Ground-truthing Project Final Report, 2005: Landscape analyses of select Forest Service logging project areas, with emphasis on the protection of rare big-tree forests.

before today before today

Emerald Bay Tuxekan Island

before today before today truthing technology route planning timber unit surveys

Logjam Chasina North

what’s been lost what still stands gis Prepared by: Richard Carstensen & Bob Christensen for the Sitka Conservation Society  • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

A Project of Sitka Conservation Society with supplementary funding by:

The Turner Foundation The Wolfensohn Family Foundation Southeast Alaska Conservation Council The Skaggs Foundation Ken Leghorn David Wigglesworth Jack Ozment and aerial support from Lighthawk

Sitka Conservation Society Box 6533 Sitka, Alaska 99835 (907) 747 7509 ph // (907) 747 6105 fx [email protected] // www.sitkawild.org

“Working to protect the natural environment of the Tongass, and to protect Sitka’s quality of life, since 1967” Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS •  Contents Tips on navigating this document in Acrobat...... 4 Executive Summary...... 5 Goals...... 5 Critical Issues...... 5 Big, old trees...... 5 Regulatory changes needed ...... 8 Previous work...... 10 Concepts and definitions...... 12 Big-tree forest ...... 12 High-volume forests ...... 12 Volume class vs volume strata ...... 13 Size/density relationships ...... 13 High-grading ...... 14 Proportionality ...... 14 Spatial and temporal scales ...... 14 Habitat connectivity ...... 16 Restoration and enhancement ...... 16 ASQ, market demand, MIRFs, falldown ...... 18 Methods ...... 20 Site Selection ...... 20 Pre-field review ...... 20 FIELD...... 21 Navigation...... 21 Photography...... 22 Lighthawk flight...... 22 Size/density measurements...... 22 Big tree searches...... 23 Ground-truthing forest type maps...... 23 Past logging...... 23 Wildlife habitat ...... 24 Other field notes...... 24 POST-FIELD ...... 24 Downloads...... 24 Journaling...... 25 GIS synthesis...... 25 ArcReader projects...... 25 Timber projects visited ...... 26 Corner Bay...... 26 Sitkoh Bay...... 27 False Island...... 29 Saook...... 30 Ushk...... 30 Geology and logging...... 28  • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS Threemile...... 32 Emerald Bay...... 34 Summore Change...... 36 Tuxekan...... 37 Kosciusko...... 40 Logjam...... 42 Cholmondeley...... 44 Chasina ...... 46 Findings and recommendations ...... 50 TLMP revision...... 50 Upland big trees ...... 50 Protection of rare big-tree stands and individuals ...... 50 Forest structure maps ...... 51 Cedars ...... 51 Karst ...... 52 Alluvial forests...... 52 Unraveling: implications for buffers ...... 53 Creeping “megacuts”...... 54 Connectivity analyses...... 55 Timber waste ...... 55 Roads and stream crossings...... 55 Habitat capability models ...... 56 Small Old-growth Reserves (SOGRs)...... 57 Poorly-known mammals...... 58 Summary of recommendations...... 58 NEPA planning recommendations ...... 60 Site specificity...... 60 Stand exam data ...... 60 Show units on orthophoto base ...... 61 Unit boundary changes ...... 61 Project- and Tongass-scale remapping ...... 61 Sustainability ...... 62 Acknowledgements...... 63 References...... 63

Tips on navigating this document in Acrobat

This document is “hyperlinked;” in the electronic version you can jump to any chapter by clicking on its name in the table of contents above. The bookmarks tab (on the left) also works for this purpose. Other useful commands: alt+back arrow = return to previous position • ctr+0 = fit full page on screen • ctr+2 = fit page width to screen. Note that text is generally confined to the lower half of the page.The entire page can usually be read without scrolling at “fit width” (ctr+2) mode. We also recommend: The Acrobat magnifier tool. Try drawing a rectangle with this tool around one of the smaller photos, maps, etc to fill the screen with it. Then use alt+back arrow to return to your place in the text. Also check out Acrobat’s contextual “Find” tool. Double click the binocular icon. Type a word like “karst” into the search box. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS •  Executive Summary

“It takes a thousand years to grow a thousand-year-old tree.” Pete Smith, environmental logger, Whale Pass, Prince of Wales Island

The Ground-truthing Project is a citizens’ initiative to Big, old trees document what is happening on past and proposed timber sales throughout southeast Alaska. Combining traditional naturalists’ A basic premise of the Ground-truthing Project–held also by the Landmark Trees Project in which we participate–is that very large, very skills with advanced GIS (Geographic Information Systems) old trees are globally rare treasures that deserve special protections technology, we provide site-specific data to enrich public and simply because of scarcity and the time it takes to replace them (often agency oversight of these timber projects. We are funded by 500 years+). Considering the loss of ancient trees worldwide, is it “right” to promote industrial-scale removal of forests whose dominant conservation groups, foundations and private individuals. trees are more than twice as old as the United States? Between June 8 and July 6, 2005, we surveyed past and proposed timber sales on the central and southern Tongass. In addition to this compelling ethical perspective there are also some very important ecological reasons that we work to better understand Details of these surveys are provided in daily journals, power and protect the big, old trees of southeast Alaska. point presentations, and GIS products including an interactive timber sale atlas. Findings are summarized in this report. Our • Big, old trees (mostly Sitka spruce) on streams and rivers provide a critical structural component in maintaining fish, bird and mammal summer’s work has been a pilot effort. If it is deemed successful habitat. These trees are critical to the “salmon/eagle/bear” community we hope to expand on the Ground-truthing Project in 2006. that constitutes the ecological heart of our bioregion.

• Big, old trees (all Southeast conifer species) on upland slopes are Goals critical to goshawk, marbled murrelet, brown creeper, marten, denning • Document conditions on the ground in past and proposed bears, wintering black-tailed deer, and the wolves who feed on them. timber sales throughout Southeast. • Big, old trees in Southeast have been targeted by a century of high- • Develop spatial (GIS) databases that connect ground-based grading at multiple scales, reducing this forest type to a shadow of its photos, observations and measurements. former majesty. However. . . • Enable site-specific commentary and discussion on timber • Southeast still retains examples of intact, big-tree old growth that are issues by providing multimedia resources–journals, slide essentially extinguished elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Surviving shows, GIS, web-based materials and summary analyses–to patches of these forests in the Coast Ranges and Pacific Crest mountains are considered national landmarks, visited by thousands of conservation groups, agencies and public. tourists annually. But these fragmented stands can no longer support their full complement of large, sensitive fauna. Standing over a brown bear track, beneath a 700-year old tree, is a “Southeast experience” Critical Issues available nowhere else in the world. We owe it to the bear, the tree, Sustainability and our descendants to make that experience an enduring right. The Tongass National Forest is home to some species whose • While the upland big-tree old-growth forest–the primary focus of this habitat needs have been documented by decades of research, report–has acknowledged importance to deer, goshawk, murrelet, etc, and others whose distribution and even existence are not yet ecological research has barely begun. For example, we are unaware known. Timber volume production has dominated Tongass of a single study addressing the unique structure and function of either yellow-cedar or redcedar forests in Southeast. Yet these ancient management, often at the expense of ecological sustainability habitats are being logged at a pace that could easily be considered - the forest’s ability to replenish soils, proscribe extinctions, “forest-mining.” provide resources and soothe human souls. It is important that  • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS we differentiate sustainable yield of timber Fig 1 Timber projects visited from a truly holistic sustainability. None during the Ground-truthing of the proposed cutting units we visited Project, June 8 to July 6, 2005. Routes are coded for land, in 2005 were laid out with full regard for water and air travel. considerations of wildlife habitat, or with acknowledgement of the rarity value of large, extremely old trees. Elements of sustainability currently at risk in Southeast are as follows:

Big trees* There are several kinds of big- tree (BT) forest in Southeast, and each has been severely high-graded. Streamside BT forests Spruce- dominated forests on alluvial deposits yielded most of our timber volume up until the 1980s. Upland BT forests The scarcity of remaining riparian forest combined with improved stream protections has shifted the focus of logging to the upland BT stands. This is the forest of greatest current concern to the Ground-truthing Project. Karst BT forests Simultaneously with streamside logging, and to a far greater degree, Alaska’s greatest spruce forests on soluble limestone/marble bedrock (karst) are for all practical In the past, purposes completely logged. Majestic BT Foresters and hemlock and cedar forest survives on karst conservationists but now that too is rapidly being logged. alike have relied Cedar forests Today, big, extremely on timber volume old red- and yellow-cedars are driving measures to describe the layout of proposed cutting units the forest. Forest throughout central and southern Southeast. structural measures Because of the natural age structure of such as average tree size these ancient forests the logging of this and stand density are more found many stands of these unmapped forest type is more akin to mining and is meaningful to issues such as wildlife giants inside proposed cutting units. not sustainable. habitat conservation. Temporal scale (historical and Ancient trees Large stumps in future perspectives) Our GIS analysis of all clearcuts we visited commonly High-grading* pre-logging extent of big-tree forest shows contained 400-700 annual rings. We are Analysis of high-grading must account for that these forest types have been targeted systematically destroying a globally rare spatial and temporal scale. far in excess of their original proportions forest type whose dominant trees are often Spatial scale Impacts from past and in all of the sale areas we visited (Figs 2, twice as old as the United States. proposed logging have not been viewed 109 & 110). In generally unproductive at the multiple scales essential to full landscapes like Sitkoh Bay where the big- True sustainability is beyond our grasp understanding. EIS documents tend to tree forest was predictably concentrated until the following fundamental problems treat each timber sale or project area in along the riparian corridor, as much as are resolved: isolation, with inadequate consideration 89% has been logged. In productive for larger geographic contexts. An landscapes like Kosciusko Island, a Inaccurate maps example is the failure to “zoom out” far somewhat smaller portion–68%–of the Forest maps developed by USFS are enough to account for landscape position original big-tree forest has been cut, but appropriate for coarse-scale analysis at Emerald Bay, where logging roads a much larger acreage–20,400 acres–was (e.g. comparisons of watersheds). But would penetrate the “pinch point” of the removed. the Ground-truthing Project repeatedly unroaded Cleveland Peninsula. Further timber planning in these documented the failure of these maps to In other cases planners have not “zoomed watersheds without acknowledgement detect small (5 to 10 acre) patches of large in” close enough. For example, existing of historical background is myopic. trees, or the presence of cedars. forest maps do not pick up small but Likewise, the failure to project impacts far Inappropriate measures important stands of very large trees. We into the future (at least for several timber *Big trees, high-grading, and other terms important to an understanding of forest issues, are defined in the following section on concepts and definitions. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS •  Fig 2 Comparisons of the percentages of total land area in different habitat types on the 13 Timber Projects visited this summer. For each site there are two charts. The one on the left shows the original prelogging condition and the one on the right is the current status. Color codes are fairly consistent with those used on the following timber project maps. Acreages were measured off the “tree-size” layer in GIS. To develop estimates of pre-logging conditions we used a combination of our experiences surveying stumps in clearcuts and the relative amounts of productive alluvial/colluvial/karst surfaces to less productive upland slopes. These pie charts are repeated with each of the following project maps. They are presented together here for ease of comparison. The descending rows reflect the general north-to-south sequence of our site visits. Notice the strong similarities between the 3 sites in the second row and Cholmondeley Sound where 60- to 70% of the land is scrub or non-forest habitat. This generally reflects unproductive bedrock–granitics in the case of Ushk and Chomley–and in the case of Threemile Arm the extensive poorly drained lowlands. In contrast, the 3 sites that had half or more of the land surface in big trees–Tuxekan, Kosciusko and Chasina–are underlain largely by karst. rotations) ensures unsustainability. overwhelming need for such analysis The TLMP S&Gs allow a clearcut to abut at Chasina, where the Forest Service an older one if the latter is “adequately Wildlife corridors & connectivity proposes further logging in VCUs that stocked with desirable tree species, Islands and steep topography make have been devastated by a 7960-acre which are approximately 5 feet in height” Southeast Alaska one of the most naturally contiguous clearcut on Corporation land. On Prince of Wales and elsewhere fragmented regions of the world. In such this loophole has resulted in gradually environments, further fragmentation from Side issues expanding “megacuts” of more than 6000 even a relatively small amount of logging We identified several “side issues” that acres. can have serious consequences for fish collectively present serious challenges to and wildlife movements, and their ability sustainability: Salvage logging to sustain viable populations. On our “Salvage,” both legally and intuitively, Ground-truthing expedition we saw game Blowdown suggests removal of dead or dying trees trails funneled into narrow corridors of old We saw serious cases of blowdown along whose value would otherwise be lost. growth between proliferating clearcuts. the margins of past clearcuts. This is We have seen healthy trees–in some Some of those corridors are the sites of particularly destructive where unraveling cases giants–felled or marked in past and proposed further logging. has reduced or eliminated narrow buffers proposed salvage units. that were debatably adequate to begin Logging on adjacent private lands with. Blowdown is an impact that deserves Slope steepness One of the key rulings in the recent greater retrospective documentation as We commonly found slopes in excess of Ninth-circuit Court of Appeals case was well as more realistic foresight in timber 72% inside proposed cutting units. TLMP that the Forest Service needs to consider planning. Standards and Guidelines (S&Gs) state cumulative, non-federal impacts in a that such slopes may be approved by the TLMP revision. We saw examples of the Creeping “megacuts” Forest Supervisor or District Ranger on  • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS Fig 3 Location of currently proposed timber sales in Southeast. Dot size is scaled to volume of timber offered. Largest dots are 40,000,000 board feet* or more. Land Use Designations (LUDs) are also coded. Pink-tinted areas are in timber LUDs (either Timber Production, Managed Landscape or Scenic Viewshed). Darkest purple areas are non-National Forest. Most of these corporation, state, or municipal lands are either heavily logged or otherwise developed.

