<< Back 5/15/02 Finding truth among the trees By John Beckman Logging the mountain forests has long been an integral part of our region’s economy and, in many cases, the lifeblood of its communities. Indeed, it was the forests that first brought settlers and entrepreneurs to these rugged, inaccessible mountains in search of the vast resources growing on every hillside. Demand for lumber and forest products around the turn of the century brought trains, lumber camps and hearty men to the area seeking jobs and the profits to be garnered from clearing the woodlands. In many cases these camps grew into the towns that still dot the maps of Western North Carolina. They came at first to harvest the huge trees of virgin forests, followed by escalated demand for timbers during World War I. Then came consumers tastes for wormy chestnut in the 20’s and 30’s, another war effort during the early 40’s, and the rising need for construction, wood and paper products which continues today. Recent advances in technology, chemistry and manufacturing, and export markets have brought increasing demand for lumber products from our region. Add to that the growth and development we are experiencing in the construction of vacation homes and permanent housing for an increasing regional population, and the forests are being cleared at an ever quickening pace. One has to ask the question “How long can we continue to cut down the trees?” Nature, in all of her wisdom, has designed trees to regenerate themselves through a variety of seed dispersal and reproduction mechanisms. Businesses selling forest products have caught on to this concept by declaring trees America’s “renewable” resource. They are correct that in many cases forests will replenish themselves with trees after being cut, eventually. The key appears to be in finding the balance between extraction and regrowth, and leaving enough intact during a cut to allow for soils and seed producers to work their magic. A couple of factors seem to be tipping the scales away from this delicate balance, allowing extraction to exceed regrowth, which logic will tell you spells eventual doom for the regions forests. Both the N.C. Forest Service and the U.S. Forest Service, along with other private and governmental agencies, have looked at ways to increase forest productivity and the associated employment and timber sales figures. Chip mills were designed to make use of logging scrap and the “waste trees,” — those too small to be sawn — by turning them into an export commodity for the paper and fibers industries. The result in some cases has been the wholesale stripping of large tracts leaving nothing on the site to regenerate another forest from. All the small trees, organic matter and ground cover has been transported off the site, leaving a denuded and nutrient poor condition. Another one of the programs was to promote the planting of white pine (pinus strobus ) in clear-cut or open mountain areas as a faster growing, more profitable species than the native hardwoods such as oaks, hickory, cherry, maple, poplar and birch. These programs gave away, or sold at little cost, thousands of seedlings to farmers and landowners which they recommended be planted closely, and thinned a few years later in an effort to control competing native species in a “pine plantation” type arrangement. Stands from smaller than a single acre to dozens of acres were planted across the region, many still seen from the roads and overlooks, standing in varying condition of life and death. Over time, some of these projects have worked to some degree, depending on how you measure the success/failure of the effort. Other white pine planting projects which were neglected, poorly planned or never thinned afterwards, suffered from little per acre productivity and small sales totals. Add to this a fall in the market demand and price for pine, just as many of these plantings were becoming mature and ready to cut. It seemed the picture for pine couldn’t get worse. Enter the beetle. The Southern pine beetle ( Dendroctonus frontalis ) is an exotic insect pest accidentally introduced to this country from across the Pacific that bores winding tunnels through the inner bark of pine trees where they then lay their eggs. The young emerge and eat this inner bark, effectively girdling and killing the tree. Their infestations may cover several acres and they fluctuate in intensity each year, but they continue to be “the most serious insect pest in the South,” according to N.C. Forest Service guides. The best way to combat the pest is to cut down all the affected and surrounding trees, essentially clear-cutting those infested “pine plantation” stands under which little else grew beneath their dense canopies. This exposes cleared open ground to erosion while flooding the pine market with timber as people scramble to stay ahead of the beetle. So it is the case on our farm. We have a 4-acre tract of pines which was never thinned after being planted around 1960. It was hit by wind in ‘99 and beetles in 2000 and 2001. We took up the task this year of starting on the logging and clean-up of the dying pine forest, the sawing of the useful logs and the recycling of the rest. We plan to convert a portion of the land to orchard and fruit production areas once we get the mess cleaned up, rather than plant it into another monoculture tree farm, lacking the diversity and stability of the native forests. A lot of thoughts cross your mind when you’re cutting 80-foot tall trees in a beetle-hit pine patch. Logging a forest is a messy job even on a good day. All those limbs and tops have to go somewhere, and darn few of them jump into their appropriate place. We don’t burn all this brush like most, but instead choose to cut it and let it breakdown naturally, returning its carbon to the soil rather than the air and providing soil protection from exposure to wind and rain until the forest floor has a new green cover. As I watched a 50-footer fall 180 degrees from where I had hoped to land it, it occurred to me that it doesn’t matter whether you’re planting pine forests or cutting them down, a plan’s pieces don’t always fall where you think they will, no matter how much hope you put in it. Nature and gravity will always have their way in these mountains, despite our manipulations or our best intentions. John Beckman is a building contractor, organic farmer and operations manager at Unahwi Ridge Community in Jackson County. He can be reached at www.unahwiridge.com.