
(01:40):
of American Foresters. Terry, thank you very much for jumping
on here. Would you mind just giving us a little
bit of your your background as well as what is
the Society of American Foresters.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Absolutely thanks for having me cal and glad to be
here in the wild with you this today. But yes, so,
as a CEO of the Society of American Foresters, we
are a professional association focused on scientific, sustainable management of
our nation's force. We achieved that mention through a variety
(02:15):
of programming, through providing educational opportunities for professionals in this
space in both forestry and urban forestry. We also credit
university programs to set the standard for forestry and natural
resources management. Provide professional certifications as well as newsletters and
two scientific journals for people to publish in doing a
(02:36):
research and forestry and natural resources conservation, so the Journal
of Forestry and the Journal of Forest Science. What's also
unique about us this year as we claim to be
able to set the standard for forest practices. This is
our one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary as an organization,
so I say it's been in the game for quite
some time. So we're excited to be able to share
(02:58):
our insights through myself as the CEO on these interesting
times and topics. Myself, I have served. Actually I'm a forester.
I have a forestry degree from the University of Florida
and from Yale University and have worked for the US
Forest Service for roughly about nineteen years prior to coming
to saf where I've been the CEO for about six
years now. So worked in a variety of places across
(03:21):
the country and engaged in a variety of topics around
forest management and a variety of user management regarding public
land and the Forest Service and Forest Service land, so
in research as well. So looking forward to this conversation
about you know, kind of where things are and where
we hope for them to go and how do we
try to maneuver through all these nuanced details.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Awesome, Well, I'm excited. It's a huge topic. We don't
have to go all the way back, but we really should. Right,
It's okay, So we'll establish a few.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Things, sure thing.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
For us or just just giant gardens. They're they're growing trees,
and I think that's uh something that oddly enough gets
overlooked when we talk about timber management. This stuff's got
to have time to grow. Absolutely, and back in the
(04:20):
in the early days, we kind of had industry running
amok in the name of progress across our forests, and
there are some some practices that were probably more detrimental
to the long term health of our big garden, and
(04:42):
through some some foresight and some reactionary measures, we uh
now have a national Forest system that regulates the harvest
and management on national forests.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Decent enough job, close, No, No, I think you did
a great job with some of the high points. I
think that what was really interesting in regards to what
was established as the national reserves back in the late
eighteen hundreds, it actually had a lot more to do
with ranching. It was the byproduct of lumber from cutting
(05:20):
down trees, but it was more so the ability of
ranchers to move across the country pretty quickly. That was
a really strong impetus for the for service to be
created and have those reserves created, primarily in the western US.
And then you have other legislation that really incited the
weak sac really inside the creation of National Force seas
of the Mississippi. But absolutely, at one point we did
(05:41):
have a dynamic where, you know, post World War Two,
where there was a lot of active management and looking
at managing national force in a similar manner that you
wouldn't manage industrial force for producing a lot of lumber
for all those folks coming home that needed new homes
and all the opportunities to support them and get you know,
(06:02):
building those homes, and so that was a big push.
But then the thought came in, like you mentioned around
the you know, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, various
other pieces of legislation, National Forest Management Act that that
looked at this from a more holistic perspective because like
you mentioned, these are our giant gardens. Yes, they grow trees,
(06:22):
but they and that those trees that grow habitat for
a variety of species that are used for food, they
grow habitat for wildlife, they grow habitat for fish and
clean water. So so really trying to bring all those
components into the value of our national force was was
a critical piece of how do we look at this
(06:45):
beyond producing lumber products long term?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
And what does management mean when when somebody says we
need to manage our for us, what does that mean
to you? Terry?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yes, that is a great question. It really means a
lot of things, and that's that's probably how we oversimplify
managing by using over using that term. But when it
comes to managing a forest, it could be everything from
the removal of commercial sized trees for blumber production. It
(07:21):
can mean doing what we referred to as hazardous fuels treatments,
which is going on and removing some of the smaller
material that can can help build up a lot of
heat if a fire were to start and cause a
very impactful, large scale wildfire or very intense wildfire in
a certain place. But it can also relate to you know,
(07:41):
I worked in western Oregon and we were tipping trees
into rivers to create habitat for bull, trout and salmon.
So so managing a forest really has a widespread set
of you know, aspects and criteria, and also the proper
management action made be to do nothing in certain places,
and that could be because of heritage and or tribal
(08:05):
locations that need to be kept safe. It can also
be for unique habitats. You know, there's a lot of
conversation about old growth force and oftentimes when you're looking
at a piece of a force, or as we call it,
a stand, a forest stand, oftentimes those things are all
taken into consideration wet areas, rivers, water bodies, but also
(08:25):
these are just really unique, big old trees and they
should be left if we're going to go in and
do any of those other treatments that I mentioned to
you that we might be doing. So management is a
simple term for a lot of complicated options out there
to do what's best for the forest. At the end
of the day. That is what we're looking at, is
what is going to help keep that force healthy, help
(08:47):
keep it sustainable, to support a wide variety of resources
and needs. In some cases that is producing commercial material,
but oftentimes that can be a byproduct of just keeping
a forest density down. It healthy.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
And is there a consensus on what healthy is?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Oh, you're asking you all the easy questions. You know,
I don't know if there really is a consensus on
what one would call a healthy forest. I think there
are a lot of perspectives on what that could really mean.
And I think for for us, let's say, you know,
within forestry, within the society American foresters, a healthy forest
is one that is you know, if you if you
(09:29):
had to think of it like a let's use a
race car, it's it's firing on all cylinders. And so
you have you have a density of trees. You have
trees that are being that are able to grow, you know,
for lack of a better terminent their optimum potential you
have you know, with that you have solid spacing so
(09:50):
that there is light getting to the floor of the forest.
And so you have that you know mid story of
you know, medicinal plants or edible plants or or things
of that nature that may be for people and for
animals for forage. You have good shading for water bodies
that help deal with temperature issues that keep that ecosystem
healthy for fish. So it really is a space that
(10:11):
has all those things. You have trees that are healthier
and vigorous enough where they can fend off insect and
disease outbreaks. So there's all these nuances and dynamics that
come into what is considered a healthy force. Now there's
also folks that just say if you walk away from it,
that means it's healthy. And while there is a dynamic
to that, we've unfortunately seen in a lot of wilderness
(10:32):
areas and even in some national parks that do not
have a lot of active management, the challenges that come
with wildfires associated with hotter, longer summers, and fire seasons
that are becoming just more and more impactful.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I really do want to get into fire obviously, that's
a big falls into the management bucket. But it's also
this big reactionary thing, scary thing, right, people use a
miss homes and health and sometimes lives. But first I
want to ask who is doing the management on our
(11:13):
national for us and how is it paid for?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Okay, let's let's delve into that. I'll try to be
as succinct as I can here, So when it comes
to management on national forests, it really relates to a
variety of entities and individuals. Primarily, you have your federal employees,
Usport Service employees that are on the ground doing activities,
(11:41):
taking inventory, fighting wildfires, all all all the things prescribe
burning everything in between. But given the the and those
folks are paid for by a budget appropriated by Congress.
If you want to get into the really interesting nuances,
the budget is actually passed through the Department of Interior,
(12:02):
but it flows through to the USDA to the Forest Service,
something that people aren't overly familiar with, But that's because
the Force Reserves were originally part of the Department of
Interior before being transferred to the Department of Agriculture and
made national force. So that's where the primary bulk of
the funding comes from. And then I will say beyond
(12:24):
the force of its employees, because even with an agency
of between twenty and thirty thousand employees that didn't give
them point, that's not enough people to cover one hundred
and fifty four million acres across the country. So from that,
additional work is taken care of or done on behalf
of the Forest Service through contracts and agreements by contractors,
(12:47):
by nonprofit organizations, and also by volunteers. So there is
a massive network of volunteers that engage with the Forest Service,
of massive network of contractors who conduct So I'll break
those out. So for volunteers, you have folks that are
primarily a lot of a lot of volunteers you use
for trail work and helping to maintain recreation areas that
they love to visit. But we also have a network
(13:09):
of volunteers that are in lookout towers, in a variety
of other projects. So it's a hole just about anything
you can imagine happening on a national forest that is
that is not inherently governmental, or to an extent, some
of it is is done through volunteers. Somewhat similar with
contractors or specific types of projects we have have those dynamics.
(13:31):
You have those dynamics as well. We have contractors that
help by wildfires, contractors who helped do some of that hazards, fuels,
thinning and reduction of material out in the forest. You
also have contractors who do you know, stream projects, et cetera,
et cetera. So you really have an interesting mix of
folks that are actively engaging at any given time on
(13:52):
for service land. But at the end of the day,
you need that whole backbone, backbone of the Forest Service,
be it on the ground employees or folks, and the
administration agreements contracting side to make all that work happen.
So it is a variety of folks, but all of
that comes through primarily through funding through Congress. But then
(14:12):
there's there's some organizations like the National Forest Foundation, who
has private investment that supports them engaging in various projects
on National Force lands as well.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So when we talk about any given project, I guess
it would be important. Two, I'd like to know how
a timber sale works.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
At which point or do you want me to go
through the well more of the details that you really
want to know.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I'm curious to know as it relates to this. You know,
fairly recent executive order. There's the sky is falling crowd,
and then there's a slightly more pragmatic crowd. I feel
like I fall, Uh, this may come as a shock
(15:07):
to my listeners, but I fall in the concerned but
more pragmatic crowd. Absolutely based on this is a free market.
We're only going to produce so much. We know, you know,
timber sales happen all the time. Sometimes they don't even
(15:28):
get bit on because the folks who are out there
doing the work go, boy, it's not worth my equipment
or the diesel fuel. So I'd like, I think it'd
just be great because I'm not an expert to just
understand how a timber sale works.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Sure, I'll try to be as as concise as I
can on this particular topic, because as you can imagine,
there's there's plenty of bureaucracy that goes into that whole process.
