Demo Applications to Forest
Management
Prepared by: Rick Abbott and Jon Nakae,
DEMO Site Managers
Examples
• Vegetation management/Timber sale design
• NEPA/environmental effects
• Collaboration with the science community
Vegetation Management
Need for action defined by large scale assessments
Forest Plans
Late-Successional
Reserve Assessments
Watershed Analyses
Range of Historical
Conditions
Vegetation Management
Going down in scale, individual stands are assessed relative to
desired future condition. Some of the resulting objectives for
stand level treatments have included:
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Increase forest stand growth
Improve wildlife habitat
Promote huckleberries and other special forest products
Address forest health and fire regimes
Accelerate development of late-successional structures
• Commercial Timber Volume
NW Forest Plan Requirements
Timber Harvest on Matrix Lands (USFS):
Retain at least 15% of the area associated with each cutting
unit.
As a general guide, 70% of the total area to be retained
should be in aggregates of moderate to larger size (0.2 to
1 ha or more) with the remainder as dispersed structures
(individual trees and possibly including smaller clumps
less that 0.2 ha).
NW Forest Plan Requirements
Timber Harvest on Matrix Lands (cont.)
For many species, benefits will be greatest if trees are
retained in patches rather than singly. Because very
small patches do not provide suitable microclimates for
many of these organisms, patches should generally be
larger that 2.5 acres [1 ha].
Although many species would benefit from retention of
patches, others may be favored by retention of single
trees. …the relative proportion of patches vs single trees
retained must reflect local knowledge of individual
species needs.
Example harvest units
1.0+ Ha aggregates
plus 0.1- Ha dispersed
tree clumps
50% dispersed trees plus
0.1- Ha dispersed tree
clumps
Leave Patches
Patch size for Sensitive and Survey and Manage Species
1 Ha patches are sufficiently large to contain areas with
light, temperature, and soil moisture comparable to those
in undisturbed forest, suitable in the short term for
persistence of forest dependent species (Heithecker and
Halpern 2007)
1 Ha patches are sufficient to maintain most common
mosses but are not large enough to prevent declines or
losses of liverworts (Nelson and Halpern 2005)
Leave Patches
Patch size for Sensitive and Survey and Manage Species
Salamanders were
encountered most
frequently when coarse
woody debris volume
and/or herb cover was
high, tree basal areas was
of secondary or limited
importance (Maguire et al
2005)
Other Stand Level Concerns
associated with Green Tree Retention
Scenic Considerations
• Foreground
• Background
Foreground Scenery
Forest Plan
requirements for
Retention Visual
Quality Objectives
along key roads
and trails
Foreground Scenery
While any aggregate
pattern with
clearcut areas in
between was
perceived as ugly,
dispersed tree
patterns greater
than 25%
retention were
social acceptable
(Ribe, 2002, 2006)
Other Stand Level Concerns
associated with Green Tree Retention
Scenic Considerations
Implementation Considerations
• Logging Systems
• Basal Scarring
• Windthrow
Skyline
Tractor
Other Stand Level Concerns
associated with Green Tree Retention
Scenic Considerations
Implementation Considerations
Stand Growth and Diversification
• Insect and disease consideration
• Regeneration
• 40% retention level impacts
Regen – 15% leave
Thinning – 50% leave
Regen – 15% Leave
Regen – 40% Leave
Example harvest units
1.0+ Ha aggregates
plus 0.1- Ha dispersed
tree clumps
50% dispersed trees plus
0.1- Ha dispersed tree
clumps
Rick Abbott
Umpqua National Forest
Case Study – Upper North Umpqua
• Ecosystem management
approach
• Mosaic of vegetative
conditions
• Historical moderateseverity fire regime
• Upper North Umpqua
• Jigsaw Timber Sale
• Warm Springs EA/DN 1998
• Harvest in 2007/2008
NEPA/Specialist Reports
Warm Springs EA: Wildlife Report
• Brett, T.A. 1997. Habitat Associations of Woodpeckers in
Managed Forests of the Southern Oregon Cascades. M.S.
Thesis. Oregon State University, Corvallis. 98 pp.