*One board foot measures 1 foot x 1 foot x 1 inch in size. “mbf” = thousand board feet; “mmbf” = million board feet. a “case by case basis.” But we feel that the wholesale inclusion of such erosion- prone surfaces fails to meet the intent of the S&Gs. In cases like Cholmondeley unit 615-024, almost the entirety of the large, commercially valuable trees were on slopes greater than 72%.

Roads and culverts The Ground-truthing Project did not systematically evaluate logging roads or stream crossings. But incidental observations lead us to concur with ADF&G (Flanders and Cariello, 2000) that existing widespread impacts to fisheries will only worsen as stream been inflated by overestimates of market If there must be an Allowable Sale crossings deteriorate. All roads we walked demand, and should be adjusted to better Quantity (ASQ) it should respond served as corridors for invasive species “ensure viable, well-distributed popula- to more than just market demand such as reed canary grass. We also saw tions of wildlife.” and volume production. ASQ is to disturbing examples of the use of logging 2) Non-federal lands Forest impacts on Southeast sustainability issues as roads by OHVs to access sensitive non-federal land must be accounted for in population control and global warming habitats like estuaries heavily used by Tongass planning. are to the world environment. Without foraging brown bears. 3) High-grading The Forest Service confronting ASQ, no improvements must do a better job of curtailing the to regulations or enforcement, no new Timber waste “highgrading”* of forests referred to by wilderness designations, can bring about The low value of many trees felled in both plaintiffs and defendants as “high- sustainability for our region. clearcuts provides some operators with volume.” the temptation to abandon ancient but OGR prescriptions unmarketable logs on site. Timber waste TLMP revision elements More meaningful prescriptions for Old- is the “bycatch of the forest;” it forces The Ground-truthing Project sheds growth Reserves and wildlife corridors more old-growth acreage to be logged per additional light on all 3 components of the must be enacted and enforced, so that volume yielded. Court Opinion. Our timing has apparently Small Old-growth Reserves no longer been fortuitous. We are eager to share represent “the dregs,” marginal habitats Regulatory changes needed our results with all parties involved in unwanted by the timber industry. Our Shortly after completion of our field constructive improvements to the Tongass report provides examples of inadequate work, the Ninth-circuit Court of Appeals Land Management Plan. In our view, SOGRs. ruled that the Forest Service must revise the TLMP revision should address the the Tongass Land Management Plan, or following points if it is to provide for Size/density measures “TLMP” (US Court of Appeals, 2005). genuine sustainability of critical forest TLMP revision should adopt more This revision must address 3 primary habitats and rare or declining species: ecologically meaningful measures (i.e. shortcomings of previous Plans: size/density data) that are superior to 1) ASQ Allowable Sale Quantity has More rational ASQ volume measures in characterizing forest

* Regrettably, high-grading was expressed in terms of forest volume throughout the Ninth-circuit court case. This does not reflect the recent efforts by both Forest Service and non-agency biologists to move “beyond volume” as a measure of ecologically important forest structural character. See p. 12. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS •  structure. All forest regulations should respond to specific problems that were not should be permitted employ these measures where relevant. addressed by previous TLMP revisions. Our report suggests improvements for Show proposed cuts on orthophotos Restoration existing S&Gs relating to: 1) salvage, Presenting proposed cuts against a simple Severe high-grading has made restoration 2) endemic species, 3) slope steepness, outline map of the project area creates essential for a return to ecological 4) road construction/removal, and 5) the impression that only an insignificant sustainability in our region. The TLMP creeping megacuts. We recommend new fraction of the forest will be lost. In all revision is likely to contain “restoration” S&Gs addressing: 1) inter-unit buffer planning documents, proposed cuts should prescriptions for cutover lands, largely width, 2) karst forests, 3) timber waste, also be clearly shown on aerial photos. variations on pre-commercial thinning 4) connectivity analyses, and 5) tree-size One does not need to be a trained forester for enhanced timber yield. These cutting thresholds. In view of the systemic to evaluate whether the “coarse-textured” prescriptions may also provide short- failure to contain high-grading, this last big-tree forest is being disproportionately term wildlife enhancement in some proposal deserves special note here: targeted. Such “orthophotos” unmask situations. We support this effort as an high-grading more effectively than important step in the transition from old- Tree-size S&Gs any derived spatial database currently growth to second-growth logging in our Standards and Guidelines must be available. region but pre-commercial thinning is appended with a view to the protection not “restoration”. We liken most of these of rare and declining big-tree forests. The Stand exam data efforts to bailing a leaking boat while best way to do this is to institute a mean- Record of Decision (ROD) unit cards–the failing to patch the hole. Full recovery of size threshold above which forests are maps and explanation of proposed fish and wildlife habitat on cutover land off-limits to logging in the same way that logging prescriptions on individual may take more than 300 years. Short- stream buffers protect the riparian fringe. cutting units–are currently uninformative term habitat enhancement should not For example, we might prohibit logging about stand structure. This information divert attention from the continued high- of all stands of greater than 21 inches is available, however, in cruise records grading of Southeast’s finest remaining mean diameter sustained over more than referred to as “stand exams.” Results of old-growth forests. These rare and 25 acres, or stands of more than 30 inches these stand exams should be provided in unique habitats should be protected as mean diameter sustained over more than text and charts specific to each proposed part of a holistic restoration program that 5 acres. cutting unit; not just averaged over the also includes salmon habitat recovery, unit pool. Unit cards should also list the multiple scale reductions in wildlife Transparency in planning diameter and height of the 10 largest trees habitat fragmentation and the removal of The Forest Service asks for “site- in the proposed cutting unit. With this unnecessary logging roads. specificity” from those who review or information, ecologists and lay-reviewers comment on proposed timber sales. We could begin to judge whether a rare forest In the past, Timber Production lands applaud this emphasis on detail, but ask type is being targeted. Only in this way have been treated as “sacrifice areas,” for reciprocal site-specificity as follows: can genuinely site-specific commentary be assuming that surrounding protected provided. lands provide for regional sustainability. Post ROD unit boundary changes Ecologists now recognize this is a false The Record of Decision (ROD) is the final Better forest maps and dangerous assumption. The timber public document issued for each timber Producing a fundamentally new forest- LUDs (Land Use Designations) must sale. But even the ROD unit maps do type map for the Tongass may have to be an integral part of sustainability. not perfectly reflect ultimate unit layout; await improvements to technologies such Timber LUDs once contained Southeast’s “minor adjustments to unit boundaries” are as lidar (“light detection and ranging”). most productive forest habitats. (Well- permitted. We saw cases where individual Meanwhile, however, decisions at the known but sadly scattered exceptions giant trees worth thousands of dollars were scale of timber projects urgently demand include Naha, Kadashan, Admiralty, etc.) included within flagged units, but outside higher quality forest maps. All timber Protected LUDs alone cannot fill the role of the boundaries as mapped in the ROD. projects should either await acquisition of the vanished big-tree forests of Heceta, How are public and agency reviewers of lidar-based forest structure maps, or in Katlian, or Sitkoh Bay–the greatest forests to judge if such adjustments are indeed the interim provide new photo-interpreted of their respective provinces. “minor” when they are made after the last (stereoscopic) mapping of the big-tree The primary means of ensuring opportunity for input is closed? The TLMP (coarse textured) forest, and ground- sustainability in timber LUDs are revision should mandate “provisional” verified mapping of the distribution of red- regulatory–Small Old-growth Reserve field flagging of units not only prior to the and yellow-cedars. Experienced foresters prescriptions (TLMP Appendix K) and ROD, but prior to the DEIS, in order to should be able to quickly produce such the Forest Plan Standards and Guidelines involve reviewers throughout the planning maps in a cost-effective manner for areas (S&Gs). process. This will allow foresters on the of limited geographic scope. Maps should ground to identify problems unanticipated identify patches of big trees as small as Strengthened S&Gs during pre-field photointerpretation, and to 5 acres, and in exceptional cases such as Stronger wording and enforcement is provide maps of these actual unit layouts Landmark Trees, 1 acre. These small big- essential for some existing Standards and from the earliest planning stages. No post- tree patches are typically not shown on Guidelines. New S&Gs are also needed to decisional (i.e. post-ROD) unit expansion existing forest maps. 10 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Previous work

While we have considerable Corps of Engineers, and city governments it seems inappropriate to still be cutting naturalists’ experience in both pristine throughout Southeast have dedicated 5-foot diameter, 700-year-old trees after and cutover forest habitats, the authors their careers to habitat protection. We’re a century of systematically high-grading (C&C) are relative newcomers to the humbled by their wisdom and sustained these treasures*, we can say so, even formal process of evaluating logging efforts under difficult conditions. though “proportionality” has fallen impacts, especially aspects of consistency There has been serious attrition in the by the wayside (and never did address with TLMP (Tongass Land Management ranks of our most experienced agency individual tree size or age anyway). We Plan) standards and guidelines. We hope habitat biologists over the past 4 years. can take whatever measures we like to that our collaborators can fill in this It was partly in response to that growing distribute our findings to the public and expertise where we are lacking, and that void that we decided to add a non-agency press, whereas this is rightly considered our natural-history/GIS documentation, perspective to field-based timber sale unprofessional within the agencies. when combined with our partners’ legal review. Several publications have served as and regulatory experience, will prove a One advantage we have as non- models for us, as we begin to scrutinize powerful mix. governmental reviewers is the ability what is happening to the great northern We are standing on broad shoulders. to comment on any aspect of a past rain forest. One was the Southeast Dozens of biologists with Alaska or proposed project that strikes us as Chichagof Landscape Analysis, (Shepard Department of Fish and Game, US Fish significant, regardless of whether there et al. 1999), an interdisciplinary effort of and Wildlife Service, National Marine is a relevant law or guideline “on the the Sitka Ranger District. In this analysis, Fisheries Service, Environmental books;” agency reviewers have a narrower * High-grading and proportionality are defined Protection Agency, US Forest Service, range within which they can operate. If on page 14.

