Texas Environmental Almanac, Chapter 3, Public Lands, Page 5

CLEARCUTTING

Some Texas environmental organizations have been concerned with the Forest Service practice of "clearcutting" - the felling of all trees in a group in one operation - national forest lands and converting the native mixed forests to single-species, even-age timber crops.(47) Clearcutting, one form of even-age management, often results in 1) the elimination of the native forest ecosystem, causing a vastly reduced habitat for wildlife; 2) increased erosion, with attendant stream siltation and nutrient loss from the soil; 3) impairment of recreational values; and 4) increased susceptibility of the forest to insect damage, diseases, acid rain and blowdown of trees.(48)

An alternative to clearcutting is a process called selection management. Under selection management, individual trees are marked and cut, creating small clearings for regeneration--with natural reseeding from remaining trees. Authorities believe that the benefits to wildlife, soils and recreation of shifting from even-age management to selection management would be enormous. The shift would also be economically beneficial. A Forest Service study in Arkansas concluded that selection management is more cost-effective and has a higher benefit-to-cost ratio than even-age management.(49)

In 1985, the Texas Committee on Natural Resources, a statewide not-for-profit environmental organization, joined by the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society, brought suit against the Forest Service regarding the effects of even-age management on the endangered Red-Cockaded Woodpecker. The Court ruled in 1988 that the Forest Service could conduct no even-age timber sales within 1,200 meters of Red-Cockaded Woodpecker colonies on national forests in Texas. In continuing litigation, the Court is considering the on-the-ground impacts of even-age management on forest ecosystems in general.

The U.S. Forest Service draft revised Forest Plan calls for an overall reduction of clearcutting and site specific clearcutting.(50)

TIMBER PRODUCTION AND TEXAS FORESTS

Timber ranks among Texas' top four agricultural crops in terms of value, and the $6 billion wood-based industry is one of the top ten manufacturing sectors in the state.(51)

In recent years there has been an increase in timber harvesting, sales and the costs of lumber. Since 1991, harvesting in Texas has increased on private lands by 6 percent. The price of timber has doubled in the last ten years. Eighty-one million board feet of timber from the National Forests in Texas was produced in fiscal year 1993.(52) Eighty-five percent of the timber harvested in Texas is pine; from 1986-1992 more softwood was harvested than was being planted. According to the Texas Forest Service, in addition to increased demand, industries that have formerly relied on timber logging in the Northwest have moved to the South, leading to the expansion of the Texas timber industry.(53)

The Texas Forest Service and the timber industry are concerned that, over the long term, if demand continues, the timber inventory will decline faster than it can be replaced.(54) According to the Texas Forest Service, if timber removals exceed growth at a high rate over the long run, "either growth must be increased, or removals decreased, in order to maintain a sustainable supply of softwood timber [pine] to support the region's largest industry."(55)

According to the Texas Forest Service, for the timber industry to keep up with demand, reforestation on nonindustrial private lands offers the greatest opportunity to enhance timber growth in Texas. On the other hand, forest experts and biologists are concerned that increased demands for wood products will turn natural forests of East and East-Central Texas into rows of man-made pine plantation monocultures, altering the ecosystem of the entire region. (A discussion of bottomland hardwood loss is found in the section on wildlife habitat.)

In 1993,Texas ranked fifth in the nation with 3,726 private tree farms.

EPA estimates that between 5,000 and 34,000 acres per year of wetlands in the United States are lost by conversion to pine plantations. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that a million acres were lost this way in the Southeast between 1975 and 1985, or about 100,000 acres per year, and those same losses continue today. On February 7, 1994, as a result of a suit brought by the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Protection Agency banned the clearing and draining of wetlands to make pine plantations for timber companies.

Source: Environmental Defense Fund, EDF Newsletter Vol.XXV, No 4, July, 1994

The chemical dioxin - a by-product of chlorine chemistry - is a waste product of many industrial operations, including the manufacture of bleached pulp and paper. Recent studies by EPA indicate human and animal exposure to dioxin (and dioxin-like chemicals) have more powerful adverse health effects than once thought. Humans are exposed to dioxin from food that has been contaminated with dioxin entering the food chain, particularly meat and dairy products. Animals acquire it from the water and air. Some companies in the paper industry have been implementing alternatives to the chlorine bleaching process. (Copies of EPA's Dioxin reports are available from the CERI/ORD Publications Center. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 26 W. Martin Luther King Drive. Cincinnati, OH 45268. 513/569-7562.)

The Texas Forest Service Provides These Facts of Interest:(56)

• Texas has 22,032,000 acres of forests.

• East Texas has an estimated 2.4 million acres of artificially regenerated forest. Nearly three-quarters is land owned by the timber industry. Nonindustrial private landowners have established an additional half million acres of artificially regenerated forests.

• Of the 500,000 acres a year harvested, 200,000 acres are harvested on land not owned by the timber industry.

• Private non-industry landowners are replanting only one acre to every nine acres harvested.

• The Forest Service reforests about 37,000 acres/year on private lands and believes the amount that should be reforested is 70,000 acres/year.

• In 1992, non-industrial landowners received a total of $1 million to assist in reforestation.

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FOREST LAND ACQUISITION

There are no immediate plans for acquiring more national forest land in Texas nor are there plans by the state to acquire additional forest.

According to the Texas Forest Service, timber rustlers are hauling off thousands of dollars worth of trees from private property in East Texas. In 1994 the Texas Forest Service received 60 complaints of thefts. The Service does not know the extent of the losses but points out that in Louisiana thieves haul off $12 million to $15 million in wood each year.

Source: Austin American-Statesman, "Timber Thieves Cutting into Profits in Texas and Louisiana," 13 June 1994, Section B 3.

Texas Environmental Almanac, Chapter 3, Public Lands, Page 5

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