So so let's just kind of start a little bit,
a little bit early in the process before we get
to the contract side of it. So so ultimately, most most,
(16:11):
not all, I would say, national forests have a rotation
and how they look at parts of the national force
that fall within a category of being you know, designated
for active force management and looking at those areas to
come into and say, all right, is this scenario that
is in a good place to be analyzed for active
(16:33):
forest management right now? If that's the case, then then
project starts and they conduct ana analysis. Through that analysis,
the determination is made on what type of or what
level of a NEPA needs to be done to conduct
that analysis, be that a categorical exclusion, meaning that this
is something that has been determined is category or excluded
(16:55):
from a deeper dive a NEPA because it's been looked
at across the net, has been seen as a people
mints words, but relatively minimal impact. There's not going to
be a significant impact based off of what's being treated
and how it's being treated. So in some cases you
may have that around fire reduced you know, fire reduction
(17:17):
activity or you know, or some other activities. Then you
have your environmental assessment, which is, you know, basically you
look at a variety in any case, in any case,
you're looking at all aspects of that piece of land.
So it's not just force management, it's water resources, archaeological resources.
(17:41):
If there's range you know, grazing, there's range resources wildlife resources.
Everything's looked at EESA. Obviously in Dago Species Act, all
those things you're looked at and considered in that analysis
to determine where you can have impacts or where you
can limit impacts to those resources. And so that that
relates to you know what I what is referred to
a decision document as a finding of no significant impact,
(18:04):
and then you have an environmental impact statement. What's really
critical about an environmental impact statement is that oftentimes it's
looked at as a as a way for more public involvement.
There is more public involvement with environmental impact statement, but
in my from my perspective, one of the nuances of
an environmental impact statement is it is the lack of
(18:26):
a better term, in the last line of defense, it's
it's a document that says we know we're going to
have significant impacts and we're and we have a responsibility
to take this action, and at the end of the day,
we were required to disclose that we're taking this action.
That's an environmental impact statement. Oftentimes it is looked at
(18:48):
as a means of like, oh, well, you should do
any I S because I can't believe you're going to
do this thing, and that's not really what it's for.
And I oftentimes in my federal career reminded people and
environmental impacts is what they put open pit minds in
and dams in, like that's an eis not cutting down
trees that are going to grow. But again different opinions
(19:11):
on how impactful that is for some folks. So I
just wanted to kind of give that background on the
three levels of NEPA that have to be One has
to be done no matter what action is being taken
on a federal and one has to be done. So
then you conduct your analysis, you put together the project
and say this is what we want to do. You
(19:31):
develop evaluation and how you want to go about actually
doing the management activities. So that's actually called the civil
cultural prescription. So if we can share the definition SFS
for civil culture, but it's the keywords or the veryer
we're getting the art and science of managing forces. It's
an applied ecology is one of the easier ways to
(19:53):
describe it. So understanding how a system works and then
saying we want to do this thing here for these
you know, very big benefits. So then the question especially
I think like you said, there's some timber sales that
go with no bids and various things. That has to
do with the civil culture prescription. Can we actually implement
what we want to do on the landscape. Is it
(20:15):
financially feasible? And so what's considered a traditional timber sale
contract is one where there are bidders for that contract
to do that work on behalf of the forest service,
and that bidder that company then has rights to the
wood and they're able to sell it. What has come about,
you know, several years ago was also stewardship contracting, which
(20:40):
that gave the space for the ability to bid on contracts.
But also part of that bidding process is how are
you going to do It's referred to as service work,
so work that doesn't make money but still needs to
be done under traditional timber sale contracts more often than not,
what would happen with those is if there's any revenue
made off for those timber sale contracts, those go into
(21:02):
trust funds that help do that service work on the
back end. So those are the variety of factors. So
you have to have through your through the forest plant,
you have to have a designation of this can be
commercially managed. And then you take into a variety of factors,
(21:23):
be it Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act. Sometimes it's
the Migratory Birds Act, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So within that that designation, you're then pairing it down.
If you have water, then there's likely wrap airing reserves
or buffers you're putting on water bodies. And then so
that continues to narrow it down to say, okay, here's
here's the window that we have to actually do something.
(21:46):
And then you put it up for sale and see
if someone is willing to bid on it. So it is,
it is not. It is not a job that is
for the faint of heart. And and I you know,
and I know when I was worked on the Lama
National Forest and some of the many forests I worked on,
and we conducted an analysis across the entire force and said,
out of the you know, just over a million acres
(22:08):
of that forest, how much of it could we actually
commercially manage? And we put in all those buffers and
boundaries and zones around spotted owl habitat and riparian reserves
for rivers, and out of that over a million acres
it was twelve to fourteen percent. So I say all
(22:29):
that to capture this conversation of the new executive orders
and in the ability to increase that the sale of
timberoff commercial timber off with federal lands, especially on the
for service lands. It simply put, it is not easy,
and so folks are really and the employees are really
(22:51):
thoughtful about the impacts beyond getting for lack of returns,
like people like to say, getting the cut out. There's
a lot of concern for all the other resources involved,
as those are all teams people work with and so
so at the end of the day, if you think
about that where folks are really concerned, I wouldn't be
surprised if you looked across the country and it was
still within that ten to sixteen percent, no more than
(23:13):
twenty percent that is actually available to potentially go out
and harvest commercially.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And that that would that within that ten to sixteen percent.
Also that is stuff that has grown to a commercially
viable for dimensional lumber size, right.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So it was I mean the majority of its dimensional lumber,
some of it goes to a variety of other products
that go to make you know, wood pellets that are
bet are for heating or for other activities, and then
you have what's referred to as chip and saw. So
like there's a variety of forest products that they can
go to that you can get out of different size
(23:58):
as of material. But one of the areas that has
been a struggle is actually to come up with strong
commercial economies for the smaller diameter material that you would
clear out for hazards fuels. That's the big.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Challenge, and that's you know, certainly the conversation that I
am most familiar with here in Montana. I know Montana
does not represent the entire timber cutting world, but it's Yes,
you can go in and remove slash manage in a
(24:36):
way to reduce the potential for catastrophic wildfire. Yes, but
you're in a position to where you have to pay
somebody to go in.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
There and do it more often than not.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
So.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
But I mean, that's the conversation I grew up with
not being in the industry at all. But is that
the case, Like when we talk about these secondary or
tertiary markets, my understanding is they're just not available a
lot of places.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Not at scale, not at scale, and that that becomes
you know, there's there's constantly research going on around biochar,
around other like soil, you know, improvement products that you
can do. But but you know, as technology improves, you know,
everyone a lot of folks really help hopeful about where
that will lead us to. But but it just hasn't
(25:26):
been something that has that has been large scale, commercially
viable as as a as a sector at this point,
which is part of the challenge. That's that's the big nuance.
And you know, the reality is is things grow in
a forest because things grow in a forest. It sounds
overly simplified, but that's that's it. It's going to grow.
(25:48):
So even if you were to just go in and
do that that understory treatment, you eventually have to take
out some of the larger trees simply because that's going
to close the canopy at the top of the forest.
And if you have a wind wind blown fire, it
can start on the canopies and just run through that
mat of canopy. So so that concern is still there.
There just needs to be spacing amongst the trees. So
(26:12):
so yeah, it is. It is one of those dynamics
of how do we find because right now the solution
is to go out and cut slash pilot and burn
it in the snow, which which can still you're blipping
it by when you have burn windows, when you have
smoke clearance, depending on where you're in the country. So
so yeah, there is a variety of challenges there, and
(26:33):
like I mentioned that, the challenges in many cases finding
the funding to pay for someone to do that, and
some of those timber sales that you mentioned that go
no bid may have removing some of that with the
smaller material with the larger material and it just doesn't
pencil out, and that's why they go no bid. But
there's a whole host of factors of why sales go
no bid. It can be the cost of diesel and
how far someone has to try, you know, pull material
(26:55):
one way or the other, to be the quality of roads,
a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
So yeah, and yeah, it's your scope of where you've worked.
We overlapped a little bit in some of that Oregon
and then extreme western Idaho country where you can still
see this attempt I think it was in the sixties
or seventies to it's really wild like back country areas
(27:22):
that were terraced to create National forest timber farms essentially,
and it's really wild that at that time I guess
we had the money and the manpower to go in
there and do something like that.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Well yeah, I mean the reality of it was obviously
back then manpower and machine costs and material costs were
significantly less than they are now, and so that in
and of itself was a dynamic. But it was also
the value material. You know, that's when you were out
these you know, large trees that were probably pretty old
(28:03):
and they're very high quality wood, so you can use
them for a whole host of things from building materials
to furniture to even peeling them for you know, fancy blackwood,
but most of them, but more unlikely it was used
like you have these long you have these tall, large
diameter trees that you can make you know, a four
by four and eight by eight out of or ten
(28:25):
by ten out of a slab, you know, out of
a tree trunk. So so those are those are pretty
significant to be able to do that, where now we're
doing that with mass timber and putting together pieces of
wood with special glues and materials to recreate what was
natural back then. But it takes hundreds of years to
grow those, so you're just not going to go out
(28:46):
and replenish that.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
So the.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Approach became shorter rotations for different quality materials and not
trying to make those types of materials from one single
tree like you could do once upon a time.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, my building experience, I've I've dealt with a heck
of a lot more glue lambs than I have a
single pieces of timber.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Right, yep, yeah, absolutely so, Yeah, it was just it
was just that much more valuable.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, so let's let's jump into the big scary fire subject. Yes,
we have. It's it's it's hard to pin down. It's
it's like a mosaic burn. Like in some parts of
the country. People just know that you put fire on
the landscape. That's how we manage things. It's going to
(29:37):
be smoky certain times a year. Other parts of the US,
anytime there's smoke, it something very bad has got to
be happening. Yeah, and you know, I'll tell you from
uh hunter and oftentimes angler perspective, we love seeing.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Fires, imagine, so yep, so uh serious night lines and
you've got fresh forage, so two very good things.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yep, yep, exactly, and morel mushrooms popping up everywhere.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
The list goes on and on, huckleberries, all the great
things out there.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, everybody wants to be there. So and
right now it looks like we got some fire season
kicking off in the Carolinas. That sound some things that
I'm reading or sound a little scary. But are we
seeing is this executive order going to tie into increase
(30:47):
subs or prescribed burns? Are we seeing anything positive on
that side of things? And then we got to ask
also what happens with the you know, the reduction in
workforce that we're seeing. We you know, we have dedicated
(31:08):
fire personnel, but we have a lot of personnel out
there that don't tell anybody, but they crossed their fingers
that they're going to be put on a fire after
a couple of weeks of running trail crew or whatever
they're doing. So is that a concern that that's being
talked about in society of American foresters?
