PETERSBURG – The Tongass Advisory Committee (TAC) heard presentations from Forest Service and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials and discussed the challenges and opportunities associated with an impending transition to young-growth forest management at their meeting this month in Juneau.
The presentations given by the Forest Service and DNR officials helped give committee members a better sense of how difficult the transition process can be, Lynn Jungwirth, committee co-chair, said via e-mail.
“You can’t ‘speed up’ young growth sustainable management by asking the trees to grow faster,” Jungwirth said. “We have to develop a strategy to wean ourselves off of old growth as we slowly transition to young growth.”
A slow transition that allows young-growth stands to mature can lead to good results for both communities and the forest, Jungwirth said.
“We can have healthy forests and resilient communities.
The presentations, Jungwirth said, also gave members a better sense of the costs associated with harvesting timber in the Tongass National Forest whose terrain and unroaded character make management and harvesting “a costly proposition.”
Three working groups were established at the meeting, each looking at a key issue for the TAC. The groups are considering, “where the future young-growth land base might be, how it might be harvested, and the overall purpose of a young-growth forest management strategy,” according to a TAC press release.
Though technical aspects of the forest and forest management were discussed at the meeting, Wayne Brenner, committee co-chair, said, “we need to remember the social and economic aspects for the communities.”
While the Forest Service has data and technical analysis capabilities, those cannot speak to the differing values that crop up around forest management, Jungwirth said. And that’s where the TAC comes in.
This month’s meeting brought the group one step closer to devising their initial recommendations by their target date, January 2015.
“They (Forest Service) can make a plan to manage for any value the country asks for. The problem the Tongass faces is lack of social agreement on those values,” she said.
TAC is comprised of individuals whose use of and stake in the Tongass National Forest vary, from tribal leaders to government officials, commercial land users and timber industry representatives to members of environmental organizations.
Jungwirth said these representatives are working not only to help the Forest Service transition to young growth from old growth, but to do so in a way that provides, “for the long-term benefit of all the people, cultures and industries of Southeast.”
The committee was established in February to advise the Secretary of Agriculture on how to develop “an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable forest management strategy” for the Tongass National Forest, according to the group’s charter.
The group first met in August in Ketchikan to discuss their purpose and goals, and their next meeting will be Oct. 8-10 in Klawock.
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