New rule will benefit small forest landowners
Source: Capital Press, by Cookson Beecher
September 14, 2007
Coming as good news on the forestry front, the Washington State Forest Practices Board on Sept. 11 voted unanimously to adopt a new rule authorizing the use of long-term management applications by small forest landowners.
The rule gives small forest landowners the ability to craft management plans that extend for 15 years, in contrast to 2-year harvest plans as is currently the case.
The rule, which will go into effect at the end of October, is supported by a broad spectrum of stakeholders including tribes, the environmental community, small forest landowners, and state and federal regulatory agencies.
According to a press release from the Forest Practices Board, the new rule will protect public resources such as salmon, water quality, and wildlife habitat while giving small forest landowners more flexibility in timing timber harvesting, road building and maintenance, and most other forest practices.
As is presently required, these landowners must still file separate applications to aerially spray pesticides.
Forest Practices Board Chairman Doug Sutherland, commissioner of Public Lands, said the long-term application will help encourage small forest landowners to keep their land in forestry instead of selling their lands for development or other uses.
"It's an important tool in maintaining our state's working forest landbase," he said.
Landowners who harvest an average of 2 million board feet of timber per year or less over a 3-year period would be eligible to use the long-term application.
Rick Dunning, a forest landowner in southwest Washington and president of the Washington Farm Forestry Association, said the new rule has the potential to benefit thousands of small forestland owners across the state.
Bottomline, the new rule will be less costly and onerous for small forestland owners than the previous 2-year harvest-plan rule.
In an earlier interview before the new rule was adopted, Dunning described the rule change as "the last hope" for reducing the adverse impact of highly complicated buffer requirements, which were brought on by the 1999 Forest and Fish rules.
Under those rules, forestland owners must abide by a 3-tier buffer system when they harvest their trees. The most stringent harvesting requirements are alongside waterways, with more harvesting allowed as the distance from the waterway increases.
Because most of the land owned by small-scale forest landowners lies in the lower elevations, streams and other waterways often crisscross the land.
Dunning said that 'lay of the land' makes it very onerous - and costly - for small scale forest landowners to draw up short-term plans. As a result, some were calling it quits and selling their land for development.
Despite the board's recent decision on the rule change, challenges lie ahead.
"We'll have to work hard to bring 15-year applications to the table that can be accepted," Dunning said. "It's a process that will involve oversight by everyone."
Forest landowners like Dunning, whose tree farm in Clark County consists of 135 acres, own about one-half of the private forestland in the state - altogether, more than 3.5 million acres.
Dunning said that large sweep of forestland represents great value to the state's residents because it provides the public with important resource values such as clean air, clean water, wildlife and riparian areas.
In a previous interview with Capital Press, Becky Kelley of the Washington Environmental Council said her organizations was in favor of the new rule because it's an important tool to help small forest landowners stay on the land.
Other actions
In other actions today, the Forest Practices Board also voted to move ahead with two proposals for a revised rule about the desired future condition for management of riparian forest zones. The board's action will increase the target used in determining the number of trees to be left on the land near streams to insure that future streamside conditions are similar to those of unmanaged forests.
The board directed the Department of Natural Resources to complete an environmental and economic analysis of both proposals.
Public hearings on the proposals will be conducted after drafts of these analyses are available, likely in the late winter or spring of 2008.
Butterfly
The board also approved the Department of Natural Resources recommendation - supported by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and The Nature Conservancy - to protect the Taylor's checkerspot butterfly with a voluntary, non-regulatory approach.
Listed as endangered in 2006, this butterfly species is found in a small number of isolated sites on prairies, grassy balds on the edges of forested areas, and grasslands adjacent to inland marine waters.
The butterfly lives in three specific locations in Washington state-Fort Lewis, northern Clallam County, and southeast Thurston County.
When these butterfly sites occur on or near state or private forestlands, those landowners will work with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop habitat management plans for those locations.
In addition, the Department of Natural Resources will continue to screen proposed forest practices applications and will notify the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife of those occurring within a one-mile distance of the butterfly sites.
If necessary, when a forest practices application represents a potential impact to the butterfly, the WDFW may request that the DNR implement site-specific recommendations for protection.
WDFW will continue to monitor the butterfly's habitat and population.
Both DNR and WDFW will monitor and report to the Forest Practices Board on implementation of this new voluntary protection approach.
The two agencies may request that regulations be adopted by the board in the future if the voluntary approach proves unsuccessful at protecting this species.