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Absolutely? I I you know, I'm hopeful around the prescribed
fire component of the Executive order analysis that that the
four Service has been charged to do. And and I
think that it is one of those things that's just
going to be really critical given the state of what
(31:52):
we've been facing the last ten plus years at this point,
in regards to what that that Management Act, what the
as management activities look like, and how they incorporate opportunities
to do some of that HAZARDUS fuels treatment and or
prescribe burning on the landscape, because yeah, it can get
really scary out there. A year doesn't go by that
(32:15):
I don't talk to, you know, twenty thirty some odd
plus year firefighting wildland firefighting veteran who says, I haven't
seen anything like this before. So this is these are
just different contention conditions that we have to be really
thoughtful of and respectful of. Your follow up question in
regards to how does this all play out, if you know,
(32:37):
with the reduction enforce scenario that's playing out right now.
To be honest, it can be really concerning because what
has what has been the framework of this Like you
said there, yes, there are wildland firefighters who are designated
as such and you know, compensated as such and have
(32:59):
their own hirement system and all those lovely things, But
there is a whole host of other folks that you're
you're foresters, wildlife biologists, fisheries, biologists, all those folks you know,
arrange specialists who are involved in not only fighting wildland
fires but also supporting prescribe burning, their ability to go
(33:21):
out and because again for all those specialists out there,
these are all benefits to their resources. You know, even
I would say recreational recreation managers, same thing. They're out
there as well. Because let's say if you if you
did have a scenario where you wanted to you know,
you had a really elaborate boat ramp, or you had
(33:42):
a bunch of tent pads out in the in the
woods that you want to be able like, it's going
to take a lot of people to go out and
prescribe burn it. So it's not not necessarily quick, bro Crow,
but it's like, I'm going to go help you and
show investment and support of what you're trying to do
on the landscape in hopes that this really challenging project
you're going to really help you with and understanding that
it takes just about everybody to do that. Not to
(34:06):
mention the people who communicate, like you mentioned some parts
of the country, they're like, oh, they're smoking the air.
That means that you know, that's going to be a
good spot to go hunting next year. And there's other
people who see smoke in the air and what they
know are catastrophic fires that that potentially take lives and
buildings and everything else. And so being able to support
(34:26):
and staff that is really intertwined within the Forest Service
and i'd say within Bureau of Land Management and National
Park Service and others uespecial and wildlife when they have
wildlife refuges. So it is a it's a complicated dynamic
to really be considerate of and what that looks like
(34:47):
and so a reduction in force for everyone else. But
while they're firefighting can really be a challenge and can
be you know, something that is that is unforeseen. I
think what will happen with that is is there will
have to be some level or some opportunity for there
to someone to pick up a slack. And so I
(35:08):
think that's where things get really interesting in nuanced You know,
there there are already a significant number of wildline firefighting
contract crews that are out there, contract engines that are
out there, water tenders, et cetera, et cetera. You don't
have many water tenders within the force. Those are all
provided by contractors. So so this reduction force will result
(35:29):
in like it's it's it's going to be a shifting
of the workforce, and hopefully that shift happens because a
lot of folks work for the Forest Service, not just
for wildland firefighting or for prescribed burning. They work for
it because they believe in the mission. And so if
folks are going to work for contractors, I hope they
have that same passion and value for the outdoors because
(35:53):
that that, I think is where you run into a
potential gap there. But but trying to figure out how
to meet that need. As you've seen in many cases,
a lot of state forestry agencies don't have the bandwidth
to manage fires on federal lands and on state lands.
So I mean you have a whole set of factors
(36:13):
in a system that can be really strained really quickly.
If you have multiple parts of the country with significant
fire events going on at the same time. You know,
there's reason why there are agreements with a variety of
countries to possibly even send resources from We've had resources
from Canada, We've had resources I believe even from Africa,
from Australia in the past, from New Zealand, who've come
(36:37):
and helped on major fire events where there's literally just
no one else that you can pull in to help.
So so I think that this will this will definitely
put us in a place to potentially exaggerate that, and
we have to be really mindful about where's that where
those folks are going to go so they can still
support the cause because they will be needed.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, the you know, I had kind of let my
bias show through on the the federal worker side of
things because I've been fortunate enough to be around folks
who they might be grumpy, they like like to kind
of bitch and moan about things like we all do,
(37:20):
but at the end of the day, they're like here
to do a job for you, Like I'm serving the
American people. And you know, I think that some of
this condemnation comes from people who have never had the
great experience to do a terrible job with great people
for a good purpose. So as we see the system
(37:45):
right now and this I'd like to kind of get
an idea the scope too, is like our nationwide forest
management has has changed to some some degree, Like can
you give us like a snapshot of like where were
we what was the idea during that everybody's coming home
(38:08):
from World War two moment, we're going to harvest more timber.
And then in the in the seventies there was kind
of like a little bit more of a recreational spin
to things, or if timber projects punch new roads and
it provides more opportunity to get out into the forest
and kind of where are we now and where might
(38:29):
we be heading as far as forest management. Well, we
only have so much time. I got to get it
all out here, Terry.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh Man. See I just mentioned cal and I don't
know what I've done to you. No, No, again, a
really thoughtful and insightful question. I think so. So back
when the opportunity or the idea and the really the
way that that I've looked at it and throughout my
career is the ask that was of public plans, Like
you said, it's a bunch of people who believe in
(39:01):
doing this for other folks, this this service mindset, and
so when the ask of the public was we need
wood for homes here in the US, then that's what
the Forest Service did. And the way to most efficiently
harvest wood and a way that that meets that meat
as quickly as possible is the way that it's done
(39:22):
on industrial lands. So in many cases those were clear
cut harvests where you take pretty much everything or the
vast majority of what's commercially viable, and you you put
it on a rotation and that's how you go through
the forest and manage it is, you know, growing to maturity,
some some thinning in between, and you're resetting the whole
(39:45):
thing every so many years to be able to produce
the wood that was needed for homes and for other resources.
So once you hit the sixties and seventies with a
lot of those my and the laws came into place,
there were still there was still quite a bit of that.
There was some some other methodologies used. Probably you know,
(40:09):
one of the more significant pieces was the cuts were
limited and how big they could be, so that you
weren't having massive swaths or what what appeared to be
scars on the landscape. And that was from a visual perspective,
but it's also from a managing water runoff and all
those types of things and creating some other challenges on
the landscape to be mindful of. So you had that
(40:31):
piece that was still a little bit there, but then
you also got into this this idea of commercial harvest
and a variety of what we call thinnings to meet
you know, not only national targets, but targets I were
associated with providing material to to the American people. And
(40:53):
so so you would go out there and you would
you would reduce the density of a forest. You would
cut some tree, but you would leave quite a few. Now,
the reason that I mentioned, you know, the somewhat the
industrial model, is that you have to realize it's also
like if you're taken basically everything, you're not going to
beat up your equipment. It's pretty straightforward. There's no guessing game.
(41:16):
Some of these other models. Obviously you got into what
was you know, these thinnings. You're marking a lot of trees.
So now you're adding a lot of resources to to
go out and mark the trees that would be harvested
versus like a market a boundary and you go take
everything out in the boundary type of thing. And so
that that dynamic, you know, definitely persistent for a while
(41:36):
because it was it was about yes, this is designated
for commercial harvest, but it was also it's commercial harvest
within the context of endangered species, water quality, and a
variety of other regulations that exist, and so as that
continued to evolve, you start to look at different opportunities
for efficiencies. Not all forests use this methodology, but I
(42:03):
know a few that I've worked on using methodology that
it's either designation by description or designation by prescription, which
is this dynamic of saying, Okay, this is the biggest tree,
and we're going to thin out everything from around the
biggest tree to continue to support and release it so
it has more resources to grow in between this biggest tree.
And then you set a distance and it's you know,
(42:26):
twenty thirty feet to the next biggest tree, so everything
between that thirty foot swath gets cut. That's a commercial
value you but instead of marking that, you make that
designation to a purchaser. So there's there's been evolutions and
trying to find efficiency with fewer employees on how do
you manage these large chunks of land given some of
(42:46):
the dynamics that are put in front of you on
the amount of ground you're trying to cover. So that
continues to I think, continues to evolve as we look
at what's going on within the country and trying to
account for, you know, all the aspects of what it
means to serve the public. You know that that multiple
use mission of the Forest Service. You're trying to account
(43:08):
for everything recreation interests, and recreation includes a lot of
things people think, oh well, trails and hunting or whatever
it might be. But it's also there are visual requirements
in quite a few places if you have scenic trails
or scenic highways or scenic rivers. So so it's really
being thoughtful about all those different components and factors. So
(43:31):
what does that look like going into the future. I
think that's really fascinating because I think even in the
space of executive orders and various policies, a lot of
what's going to continue to drive force management is, you know,
the changing climate that we see. It will be the
(43:51):
the stresses that are put on species that have been
in place for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and
the environmental factors may not necessarily sustain them. So, so
are we going to see you know, migration. There's there's
folks in forestry and civil culture who talk about as
system migration. Do we start planting trees from you know, hotter,
(44:14):
drier places in places that are more moderate temperatures, because
those temperatures are getting hotter and drier. What species that
are that are you know, from relatively moist climates. Do
we have to put up higher in elevation because that's
where they're going to have the moisture that they need
to grow. So so I think those are going to
be a lot of the major factors that that will
definitely impact how we manage. But but I think, you know,
(44:37):
in addition to that, this whole question and concept of
wildland fire and all the factors that that that put
force in a in a place that they are more
susceptible to catching on fire and sustaining large fires and
impactful fires are are going to be really really significant.
They already are. I think they're going to continue to
(44:58):
be more significant. I think we potentially could see places
being dry that they're rarely dry and what that means.
I've worked in those places. Working in western Oregon. They're like, oh,
it never burns. And I started there and there was
a ten thousand acre fire. So I'm like, well, it
looks like we're in the cycle. You know, that five
hundred year cycle apparently is coming around pretty soon. So
(45:19):
I think we could just be seeing, you know, the
front end what I would I would love to say
it's the middle or the end, but I don't know.
From the way things look. We are at the front
end as a country of looking at what is susceptible
to fire, the insect and disease, you know, the pathogens,
the insects that come in and kill you know, large
(45:40):
scales of trees simply because they are stressed because they're
growing and very very densely growing forests, or it's just
hotter for longer, insects that aren't dying in the winter
because it's not getting cold enough. We have to continue
to contest with these things as we strategize how to
manage our force. What's going to produce a healthy force?