• A study examining habitat associations of 3 species of
woodpeckers was conducted on the Diamond Lake Ranger
District from 1995-1996. This study, which primarily
investigated habitat associations of red-breasted
sapsuckers, northern flickers, and hairy woodpeckers,
showed that all three species used large diameter trees for
nesting. Both northern flickers and red-breasted sapsuckers
were found to use trees with broken tops more often than
trees with intact tops. Eighty-six percent of all nest trees
and snags had broken tops. Red-breasted sapsuckers used
harder snags in decay classes 1-2 for nesting, hairy
woodpeckers used trees in the intermediate stages of
decay (2-3), and northern flickers used trees that were
well-decayed (3-4). The study of cavity-nesters at Diamond
Lake did however, suggest that characteristics at the
landscape level also influenced nest-site selection. All
three species showed strong affinity for edge habitat,
placing nests in snags located along forest edges more often
than within regenerating forest stands, or interior forest.
Warm Springs EA Recommendations
• Emphasis should be placed on managing forests to provide and
maintain larger diameter snags, not only because they are more
desirable for nesting and foraging, but because they remain standing
longer, and are able to provide habitat over a longer period of time.
Providing large snags will help meet many wildlife objectives, and
will aid in the overall maintenance of healthy forest ecosystems.
• When and where snag densities are inadequate to maintain viable
populations of cavity-nesters, habitat should be supplemented by
recruiting green trees into the snag population through fungus
innoculation, girdling, or topping.
• At the landscape level, results of the Diamond Lake study suggest
that habitat complexity, specifically with regard to patch
heterogeneity within a landscape and the presence of edge habitat,
may be important factors in nest-site selection for woodpeckers.
Management plans should be designed to incorporate the use of
alternative regeneration techniques over a broad landscape, such
as partial cut, thinning, and shelterwood prescriptions.
Warm Springs EA Mitigation Measures
• Where possible, leave groups and dispersed retention should include the
largest, oldest, live trees, decadent, or hard snags on the unit.
• All existing snags greater than 15 inches in diameter will be left in the
harvested area unless identified as a safety hazard during harvest operations.
Because some portions of the Warm Springs Planning Area are deficient in
snag density due to past timber harvest activities, 4-5 green trees per acre,
greater than 15 inches (38 centimeters) will be retained. This will be
done within units 16, 17, 25, 36, 37. Following harvest activities, some of
the snags in units 16, 17, 26, 36, and 37 will be recruited as snags through
either topping or inoculation treatment. In the remaining units, leave
trees will be left for natural recruitment. This will ensure that adequate
densities of snags representing a wide variety of decay classes and
conditions will be present over the decades following harvest as the stands
grow.
• A cluster of large snags located along the southwest edge of proposed unit
24 serves as a high use area for snag-dependent wildlife species. This patch
will be marked for leave during the layout process.
NEPA/Environmental Effects
Lemolo Watershed Projects EIS
• Storck, Pascal, Travis Kern, and Susan Bolton. 1999.
Measurement of Differences in Snow Accumulation, Melt,
and Micrometeorology Due to Forest Harvesting. Northwest
Science, volume 73 (special issue): p87-101.
• The Hydrologic Recovery Procedure (HRP), recent snow
accumulation and melt research on the Diamond Lake
Ranger District and on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest,
and professional judgment were used to evaluate the potential
risk of increased peak flow, which would potentially affect
channel erosional processes that might result in adverse
indirect or cumulative effects on water quality, stream
channel morphology and beneficial uses. The HRP addresses
the rain-on-snow susceptibility for the transient snow zone
(2,000 – 5,000 feet) at the sub-watershed and/or watershed
scale by tracking the loss and recovery of canopy, which
affects soil moisture through reduced evapotranspiration and
snow accumulation and melt. Rain-on-snow runoff events are
generally associated with a 5-year or greater peak flow. A 5year or greater runoff event has a 20% or less chance of being
equaled or exceeded in any one year. Snow accumulation
and melt research indicates that a shelterwood canopy can
allow about 60% greater snowpack runoff than mature
forest (Storck, Kern, and Bolton 1999).
Collaboration with the Science Community
• Resulted in new administrative
studies at Diamond Lake
• Mycorrhizal Douglas-fir seedling innoculation
study, long term site productivity study, and
matsutake mushroom study.
• Increased knowledge of local
botanical and wildlife species
• 5 Master’s theses and 3 PhDs
Thanks for Your
Attention
Questions