High Sierra Topix

Duane --

Similar near me.

Forest encroachment was causing the loss of a montane meadow and a small fen. So the FS wanted to remove some of the encroaching trees and help preserve the wetlands. Most of the removed trees were 20"+, and had commercial value. Now, it would seem to most people that selling the removed trees would be a good return to the taxpayers. Unfortunately, the area is in a QLG Off-Base and any commercial forest activity is prohibited by law. So the trees could not be sold. Because it was a meadow, piling and burning is not allowed. So crews came in, bucked the trees into manageable pieces, and hand loaded them into a dumptruck to be hauled to the landfill. The law would not allow anything else.

Too bad. If sold to the mill, the revenue would have not only paid for the project, but also fund additional watershed projects up and down stream. The additional work is still awaiting funding to get accomplished.

I will try not to get into a lengthy dissertation of forest ecology and silviculture. There are enough reference sources on the internet. This is a (over)simplified explanation of why clearcutting should remain an option in forest management.

If you do any gardening in your yard you know what happens when you plant a shade loving plant in a sunny location, and a full-sunlight plant in a shady location. Even if you can keep them alive they will not thrive. Forest trees are the same. Different species of trees have different amounts of sunlight or shade needed. This is called shade tolerance. Any reference on silvics will state the shade tolerance of a given species. In general, pines are more shade intolerant (need sun) than true firs (do best in a shady location). This is why when you hike through the forest and look at the species mix with a critical eye you often see the overstory is different from the understory trees. In much of the Sierra forests the overstory is dominated by pines, primarily ponderosa and jeffrey, with a smattering of sugar pine, yet the understory is dominated by white fir, or red fir at the higher elevations. You also see incense cedar in the understory. These are shade tolerant species and the seeds dropped by the overstory pines do not regenerate in the shade. Nearly all of the understory trees are the offspring of the few firs and cedars in the overstory. When you see the occasional cluster of pine seedlings in the forest, look up. Chances are an opening in the forest canopy created a small sunny patch of forest floor and the pines could get a foothold in that small sunny spot. The same factors influence species mix on the south and north slopes of the same canyon. This is also why you seldom see white or red fir planted in clearcuts -- they like shade, not sun.

The historic composition of Sierra forests was overwhelmingly pines, and in the lower elevations mixed with oaks (shade intolerant). The firs and cedars were a minority component. The higher elevations increase the amount of fir, but that is due to a combination of snowpack and other climate and soil factors coming into play.

If we want pine, oak, aspen, and other shade-intolerant species to once again become the dominant species, individual tree selection (ITS) will not do it. ITS does not create enough of a canopy gap to favor regeneration of pines and oaks. You need larger openings. This is the entire basis of clearcutting and related harvest methods. Group selection harvesting is really better classified as a form of uneven-age management, and that is one of the prescriptions for the major forest projects that started this thread.


The average person does not know the difference between a clearcut, patchcut, group selection, or other types of harvesting. Admittedly, they have a superficial resemblance to the untrained eye. They all have different long term goals and long term effects and are applied differently on a landscape scale. The environmental industry uses the confusion and lack of knowledge of forest ecology among the general public to sow seeds of dissent and controversy. In the scientific community there is no dissent. The value of clearcutting or other even-age forest management methods in the appropriate conditions is well known and accepted. This is why so many science-based organizations fully support and defend clearcutting. The Nature Conservancy practices it on their lands where appropriate. The Forest Stewardship Council allows it where good science calls for it. State and Federal Wildlife Refuges do it to enhance wildlife habitat. Even the World Wildlife Fund admitted its value (“If we told the truth [that clearcutting is good for wildlife habitat] we’d lose donations.”). Patrick Moore, cofounder of Greenpeace, wrote an entire book defending and advocating clearcutting -- ‘GreenSpirit – Trees are the Answer’.

Clearcutting, like any harvest method, can be abused and has been abused in the past. No one here denies that. I will assert, and the general consensus of the scientific community, that inappropriate use and overuse of individual tree selection harvesting has caused more damage to the Sierra mixed conifer forest type than clearcutting. ITS is ecologically unsound in the Sierra mixed conifer forest. Small clearcuts, patchcuts, and group selections are more appropriate, and over time, will re-create the historic forest structure and composition – and not only do it free, but keep small rural communities functioning, and probably return money to the U.S. Treasury.

Good lesson, Dave. You have a lot of patience, as well as expertise. jls