Fig 4 Surviving giant spruce on edge of 1972 clearcut in Sitkoh Bay, Chichagof Island. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 11 Fig 5 Logging at Ratz Harbor, northeastern Prince of Wales Island. Clearcut dates from USFS “managed stands” spatial database.

for the first time, the Forest Service took different wording–are also fundamental to In an ideal world, the outcome of the an unflinching look at the patterns of the management of national forests in the Ground-truthing Project is collaborative logging on alluvial bottomlands in an area United States, a look at the ground shows planning: a respectful and fully informed where big-tree forests were predictably serious shortcomings. We will return often partnership between the US Forest concentrated on such surfaces. The to these principles in this summary of our Service, other state and federal agencies, Southeast Chichagof Landscape Analysis findings from the first summer of Ground- conservation groups and the general also pioneered GIS measurements of truthing. public. In cases where collaboration fails old-growth patch fragmentation (Fig 13), The Audubon Society, with GIS and conservationists turn to litigation, concluding that “significant fragmentation assistance from The Nature Conservancy, findings of the Ground-truthing Project of interior old-growth habitat has occurred has undertaken a 2-year conservation may help us cut to the heart of Tongass in southeast Chichagof in the last 40 assessment for Southeast Alaska under forest issues. In either case, our ultimate years.” the direction of John Schoen. The steering hope is to encourage a more sustainable Several papers by John Caouette and committee includes a diverse range relationship between people and the colleagues at the US Forest Service have of agency and independent ecologists Southeast forest. addressed the challenges of mapping forest and conservationists who collectively diversity in Southeast Alaska (Caouette et represent Southeast’s deepest experience al, 2000, Caouette and DeGaynor, 2004). with most aspects of terrestrial, marine These efforts are critical steps to move and aquatic sytems, and with the effort to “beyond volume” to more useful measures sustain them. We feel that Audubon’s GIS- of forest structure. The Caouette papers intensive scoping will creatively address have changed the vocabulary on both sides many of the issues that were inadequately of the often-contentious dialogue on forest treated in past editions of the Tongass management. Land Management Plan, Landscape A recent publication from our sister Analyses and timber sale EIS documents. rain forest to the south (Drever, 2000) We hope that our Ground-truthing lists 9 principles for sustainable forestry Project will complement the Audubon in British Columbia. Four of those assessment by providing case studies of principles are quoted in Figure 6. While past and proposed logging and associated these principles–with perhaps slightly activities across the Tongass. 12 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Concepts and definitions

Forest ecology is a complex subject. even larger spruce-dominated type that stocked, medium-large trees.* (Figs 7C, Forest politics are equally convoluted. grows on rich stream and river deposits 76) Add them together and you have a (forest type A in Fig 7). In your mind’s The history behind this vocabulary minefield through which nobody treads eye, note the still-twitching chum salmon problem is that the original “TIMTYP” with complete confidence. But we can that something furry just dropped in this maps divided the forest into thousands of clear a rough path by setting forth a few devil’s-club tangle. polygons representing “volume classes.” useful definitions and trying to develop a The best single measure of the big-tree Those maps were subsequently used for common vocabulary. forest is probably mean trunk diameter. everything from timber sale scoping to A stand with mean diameter of 21 inches deer habitat modeling. Caouette (2004) Big-tree forest or greater, sustained over an area of at details the evolving iterations of TIMTYP This one’s obvious, right? A forest least 25 acres, is a big-tree forest (John that have tried to move beyond volume to with big trees! Well then why did it take us Caouette, USFS, personal communication, more ecologically meaningful forest types. so long to begin using this simple phrase? 2005). We need to restrict our use of the term Close your eyes and picture it; you’ll Unfortunately, for the past 30 years “high-volume” to the purpose for which likely see one of two basic kinds of big- we’ve spoken of these places as . . . it was originally intended; a forest with tree forest. One is the upland hemlock- or a lot of board feet of wood in it. There’s redcedar-dominated forest, usually with High-volume forests actually quite a bit of high-volume forest a blueberry understory (forest type B in That’s been misleading because stand on the Tongass. Only a portion of that is Fig 7). If you’re a hunter you’ll probably volume is merely a measure of how much the increasingly rare big-tree forest that imagine a deer’s tail flicking behind that wood a forest contains per unit area. has been systematically targeted for 100 4-foot diameter hemlock. Today’s highest volume forests are not years, and that conservationists are trying The other kind of big-tree forest is the old growth but mature stands of densely to protect.

* There were at one time extraordinarily high-volume old-growth stands of up to 200,000 board feet per acre on karst, but to our knowledge none remain.

Fig 6 Four principles of sustainable forestry

The following principles are excerpted from A cut above: Ecological Principles for Sustainable Forestry on BC’s Coast, Drever 2000. This short publication is a collaboration of British Columbia’s foremost rain-forest ecologists. It summarizes hard-learned lessons from a region perhaps even more damaged than Southeast Alaska by decades of unsustainable forestry.

“• Use a hierarchy of spatial and temporal scales when planning forest practices.

• Establish a rate-of-cut that does not compromise the long-term ecological integrity of landscapes and watersheds.

• Focus silvicultural systems primarily on what is retained rather than on what is removed.

• Acknowledge uncertainty and monitor the ecological Fig 7 Size/density relationships (average tree diameter and number of consequences of forest practices.. . . [follow the] trees per acre) describe a wide range of forest structural types. Block ‘precautionary principle,’ which states that when an diagrams represent one-acre stands ~200 feet wide with tree heights activity threatens the environment, precautionary drawn to scale. Large trees widely spaced (the “big-tree forest”) fall to measures should be taken even if some causal the upper left on the chart, while medium-sized trees closely spaced fall relationships are not fully established scientifically.” to the right. Note that all three forest types in the top row (A, B & C) have identical volume. Volume alone is therefore a poor descriptor of forest structural diversity. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 13

Fig 8 Another illustration of the greater utility of size/density as opposed to volume in characterizing stand structure. Although we have not measured volume in these stands, both easily fall into volume class 7 (greater than 50,000 board feet per acre. Structurally, however, they could hardly be more different. The stand above is a highly productive, densely stocked second-growth forest on karst near Cape Pole, Kosciusko Island. Tree diameters range from 8 to 15 inches. The stand below is a widely spaced big-tree forest on alluvium near Castle River, Kupreanof Island, with diameters up to 5 feet. Wider tree spacing and canopy gaps result in a much lusher understory than in the cutover stand above that has literally no forage for deer, bear or birds. Volume class vs volume strata sale areas visited during the Ground- followed by ground truthing.) The original TIMTYP maps divided truthing Project. Lumping of former VCs the productive old-growth forest (POG) 5 through 7 to create a “high stratum” or Size/density relationships into 4 volume classes: VC4 (8-20mbf “moderately big-tree forest” is legitimate The simplest way to describe net volume); VC5 (20-30); VC6 (30-50) in this case. and measure ecologically important and VC 7 (50+). Subsequent forest-wide For other purposes it is best to retain characteristics of stand structure is through ground-truthing inventories demonstrated the distinction between the old volume the relationship between mean tree that differences between mapped class 5 and the combined VC6&7.* An diameter and stand density (Caouette et VC 6 and 7 stands were statistically example is assessment of forest high- al. 2000, Caouette and DeGaynor, 2004). insignificant. They also revealed that there grading. Photo interpreters tended to Young forests typically have small mean was actually a great deal of high-volume identify the coarse-textured big-tree trunk diameters but very high number forest mistakenly mapped as VC 5. These forest on alluvial, colluvial and wind- of trees per acre. As they mature, mean findings led to the collapsing of the 4 sheltered surfaces as VC 6 or 7. Analysis diameter increases while density decreases volume classes into 3 “volume strata:” the of Tongass-wide timber inventory data due to mortality from shading and root highest of these volume strata consisted of suggests that mapped VCs 6&7 have a competition. (Fig 7 ) the former VCs 5, 6 & 7. 69% probability of picking up stands with Understory is usually impoverished For some purposes the volume strata mean diameter of >21 inches sustained throughout the first century or two of this maps show useful distinctions. At a over at least 5 acres, the best current successional trajectory. recent conference, deer biologists agreed definition of the big-tree forest. (John Stand volume is a function of both to the continued use of volume strata in Caouette, personal communication). diameter and density. It usually peaks in modeling winter habitat quality. Deer need We color-code these classes as darkest early maturity and falls off slowly as the moderately large forests as cover from green in our GIS maps, and then overlay stand enters old-growth conditions. The winter snows, and may not necessarily proposed cutting units to get an initial real big-tree forest is usually low density, prefer the very large tree sizes that were impression as to whether the big-tree with abundant canopy gaps that allow mapped by TIMTYP (with erratic success) stands are being disproportionately light to reach the productive understory as VCs 6 and 7. We have followed suit targeted. (A more thorough assessment layer (Fig 8). in our deer habitat mapping for timber requires stereo photo interpretation Our struggles to create a meaningful

*It remains advisable to always lump VC6&7. As an example of how poorly they distinguish stand structure, the majority of 75 one-acre Landmark Tree stands across the Tongass–our greatest remaining forests typically containing around 100,000 board feet per acre–fall in VC 6 polygons, not VC 7. 14 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS Fig 9 High-grading Left: a karst “pumpkin” in the good old days. Sitka spruce, Natoma Point, Long Island, 1947. Right: a “neopumkin?” Nice hemlock, active clearcut, shoulder of El Capitan Peak, northern Prince of Wales Island.

of big-tree forests. See Protection of rare big-tree stands under Findings/ recommendations.

