Reactions to the Hurried New Regs on Old Growth Forests

New NFS Landscape Plan Guidance Threatens Modified Trees in Old Growth Forests

The first I heard about new Old-growth forest regulation changes was on September 18th when I read an op-ed by Dr. Peter Brown in the Colorado Sun. He cautioned that the oldest trees in these forests may not look very old and may have a smaller circumference than many younger trees. 

He should know. Dr. Brown is a dendrochronologist, a scientist who can date trees by analyzing their growth rings. He has found that circumference doesn't necessarily equate to age and is concerned that if smaller trees are removed from the landscape haphazardly, old growth trees may disappear. 

This is already happening. In the foothills above Boulder, Colorado, I visited a landowner's newly acquired property adjacent to her home. She purchased the 13-acre plot to keep it from being developed into a large residence or ranch. All over her original land as well as the new property, trees were marked for removal with blue paint. 

She took me and three colleagues to see some trees that she thought were special and had tied yellow tape around them to try to save them from being harvested. Using tools and the V-diagram developed by John Anderson, we identified several that were likely culturally modified by the Ute people, who inhabited the area before the late 19th Century. 

In a semicircle around a creek drainage, modified trees pointed to the valley below. Farther up a hill, a tree pointed to another tree, which seemed clearly to be a birthing tree, split into two trunks which women could grasp while crouching to birth their babies. Even further up, we found a likely burial tree, with evidence of at least a dozen graves near it. In the photo below, I've just walked through a symmetrical portal tree.

I was able to put the landowner in touch with another person who owns land in Bergen Park, near Evergreen. His advice was to stay in close touch with the forester responsible for marking trees for cutting and to clearly protect the culturally modified trees with brightly colored tape. She was also advised to use orange construction fencing. She is doing all she can to save the trees. 

The reason for all the cutting activity is fire mitigation. The state is using this as an excuse to come into peoples' property and cut/cull at will. I'm all for preventing forest fires, but this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, in my opinion. Sacred trees should not be sacrificed in the cause of saving expensive homes in the wild/urban interface.

Dr. Brown, who is also the founder of Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research based in Fort Collins, Colorado, says this is a common misconception. "There are certain tree characteristics, such as bark color and canopy conditions, that are better estimators for tree age than size alone. Yet as written, the new draft policy could inadvertently promote ill-informed logging in remaining old-growth forests and removal of older trees that are smaller than any diameter limit."

Even professionals at the highest levels are misinformed about old-growth trees. The president of NASTaP, Dr. James Jefferson, personally met with the state archeologist of Colorado several years ago and tried to explain to her how smaller diameter Ponderosa Pines could actually be rare and valuable sacred artifacts of Native American peoples, hundreds of years old. She scoffed that the trees were only decades old and refused to go out of her office into nearby Jefferson County to look at some actual CMTs with him. Being from South Carolina, it was perhaps understandable that she wasn't familiar with how trees grow in our mountain climate, especially after being modified. But what was this person doing being the Colorado State Archeologist? 

Dr. Jefferson is a highly regarded elder of the Southern Ute Tribe. He was offered professorships at Eastern universities, but preferred to live on the Southern Ute Reservation instead. He worked at the Smithsonian Institution, and then returned home and has been responsible for establishing the Southern Ute Drum newspaper, the radio station, cultural center, and many other institutions on the reservation.

Dr. Brown calls for a stronger plan than the bare-minimum guidelines currently outlined. "The plan must develop a collaborative, equitable and science-based process," he wrote, especially including Native Americans. NASTaP, Dr. Jefferson, and other Native American people and their allies stand ready to help. 

I have reviewed dozens of letters about the proposed guidelines and will be commenting on them in comments attached to this post. Feel free to also comment.

Birthing tree outside Boulder, Colorado photo by Jenny LePage.