(46:02):
What is the composition of species in that healthy forest?
Are those species going to be ones that we can
actually have some opportunity to make U some commercial revenue
for to do that service work that there's currently not
a market for developing those new markets. Like so there's
there's so many facets of being really mindful of what
the future holds, and it's going to take some really
(46:24):
big and thoughtful conversations and some likely some insignificant investment.
But what that means on the federal side of things
is also being mindful of what does it take businesses
to invest. You know, that's been a big question as
you've seen mill closures all over the country. It's because
they can't really feel like they have a solid source
(46:49):
of wood to keep the doors open. So if that's
the case, then we're we're again we're losing a key
resource in that whole dynamic of treating national force because
we just don't even have the infrastructure to do it
and close enough proximity to make it viable. So we
just have a lot of things to really step back,
look at and and be really thoughtful about our approach
(47:12):
going forward, because we we have we've we've had plenty
of growing issues over the past several years. And and
while it's great that we have an executive order that
says we're going to move forward and try to be
more of an accelerated pace of engaging these these lands
and how much you know, we harvest off of them,
(47:34):
we still have to have somewhere forward to go. So
so there's there's a lot to be really really taughtful
of right now to to try to move forward and
move us to a place of having for us that
can not necessarily remove the chance of a wildfire, but
give give professionals the opportunity to get to that wildfire
as quick as possible so it doesn't turn into something
(47:55):
significantly impactful to communities and to other resources.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
And the other thing that's coming through here too is
in order to have something to cut for tomorrow, you
got to save it today also. So yeah, we have
a lot of timber out there. There's just not ready
to be cut.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
In some places. Some places I would say, I know
there's a lot of data in the southeast that they
are actively lowering. I think it's almost two to three times,
if not more volume in trees every year than it's
being cut. So so areas with long growing seasons, you
know Montana probably like a lot of the rocky mountain
(48:37):
part of the country. Maybe not those those those trees
don't grow quite as fast, but definitely I would say
along the coast of the country you have you have
situations where there there very well could be opportunity for
a variety of benefits to go out and be more
active in your management.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
And is the spot at owl Host.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Well I'm not by no means a wild life biologists.
I will I will leave that too to the professionals
to speak on that. But uh, you know, we we
will do the best that we can. I think that
we've done that with every species on the endiged species list,
and some have been downgraded and some have been taken
(49:23):
off the list. So I know we'll we'll continue to
try as a as a country of professionals too, you know,
provide for that the unique roles that spoted I was
playing the ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
I'm gonna make statement here, and you tell me if
if if I'm way off topic, if folks in my
neck of the woods in Montana want to see more
proactive forest management, one of the suggestions I would make
is to go back to the mindset of if you
want a cabin in the woods, just make it a
(49:58):
simple cabin that you not too worried about it getting
burned down, instead of making it a little mansion in
the woods. But that even you get in a real
uproar about any plume of smoke that you see. What
do you think about Terry Well?
Speaker 2 (50:16):
I think I have both some personal and professional thoughts
on that one. But but I would I would counter
your your your statement with the fact that I think
there's a lot of folks that get pretty worked up
even about their little simple cabin in the woods, wood
cabin in the woods. So so yeah, I think it's
uh what I would why I would suggest when it
comes to that for anybody, no matter what level of
(50:39):
investment they have in their their woodland dwelling, people will
go that route that they do their best to stay informed.
That like, if you're going to be out there, be educated,
understand what you have, Understand what's around you, let that
inform your decisions. Be engaged with the local officials who
are responsible for you know, especially in firefighting, and and
(51:02):
learn what you can do to help take care of
your space, and and also put you in a place
to be successful is there if there is a wildfire,
and more importantly, put put yourself in a place where
those professionals can can be as safe as they can
for themselves and their families if there's a wildfire. So
I've been in those situations. Triage is real. And if
(51:23):
there's a home out in the woods that has, you know,
an overgrown driveway and it's a one way in one
way out a lot of times, depending on the scenario
and the situation and the available resources, folks aren't going
to go in and try to save it because it
could very well cost them their lives. So there's there's
a lot to think about this. There's there's that level
(51:44):
of your own responsibility and personal accountability that comes with
being out in the woods, and sometimes people lose track
of that.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Jordan, you were thinking on a couple of things. Do
you want to jump in here with anything?
Speaker 3 (52:01):
No, I just I hear a lot this statement made
by people who would like to see federal federal lands
transferred to state management, that the federal government is doing
a terrible job and the states would do a much
better job. Is there is there any truth to that?
(52:23):
Is it partly true? What's your what's your reaction when
when you hear people make that claim.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
I have heard that claim before, And what I would
say to to claims like that is different missions, different mandates.
So so I not only say that to state lands,
I also say that to private lands lands that are
better under land trusts. It's it's understanding the mission of
(52:53):
of those in the mandates associated with those land bases.
What you will do on private industrial land is definitely
what you're doing on a prime private land for a
small landowner. You know, if Jordan, you have ten twenty
fifty acres to yourself, you're going to approach that differently
than someone who's actively managing something just for commercial benefit.
(53:16):
So that's the core of my response to the idea
of transferring federal lands to state lands. I think the
other piece of it with that different mission and mandate,
you know, the big question with that would be are
you going to remove all of the all the regulations
(53:37):
associated with federal land, And I seriously doubt that would
be the case. What people may be associating with that
that transition of federal lands to state lands is, you know,
the assumption that state lands do not have to go
through the level of NEPA analysis that federal lands too.
(53:57):
But they still have to go through an analysis, they
still have to write management and still have public comment,
they still have public pushback, they still have lawsuits. So
it's the thought can often be when it comes to
our natural resources that there is some quick fix. But
(54:18):
if there were much smarter people than me would have
figured it out many many years ago. The founder of
the Force Service the founder of Society of American Foresters
and the founder of one of the first forestry schools
in the nation at Yale University. If for Pincho, if
you read some of his early writings, the issues are
the same, the conversations in many cases are the same.
(54:43):
And although he spoke to a much more eloquent than
I can, this type of discussion is very similar. And
so the understanding of what it means to hold something
in the public trust that everyone has a right to
is in and of its helf a daunting task, because
I like to say, every time someone is born, every
(55:04):
time someone passes away, the equation changes. Now are there
are there some policy efficiencies out there? Absolutely? Are there
some ways or approach to work a little bit differently. Absolutely,
And those things should be always considered and thought through
and implemented in hopes of moving things forward. But moving
(55:28):
broad scale, you know, the East coast be different from
the West coast, but you're still talking about hundreds of
thousands again, just the for service ALON one hundred and
ninety four million acres across the country. Moving that into
state land ownership and management would overwhelm a lot of states,
And so not saying that they could not saying that
(55:50):
they may not want to. I can't speaking to have
any any state in that sense. But if it comes
with all the regulations that federal lands currently have, and
I feel like if that were to happen, there will
be a lot of pushes for those regulations to stay
in place. Then it will be just as challenging on
state lands as it is as federal lands. There'll be
(56:10):
just as many expectations. We have enough people who don't
even know where a national forest stops and a National
park starts and which is which. So you just have
a lot to really be considerate of and understanding of.
And like I said, it really gets down to the mission.
I would say, more so than about changing ownership. If
you want to change how the for service manages in
(56:31):
many cases, then you need to change the mission.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
Inconvenient, is it not? When we're looking for our quick fixes,
like nature doesn't really fit with quick fixes. Do trees
take time to grow?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Well? You know, in forestry, you you end up finding
yourselves an interesting company. And I've had my fair share
of hanging out with geologists. And when you think that
forests operate on you know, a timescale beyond the average
human life. You don't even want to go down that
path with those folks, so because they're just talking about
(57:13):
you know, thousands of years at a time, if not more.
But that's the thing, you know, nature, there aren't any
quick fixes it. Nature operates on its timescale.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
And oftentimes it's just incompatible with what we want or
think should be. Right, Like I've been on this lesser
prairie chicken kick because buddy of mine, Ted Cook is
oh proselytizing on the lesser prairie chicken and doing a
really good job. But that bird that was once in
America and the millions will not nest within six acres
(57:49):
of any vertical structure. Wow, it just did not grow
up with trees. Yeah, right, and that is just too
inconvenient for us. You know, barren ground caribou, like giant
(58:11):
herds of caribou that have been sensationalized in media forever. Yes,
they just cannot figure out a road where a road
did not exist before. Like you know, it's just inconvenient
and incompatible with the way we think. And so yeah,
(58:32):
you gotta got a tree that needs optimal conditions, and
under optimal conditions, it's gonna go grow really fast for
a tree, Yeah, which is just not fast.
Speaker 2 (58:43):
It's going to grow really slow. It's going to grow
the right way for a tree, exactly the right way
for where it is and what it has to grow with.
That is what a true will always do.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
That's awesome, well, Terry. If folks want to learn more
about the Society of American Foresters or maybe follow up
with you, what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 2 (59:07):
Sure thing? You can head over to Eforester dot org.
So pretty straightforward to eat in front of Forrester dot
org and come visit our website. You can learn about
all of our great programs, our scholarships and fellowships and
internship opportunities, as well as our grants that we do
with our local chapters. Like I mentioned, we're national association professionals.
(59:29):
We have members all over the country who are working
in these fields and coming together to do things for
their community and for the forestry and natural resources profession
and so they're always happy to engage and support this
important work. So head over there. There's also a staff page,
and so folks can reach out to me through that
staff page. But we're here and we're here to support folks.
(59:50):
Like I mentioned, we've been around one hundred and twenty
five years and we look forward to being around a
lot longer so we can continue to help finding solutions
to these challenges.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
Awesome, Well, thank you so much. Oh that was great.
Uh that's all we got for you today. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write in to A
s K C.
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
A L.
Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
That's Ascal at the meeteater dot com, the fantastic Jordan
Sillers and I will will round up any questions that
you have for Terry Baker, and the Society of American
Foresters will either get him back on to address those
or we can have him answer and then we'll we'll
recite those answers back to you. So thank you so
(01:00:34):
much for listening, and we'll talk to you again next week.
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Col's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calai. Here's Cal. Hey, everybody,
welcome to another episode of the cal the Wild podcast.