Spatial and temporal scales In the Southeast Chichagof Landscape Analysis, the authors espouse the concept of nested spatial scales: “A tenet of landscape analysis is to view a particular project or activity from at least one geographic scale larger than the project or activity level” (Shepard et al. 1999). Sadly this is not the map of size/density variation in the one that runs the slowest. That way, deer norm for impacts assessments of proposed Southeast forest by “tweaking” the flawed stay pretty. timber projects. More typically these original (TIMTYP) could be rendered High-grading has taken place at projects are treated in isolation from their moot as lidar (airborne laser technology) multiple spatial scales, as described below. surrounding landscape. An example is the becomes affordable. See remapping, page assertion that the proposed Emerald Bay 61. Proportionality project represents only 12 million board The Tongass Timber Reform Act of feet of extracted timber and 6 miles of High-grading 1990 (TTRA) tried to stem the excessive road, without acknowledging its position “Take the best and leave the rest.” targeting of big trees by mandating at the “pinch point” of the Cleveland This phrase nicely sums up the history of “proportionality” i.e., the cutting of forest Peninsula, or–at an even broader scale*– logging in Southeast Alaska. A logger was stands in proportion to their occurrence the fact that the Cleveland is one of the recently heard speaking of the “pumpkins” within the productive old growth (POG). last large unroaded regions of Southeast he had cut in South Lindenburg units. Unfortunately the criterion used was stand Alaska. They were 4-footers. Early handloggers volume, a poor measure of forest structure, In our GIS and summary analyses for routinely passed over such small trees. for reasons explained above. During Southeast timber sale areas, we constantly But today, on Kupreanof, a 4-footer is “the its brief reign, proportionality caused zoom in and out, searching for the scale best.” headaches in Ranger Districts throughout most appropriate to each question, from Nobody faults a shopper for picking Southeast. Planners complained that they buffer widths for specific streams to the prettiest tomato out of the grocer’s bin. had to offer units in unmerchantable “junk connectivity issues for species that range It’s universal human behavior. But when timber.” between multiple watersheds. we treat our environment as a grocery Proportionality is no longer mandated High-grading is a very scale-sensitive for centuries on end, habitats and trophic on the Tongass, but needs to be revisited, phenomenon. To fully appreciate the webs unravel. Sobering experiences with employing more practical measures of impacts of high-grading we cannot simply species loss and degraded soils have led stand size and rarity. It’s not that we look at a map of the clearcuts of Southeast ecologists to recommend a new paradigm, should force the sale of small-tree units Alaska (Fig 12). We also need to walk explained in the BC publication A cut that nobody wants (although perhaps we (at least in our mind’s eye) the thousands above as the focus on “what is retained should ask why those stands are in the of miles of shoreline and streams that rather than on what is removed.” Wolves timber base to begin with). What’s needed were so thoroughly picked over by early don’t take the prettiest deer; they take the is a rational way to limit the high-grading

*The terms large scale and small scale are counter-intuitive and are best replaced by more self-explanatory terms like “coarse/fine, broad/narrow, etc. In cartography, a given feature is larger on a large-scale map. Thus, large scale maps cover smaller areas. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 15

Fig 10 Clearcuts on public and private land on Prince of Wales Fig 12 From Ecotrust’s Forest Island. Data Condition map for Southeast assembled by Alaska. Additional cutting Ecotrust from has occurred since these data USFS managed were assembled. Even within stands layer and the past decade that continued satellite imagery. cutting has concentrated on Selected karst Prince of Wales and satellite areas are shown islands. with red outlines. handloggers. The intensity of this tree-by- Let’s try a thought-exercise on scales have been hugely reoriented by this high- tree high-grading caused private forester of high-grading. Imagine beginning with a grading. N. J. Frost to comment in the late 1920s detailed air photo of a single acre of forest Next, zoom out to all of Prince that the best Southeast timber was already just above an estuary on Prince of Wales. of Wales, and study the distribution gone–this at a time when virtually no It’s a good bet that every really big spruce of clearcut logging (Fig 10). Notice clearcuts existed that could have been seen in this acre (except a few with spiral how systematically it targets the once- on a Southeast-scale map: grain or heart rot) was cut by handloggers magnificent stands of 6- to 14-foot sometime between the 1880s and 1920s. diameter spruces that grew on limestone “This form of logging, or beach Maybe it was only 5% of the trees in that and marble bedrock (“karst”). The rolling combing, [hand- and A-frame logging] acre, but the “pumpkins” are gone, as lowlands of northern POW are almost has been practiced for years, and in evidenced by their huge, moss-covered as impacted as the most beleaguered almost any bay or good booming and stumps. The same is true of almost every “working forests” of coastal Washington rafting grounds we find that most of the acre of boat-accessible shoreline or and Oregon. In contrast, notice how little handy spruce has been removed.” 1 floatable stream in Southeast. logging has occurred on extreme southern Now zoom out to the watershed POW. This granitic landscape scarcely Further insight into the psychology of encompassing that acre. By the late 1970s needs wilderness protection; there’s little high-grading was provided by Tongass the odds are pretty good that the whole there to tempt a logger. Forest Supervisor W. G. Weigle in 1913: acre was clearcut, along with all of the Finally, zoom out to the Ecotrust map big-tree forest of the productive valley (Fig 12, Ecotrust, 2002) At this broadest “Every mill man is afraid the other floor, from stream banks up to the top of scale, almost no clearcuts can be detected fellow will get some very fine timber that the colluvial toeslopes. If the watershed is on the rock-and-ice terrain of eastern Lynn he is not able to use this year, and on on generally unproductive bedrock such Canal, the lake-studded granite barrens account of this he wants to take only the as granite this bottomland high-grading of southern Baranof, or the sphagnum best logs from the nearest and best trees, may have constituted only 5- or 10% bogs of Kupreanof Island. The Ecotrust then run to another stand of timber and do of the forested terrain. But the streams, map suggests that nearly half of all the the same thing.” 2 salmon, bears and riparian nutrient cycles clearcutting on public and private lands

1 Frost, N.J., incomplete report of timber cruise in southeast Alaska, circa 1928; Don Meldrum collection, Alaska State Library, MS 21, Box 5-2, pg. 2. 2 Weigle, W. G., Tongass National Forest, (unpublished?), probably 1913, NARA-Pacific Alaska Region, RG 95, 12/03/11(3), Box No. 2 Thanks to Jim Mackovjak for directing us to these quotes. 16 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 13 GIS assessment of fragmentation of old-growth patches. From the Southeast Chichagof Fig 14 Connectivity bottlenecks for deer and bear on the Logjam Project, Landscape northern Prince of Wales. Pale pink shows existing cuts, darker red shows Analysis, Shepard proposed new cuts. Black arrows show wildlife movement corridors between et al, 1999 clearcuts in an already fragmented landscape. Proposed cuts will blockade these corridors, turning the existing dispersed clearcuts into one nearly contiguous “megacut.” Yellow lines show places where new cuts will directly has targeted the “grocer’s bin” of Prince of abut previous ones. Buffers between different aged cuts have fallen out of Wales Island. favor because they usually blow down. Likewise, the TTRA-mandated stream Only by assessing high-grading at all buffer shown in center has strong probability of “unraveling” (see Fig 116) 4 of these spatial scales does it become whereupon it will serve as a barrier rather than corridor. Not shown here are proposed new roads, which also impact connectivity. clear how logging on less than 10% of total Southeast land acreage could be so crippling to fish and wildlife, and to hopes islands. In these environments, further of ditches and borrow pits (enhanced of a sustainable timber industry. fragmentation from even a relatively connectivity). Toads are also attracted In addition to spatial scales, the small amount of logging can have serious at night to the warm surfaces of dirt BC publication A cut above also points consequences. and asphalt roads. At some unknown out the importance of nested temporal People build roads to enhance threshold, however, road proliferation and scales. Take cutting cycles as an example. connectivity. It can be hard to appreciate associated development began to limit Timber “rotations” are based upon the that roads pose obstacles to many connectivity for toads, until they became time required for a tree to regrow to creatures. To a shrew, seeking the security essentially extinct in Mendenhall Valley marketable size. A longer view is needed of litter and moss cover, a 15-foot-wide (Carstensen et al, 2003).* if we are also concerned with recovery road may be an insurmountable obstacle. Early stages of post-logging of winter deer habitat. And a still longer Not all animals avoid roads; many succession also pose obstacles to animal temporal scale must be applied to recovery wolves and bears adopt them. But they movements. This is clear to anyone who of soils exhausted by millennia of serial also die there, due to combinations has bushwacked through a 5- to 30-year deforestation, as experienced by older of hunting, trapping, poaching, food old clearcut. On our Ground-truthing civilizations like China. How many future conditioning, and DLP (defense of life expedition we repeatedly saw evidence of human generations must we honor to and property) kills. In that sense, roaded game trails funneled into narrow corridors genuinely address sustainability? And watersheds impact wildlife connectivity by of old growth between proliferating how can profit-driven economies be serving as “sinks” where more individuals clearcuts. Some of those corridors are the reconciled with such far-sighted views of are lost than can be replenished by sites of proposed further logging (Fig 14). conservation? reproduction (Figs 14, 123). We return to this subject in our discussion Each fish and wildlife species faces of unraveling and its implications for Habitat connectivity different connectivity issues that are buffers. Southeast Alaska is one of the most poorly understood and may even be naturally fragmented regions of the world. counterintuitive. For example, western Restoration and enhancement Not only does most of our timber activity toads may initially have reponded The long-degraded habitats of the take place on islands, but precipitous relief positively to the increased density of lower 48 states attract many practitioners and natural forest fragmentation often breeding pond habitats in Mendenhall and volunteers to the field of ecological limits animal movement within those Valley that resulted from dredging restoration. Helping injured environments * Other unconfirmed factors such as possible chytrid fungal infections may have influenced toad declines throughout Southeast. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 17

