[MCN] DYK: Forest Service has met 87% of their timber sale volume target over the past 15 years

[Lance Olsen]

Thanks for this, Matthew. This perspective on logging and politics makes an important contribution. 

I’d just add one observation; given recent years’ several studies indicating that forests in the western US have been showing signs of failure to recover from fire — thanks to drought  — we likely have good reason to ask the promoters of logging if our region’s forests can recover from logging. Forest recovery from fire and logging have long been taken for granted, but that assumption is looking increasingly questionable. 

> On May 17, 2017, at 11:09 AM, Matthew Koehler via Missoula-Community-News <missoula-community-news at bigskynet.org> wrote:
> 
> In spite of what you hear from Senator Tester, Senator Daines and most Montana politicians, the timber industry and even some conservation groups...
> 
> 
> U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Region has met 87% of their timber sale volume target over the past 15 years
> 
> Posted by Matthew Koehler on 17 May 2017
> 
> http://forestpolicypub.com/2017/05/17/u-s-forest-services-northern-region-has-met-87-of-their-timber-sale-volume-target-over-the-past-15-years/ <http://forestpolicypub.com/2017/05/17/u-s-forest-services-northern-region-has-met-87-of-their-timber-sale-volume-target-over-the-past-15-years/>
> 
> <timber targets.png>
> 
> If you listen to most western politicians – regardless of political party – talk about the U.S. Forest Service’s timber sale program you’ve likely heard them describe it as a failure. Many of these same politicians give the general public the impression that next to zero logging is taking place on America’s national forests because of countless lawsuits from “extremists” and “obstructionists.”
> 
> The other day, to dig a little deeper into this issue, I contacted the U.S. Forest Service Northern Region’s public affairs officer. I told her I wanted to compare the annual timber sale volume attained by the U.S. Forest Service in Montana and north Idaho with the timber sale volume targets set by the U.S. Forest Service, which are based on the funding the agency receives from Congress.
> 
> After the Forest Service’s public affairs officer and myself shared a chuckle about how terrible the U.S. Forest Service’s websites are, especially if you want to explore some of these issues in more detail, I was directed to this website (http://bit.ly/2qSoVLV <http://bit.ly/2qSoVLV>).
> 
> I was told, “Look at the Periodic Timber Sale Accomplishment Report (PTSAR) reports. The 4th quarter of each year is the final report for that particular fiscal year. Line T and Line U give the planned and completed targets.”
> 
> So, that’s what I did to come up with the chart above. There’s lots of ways to look at those numbers I suppose. One way is to say that overall, during the past 15 years, the U.S. Service in the Northern Region has attained 87% of their timber sale volume targets, which again are based on funding from Congress. 87% seems like a solid B, if we were grading papers in school, and far from a failing grade.
> 
> Another way to look at those numbers is that in 7 of the past 15 years the U.S. Forest Service has attained between 94% and 117% of their timber sale volume targets. When is the last time you heard a U.S. senator or representative from Montana or Idaho celebrate and share numbers like this with the general public?
> 
> Also at the link provide by the Forest Service, there’s a section about “Uncut Volume Under Contract” and “Timber Sale Program Statistics.” That information was also very interesting to me, but I noticed that no link was provided. I was told by the Forest Service public affairs officer “Those links are disabled right now as the reports contained errors so we removed them.” I have to wonder what errors those reports contained and how long the errors were in those reports. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the timber industry objected to not only the specifics of what was contained in that “Uncut Volume Under Contract” report, but also perhaps objected to its presence in the first place. Hopefully the errors are corrected soon and the links go back up on the Forest Service website.
> 
> In March of 2015, the Flathead National Forest’s Joe Krueger was interviewed on Montana Public Radio about their on-going forest plan revision process. One question was specifically about the Flathead National Forest’s projected timber sale volume in their new forest plan. Krueger had this to say:
> 
> “A big factor that constrains how much wood products is coming off the [Flathead National Forest] is our existing budget. So that number of 28 million board feet of timber that we’re projecting as our timber sale quantity is constrained by budgets.”
> 
> Which brings us back to those western politicians, especially the ones who hold the U.S. taxpayer’s purse-strings and divvy up the federal budget. While practically every time any of these politicians talk about logging on National Forests they will blame lawsuits from “extremists” and “obstructionists” environmentalists for the (supposed) lack of logging, when is the last time you heard the Montana or Idaho congressional delegation call on the rest of Congress to greatly increase the U.S. Forest Service’s timber sale budget?
> 
> Seems to me that since the U.S. Forest Service in the Northern Region has managed to attain 87% of their targeted timber sale volume over the past 15 years that our political leaders should be much more honest and share this fact with the general public, and perhaps if they want to increase logging on National Forests the politicians should look in the mirror and put money where their mouth is.
> 
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