We have another super informative guest today, mister Terry Baker
(00:33):
for the Society of American Foresters. Our topic is going
to be one that we've been working on for a
while here, and it is the state of our forests,
our national forests here in the US of A. Obviously,
what we'd like to get into is we have had
(00:55):
some interesting things that have jumped off this topic at
the federal level, layoffs, rehirings, the mandate to lighten staff
at all of our federal agencies, and we've also had
(01:15):
an executive order to produce more timber on our working
for us here in America. I can take guesses, but
I am by no means an expert, So we have
reached out to uh Terry Baker, CEO of the Society
(01:40):
of American Foresters. Terry, thank you very much for jumping
on here. Would you mind just giving us a little
bit of your your background as well as what is
the Society of American Foresters.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Absolutely thanks for having me cal and glad to be
here in the wild with you this today. But yes, so,
as a CEO of the Society of American Foresters, we
are a professional association focused on scientific, sustainable management of
our nation's force. We achieved that mention through a variety
(02:15):
of programming, through providing educational opportunities for professionals in this
space in both forestry and urban forestry. We also credit
university programs to set the standard for forestry and natural
resources management. Provide professional certifications as well as newsletters and
two scientific journals for people to publish in doing a
(02:36):
research and forestry and natural resources conservation, so the Journal
of Forestry and the Journal of Forest Science. What's also
unique about us this year as we claim to be
able to set the standard for forest practices. This is
our one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary as an organization,
so I say it's been in the game for quite
some time. So we're excited to be able to share
(02:58):
our insights through myself as the CEO on these interesting
times and topics. Myself, I have served. Actually I'm a forester.
I have a forestry degree from the University of Florida
and from Yale University and have worked for the US
Forest Service for roughly about nineteen years prior to coming
to saf where I've been the CEO for about six
years now. So worked in a variety of places across
(03:21):
the country and engaged in a variety of topics around
forest management and a variety of user management regarding public
land and the Forest Service and Forest Service land, so
in research as well. So looking forward to this conversation
about you know, kind of where things are and where
we hope for them to go and how do we
try to maneuver through all these nuanced details.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Awesome, Well, I'm excited. It's a huge topic. We don't
have to go all the way back, but we really should. Right,
It's okay, So we'll establish a few.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Things, sure thing.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
For us or just just giant gardens. They're they're growing trees,
and I think that's uh something that oddly enough gets
overlooked when we talk about timber management. This stuff's got
to have time to grow. Absolutely, and back in the
(04:20):
in the early days, we kind of had industry running
amok in the name of progress across our forests, and
there are some some practices that were probably more detrimental
to the long term health of our big garden, and
(04:42):
through some some foresight and some reactionary measures, we uh
now have a national Forest system that regulates the harvest
and management on national forests.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Decent enough job, close, No, No, I think you did
a great job with some of the high points. I
think that what was really interesting in regards to what
was established as the national reserves back in the late
eighteen hundreds, it actually had a lot more to do
with ranching. It was the byproduct of lumber from cutting
(05:20):
down trees, but it was more so the ability of
ranchers to move across the country pretty quickly. That was
a really strong impetus for the for service to be
created and have those reserves created, primarily in the western US.
And then you have other legislation that really incited the
weak sac really inside the creation of National Force seas
of the Mississippi. But absolutely, at one point we did
(05:41):
have a dynamic where, you know, post World War Two,
where there was a lot of active management and looking
at managing national force in a similar manner that you
wouldn't manage industrial force for producing a lot of lumber
for all those folks coming home that needed new homes
and all the opportunities to support them and get you know,
(06:02):
building those homes, and so that was a big push.
But then the thought came in, like you mentioned around
the you know, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, various
other pieces of legislation, National Forest Management Act that that
looked at this from a more holistic perspective because like
you mentioned, these are our giant gardens. Yes, they grow trees,
(06:22):
but they and that those trees that grow habitat for
a variety of species that are used for food, they
grow habitat for wildlife, they grow habitat for fish and
clean water. So so really trying to bring all those
components into the value of our national force was was
a critical piece of how do we look at this
(06:45):
beyond producing lumber products long term?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
And what does management mean when when somebody says we
need to manage our for us, what does that mean
to you? Terry?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yes, that is a great question. It really means a
lot of things, and that's that's probably how we oversimplify
managing by using over using that term. But when it
comes to managing a forest, it could be everything from
the removal of commercial sized trees for blumber production. It
(07:21):
can mean doing what we referred to as hazardous fuels treatments,
which is going on and removing some of the smaller
material that can can help build up a lot of
heat if a fire were to start and cause a
very impactful, large scale wildfire or very intense wildfire in
a certain place. But it can also relate to you know,
(07:41):
I worked in western Oregon and we were tipping trees
into rivers to create habitat for bull, trout and salmon.
So so managing a forest really has a widespread set
of you know, aspects and criteria, and also the proper
management action made be to do nothing in certain places,
and that could be because of heritage and or tribal
(08:05):
locations that need to be kept safe. It can also
be for unique habitats. You know, there's a lot of
conversation about old growth force and oftentimes when you're looking
at a piece of a force, or as we call it,
a stand, a forest stand, oftentimes those things are all
taken into consideration wet areas, rivers, water bodies, but also
(08:25):
these are just really unique, big old trees and they
should be left if we're going to go in and
do any of those other treatments that I mentioned to
you that we might be doing. So management is a
simple term for a lot of complicated options out there
to do what's best for the forest. At the end
of the day. That is what we're looking at, is
what is going to help keep that force healthy, help
(08:47):
keep it sustainable, to support a wide variety of resources
and needs. In some cases that is producing commercial material,
but oftentimes that can be a byproduct of just keeping
a forest density down. It healthy.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
And is there a consensus on what healthy is?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Oh, you're asking you all the easy questions. You know,
I don't know if there really is a consensus on
what one would call a healthy forest. I think there
are a lot of perspectives on what that could really mean.
And I think for for us, let's say, you know,
within forestry, within the society American foresters, a healthy forest
is one that is you know, if you if you
(09:29):
had to think of it like a let's use a
race car, it's it's firing on all cylinders. And so
you have you have a density of trees. You have
trees that are being that are able to grow, you know,
for lack of a better terminent their optimum potential you
have you know, with that you have solid spacing so
(09:50):
that there is light getting to the floor of the forest.
And so you have that you know mid story of
you know, medicinal plants or edible plants or or things
of that nature that may be for people and for
animals for forage. You have good shading for water bodies
that help deal with temperature issues that keep that ecosystem
healthy for fish. So it really is a space that
(10:11):
has all those things. You have trees that are healthier
and vigorous enough where they can fend off insect and
disease outbreaks. So there's all these nuances and dynamics that
come into what is considered a healthy force. Now there's
also folks that just say if you walk away from it,
that means it's healthy. And while there is a dynamic
to that, we've unfortunately seen in a lot of wilderness
(10:32):
areas and even in some national parks that do not
have a lot of active management, the challenges that come
with wildfires associated with hotter, longer summers, and fire seasons
that are becoming just more and more impactful.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I really do want to get into fire obviously, that's
a big falls into the management bucket. But it's also
this big reactionary thing, scary thing, right, people use a
miss homes and health and sometimes lives. But first I
want to ask who is doing the management on our
(11:13):
national for us and how is it paid for?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Okay, let's let's delve into that. I'll try to be
as succinct as I can here, So when it comes
to management on national forests, it really relates to a
variety of entities and individuals. Primarily, you have your federal employees,
Usport Service employees that are on the ground doing activities,
(11:41):
taking inventory, fighting wildfires, all all all the things prescribe
burning everything in between. But given the the and those
folks are paid for by a budget appropriated by Congress.
If you want to get into the really interesting nuances,
the budget is actually passed through the Department of Interior,
(12:02):
but it flows through to the USDA to the Forest Service,
something that people aren't overly familiar with, But that's because
the Force Reserves were originally part of the Department of
Interior before being transferred to the Department of Agriculture and
made national force. So that's where the primary bulk of
the funding comes from. And then I will say beyond
(12:24):
the force of its employees, because even with an agency
of between twenty and thirty thousand employees that didn't give
them point, that's not enough people to cover one hundred
and fifty four million acres across the country. So from that,
additional work is taken care of or done on behalf
of the Forest Service through contracts and agreements by contractors,
(12:47):
by nonprofit organizations, and also by volunteers. So there is
a massive network of volunteers that engage with the Forest Service,
of massive network of contractors who conduct So I'll break
those out. So for volunteers, you have folks that are
primarily a lot of a lot of volunteers you use
for trail work and helping to maintain recreation areas that
they love to visit. But we also have a network
(13:09):
of volunteers that are in lookout towers, in a variety
of other projects. So it's a hole just about anything
you can imagine happening on a national forest that is
that is not inherently governmental, or to an extent, some
of it is is done through volunteers. Somewhat similar with
contractors or specific types of projects we have have those dynamics.
(13:31):
You have those dynamics as well. We have contractors that
help by wildfires, contractors who helped do some of that hazards, fuels,
thinning and reduction of material out in the forest. You
also have contractors who do you know, stream projects, et cetera,
et cetera. So you really have an interesting mix of
folks that are actively engaging at any given time on
(13:52):
for service land. But at the end of the day,
you need that whole backbone, backbone of the Forest Service,
be it on the ground employees or folks, and the
administration agreements contracting side to make all that work happen.
So it is a variety of folks, but all of
that comes through primarily through funding through Congress. But then
(14:12):
there's there's some organizations like the National Forest Foundation, who
has private investment that supports them engaging in various projects
on National Force lands as well.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So when we talk about any given project, I guess
it would be important. Two, I'd like to know how
a timber sale works.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
At which point or do you want me to go
through the well more of the details that you really
want to know.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I'm curious to know as it relates to this. You know,
fairly recent executive order. There's the sky is falling crowd,
and then there's a slightly more pragmatic crowd. I feel
like I fall, Uh, this may come as a shock
(15:07):
to my listeners, but I fall in the concerned but
more pragmatic crowd. Absolutely based on this is a free market.
We're only going to produce so much. We know, you know,
timber sales happen all the time. Sometimes they don't even
(15:28):
get bit on because the folks who are out there
doing the work go, boy, it's not worth my equipment
or the diesel fuel. So I'd like, I think it'd
just be great because I'm not an expert to just
understand how a timber sale works.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Sure, I'll try to be as as concise as I
can on this particular topic, because as you can imagine,
there's there's plenty of bureaucracy that goes into that whole process.