Fig 15 Middle school team staking down Fig 16 The Forest Service is conducting thinning experiments in this 75-year-old bundles of willow cuttings for streambank second growth stand on Heceta Island. restoration, Vanderbilt Creek, Juneau. recover can be a more uplifting activity goal on the scale of human lifetimes is appears that with proper treatment, on than struggling (often futilely) against the to hasten the return of understory forage some sites, post-logging succession is diminishment of pristine ones. Restoration plants to cutover forests. Unassisted not necessarily doomed to a century of has also recently gained momentum “understory reinitiation” typically takes worthlessness as deer or red-backed vole in Southeast, becoming a theme of about 100 to 200 years because of the habitat. collaborative efforts on timber project prolonged period of dense shade under From 1980 to 2004, 148,274 acres areas in Southeast, such as the Cobble, just interlocking, even-aged canopies. were precommercially thinned on the north of Thorne Bay, POW. Thinning–at an average cost of $300 Tongass (Russell, 2005a). This represents We see many excellent opportunities per acre–can open a forest canopy enough 34% of the 430,000 total acres logged on for restoration on former or ongoing to encourage some understory forage the National Forest. The rate of thinning timber sale projects: road deactivation; species for a short window of 10 to 20 peaked in the 1980s at about 7,000 acres/ culvert replacement; streambank years (Russell, 2005b). But the resulting year, but has since fallen to about 3900 revegetation; hillslope stabilization; and slash impedes wildlife movement. A acres/year (McClellan, 2005). At this removal of invasive species. Restoration recently thinned second-growth forest current thinning rate, much of the backlog is even more appropriate near human is the most difficult of all forest types to of unthinned second growth will never communities because it allows residents to travel through for humans and deer alike, receive treatment before reaching rotation participate in a psychological/ecological if cull trees are not stacked (an additional age. Thinning work holds little appeal for healing (Fig 15). expense). Before thinning slash settles to Southeast resident loggers, so most of it is It’s one thing to fix a collapsing the ground allowing wildlife access, the done by crews brought up from Mexico. culvert, or to arrest sedimentation into canopy closes again overhead, terminating Meantime, old-growth forests continue streams with willow cuttings. But can the any understory species response. to fall, as we detail in this report. Recent forest itself be “restored” after logging? Attempts to surmount this problem successes do indicate that some aspects Juneau’s Forestry Sciences Laboratory have included slash removal, branch- of habitat for some species might be has been examining this possibility since pruning from ladders (very expensive), briefly recovered after logging, at great 1997, to fill information gaps identified in and girdling of cull trees, to “stagger” taxpayer expense and nonresident labor. TLMP (McClellan, 2005). the delivery of logs to the forest floor. But the precautionary principle would Succession is a healing process that In our view, the most promising recent have us retain enough old-growth not to follows natural or human disturbances. In experiment involves planting of red alder have to bank on such successes. Even Southeast, it takes about 300 to 400 years in clearcuts aged 0 to 5 years. Alder after a quarter century of interagency deer to return a logged or windthrown stand to improves the wildlife values of cutover research, our understanding of carrying full old-growth condition. Managers and forests (Hanley, 2005) capacity, nutritional dynamics, predation, ecologists have experimented with ways Near Thorne Bay we observed thinned and natural or manipulated successional to accelerate this recovery. While most and cleared second-growth stands on trends barely constitutes a legitimate would agree that it takes 1000 years to south-facing slopes where blueberry underpinning for forest treatment grow a 1000-year-old tree, a more modest and menziesia were well established. It decisions relating to deer. Imagine, then, 18 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS Fig 17 Thinned second growth near Mink Lake, Heceta Island. Widely opened stands in the foreground were originally cut 19 to 28 years prior to this photo.

the depth of our ignorance about disrupted root- fungus relationships, arboreal lichens, accessibility limitations, etc. in assigning the 267-mmbf/year ASQ. On cedar-bark macroinvertebrates, or brown Assumptions used in ASQ calculations August 5th, 2005, the Ninth Circuit Court creeper overwintering distributions. It are felt by many to be problematic. of Appeals ruled that this ASQ figure is unrealistic to expect second-growth Although karst and alluvial second growth rendered TLMP “arbitary and capricious,” stands–even after the most elaborate and may reach rotation age in less than a and that the Forest Service “violated expensive of treatments–ever to replace all century, it is questionable whether a cycle NEPA’s procedural requirement to present of these poorly understood functions. of 105 years is realistic for the majority complete and accurate information to Restoration is for cooperative of current and planned cuts that are on decision makers and to the public to allow optimists. Old-growth protection is for warriors who don’t weigh the odds. Both upland surfaces. And timber replenishment an informed comparison of the alternatives EIS.” (US Court of are sorely needed. alone doesn’t account for wildlife habitat considered in the Appeals, 2005) Caveat: a month of walking or soil recovery considerations, two Meanwhile, down at the lowly timber through sentenced ancient forests is not important components of longer-term project and watershed scales, a huge recommended for optimists. sustainability through multiple rotations. gulf yawns between timber availability The recent enthusiasm over restoration Unfortunately, logging on the Tongass should not be allowed to draw public and has been driven as much by perceptions as measured by polygons traced onto agency attention away from the jeopardy of market demand as by considerations air photos versus what foresters actually of irreplaceable old forests. We’re of economic and environmental find on the ground as they begin to flag enthusiastically bailing a boat with a 6- sustainability. Among the requirements proposed cutting units: unmapped salmon inch hole in the hull. of the Tongass Timber Reform Act of streams; oversteep slopes; wetlands; 1990, “Congress imposed a unique duty goshawk nests; unmarketable timber, on the Forest Service to consider the etc. The difference between projected ASQ, market demand, MIRFs, ‘market demand’ for timber.” (US Court of and actual timber availability is called falldown Appeals, 2005). “falldown.” Allowable sale quantity (ASQ) is To meet this perceived demand, the Many reviewers have long held the amount of timber that the Tongass 1997 TLMP ROD selected Alternative 11 that, considering falldown, 267 mmbf/ National Forest can produce on a that specified an ASQ of 267 mmbf/year, year is unsustainably high. Forest sustainable basis, as mandated under the rejecting less environmentally damaging Service managers argue that falldown Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960. alternatives that would have foreclosed is now accounted for through Model In theory, ASQ is calculated by dividing options to meet this ASQ figure. Implementation Reduction Factors the estimated volume in the timber base Concurrently with the 1997 TLMP (MIRFs). Comparisons were made by the rotation age, or “harvest” interval revision, the Brooks and Haynes market between model projections and ground- between forest “crops.” Average rotation demand study for the Tongass National truthed units to develop estimates of how time is currently considered to be 105 Forest had projected a low scenario of much land might be identified during years. The calculation is actually more 68 mmbf/year, a medium of 110, and a project planning as unfeasible for cutting. complex; for example not all of the high scenario of 154 mmbf/year. The On the Chatham area, for example, MIRFs productive old growth (POG) factors Forest Service doubled these projections bring down the ASQ by about 50%. equally into the timber base due to Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 19

Fig 18 Overestimation of sustained yield in the headwaters of Rio Beaver, tributary to Thorne River, central Prince of Wales Island.

ASQ is not a production target but the layout personnel encountered falldown, entirely from previously logged stands “ceiling” placed on sustainable timber they sometimes compensated with a (Russell 2005a). In the 22nd Century there yield for the Tongass as a whole. In practice called “unit expansion.” If a unit will be no 700-year old yellow-cedars or theory, similar ceilings are established had to be reduced on one side to buffer an 6-foot diameter spruces on the “working for individual timber sales, to determine unanticipated Class II stream, for example, forest.” There will only be even-aged tree volume production rates consistent with it would be expanded into terrain that farms. Cheap petroleum will be history, sustained yield. Historically, however, had not been proposed for logging in the and our young growth will have no hope non-negotiable commitments under project EIS, without impact analysis or of competing in global markets against the 50-year contracts led to wholesale public disclosure (Shoaf, 2000). more productive forests to the south. abandonment of sustained yield on We don’t know if unit expansion is still From A cut above: sale after sale. One has only to drive taking place on Tongass timber projects. “Establish a rate-of-cut that does not the logging roads of Prince of Wales or We saw several cases where our GPSed compromise the long-term ecological Chichagof islands to witness the results unit borders did not match those of the integrity of landscapes and watersheds.” (Fig 18). USFS shapefiles (see Unit boundary Drever (2000). The root cause of falldown is that changes, below). The more we learn about the country, foresters don’t flag units until too late in The individual timber projects we the slower that rate appears to be. And the the planning process. Final unit boundary visited in 2005 are probably giving up longer our prediction for time required flagging does not take place untilafter the more volume than they can provide in to heal the wounds of our predecessors’ Record of Decision (ROD) is issued (see perpetuity. Nobody really knows. But breakneck “management.” recommendations under Unit boundary volume yield is only part of sustainability. And from forest ecologist Chris changes, below). By the time unmapped With each entry, the biggest, oldest and Maser: problems are discovered, options are most valuable trees are taken. By decade 7 “Liquidating old-growth forests is locked-in. There is extreme pressure to of the Tongass Plan, available old growth not forestry; it is simply spending our “get the cut out.” on the timber production lands will be inheritance.” In the past, when Ketchikan-area unit gone, and the ASQ will come almost 20 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Methods

Our first season of ground-truthing to influence Forest Service decisions. Campaign, and Greenpeace. They added was a pilot effort. We gradually evolved a On the other hand, while projects with further votes to our priorities list and protocol for assessing past and proposed finalized EIS documents may appear helped us assemble documents, letters and logging impacts. We decided as the to be “done deals,” they often show maps. month progressed that on this first field little regard for economic sustainability, trip it would be better to briefly visit a wildlife habitat protection and the pleas large variety of timber projects than to Pre-field review of nearby communities. By bringing these We had complete GIS capabilities even concentrate more intensively within a shortcomings to public attention, and in our tent camps throughout the Ground- limited number of them. giving a “face” to places like Threemile truthing expedition. The critical data to This decision was partly driven by Arm, or Cholmondeley Sound, we gather before our departure from Sitka our choice of transportation. The Pearl could influence the future course of land was up-to-date shapefiles of proposed (Fig 20) is a racehorse: an ideal vessel management on all Tongass projects. And cutting units on timber sales throughout for wide-ranging research. Only with this even for those “sentenced” places there is the Tongass. About 2 months before tool could we have economically visited always hope, until the trees hit the ground. the field trip we submitted a Freedom in 4 weeks’ time a dozen timber sites Another question for our partners was of Information Act request (FOIA) to ranging from Chichagof to southern Prince this: how should we weigh the relative the Forest Service requesting these and of Wales. It seemed a waste of a golden importance of projects like Tuxekan other project-related data for every sale opportunity to keep her too long at anchor Island (already heavily logged but with we thought we might possibly be able to in any one cove. magnificent karst forests “on the block”) visit. Some project data came through on versus Emerald Bay (an unroaded the day of our Sitka departure. Other data Site Selection wilderness and first “foot in the door” layers were delivered after our field work Prior to leaving Juneau, we met with for the greater Cleveland Peninsula). The was over. staff at SEACC and Earth Justice and battle for the Tongass is in some ways like In general, the Forest Service is discussed project-area priorities. We also a chess game, where the cooler strategists an extraordinarily well-organized and spoke with several agency reviewers of prevail. But the losers are not pawns and generous provider of images and data. timber projects, and noted their areas of knights; they are 700-year-old yellow- Because both of us have had long-standing highest biological concern. cedars and wolves and goshawks. The relationships with USFS and other We developed a list of high, medium game, as a seasoned timber sale reviewer agencies for research projects of many and low priorities, learning as we warned us, is “gut-wrenching.” kinds, we’d already acquired enormous proceded that there were different reasons In Sitka, after a week of preliminary amounts of data on our laptops and for interest in the various project areas. Ground-truthing in Peril Strait, we met external hard drives. The challenge was For those projects that are still in the early with staff and board members of the Sitka mainly to waterproof it all. On a trip such scoping stages there is greater opportunity Conservation Society, Alaska Rainforest as the Ground-truthing Expedition, which

Fig 19 Leica GPS backpack unit with antenna. Cheryl Van Dyke on brown bear trail at Ushk

Fig 20 The Pearl at anchor near White Rock, Chichagof Island. (Kayaks were used only on the northern portion of our trip.) Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 21 Fig 21 Screenshot from master GIS project for our Ground-truthing expedition. The screen is centered on the Cholmondeley timber project (“Chomley”) on southeastern Prince of Wales. Layers shown in the “table of contents” bar on the left can be turned on and off by checking or unchecking their boxes. They are subdivided into physical, biological, cultural and imagery layers (air photo layers are added later in the projects created specifically for each timber sale.) In this example, the combined Value Comparison Units (VCUs) for the Chomley project are merged to create the large black outline. Using this shape, all of the layers below are “clipped” and transfered to a new GIS project just for Chomley. Layers here include: a shaded relief base; the “tree-size” map (indicating how little big-tree forest there is in Chomley); proposed cutting units (and their impact to the big- and medium-tree forest); ADF&G catalogued streams; and red points for fish species occupancy.

