Broken Promises: NW Forest Plan
by Doug Heiken

Remember the Northwest Forest Plan that was supposed to save the spotted owl, the salmon, and the ancient forests of the Pacific northwest? It started out five years ago as a terrible compromise that left too much of the ancient forests unprotected. Now agencies are working hard to "get the cut out," but not doing what the plan requires to protect forests, species, and water quality.

The White House homepage proclaims that the President's Forest Plan is about "Breaking Gridlock and Moving Forward... [F]rustrating legal logjams are coming to an end... The timber supply pipeline is flowing again... Timber sales and harvests are back on track, with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management working hard to move timber." It should come as no surprise that the Northwest Forest Plan isn't protecting species.

History of the Plan
Over a decade ago, conservationists initiated a series of legal actions that proved our federal forests were being managed unsustainably and illegally. The Reagan and Bush administrations had orchestrated a trainwreck of illegal forest management, hoping that Congress would step in and legitimize the destruction. Congress responded several times with "riders" that locked citizens out of the courthouse while mandating high levels of logging.

Finally the riders expired and conservationists' lawsuits prevailed. Bill Clinton was elected with a promise to end the illegal and unsustainable management of our National Forests. The resulting Northwest Forest Plan was still ecologically risky, protecting only a small fraction of the old-growth that once covered the region. Too much of the original forest has already been cut and the plan leaves much of the remaining old-growth open for clearcutting. The plan established old-growth "reserves" but these are full of clearcuts and won't recover for hundreds of years.

It's been almost five years since the Northwest Forest Plan went into effect. Investigations by the Oregon Natural Resources Council and the ForestWater Alliance reveal serious failures. Last July, the Western Environmental Law Center, representing ONRC and 12 other conservation groups, filed a lawsuit intended to end abuses and strengthen protection under the plan.

How the Plan protects biodiversity
The Pacific northwest's old-growth forests not only harbor globally significant biodiversity, but remain some of the most commercially exploited forests in the world. This leads to conflict that has yet to be resolved. The experts who put the Northwest Forest Plan together identified over 1,000 species associated with old-growth forests west of the Cascade Range in Washington, Oregon and northern California. Scientists remain concerned that the plan may not adequately protect more than half of these species. Every species plays a role in making forests beautiful and biologically productive. None is expendable.

The forest plan includes two main strategies for maintaining species diversity: the "reserve/matrix" system and the "survey and manage" strategy.

Reserve/Matrix
The basic design of the Northwest Forest Plan is a system of "reserves" and "matrix" areas. The forest reserves are large areas made up of a mixture of old-growth (which will be mostly protected from harvest) interspersed with extensive clearcuts (which will be managed in an attempt to create old-growth). In the "matrix" forests between the reserves, old-growth logging will be allowed to continue until virtually all unprotected old-growth is gone. An Aquatic Conservation Strategy included in the plan establishes stream-side reserves to protect salmon and water quality.

The system of forest reserves is intended to provide adequate habitat for species whose members have the capacity to disperse from the area where they were born and successfully breed at another locale. But experts predicted that fewer than half the species they analyzed would flourish under this plan. The fortunate species are expected to survive mostly because they are either very abundant, thrive in clearcuts, or are very mobile.

The meta-population theory behind this reserve/matrix strategy may be sound, but there are problems in its practical application. Populations of species such as the spotted owl and American marten are expected to thrive in the reserves and occasionally move between them to maintain long-term genetic links between populations. But many of these species remain at great risk because the old-growth habitat in the matrix - habitat which currently supports about half of all the spotted owl pairs, for example - will be liquidated within a few decades, yet the clearcuts in the reserves will not be restored for 100-500 years. The spotted owl and many other species dependent upon old-growth clearly face a very long and uncertain period of vulnerability.

Another big problem is that the federal rules that are supposed to protect the reserves have loopholes big enough to drive log trucks through. For instance, Oregon's Deschutes National Forest is moving forward with a proposal to remove 2,000 truckloads of timber from a spotted owl "reserve." Only true Wilderness areas established by Congress are permanently protected from destruction.

Survey and Manage
To ensure that species don't fall through the cracks, the Northwest Forest Plan requires the agencies to conduct species surveys and protect species' habitat, even in the matrix. The species analyzed as likely to not do well under the reserve/matrix design - over half - remain at risk because they are either very dependent upon old-growth (i.e., sensitive to clearcutting), not very mobile, or very rare. This includes the arboreal red tree vole, various salamanders, and hundreds of plants, mollusks, insects, fungi, and lichens.

Even populations that persist in the reserves may become isolated from other populations, and vulnerable to extinction from forest fires, global climate change, edge effects, altered microclimate, competition from invasive species, inbreeding, and genetic drift. Population isolation is dangerous. In order to protect some of the species that remain at risk, the plan includes several complementary survey strategies (site protection; surveys before logging; regional surveys for high-priority sites; general surveys for more information; buffers for rare species) intended to protect sites in the matrix and build genetic links among the reserves.