So so let's just kind of start a little bit,
a little bit early in the process before we get
to the contract side of it. So so ultimately, most most,
(16:11):
not all, I would say, national forests have a rotation
and how they look at parts of the national force
that fall within a category of being you know, designated
for active force management and looking at those areas to
come into and say, all right, is this scenario that
is in a good place to be analyzed for active
(16:33):
forest management right now? If that's the case, then then
project starts and they conduct ana analysis. Through that analysis,
the determination is made on what type of or what
level of a NEPA needs to be done to conduct
that analysis, be that a categorical exclusion, meaning that this
is something that has been determined is category or excluded
(16:55):
from a deeper dive a NEPA because it's been looked
at across the net, has been seen as a people
mints words, but relatively minimal impact. There's not going to
be a significant impact based off of what's being treated
and how it's being treated. So in some cases you
may have that around fire reduced you know, fire reduction
(17:17):
activity or you know, or some other activities. Then you
have your environmental assessment, which is, you know, basically you
look at a variety in any case, in any case,
you're looking at all aspects of that piece of land.
So it's not just force management, it's water resources, archaeological resources.
(17:41):
If there's range you know, grazing, there's range resources wildlife resources.
Everything's looked at EESA. Obviously in Dago Species Act, all
those things you're looked at and considered in that analysis
to determine where you can have impacts or where you
can limit impacts to those resources. And so that that
relates to you know what I what is referred to
a decision document as a finding of no significant impact,
(18:04):
and then you have an environmental impact statement. What's really
critical about an environmental impact statement is that oftentimes it's
looked at as a as a way for more public involvement.
There is more public involvement with environmental impact statement, but
in my from my perspective, one of the nuances of
an environmental impact statement is it is the lack of
(18:26):
a better term, in the last line of defense, it's
it's a document that says we know we're going to
have significant impacts and we're and we have a responsibility
to take this action, and at the end of the day,
we were required to disclose that we're taking this action.
That's an environmental impact statement. Oftentimes it is looked at
(18:48):
as a means of like, oh, well, you should do
any I S because I can't believe you're going to
do this thing, and that's not really what it's for.
And I oftentimes in my federal career reminded people and
environmental impacts is what they put open pit minds in
and dams in, like that's an eis not cutting down
trees that are going to grow. But again different opinions
(19:11):
on how impactful that is for some folks. So I
just wanted to kind of give that background on the
three levels of NEPA that have to be One has
to be done no matter what action is being taken
on a federal and one has to be done. So
then you conduct your analysis, you put together the project
and say this is what we want to do. You
(19:31):
develop evaluation and how you want to go about actually
doing the management activities. So that's actually called the civil
cultural prescription. So if we can share the definition SFS
for civil culture, but it's the keywords or the veryer
we're getting the art and science of managing forces. It's
an applied ecology is one of the easier ways to
(19:53):
describe it. So understanding how a system works and then
saying we want to do this thing here for these
you know, very big benefits. So then the question especially
I think like you said, there's some timber sales that
go with no bids and various things. That has to
do with the civil culture prescription. Can we actually implement
what we want to do on the landscape. Is it
(20:15):
financially feasible? And so what's considered a traditional timber sale
contract is one where there are bidders for that contract
to do that work on behalf of the forest service,
and that bidder that company then has rights to the
wood and they're able to sell it. What has come about,
you know, several years ago was also stewardship contracting, which
(20:40):
that gave the space for the ability to bid on contracts.
But also part of that bidding process is how are
you going to do It's referred to as service work,
so work that doesn't make money but still needs to
be done under traditional timber sale contracts more often than not,
what would happen with those is if there's any revenue
made off for those timber sale contracts, those go into
(21:02):
trust funds that help do that service work on the
back end. So those are the variety of factors. So
you have to have through your through the forest plant,
you have to have a designation of this can be
commercially managed. And then you take into a variety of factors,
(21:23):
be it Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act. Sometimes it's
the Migratory Birds Act, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So within that that designation, you're then pairing it down.
If you have water, then there's likely wrap airing reserves
or buffers you're putting on water bodies. And then so
that continues to narrow it down to say, okay, here's
here's the window that we have to actually do something.
(21:46):
And then you put it up for sale and see
if someone is willing to bid on it. So it is,
it is not. It is not a job that is
for the faint of heart. And and I you know,
and I know when I was worked on the Lama
National Forest and some of the many forests I worked on,
and we conducted an analysis across the entire force and said,
out of the you know, just over a million acres
(22:08):
of that forest, how much of it could we actually
commercially manage? And we put in all those buffers and
boundaries and zones around spotted owl habitat and riparian reserves
for rivers, and out of that over a million acres
it was twelve to fourteen percent. So I say all
(22:29):
that to capture this conversation of the new executive orders
and in the ability to increase that the sale of
timberoff commercial timber off with federal lands, especially on the
for service lands. It simply put, it is not easy,
and so folks are really and the employees are really
(22:51):
thoughtful about the impacts beyond getting for lack of returns,
like people like to say, getting the cut out. There's
a lot of concern for all the other resources involved,
as those are all teams people work with and so
so at the end of the day, if you think
about that where folks are really concerned, I wouldn't be
surprised if you looked across the country and it was
still within that ten to sixteen percent, no more than
(23:13):
twenty percent that is actually available to potentially go out
and harvest commercially.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And that that would that within that ten to sixteen percent.
Also that is stuff that has grown to a commercially
viable for dimensional lumber size, right.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So it was I mean the majority of its dimensional lumber,
some of it goes to a variety of other products
that go to make you know, wood pellets that are
bet are for heating or for other activities, and then
you have what's referred to as chip and saw. So
like there's a variety of forest products that they can
go to that you can get out of different size
(23:58):
as of material. But one of the areas that has
been a struggle is actually to come up with strong
commercial economies for the smaller diameter material that you would
clear out for hazards fuels. That's the big.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Challenge, and that's you know, certainly the conversation that I
am most familiar with here in Montana. I know Montana
does not represent the entire timber cutting world, but it's Yes,
you can go in and remove slash manage in a
(24:36):
way to reduce the potential for catastrophic wildfire. Yes, but
you're in a position to where you have to pay
somebody to go in.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
There and do it more often than not.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
So.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
But I mean, that's the conversation I grew up with
not being in the industry at all. But is that
the case, Like when we talk about these secondary or
tertiary markets, my understanding is they're just not available a
lot of places.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Not at scale, not at scale, and that that becomes
you know, there's there's constantly research going on around biochar,
around other like soil, you know, improvement products that you
can do. But but you know, as technology improves, you know,
everyone a lot of folks really help hopeful about where
that will lead us to. But but it just hasn't
(25:26):
been something that has that has been large scale, commercially
viable as as a as a sector at this point,
which is part of the challenge. That's that's the big nuance.
And you know, the reality is is things grow in
a forest because things grow in a forest. It sounds
overly simplified, but that's that's it. It's going to grow.
(25:48):
So even if you were to just go in and
do that that understory treatment, you eventually have to take
out some of the larger trees simply because that's going
to close the canopy at the top of the forest.
And if you have a wind wind blown fire, it
can start on the canopies and just run through that
mat of canopy. So so that concern is still there.
There just needs to be spacing amongst the trees. So
(26:12):
so yeah, it is. It is one of those dynamics
of how do we find because right now the solution
is to go out and cut slash pilot and burn
it in the snow, which which can still you're blipping
it by when you have burn windows, when you have
smoke clearance, depending on where you're in the country. So
so yeah, there is a variety of challenges there, and
(26:33):
like I mentioned that, the challenges in many cases finding
the funding to pay for someone to do that, and
some of those timber sales that you mentioned that go
no bid may have removing some of that with the
smaller material with the larger material and it just doesn't
pencil out, and that's why they go no bid. But
there's a whole host of factors of why sales go
no bid. It can be the cost of diesel and
how far someone has to try, you know, pull material
(26:55):
one way or the other, to be the quality of roads,
a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
So yeah, and yeah, it's your scope of where you've worked.
We overlapped a little bit in some of that Oregon
and then extreme western Idaho country where you can still
see this attempt I think it was in the sixties
or seventies to it's really wild like back country areas
(27:22):
that were terraced to create National forest timber farms essentially,
and it's really wild that at that time I guess
we had the money and the manpower to go in
there and do something like that.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Well yeah, I mean the reality of it was obviously
back then manpower and machine costs and material costs were
significantly less than they are now, and so that in
and of itself was a dynamic. But it was also
the value material. You know, that's when you were out
these you know, large trees that were probably pretty old
(28:03):
and they're very high quality wood, so you can use
them for a whole host of things from building materials
to furniture to even peeling them for you know, fancy blackwood,
but most of them, but more unlikely it was used
like you have these long you have these tall, large
diameter trees that you can make you know, a four
by four and eight by eight out of or ten
(28:25):
by ten out of a slab, you know, out of
a tree trunk. So so those are those are pretty
significant to be able to do that, where now we're
doing that with mass timber and putting together pieces of
wood with special glues and materials to recreate what was
natural back then. But it takes hundreds of years to
grow those, so you're just not going to go out
(28:46):
and replenish that.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
So the.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Approach became shorter rotations for different quality materials and not
trying to make those types of materials from one single
tree like you could do once upon a time.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, my building experience, I've I've dealt with a heck
of a lot more glue lambs than I have a
single pieces of timber.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Right, yep, yeah, absolutely so, Yeah, it was just it
was just that much more valuable.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, so let's let's jump into the big scary fire subject. Yes,
we have. It's it's it's hard to pin down. It's
it's like a mosaic burn. Like in some parts of
the country. People just know that you put fire on
the landscape. That's how we manage things. It's going to
(29:37):
be smoky certain times a year. Other parts of the US,
anytime there's smoke, it something very bad has got to
be happening. Yeah, and you know, I'll tell you from
uh hunter and oftentimes angler perspective, we love seeing.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Fires, imagine, so yep, so uh serious night lines and
you've got fresh forage, so two very good things.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yep, yep, exactly, and morel mushrooms popping up everywhere.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
The list goes on and on, huckleberries, all the great
things out there.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, everybody wants to be there. So and
right now it looks like we got some fire season
kicking off in the Carolinas. That sound some things that
I'm reading or sound a little scary. But are we
seeing is this executive order going to tie into increase
(30:47):
subs or prescribed burns? Are we seeing anything positive on
that side of things? And then we got to ask
also what happens with the you know, the reduction in
workforce that we're seeing. We you know, we have dedicated
(31:08):
fire personnel, but we have a lot of personnel out
there that don't tell anybody, but they crossed their fingers
that they're going to be put on a fire after
a couple of weeks of running trail crew or whatever
they're doing. So is that a concern that that's being
talked about in society of American foresters?
