Conspiracies in the woods, and what grandpa knew, about managing forests

“I have opinions. I may not know anything, but I have opinions,” declared my now-deceased grandpa, Homer Jamison, at a family dinner some 45 years ago. And boy he did have opinions. But there was a certain endearing humility to this example of the funny things our aged grandparents seem to say from time to time.

Today, however, too many people have opinions, do not know anything, and do not know they do not know anything. Despite summer’s widespread severe lightning storms, a “gender reveal” party, overgrown and poorly managed forests, extreme tree die-off, and historic recent drought, some people say that antifa is running around starting our recent fires. For them, climate change is a hoax.

On social media they and nefarious algorithms exponentially compound and reinforce know-nothing-ism as they look for and find others of like mind and who will offer “evidence,” such as pinning this year’s fires on a convicted arsonist who has been in jail for the last two years.

Having lived in Fresno all my life except for college and law school, there is no question that recent weather and drought extremes, overgrown forests, tree die-off, and extreme fires and smoke are a new phenomenon.

So instead of tramping the underbrush looking for antifa, what can we do about it?

Grandpa did know something about forests. He was a strapping lumberman. He was the co-founder in the 1930s of the Byles-Jamison Lumber Co., which logged the eastern Sierra with their mill near Dinkey Creek and other mills in the 1930s and ‘40s. He had grown up in Oregon and began his career in logging in the spectacular region of eastern Oregon around the community of Enterprise and Wallowa Lake, the summer home of the great Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Indians, before coming to Fresno to join the Sugar Pine Lumber Co. in the late 1920s. For grandpa, trees were a crop to be harvested and replanted like any other crop.

In his day, there was no welter of costly regulation and bureaucracy that inhibits responsible forest management today. Government policy for decades since has been to suppress rather than prevent forest fires, allowing the forests to become overgrown, overcrowded tender boxes. There are legitimate concerns about irresponsible clear-cutting that fouls streams and endangers woodland creatures, but can anyone deny the massive harm that the monstrous Creek Fire has done to this ecosphere, not to mention the lungs of Californians?

Responsible lumber companies know what grandpa knew. On Weyerhaeuser’s website, the company states, “We harvest only 2 to 3 percent of our Northwest timberland each year. This percentage ensures we have a sustainable harvest in perpetuity while meeting our economic objectives. In harvesting the forest, we use a variety of forest management techniques, including clear-cutting … much like the affect (sic) of a forest fire or volcanic eruption.” They invest in “new geographic information systems and satellite-based programs” that help improve stand selection, planting, harvesting, road construction and maintenance, and navigating the thicket of government regulations.

The most indiscriminate and spectacular example of “clear-cutting” is the pyroclastic explosion of Mount St. Helens, which leveled the forest for 230 square miles. I visited Mount St. Helens about three years ago. The new forest there that Weyerhaeuser planted and has managed is strikingly robust and beautiful.

Many argue today that clear-cutting presents too many environmental problems, so we should focus on controlled burns. Careful forest management requires thoughtful engineering and planning that includes all tools, but our lungs tell us not to overemphasize controlled burns. People like my grandfather must be consulted on how to encourage cost-effective and prudent thinning and clear-cutting. It is a travesty that so many trees have been weakened and died off due as much or more to overcrowding as to drought. Fostering more responsible thinning and logging is good public policy and presumably should help reduce the cost of wood products and lumber for housing.

Not being a lumberman myself, I must admit, “I have opinions. I may not know anything, but I have opinions,” but it is nonetheless clear that unless humans intelligently manage the forest, nature will do that management without regard to who or what gets hurt, killed or damaged.