took us from Juneau to southern Prince PC, the Recon (Fig 22). Attached to a of Wales and back, focusing eclectically survey-grade Leica GS50 GPS unit with Navigation on everything from bedrock to bear trails, backpack-antenna, this unit allows us to The Leica/Recon combination (Figs it’s hard to think of a data layer we didn’t essentially bring the entire GIS project 19, 22) is a superlative tool for navigation use. Bedrock geology, soils, wetlands, into the field with us. through densely forested terrain where veg-types, tree-size, cedar dieback, In addition to an exhaustive electronic views of distant landmarks are often channel-type, lakes, fish runs, land-use library of aerial photography at several limited. Our position on the orthophoto designations, roads, clearcut dates and scales and dates, we assembled a base is shown in real-time (Fig 22), even proposed further cutting; these were all collection of 3D aerial slides in 35 mm beneath closed forest canopy where data layers we checked almost daily. format prior to leaving Juneau. The slides traditional GPS units have difficulty For each timber sale area visited we are inserted into a small stereoviewer (Fig reading satellites. Notes typed into the “clipped” data from a master GIS project 23) for field use. Stereoviews of the forest pocket PC are automatically given spatial (Fig 21), usually on the evening before were extremely useful for navigation, coordinates. As the expedition progressed our first outing. Base photography was location of big-tree forest patches, and we gradually developed multiple-choice the USFS 6-foot-pixel digital orthoquads. assessment of proposed high-grading. pulldown menus to speed the collection In addition to this 1996 B&W rectified For more information about the of data and eliminate retyping later in photography we had unrectified* large- kinds of aerial photography available for camp (see downloads, below). Because scale (1:12,000 and 1:15:840) true color Southeast Alaska, see the sidebar on page the Leica/Recon combo offers sub-meter digital photo files covering the entire 10 of the Ground-truthing field journal. accuracy in optimal conditions, it is a Tongass - a 70 gigabyte collection recently reliable tool for verifying the position of scanned and released by the Forest FIELD unit boundaries, etc. Service. These could be georeferenced at When logistics permitted, we split up When we split up in the field, the need throughout our trip for more detailed to cover different portions of the project second observer oriented by means of views of proposed cutting units. area. Our goal was to familiarize ourselves stereophotography and a traditional GPS Clipping all of the above imagery and with as many aspects of the project unit with uploaded destination waypoints. data layers down to a few watersheds watershed as possible, focusing on the These positions are created on the laptop in extent makes the file collection small proposed cutting units but also examining prior to the field trip by “clicking” points enough to upload into a waterproof pocket the “matrix” forest and wetland habitats. onto an orthophoto that also shows the * A rectified or georeferenced air photo is one that has been given spatial coordinates so that it can be matched to other data layers in GIS. 22 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 22 Recon pocket PC Fig 23 3D stereo Fig 24 The office tent at Emerald Bay. data logger, cabled to a slide viewer. Distant generator on long extension Leica submeter accuracy These were cord is powering 2 laptops and GPS. Yellow crosshair our constant recharging batteries from cameras, shows position on companions on GPS units and radios. orthophoto in real-time. bushwacks Kenyon Fields photo.

proposed unit boundaries. The resulting Island. This photo mission is described with a method for quantifying forest shapefile is then cabled into the GPS. In in detail in the Ground-truthing field structure within proposed cutting units. “nearest” or “go-to” mode, the observer journal. We were pleased with our ability The procedure yields data on tree size and is thus given the bearing and distance to to navigate to proposed cutting units that density through “variable radius plots.” each waypoint along the intended route. were in fairly featureless terrain and not At 5 randomly-chosen points within the Additional waypoints are taken in the marked in any way visible from the air. unit, a 360o circle is spun with a 40-factor field, associated with handwritten or tape- We created a GIS project for the trip cruiser’s gage. All in-trees are measured recorded notes for later transcription into and navigated by means of the laptop, for diameter. Data are entered in tables the waypoint database. cabled to a GPS. This allowed us, for to calculate mean diameters by species, example, to steer tight circles around number of trees by diameter size class, Photography proposed cutting units for multiple and number of trees per acre. Collectively, We thoroughly documented all aspects photographs. In autopan mode the GPS this size/density information is superior of the work with image-stabilized, high- support toolbar for ArcMap keeps the to stand volume measures as a descriptor resolution digital cameras. Using the plane’s position centered on the screen, of ecologically important forest structural program GPS Photo-link, all photos were leaving the passenger’s hands free for features. automatically assigned coordinates. With photography. These data are routinely collected by both the Leica and hand-held Garmin As with our ground-based foresters within all proposed cutting units. GPS units we recorded tracks of each photography, the plane’s recorded GPS We do not presently have access to the outing. GPS Photo-link calculates the lag track was later downloaded, and the resulting “stand exams,” nor is analysis of between time stamps on the camera and photographs were automatically attached such data within the scope of our current GPS unit and drops a photopoint icon onto to the appropriate position on that track contract. However we think stand exam the appropriate position on the track (see with GPS Photo-link. data provide the best way to quantify downloads, below). We’ve written up a complete the degree of high-grading of big-tree description of the protocol for Lighthawk, forests in proposed timber projects (see Lighthawk flight so that others can experiment with it. Stand exam data, under NEPA planning On June 20th, Lighthawk met us Contact us if you’d like a copy. recommendations). near Emerald Bay for an overflight of Concerned foresters and the Cleveland Peninsula, Gravina Island, Size/density measurements conservationists are beginning to take and southern and central Prince of Wales Early in the trip we experimented a closer look at several varieties of big- Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 23

Fig 25 above: Diameter distributions from variable-radius plot surveys in 3 different forests in Peril Strait. This is a much more effective way to display structural variation and takes less time than volume measurements that require tree heights. Fig 26 above right: Panorama of typical forest scene in proposed cut at Ushk Bay. Fig 28 Orthophoto of proposed unit 577-43 Fig 27 right: “Mug shot” of big cedar (white outline) in the on the Logjam. Location is shown by red Logjam Project. Color arrow in Fig 28. tints are from the tree size map (BT = big-tree tree forest–alluvial spruce stands, mixed forest, MT = medium-tree; CC = clearcut). Small dots are the Leica GPS route coded to elevation. Large dots are photo-links. On this loop we determined that the tree size map karst forests, and the red- and yellow- was in error. The entire unit is big-tree forest, even (to our surprise) the fine-textured cedar forests of the south–collecting and portion on the steep slope in center. This stand is very dominated by big redcedars up analysing the size/density data on which to 8 feet in diameter. On this site at least, large cedars with their spire-like crowns do improved Standards and Guidelines will not form the coarse, gappy-looking canopy that you’d find with a stand of equally large be based. Such work is a high priority for spruce or hemlock. We also discovered that the cedar component was not picked up in TIMTYP. future Ground-truthing. (see Protection of rare big-tree stands). possible we included a person beside the two aspects of the forest type maps: their tree for scale. Our journal entries often ability to accurately show the distribution Big tree searches include a half-dozen or so of these BT of the big-tree forest, and whether they Because the above-described forest mug shots, bearing witness to what will effectively capture the distribution of structural measurements take time, we be lost if the unit is logged. If that does red and yellow cedars. On the southern only experimented with them on a few occur, it will be painful for us to look at Tongass we frequently found ourselves sites. Throughout the rest of the trip we those photo collages again. Big, old trees in forests dominated by cedars that were systematically recorded the position, size develop “personality.” mapped as hemlock. (see Cedars, below). and species of individual large trees both Our conclusion was that the scale inside and outside of units. As expected, Ground-truthing forest type of forest type mapping is very coarse. we consistently found that there were far maps Average polygon size in TIMTYP is 60 more of these large trees inside units than Our field visits combined with acres. Patches of very large trees of less in the “matrix” forests. The difference is stereoscopic interpretation allowed us to than 5 or 10 acres in extent are typically also apparent on aerial photos, especially critique USFS maps of forest type. All overlooked (Fig 28). When working when viewed stereoscopically (Fig 23). of these data layers are iterations of the within the scale of individual cutting units, We took two basic types of original TIMTYP; they simply collapse a finer-scale forest type map is needed (see photographs to document forests within volume classes in different ways, or merge Forest structure maps). units. The first was simply a representative TIMTYP with other data layers such as scene–often a panorama–to show the the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) to Past logging “typical” stand structure (Fig 26). The more effectively define the hydric, small- This was our least favorite part of the second category we began to call “mug tree forest. Ground-truthing Expedition. Even if we shots” of big trees (Fig 27). Whenever We were particularly interested in had no interest whatsoever in learning 24 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 29 140-acre clearcut on karst at Chasina, logged in 1990. Bushwacking across a cut of this size would be almost suicidal.

Fig 30 A hint of what the above forest used to look like. Fig 31 Deer trail running through remnant big- tree karst forest on heavily logged Tuxekan Island. more about post-logging second growth, goshawks were noted. In wet, open areas POST-FIELD we’d inevitably have spent a lot of time in we searched for amphibians. Notes were On return from the field our day was clearcuts. Murphy’s Law says that except given spatial coordinates so that we could less than half over. Data processing takes in the currently roadless timber sales like reconstruct broad patterns of distribution longer than data collection. Emerald and Chasina North (and actually after downloading our field notes onto even on these locations!) there will orthophotos. Downloads always be a clearcut between you and the Digital photos were immediately proposed unit you need to bushwack to. Other field notes downloaded and named. They were We made the best of our experience in Other odds and ends that we recorded assigned spatial coordinates in GPS clearcuts, fine-tuning our understanding during our bushwacks included: Photo-link, a program that interfaces of the relationship of successional age to • Relationship of bedrock type to with ArcMap, attaching photopoints for bushwacking misery. We took notes on vegetation. each shot to a GPSed track of the day’s wildlife use (usually very little except • Karst features. route. When the cursor hovers over the in alder-captured cuts), progression • Forest understory composition and its photopoint icon a thumbnail of the picture toward canopy closure, and especially the relation to canopy closure. appears; clicking on it opens the shot in character of the preceding forest as shown • Rare vascular plants and mosses. your default image browser. In this way, in stumps. Whenever possible we counted • Bushwacking difficulty. We all of our photos will be available in rings in the larger stumps. Typically they developed a ranking for this on a scale of ArcReader projects for each timber sale ran between 400 and 700 years old. 1 to 10. area. • Stream features. We didn’t find any GPS waypoints were also downloaded Wildlife habitat streams improperly included in units onto the GIS project for the study area. We recorded wildlife sign such as deer but we sometimes noted concerns with For the Leica/Recon waypoints all and bear trails (Fig 31), scat, browsed potential upslope erosion. attached notes are included automatically. stems of blueberry (winter use) and grazed • Slope steepness. At Logjam and For Garmin downloads, handwritten herbs (summer use). On beaches and dirt Cholmondeley we found slopes far in or tape-recorded field notes had to be roads we noted tracks of these species excess of 72% within cutting units. transcribed into the waypoint shapefiles. as well as wolf, moose, and mustelids. Herons, cranes, geese, songbirds (on territory in June) and evidence of Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 25 Fig 32 All of our timber project maps are “clipped” by VCUs (value comparison units), roughly synonomous with watersheds. The Corner Bay project consists of a single VCU, while the Cholmondely Project envelops 7.

