Recently the concept of “Natural Forestry” as a management strategy for Jackson State Forest has gained prominence in discussions of the Jackson Advisory Group (JAG), the independent advisory group charged with developing recommendations for long-term management of the forest.
Mike Jani, co-chair of the Landscape Committee of the JAG coined the term and gave a definition for Natural Forestry. “Natural Forestry is managing the forest to emulate natural forest processes.” A key aspect of the natural processes of redwood forests is that the trees grow to 500 years and upwards.
The key elements of Natural Forestry are that harvest operations would be designed to continually grow stands to higher volumes and larger tree diameters, would allow some portion of trees to grow indefinitely larger, and timber harvesting would continue without end. As the stands grew over hundreds of years, they would more and more resemble natural old growth stands.
Natural Forestry, if it could be demonstrated to be economically and practically feasible, would remove the necessity to choose between managing the public forest to maximize its ecological value or managing it to provide revenues and desired timber jobs. Natural Forestry would be the preferred management strategy for multiple objectives, including timber production, habitat, and restoration of redwood forests to the old growth condition that is the natural state of redwood forests.
Ecologically, Natural Forestry management is a strong contender for the best strategy. As Ken Fisher has commented, it “… does maximize cubic volume of wood over time, carbon sequestration, tree size, non-model conforming tree qualities like large irregular upper branching, reiteration, and old bark qualities.” These are powerful pluses.
Major questions need to be answered about the economics and mechanics of harvesting trees in stands that continually grow older. The JAG will be addressing these in the coming months.
There is also a legitimate fear of those interested in timber production that at the point in time where the majority of trees in the stands are hundreds of years old and five and more feet across, the public will cry out against cutting any of the trees and harvesting will come to a halt.
Natural Forestry needs much more thought, discourse, and investigation, but the concept is exciting.
See related posts at Jackson Forum under the heading “Natural Forestry.”
Please comment below on the concept.
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Published as one of a series of columns in the Mendocino Beacon and Fort Bragg Advocate News under the heading “Jackson Forest Wanderings”, February 19, 2009.