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Absolutely? I I you know, I'm hopeful around the prescribed
fire component of the Executive order analysis that that the
four Service has been charged to do. And and I
think that it is one of those things that's just
going to be really critical given the state of what
(31:52):
we've been facing the last ten plus years at this point,
in regards to what that that Management Act, what the
as management activities look like, and how they incorporate opportunities
to do some of that HAZARDUS fuels treatment and or
prescribe burning on the landscape, because yeah, it can get
really scary out there. A year doesn't go by that
(32:15):
I don't talk to, you know, twenty thirty some odd
plus year firefighting wildland firefighting veteran who says, I haven't
seen anything like this before. So this is these are
just different contention conditions that we have to be really
thoughtful of and respectful of. Your follow up question in
regards to how does this all play out, if you know,
(32:37):
with the reduction enforce scenario that's playing out right now.
To be honest, it can be really concerning because what
has what has been the framework of this Like you
said there, yes, there are wildland firefighters who are designated
as such and you know, compensated as such and have
(32:59):
their own hirement system and all those lovely things, But
there is a whole host of other folks that you're
you're foresters, wildlife biologists, fisheries, biologists, all those folks you know,
arrange specialists who are involved in not only fighting wildland
fires but also supporting prescribe burning, their ability to go
(33:21):
out and because again for all those specialists out there,
these are all benefits to their resources. You know, even
I would say recreational recreation managers, same thing. They're out
there as well. Because let's say if you if you
did have a scenario where you wanted to you know,
you had a really elaborate boat ramp, or you had
(33:42):
a bunch of tent pads out in the in the
woods that you want to be able like, it's going
to take a lot of people to go out and
prescribe burn it. So it's not not necessarily quick, bro Crow,
but it's like, I'm going to go help you and
show investment and support of what you're trying to do
on the landscape in hopes that this really challenging project
you're going to really help you with and understanding that
it takes just about everybody to do that. Not to
(34:06):
mention the people who communicate, like you mentioned some parts
of the country, they're like, oh, they're smoking the air.
That means that you know, that's going to be a
good spot to go hunting next year. And there's other
people who see smoke in the air and what they
know are catastrophic fires that that potentially take lives and
buildings and everything else. And so being able to support
(34:26):
and staff that is really intertwined within the Forest Service
and i'd say within Bureau of Land Management and National
Park Service and others uespecial and wildlife when they have
wildlife refuges. So it is a it's a complicated dynamic
to really be considerate of and what that looks like
(34:47):
and so a reduction in force for everyone else. But
while they're firefighting can really be a challenge and can
be you know, something that is that is unforeseen. I
think what will happen with that is is there will
have to be some level or some opportunity for there
to someone to pick up a slack. And so I
(35:08):
think that's where things get really interesting in nuanced You know,
there there are already a significant number of wildline firefighting
contract crews that are out there, contract engines that are
out there, water tenders, et cetera, et cetera. You don't
have many water tenders within the force. Those are all
provided by contractors. So so this reduction force will result
(35:29):
in like it's it's it's going to be a shifting
of the workforce, and hopefully that shift happens because a
lot of folks work for the Forest Service, not just
for wildland firefighting or for prescribed burning. They work for
it because they believe in the mission. And so if
folks are going to work for contractors, I hope they
have that same passion and value for the outdoors because
(35:53):
that that, I think is where you run into a
potential gap there. But but trying to figure out how
to meet that need. As you've seen in many cases,
a lot of state forestry agencies don't have the bandwidth
to manage fires on federal lands and on state lands.
So I mean you have a whole set of factors
(36:13):
in a system that can be really strained really quickly.
If you have multiple parts of the country with significant
fire events going on at the same time. You know,
there's reason why there are agreements with a variety of
countries to possibly even send resources from We've had resources
from Canada, We've had resources I believe even from Africa,
from Australia in the past, from New Zealand, who've come
(36:37):
and helped on major fire events where there's literally just
no one else that you can pull in to help.
So so I think that this will this will definitely
put us in a place to potentially exaggerate that, and
we have to be really mindful about where's that where
those folks are going to go so they can still
support the cause because they will be needed.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, the you know, I had kind of let my
bias show through on the the federal worker side of
things because I've been fortunate enough to be around folks
who they might be grumpy, they like like to kind
of bitch and moan about things like we all do,
(37:20):
but at the end of the day, they're like here
to do a job for you, Like I'm serving the
American people. And you know, I think that some of
this condemnation comes from people who have never had the
great experience to do a terrible job with great people
for a good purpose. So as we see the system
(37:45):
right now and this I'd like to kind of get
an idea the scope too, is like our nationwide forest
management has has changed to some some degree, Like can
you give us like a snapshot of like where were
we what was the idea during that everybody's coming home
(38:08):
from World War two moment, we're going to harvest more timber.
And then in the in the seventies there was kind
of like a little bit more of a recreational spin
to things, or if timber projects punch new roads and
it provides more opportunity to get out into the forest
and kind of where are we now and where might
(38:29):
we be heading as far as forest management. Well, we
only have so much time. I got to get it
all out here, Terry.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh Man. See I just mentioned cal and I don't
know what I've done to you. No, No, again, a
really thoughtful and insightful question. I think so. So back
when the opportunity or the idea and the really the
way that that I've looked at it and throughout my
career is the ask that was of public plans, Like
you said, it's a bunch of people who believe in
(39:01):
doing this for other folks, this this service mindset, and
so when the ask of the public was we need
wood for homes here in the US, then that's what
the Forest Service did. And the way to most efficiently
harvest wood and a way that that meets that meat
as quickly as possible is the way that it's done
(39:22):
on industrial lands. So in many cases those were clear
cut harvests where you take pretty much everything or the
vast majority of what's commercially viable, and you you put
it on a rotation and that's how you go through
the forest and manage it is, you know, growing to maturity,
some some thinning in between, and you're resetting the whole
(39:45):
thing every so many years to be able to produce
the wood that was needed for homes and for other resources.
So once you hit the sixties and seventies with a
lot of those my and the laws came into place,
there were still there was still quite a bit of that.
There was some some other methodologies used. Probably you know,
(40:09):
one of the more significant pieces was the cuts were
limited and how big they could be, so that you
weren't having massive swaths or what what appeared to be
scars on the landscape. And that was from a visual perspective,
but it's also from a managing water runoff and all
those types of things and creating some other challenges on
the landscape to be mindful of. So you had that
(40:31):
piece that was still a little bit there, but then
you also got into this this idea of commercial harvest
and a variety of what we call thinnings to meet
you know, not only national targets, but targets I were
associated with providing material to to the American people. And
(40:53):
so so you would go out there and you would
you would reduce the density of a forest. You would
cut some tree, but you would leave quite a few. Now,
the reason that I mentioned, you know, the somewhat the
industrial model, is that you have to realize it's also
like if you're taken basically everything, you're not going to
beat up your equipment. It's pretty straightforward. There's no guessing game.
(41:16):
Some of these other models. Obviously you got into what
was you know, these thinnings. You're marking a lot of trees.
So now you're adding a lot of resources to to
go out and mark the trees that would be harvested
versus like a market a boundary and you go take
everything out in the boundary type of thing. And so
that that dynamic, you know, definitely persistent for a while
(41:36):
because it was it was about yes, this is designated
for commercial harvest, but it was also it's commercial harvest
within the context of endangered species, water quality, and a
variety of other regulations that exist, and so as that
continued to evolve, you start to look at different opportunities
for efficiencies. Not all forests use this methodology, but I
(42:03):
know a few that I've worked on using methodology that
it's either designation by description or designation by prescription, which
is this dynamic of saying, Okay, this is the biggest tree,
and we're going to thin out everything from around the
biggest tree to continue to support and release it so
it has more resources to grow in between this biggest tree.
And then you set a distance and it's you know,
(42:26):
twenty thirty feet to the next biggest tree, so everything
between that thirty foot swath gets cut. That's a commercial
value you but instead of marking that, you make that
designation to a purchaser. So there's there's been evolutions and
trying to find efficiency with fewer employees on how do
you manage these large chunks of land given some of
(42:46):
the dynamics that are put in front of you on
the amount of ground you're trying to cover. So that
continues to I think, continues to evolve as we look
at what's going on within the country and trying to
account for, you know, all the aspects of what it
means to serve the public. You know that that multiple
use mission of the Forest Service. You're trying to account
(43:08):
for everything recreation interests, and recreation includes a lot of
things people think, oh well, trails and hunting or whatever
it might be. But it's also there are visual requirements
in quite a few places if you have scenic trails
or scenic highways or scenic rivers. So so it's really
being thoughtful about all those different components and factors. So
(43:31):
what does that look like going into the future. I
think that's really fascinating because I think even in the
space of executive orders and various policies, a lot of
what's going to continue to drive force management is, you know,
the changing climate that we see. It will be the
(43:51):
the stresses that are put on species that have been
in place for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and
the environmental factors may not necessarily sustain them. So, so
are we going to see you know, migration. There's there's
folks in forestry and civil culture who talk about as
system migration. Do we start planting trees from you know, hotter,
(44:14):
drier places in places that are more moderate temperatures, because
those temperatures are getting hotter and drier. What species that
are that are you know, from relatively moist climates. Do
we have to put up higher in elevation because that's
where they're going to have the moisture that they need
to grow. So so I think those are going to
be a lot of the major factors that that will
definitely impact how we manage. But but I think, you know,
(44:37):
in addition to that, this whole question and concept of
wildland fire and all the factors that that that put
force in a in a place that they are more
susceptible to catching on fire and sustaining large fires and
impactful fires are are going to be really really significant.
They already are. I think they're going to continue to
(44:58):
be more significant. I think we potentially could see places
being dry that they're rarely dry and what that means.
I've worked in those places. Working in western Oregon. They're like, oh,
it never burns. And I started there and there was
a ten thousand acre fire. So I'm like, well, it
looks like we're in the cycle. You know, that five
hundred year cycle apparently is coming around pretty soon. So
(45:19):
I think we could just be seeing, you know, the
front end what I would I would love to say
it's the middle or the end, but I don't know.