Journaling We evolved a division of labor that best suited our skills and proclivities. Carstensen tended to concentrate on photo-illustrated journaling while Christensen did most of the GIS analysis. For days when we split up in the field, the Christensen journal entries were inserted into the Carstensen “matrix.” We find that immediate journaling on the same evening as the field photos, perform simple queries, measure complete and fairly standardized outing takes a long time but is the best distances, and print or send to file any collection of data layers. Combined with way to slowly tease out the significance composition of layers that you arrange on our spatially linked photos and field notes, of the daily experience. A lot of ideas the screen. these will be “published” to ArcReader crystallize that just don’t have time to ArcReader can be downloaded from projects that we can share with any of our emerge in the heat of field work. ESRI at: http://www.esri.com/software/ collaborators who wish to install that free arcgis/arcreader/ program on their personal computers. GIS synthesis It’s a 100-megabyte download, In addition to the basic downloads, and however, requiring a fast connection integration of our field data with agency ArcReader projects and patience. Contact us if you’d like to layers and imagery, we explored a few ArcReader is a free read-only program borrow an installation CD. questions such as the relation of proposed from ESRI, the makers of ArcMap and units to winter deer habitat, or issues of other GIS software. You can install this connectivity. For the most part, however, program on almost any PC (unfortunately these summary analyses were deferred not available for Mac). It allows you to until the end of the Ground-truthing peruse projects we create for timber sales expedition. or Southeast-wide conservation issues. Our main GIS goal during the trip You can turn layers on and off, adjust their was to assemble for each project area a transparency, zoom in and out, view air 26 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Timber projects visited

All of the sites we visited are described, illustrated and mapped in greater detail in the Ground-truthing Field Journal, Timber Sale Atlas, and ArcReader documents. Here we summarize the distinctive features and conservation issues of each site.

Corner Bay This timber project was not a planned is very little alluvium part of our Ground-truthing expedition. on the valley floor, but However, since Bob Christensen and highly productive colluvial his partners prepared GIS layers for the fans extend more than a Corner Bay VCU in the course of bear thousand feet vertically up habitat studies, we include it in the Timber the steep valley walls. Very sale Atlas. There is considerable overlap in large trees once grew on protocol for ground-truthing between the these slopes. bear surveys and timber sale assessments, Corner Bay was logged so even the photo- and field-note waypoint in 3 successive stages. In layers may be of interest to those 1960, productive forests concerned with the history and future of along the northwest logging in this area. shoreline were taken by Corner Bay is a heavily logged A-frame operations. In the watershed south of Tenakee (Fig 33). The entire project area covers 10,962 acres. Our GIS analysis indicates that about Fig 33 Logging analysis map of Corner Bay, in 31% of the original productive old growth Tenakee Inlet. Because (POG) and 62% of the original big-tree many of the clearcuts here forest in the VCU has been logged*. fall on upland slopes, we The bedrock underlying Corner Bay conservatively estimated that is a complex mix of rocks that grade 50% of the cutover land was originally big-tree forest. from igneous to volcanic to carbonate in a northeasterly direction (Fig 38). There Fig 34 View SE from Corner Bay estuary. Inset: habituated brown bear near USFS camp. * Although one often hears the statement that 70% of the original “high-volume forest” of the Tongass has been cut, it is in fact beyond the means of even the most competent biometricians to measure such losses on a Forest-wide basis. Part of the problem is the multiple spatial scales mentioned earlier, at which such analyses must be performed. Even at the scale of a single watershed, our estimates should be taken with a grain of salt. For one thing they are based on the “tree-size map” which is only a predictive model. We frequently noted under- or over-estimates of forest quality as described in Figure 28. Hopefully the errors in forest-type mapping balance out when averaged over larger areas.

So even the estimates of current forest distribution could be in error. To derive a figure for the original quality of forest in clearcuts, we assumed that almost all of the stands on alluvial fans and floodplains, colluvial toe-slopes and karst were big trees. For clearcuts on upland slopes, we assumed that the forest was split equally between big trees (former VC 6&7) and medium trees ( VC 5). The small-tree stands (VC 4) are almost never logged. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 27

Fig 35 View southeast over Sitkoh Bay estuary from top of a parkland “uplift spruce.” Major bear foraging habitat. Fig 36 Remnant of the vanished big-tree forest at Sitkoh Bay. This tree grew on an alluvial fan above the bay head.

Fig 37 Valley mid-1970s, the valley was roaded and bottom logging in Sitkoh VCU the bottomlands were cut. In the mid- had major fish 1990s these low-elevation cuts were and wildlife extended up the valley walls. No buffers impacts. By separated the different-aged cuts and our estimation, they coalesced to form “supercuts” of up Sitkoh has lost 89% of its big- to 200 acres. tree forest. Sitka Ranger District is in the initial scoping phases of a 4th logging entry into Corner Bay. We do not have 27,298 acres, 47% of which are and surficial landforms. Part of the shapefiles for proposed future cuts but it’s productive old growth. Compared to watershed is on Cretaceous granite, but the obvious where they will go; the remaining Corner Bay a smaller amount (24%) of remainder is on nutrient-rich alluvium and commercially valuable forests are quite the original POG has been logged, but a colluvium deriving from mixed Devonian limited, as are options for overwintering larger amount (89%) of the original big- sedimentaries and volcanic rocks. deer. The sale will offer 18 million board tree forest was cut. Of the 13 timber sale The Sitkoh Bay watershed was logged feet. areas we looked at on this trip, only False in 4 stages. Between 1910 and 1920 Island has forfeited so high a percentage several shoreline stands were cut near Sitkoh Bay of the original big-tree stands. This may at the mouth of the bay. A cannery operated Sprawling tideflat and sedge marsh first seem odd, considering that on some in the area at that time. In 1949 the big and rich uplift meadow at the head of of the more productive timber projects streamside spruces were cut from a 30- Sitkoh Bay remains one of the finest “bear like Kosciusko as many as 5 times more acre patch along the bay-head stream. The pastures” on the ABC islands. To access acres were logged. But at Sitkoh and False abandoned barge and diesel donkey that these meadows and intertidal marshes Island the big trees were never abundant, still remain in the uplift meadows were bears must run a gauntlet of logging roads and they were predictably concentrated probably used in the yarding of these trees. that completely encompass the bay head, on a few easily accessed alluvial fans and The watershed was roaded in the early popular with weekend off-road vehicle floodplains. 1970s and this is when most of Sitkoh’s enthusiasts. Sitkoh has a combination of great forest fell. Further logging took Sitkoh Bay VCU (Fig 37) covers unproductive and very productive bedrock place in the upper watershed between 28 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Geology and logging

Fig 38 Chichagof Island consists of 3 geologic provinces of decreasing age as you move SW toward the outer coast. The northeastern province holds ancient Paleozoic rocks such as the sinkhole-studded limestone of Hoonah’s Elephant Mountain. The southwestern outer province has more recent Mesozoic sedimentaries such as Sitka greywacke. In between is an intruded granitic body known as the Chichagof plutonic complex. Separating the three provinces are the deep Peril Strait and Sitkoh Bay faults. The Sitkoh fault runs continously to Mud Bay, and forms an important wildlife corridor between Sitkoh and Kadashan Bays.

Fig 39 Pale Cretaceous granitic cliffs on ridge between Sitkoh Bay and False Island.

Fig 40 Granitic bedrock is often associated with steep cliffs and rugged topography. Big trees in such landscapes are restricted to valley bottoms. Only when you examine logging–shown here in pink–in relation to topography does it seem excessive on southeastern Chichagof and northern Baranof. Compared to the much greater volume of timber that was taken off Prince of Wales Island, the footprint here seems small. But logging here may have been even more devastating for fish and wildlife. There never was much lowland big-tree forest in Peril Strait, and now it’s almost all gone. Black outlines show the sale areas we visited. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 29

Fig 42 Weekend riders off-load their ORVs at the False Island dock, accessing a vast network of logging roads that in turn provide entry points to beaches, salt marshes, peatlands and uplift meadows.

Fig 41 False Island VCU. Only 11% of the original big-tree forest remains on this VCU.

Fig 43 Above: 1929 US Navy oblique. View northeast to Sitkoh Lake showing almost unbroken big- tree forest in the lowlands. Below: pink-shaded area was logged between 1968 and 1972. Terrain simulation in ArcScene, based on 1996 orthophoto and USFS “managed stands” data layer

1992 and 1995. place in the late Along with the adjacent False Island 1960s and 1970s. VCU described below, Sitkoh is a favorite The 6-mile-long destination for ORV riders from Sitka. 1968 shoreline This accessibility degrades wildlife habitat clearcut between quality, expecially for brown bear. Sitkoh Lake and False Island False Island (Figs 41 & 43) Although we based out of the False destroyed a vast Island Camp throughout our work in Peril expanse of ideal Strait, we did no forest assessments there. southwest-facing We include it because at the time of our deer winter range, visit the Sitka Ranger District was in the possibly the best scoping phase of another timber offering on Chichagof (John of 12 million board feet. (PS: It appears Schoen, personal at time of this report that the False Island communication). sale may be cancelled or postponed.) This cut is one of Unlike the Sitkoh Bay VCU, which the most visible percentage of this landscape, and only is largely coincident with the watershed logging impacts along the Alaska Marine 11% remains. draining into the bay head, the False Island Highway. Ironically, few ferry passengers While staying at the USFS camp we VCU (Fig 41) is merely a contiguous notice it because the 37-year-old forest watched ORV riders leave the logging series of watersheds emptying into Peril now looks superficially healthy from the roads, cross the camp lawn, walk their 4- Strait. This VCU contains 36,089 acres. water. Virtually no forage plants remain wheelers and dirt bike over stacked logs About 29% of the original POG and 89% under the closed canopy except in places and large boulders in the beach fringe, of the original big-tree forest has been where “alder capture” has occurred. and run out into the intertidal salt marsh cut. With the exception of a few shoreline More so than in the Sitkoh watershed, where several brown bears habitually are clearcuts in the 1920s and one 1943 cut the False Island VCU is largely underlain seen grazing (Fig 42). The motors of these behind the False Bay camp, most of the by unproductive granitic bedrock (Figs 38 vehicles are extremely loud. This type of roading and logging in this VCU took & 39). Big-tree forest was never a large harassment is an unfortunate side-effect 30 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 45 Saook VCU.