Delay and avoidance kills species
Of all the survey strategies, the agencies are most frustrated by the requirement to conduct species surveys as a precondition to timber sales. ONRC's lawsuit addresses several illegal memos that purport to amend the survey requirements, including a November 1, 1996 memo that redefined one word in the Northwest Forest Plan, allowing over 30,000 acres of forest to be cut without completing the required surveys; a November 4, 1996 memo that excluded over 5 million acres (89 percent) of the range of the red tree vole from surveys that were explicitly required under the forest plan; and a June 11, 1996 memo that deleted the requirement to survey for Canada lynx prior to logging.

These past transgressions are compounded by three new efforts to weaken protection for biodiversity. On October 7, 1998 the government released an Environmental Assessment that proposed to allow thousands of acres more to be cut without surveys. On November 25, 1998 the government published notice in the Federal Register that it wants to permanently avoid surveys for certain species and set up procedures to make it easier to weaken the Northwest Forest Plan. On October 28, 1998 the government issued an interpretation of the Northwest Forest Plan which purports to allow new developments such as ski areas within protected areas such as old-growth reserves.

The Northwest Forest Plan is a promise based upon Ecosystem Management and the recognition that all creatures great and small are essential to maintaining the health of the forest ecosystem. By failing to follow the rules that require protection of all the species dependent upon old-growth forests, the agencies are turning their backs on Ecosystem Management. The survey and manage program is falling short of its objective of protecting habitat for hundreds of species that are expected to suffer under the reserve/matrix system established by the Northwest Forest Plan. In 1994, when Judge William Dwyer declared the Northwest Forest Plan to be lawful, he said that, to remain lawful, it must be implemented in its entirety. Hopefully the courts will provide new protection for northwest ancient forests that harbor diverse species, provide clean water, and offer solace to the soul.

---

The Oregon Lynx
Until recently lynx were thought to be extinct in Oregon, or merely occasional visitors. The last confirmed lynx in Oregon was taken 25 years ago. It was recently learned that lynx are still in the Oregon Cascades in the Mt. Hood, Willamette, and Deschutes National Forests.

"Lynx are highly sensitive to disturbance. Their rediscovery is highly significant and requires that we do everything we can to protect our last remaining wild forests," said Ken Rait of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, "The Forest Service must stop all cutting in wild areas now." After years of delay, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in June 1998 to list the lynx under the Endangered Species Act and a final ruling is expected within a year of that date.

The lynx is a medium-sized cat that has impressive adaptations for maneuvering through deep snow, with long legs and big feet. The lynx is rare, especially in the southern part of its range in Oregon, and is threatened by human disturbance and competition from bobcats and coyotes in its high elevation habitat. Lynx are harmed by timber harvest that eliminates old-growth denning habitat, reduces tree density in cover areas and dispersal corridors, or degrades habitat for snowshoe hares, the lynx's primary prey species. Roads and snowmobiles are also a problem for lynx because they compact the snow, allowing competitors into lynx's snowy domain. Loss of suitable habitat reduces the potential for population growth or recolonization of the lynx and further confines lynx to smaller, more isolated habitat units.

The increased fragmentation of forest lands and loss of connectivity within and among blocks of habitat have reduced the ability of lynx populations to move across the landscape, resulting in long-term loss of genetic interchange.

The Regional Ecosystem Office (REO) issued a memo June 11, 1996 which purported to move the lynx survey schedule from strategy 2 (Surveys Prior To Destructive Activities) to strategy 3 (Extensive Regional Surveys to Find High Priority Sites) based on the following assumptions: (1) that there was very little overlap between the range of the spotted owl and the lynx, and (2) that expensive snow tracking and remote cameras are required to survey for lynx. These assumptions have now been proven false.

---

Featured species: red tree vole
The Oregon red tree vole is one of the species that was predicted to fare poorly under the Northwest Forest Plan, so the plan promised that the vole would be protected. Nonetheless, the agencies involved have yet to do the required surveys.

The red tree vole lives virtually its entire life in the forest canopy and eats almost exclusively the needles of old-growth Douglas fir trees. This unique forest species is found only west of the Cascades between the Columbia and Klamath Rivers. The vole is very vulnerable to clearcutting because it has such a strong affinity for the treetops. It can not travel between stands of trees isolated by clearcuts, so populations are prone to genetic isolation.

The Northwest Forest Plan requires that red tree voles be surveyed and protected prior to timber sales. Among the reasons for giving this species special protection: the red tree vole is an important food for the northern spotted owl; the species has a strong association with old-growth; and it has very limited ability to move across clearcuts. The forest plan requires these surveys prior to all timber sales within the range of the species, but the agencies rewrote the rule without involving the public, and ordered 89 percent of the range of the species excluded from the surveys. If the agencies would find and protect the red tree vole as required, it would help make logging sensitive to the needs of forest inhabitants, and we could gain some valuable information about the complexities of our ancient forests.

What you can do: Write a letter to the editor calling on the Clinton-Gore administration to stop efforts to weaken the Northwest Forest Plan. It must keep its promises to implement Ecosystem Management and ensure that logging is more sensitive to the needs of forest species. Send a copy of your letter to Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck and your representative in Congress. For more info: <www.onrc.org> or <www.or.blm.gov/nwfp.htm>.

Doug Heiken is the Western Oregon Field Representative for the Oregon Natural Resources Council in Eugene. His email is .