From the way things look. We are at the front
end as a country of looking at what is susceptible
to fire, the insect and disease, you know, the pathogens,
the insects that come in and kill you know, large
(45:40):
scales of trees simply because they are stressed because they're
growing and very very densely growing forests, or it's just
hotter for longer, insects that aren't dying in the winter
because it's not getting cold enough. We have to continue
to contest with these things as we strategize how to
manage our force. What's going to produce a healthy force?
(46:02):
What is the composition of species in that healthy forest?
Are those species going to be ones that we can
actually have some opportunity to make U some commercial revenue
for to do that service work that there's currently not
a market for developing those new markets. Like so there's
there's so many facets of being really mindful of what
the future holds, and it's going to take some really
(46:24):
big and thoughtful conversations and some likely some insignificant investment.
But what that means on the federal side of things
is also being mindful of what does it take businesses
to invest. You know, that's been a big question as
you've seen mill closures all over the country. It's because
they can't really feel like they have a solid source
(46:49):
of wood to keep the doors open. So if that's
the case, then we're we're again we're losing a key
resource in that whole dynamic of treating national force because
we just don't even have the infrastructure to do it
and close enough proximity to make it viable. So we
just have a lot of things to really step back,
look at and and be really thoughtful about our approach
(47:12):
going forward, because we we have we've we've had plenty
of growing issues over the past several years. And and
while it's great that we have an executive order that
says we're going to move forward and try to be
more of an accelerated pace of engaging these these lands
and how much you know, we harvest off of them,
(47:34):
we still have to have somewhere forward to go. So
so there's there's a lot to be really really taughtful
of right now to to try to move forward and
move us to a place of having for us that
can not necessarily remove the chance of a wildfire, but
give give professionals the opportunity to get to that wildfire
as quick as possible so it doesn't turn into something
(47:55):
significantly impactful to communities and to other resources.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
And the other thing that's coming through here too is
in order to have something to cut for tomorrow, you
got to save it today also. So yeah, we have
a lot of timber out there. There's just not ready
to be cut.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
In some places. Some places I would say, I know
there's a lot of data in the southeast that they
are actively lowering. I think it's almost two to three times,
if not more volume in trees every year than it's
being cut. So so areas with long growing seasons, you
know Montana probably like a lot of the rocky mountain
(48:37):
part of the country. Maybe not those those those trees
don't grow quite as fast, but definitely I would say
along the coast of the country you have you have
situations where there there very well could be opportunity for
a variety of benefits to go out and be more
active in your management.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
And is the spot at owl Host.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Well I'm not by no means a wild life biologists.
I will I will leave that too to the professionals
to speak on that. But uh, you know, we we
will do the best that we can. I think that
we've done that with every species on the endiged species list,
and some have been downgraded and some have been taken
(49:23):
off the list. So I know we'll we'll continue to
try as a as a country of professionals too, you know,
provide for that the unique roles that spoted I was
playing the ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
I'm gonna make statement here, and you tell me if
if if I'm way off topic, if folks in my
neck of the woods in Montana want to see more
proactive forest management, one of the suggestions I would make
is to go back to the mindset of if you
want a cabin in the woods, just make it a
(49:58):
simple cabin that you not too worried about it getting
burned down, instead of making it a little mansion in
the woods. But that even you get in a real
uproar about any plume of smoke that you see. What
do you think about Terry Well?
Speaker 2 (50:16):
I think I have both some personal and professional thoughts
on that one. But but I would I would counter
your your your statement with the fact that I think
there's a lot of folks that get pretty worked up
even about their little simple cabin in the woods, wood
cabin in the woods. So so yeah, I think it's
uh what I would why I would suggest when it
comes to that for anybody, no matter what level of
(50:39):
investment they have in their their woodland dwelling, people will
go that route that they do their best to stay informed.
That like, if you're going to be out there, be educated,
understand what you have, Understand what's around you, let that
inform your decisions. Be engaged with the local officials who
are responsible for you know, especially in firefighting, and and
(51:02):
learn what you can do to help take care of
your space, and and also put you in a place
to be successful is there if there is a wildfire,
and more importantly, put put yourself in a place where
those professionals can can be as safe as they can
for themselves and their families if there's a wildfire. So
I've been in those situations. Triage is real. And if
(51:23):
there's a home out in the woods that has, you know,
an overgrown driveway and it's a one way in one
way out a lot of times, depending on the scenario
and the situation and the available resources, folks aren't going
to go in and try to save it because it
could very well cost them their lives. So there's there's
a lot to think about this. There's there's that level
(51:44):
of your own responsibility and personal accountability that comes with
being out in the woods, and sometimes people lose track
of that.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Jordan, you were thinking on a couple of things. Do
you want to jump in here with anything?
Speaker 3 (52:01):
No, I just I hear a lot this statement made
by people who would like to see federal federal lands
transferred to state management, that the federal government is doing
a terrible job and the states would do a much
better job. Is there is there any truth to that?
(52:23):
Is it partly true? What's your what's your reaction when
when you hear people make that claim.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
I have heard that claim before, And what I would
say to to claims like that is different missions, different mandates.
So so I not only say that to state lands,
I also say that to private lands lands that are
better under land trusts. It's it's understanding the mission of
(52:53):
of those in the mandates associated with those land bases.
What you will do on private industrial land is definitely
what you're doing on a prime private land for a
small landowner. You know, if Jordan, you have ten twenty
fifty acres to yourself, you're going to approach that differently
than someone who's actively managing something just for commercial benefit.
(53:16):
So that's the core of my response to the idea
of transferring federal lands to state lands. I think the
other piece of it with that different mission and mandate,
you know, the big question with that would be are
you going to remove all of the all the regulations
(53:37):
associated with federal land, And I seriously doubt that would
be the case. What people may be associating with that
that transition of federal lands to state lands is, you know,
the assumption that state lands do not have to go
through the level of NEPA analysis that federal lands too.
(53:57):
But they still have to go through an analysis, they
still have to write management and still have public comment,
they still have public pushback, they still have lawsuits. So
it's the thought can often be when it comes to
our natural resources that there is some quick fix. But
(54:18):
if there were much smarter people than me would have
figured it out many many years ago. The founder of
the Force Service the founder of Society of American Foresters
and the founder of one of the first forestry schools
in the nation at Yale University. If for Pincho, if
you read some of his early writings, the issues are
the same, the conversations in many cases are the same.
(54:43):
And although he spoke to a much more eloquent than
I can, this type of discussion is very similar. And
so the understanding of what it means to hold something
in the public trust that everyone has a right to
is in and of its helf a daunting task, because
I like to say, every time someone is born, every
(55:04):
time someone passes away, the equation changes. Now are there
are there some policy efficiencies out there? Absolutely? Are there
some ways or approach to work a little bit differently. Absolutely,
And those things should be always considered and thought through
and implemented in hopes of moving things forward. But moving
(55:28):
broad scale, you know, the East coast be different from
the West coast, but you're still talking about hundreds of
thousands again, just the for service ALON one hundred and
ninety four million acres across the country. Moving that into
state land ownership and management would overwhelm a lot of states,
And so not saying that they could not saying that
(55:50):
they may not want to. I can't speaking to have
any any state in that sense. But if it comes
with all the regulations that federal lands currently have, and
I feel like if that were to happen, there will
be a lot of pushes for those regulations to stay
in place. Then it will be just as challenging on
state lands as it is as federal lands. There'll be
(56:10):
just as many expectations. We have enough people who don't
even know where a national forest stops and a National
park starts and which is which. So you just have
a lot to really be considerate of and understanding of.
And like I said, it really gets down to the mission.
I would say, more so than about changing ownership. If
you want to change how the for service manages in
(56:31):
many cases, then you need to change the mission.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
Inconvenient, is it not? When we're looking for our quick fixes,
like nature doesn't really fit with quick fixes. Do trees
take time to grow?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Well? You know, in forestry, you you end up finding
yourselves an interesting company. And I've had my fair share
of hanging out with geologists. And when you think that
forests operate on you know, a timescale beyond the average
human life. You don't even want to go down that
path with those folks, so because they're just talking about
(57:13):
you know, thousands of years at a time, if not more.
But that's the thing, you know, nature, there aren't any
quick fixes it. Nature operates on its timescale.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
And oftentimes it's just incompatible with what we want or
think should be. Right, Like I've been on this lesser
prairie chicken kick because buddy of mine, Ted Cook is
oh proselytizing on the lesser prairie chicken and doing a
really good job. But that bird that was once in
America and the millions will not nest within six acres
(57:49):
of any vertical structure. Wow, it just did not grow
up with trees. Yeah, right, and that is just too
inconvenient for us. You know, barren ground caribou, like giant
(58:11):
herds of caribou that have been sensationalized in media forever. Yes,
they just cannot figure out a road where a road
did not exist before. Like you know, it's just inconvenient
and incompatible with the way we think. And so yeah,
(58:32):
you gotta got a tree that needs optimal conditions, and
under optimal conditions, it's gonna go grow really fast for
a tree, Yeah, which is just not fast.
Speaker 2 (58:43):
It's going to grow really slow. It's going to grow
the right way for a tree, exactly the right way
for where it is and what it has to grow with.
That is what a true will always do.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
That's awesome, well, Terry. If folks want to learn more
about the Society of American Foresters or maybe follow up
with you, what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 2 (59:07):
Sure thing? You can head over to Eforester dot org.
So pretty straightforward to eat in front of Forrester dot
org and come visit our website. You can learn about
all of our great programs, our scholarships and fellowships and
internship opportunities, as well as our grants that we do
with our local chapters. Like I mentioned, we're national association professionals.
(59:29):
We have members all over the country who are working
in these fields and coming together to do things for
their community and for the forestry and natural resources profession
and so they're always happy to engage and support this
important work. So head over there. There's also a staff page,
and so folks can reach out to me through that
staff page. But we're here and we're here to support folks.
(59:50):
Like I mentioned, we've been around one hundred and twenty
five years and we look forward to being around a
lot longer so we can continue to help finding solutions
to these challenges.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
Awesome, Well, thank you so much. Oh that was great.
Uh that's all we got for you today. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write in to A
s K C.
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
A L.
Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
That's Ascal at the meeteater dot com, the fantastic Jordan
Sillers and I will will round up any questions that
you have for Terry Baker, and the Society of American
Foresters will either get him back on to address those
or we can have him answer and then we'll we'll
recite those answers back to you. So thank you so
(01:00:34):
much for listening, and we'll talk to you again next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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