that logging improves wildlife habitat in any lasting way; eventually this cutover Fig 44 Low aerial view of Saook Creek. Paler yellow-green trees reach will succeed to impoverished, even- are red alders. A few large spanning logs remain from the previous aged conifer forest. And the long-term forest, but the stream is now dominated by riffles. Logged stump, inset, shows size of previous forest. contribution of large logs into the stream has ended. But it is worth noting that of logging that continues as long as roads their terrestrial acreages. In the case of logging may not immediately terminate remain open. “Closed” roads merely Saook this is largely due to the precipitous high bear activity. present interesting logistical challenges for headwater terrain, mostly above the some of these intrepid recreationists. elevation of productive forest. Bedrock is Ushk a mix of sedimentaries, metamorphics and We investigated one proposed cutting Saook volcanics of Cretaceous age. unit at Ushk Bay. The Sitka Ranger We didn’t conduct ground-truthing Above the aptly-named Paradise Flats District is in the initial scoping phases of surveys at Saook Bay but Bob Christensen there’s an extensive alluvial flood plain a revived timber offering of 30 million did a bear habitat assessment there. that once supported very large trees (Fig board feet in this once-protected complex Old timber sale maps show 645 acres 44). This bottomland forest was logged of watersheds. Because nearly all of the in proposed cutting units. This sale is in 1961 and 1962. Because the soils were other watersheds between Ushk and Sitka temporarily inactive, but could be revived. heavily disturbed in yarding, much of this have seen major logging, this relatively We therefore include results of our GIS 600 acre clearcut has come back in alder. intact bay is a popular anchorage, and the measurements here. SEAWEAD bear habitat studies timber sale here is controversial. The Saook VCU contains 25,029 acres. have provided an interesting comparison Few Sitka residents are aware, Only 7% of the original POG but 67% of between Saook Bay and the adjacent however, that a 225-acre clearcut (Fig 46) the original big-tree forest has been cut. Lake Eva complex. Eva is better-known just behind the screen of bay-head trees Note on the VCU map (Fig 45) that there than Saook as a bear-viewing area but is has removed 51% of the original big-tree is literally no big-tree forest mapped on actually inferior as brown bear habitat in forest of the entire, multi-watershed sale the upland slopes. This type is restricted several ways. Although it passes through area, with substantial impacts to fish and to the stream bottoms, and most of it was generally intact forest, Eva Creek is a wildlife habitat. taken in the 1960s. deep, contained stream with few good The Ushk project area contains 46,122 A good indication of the productivity fishing reaches. Saook Creek above acres. Although half of the big-tree forest of a watershed is the pre-logging Paradise Flats has excellent fishing is gone, only 2% of the original POG has percentage of total land area in productive potential for bears. Also, the current early been cut, mostly in the above-mentioned old growth (POG). Saook watershed, successional status of the lower stream clearcuts (1954 and 1964). It gives a good along with the Ushk and Cholmondeley reaches yields an abundance of nutrient- idea of the limited distribution of large project areas, had the lowest POG ratios– rich alder leaves to the stream, and has trees in the Ushk/Poison/Deep watershed 37%, 37%, and 35%, respectively–of high songbird density. This is not to say complex to recognise that so much of Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 31

Fig 47 Stump cut in 1964 on Fig 48 Ancient yellow cedar in Ushk Creek. proposed cutting unit, Ushk Bay.

Fig 46 Ushk Bay Sale area.

Fig 49 Pale granitic rock weathers into cobble-sized material, typical of the beds of Ushk, Poison and Deep Creeks. the of the project area’s prime forest was Sitka use area to be targeted for logging. this sale area. In the unit we traversed, the concentrated in this one patch. Scan the Ushk Project map (Fig 46) forest was dominated by medium-sized Only 37% of the Ushk project area for big-tree forest (darkest green); it’s western hemlocks, for which there is was productive old growth, a reflection of remarkable how little there is in this area. currently little demand. A few large yellow the rugged terrain and the predominantly We did not have time to walk more cedars scattered through such a unit can granitic bedrock. The generally low- than one of the proposed cutting units at make the difference between profit and productive forest explains why Ushk has Ushk. But it appears that yellow-cedar loss for a bidder. been one of the last watersheds in the (Fig 48) may be driving the unit layout in

Fig 50 View down-bay from Ushk estuary. 32 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 52 Hiller Cove, Threemile Arm. Rocky Pass beyond. Proposed cutting units outlined in white. Most targeted forests are NW-facing protected lee-slope big-tree stands with ancient hemlock, spruce and yellow-cedar. Kenyon Fields Lighthawk photo.

Fig 51 Threemile Sale Area

Fig 53 View west to the northernmost proposed cutting units in the Threemile Sale. Too far inland for us to access, we are nevertheless convinced by examination of 3D aerial photography that these were the largest trees in the sale area. Canopy texture here is even coarser than that of the big-tree forest shown in Fig 54. These units fit the general Threemile sale pattern of targeting steep, NW-facing lee slopes where spruce/hemlock old growth has endured for millennia without stand-replacing blowdown. We added white lines showing the proposed units by comparing the photo to an ArcScene simulation with current cutting unit shapefile imposed on 1996 orthophoto. Kenyon Fields Lighthawk photo.

Threemile air-photo examination indicates We spent 2 field days in this timber that the map is in error. Coarse- project with 2 crews (i.e., 4 crew-days) textured stands containing very and gained a good understanding of past large trees predominate in all and proposed logging impacts. units (Fig 54), especially so in the The Petersburg Ranger District has northernmost cluster of units (Fig offered 20 million board feet here. The 53). sale is currently in litigation. Big-tree Threemile was logged in 3 forest is very thinly distributed in a episodes. In the mid 1920s, small matrix of peatland and scrub forest with A-frame projects targeted patches widespread yellow-cedar dieback (Fig 58). averaging 10 acres near the south As at Ushk Bay, it appears that ancient end of Rocky Pass. The second yellow-cedars are critical components of proposed cutting units. Fig 54 Large trees at Threemile. The Threemile project area contains The hemlock is 7 feet in diameter, 43,365 acres (Fig 51). Only 8% of the close to the state record for this original POG but 51% of the original species. Although these trees are not in a proposed cutting unit, air big-tree forest has been cut. Although the photos suggest they probably typify tree-size map above suggests that few of the forests in the farthest inland the proposed cutting units target remaining units (Figs 53, 55) that we were big-tree forest, our ground-truthing and unable to reach. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 33

Fig 55 1996 orthophoto, Fig 56 Large Threemile Arm sale area. spruce cut in 1992 at Threemile Arm.

Fig 57 Wolf tracks in dewatered peatland pit pond, next to hoof prints of hors d’ouevre-sized bambi. Kuiu deer have been kept perennially low since the 1970s by a combination of wolf predation, high black bear numbers (fawn predators), and heavy logging along the Fig 58 The “matrix” forest at Threemile is scrubby cedar/ northern road system. hemlock on poorly drained soils. Dead trees here are yellow- cedar dieback.

period of logging was from 1966 to 1970, bidder. In some of the proposed salvage because more snow builds up there. But and also removed forests right down to the units, surviving trees still extend 70% at Threemile, this is all that remains for beach line, but in larger units ranging from canopy cover. Having survived the first deer in deep-snow conditions. The rest 20 to 80 acres. Finally, in the late 1980s, big storm, some of these trees may be of the forest is widely-spaced hemlocks roads were built to access the good timber windfirm enough to endure, protecting and scraggly yellow-cedars with narrow farther inland from the beach. The most the “interior” forest that will again be crowns that fail to intercept enough snow recent logging along this road system was exposed if they’re removed. It’s hard to to allow deer to forage. Here is a case in 1993. A windstorm in 1998 blew down understand the rationale for these salvage where a “one-size-fits-all” deer model may many of the exposed clearcut edges of prescriptions. fail to identify critical habitat. these 1990s units (Fig 117). This eastern peninsula of Kuiu Island Half of the big-tree forest type has The current timber sale includes small is underlain by geologically recent already fallen to logging. Because most salvage units along the edges of these volcanic rocks of relatively low relief. of the cut forest was close to the beach, unraveling clearcuts. Salvage is defined Rolling hills account for the variability at low elevation, it was higher in both in the TLMP Standards and Guidelines in forest productivity. Most of the flat economic and ecological quality than as “the removal of dead trees or trees or gently sloping land supports scrubby the remnant 49%. Further logging of this being damaged or dying due to injurious forest. Larger trees are concentrated on the forest type–both mapped and that which agents other than competition and is used steeper lee slopes, especially northwest- the map does not adequately portray–will to recover value that would otherwise be facing aspects. have substantial impact to wintering deer. lost.” In hard winters, these forests provide Our impression is that the medium- the only good habitat for Sitka black- sized standing and fallen hemlocks here tailed deer. Deer winter habitat models are not valuable enough to interest a rank northern aspects relatively low 34 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 60 Big trees in cutting unit 12. The spruce on left is a boundary tree, not to be cut, but at 180 feet it will probably blow down when exposed to the increased winds along the clearcut margin.

Fig 59 Emerald Sale Area

Fig 61 The Emerald sale area occupies the “pinch-point” of the Cleveland Peninsula. The approach road would bissect an old-growth reserve.

Emerald Bay The Emerald timber project consists of a single VCU, placed strategically at the “pinchpoint” of the Cleveland Peninsula (Fig 61). The Cleveland is one of the last, large unroaded regions of the Southeast mainland coast. All of our potential large native mammals occur there–including goats, moose, both bear species, wolves, wolverines and mountain lions–so issues of connectivity bigger Port Stewart EIS.” The plan now For about a mile inland from the coast, enter prominently into the debate over the includes 6 miles of road, drops much of the Emerald contains scrubby old-growth Emerald Sale. the original partial-cut prescription in with interspersed peatland. This eastern Plans for the Emerald have escalated favor of clearcutting, bissects a medium portion of the sale area is on Cretaceous since the original scoping process. old-growth reserve (OGR) with logging granitics, and is currently set aside as old- Participants in an initial “collaborative roads to access the timber production growth reserve. Inland from this rock type stewardship” partnership were assured in lands, and violates beach and estuary are older metamorphics and sedimentaries, 1998 that public input would help guide buffer requirements. and many of the cutting units fall on this any development on the Cleveland, and This small timber sale targets 7,850 more productive rock type. that the Emerald would be a helicopter- acres. Essentially none of the original In our ground-truthing walks only sale. In February, 2000, a memo from POG but 3% of the original big-tree forest at Emerald, and on all subsequent Ketchikan District Ranger Jerry Ingersol has been logged, the latter in a 16-acre assessments of proposed cutting units on acknowledged that “Emerald Bay began hand-cut patch just above the estuary that Prince of Wales and neighboring islands, as a somewhat experimental project to fell in 1900. There are very large stumps we consistently found very large spruce, get our foot in the door on the [unroaded] in this second-growth stand. hemlock and redcedar even where the Cleveland Peninsula prior to the much Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 35

Fig 62 This spruce and hemlock in proposed cutting unit #12 are mapped as “medium-tree forest” in the tree-size layer. Fig 63 Proposed Emerald cutting units traced onto Lighthawk aerial by comparison with ArcScene landscape simulation. tree-size map depicted “medium-tree forest” (Figs 60 and 62). The tree-size map captures the coarse-textured bottomland forest fairly well, and is a good predictive tool for comparison of watersheds, etc, at a relatively coarse scale. But at the timber project scale it does not identify many of the stands of increasingly rare big trees on upland slopes. Another issue that came into focus for us at Emerald was the discrepancy between mapped cutting unit boundaries (the latest GIS shapefiles acquired by FOIA through USFS) and as they actually occurred in the field, measured with our survey-grade GPS instrument. These post-ROD boundary shifts make effective public and agency participation impossible. 36 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 64 Summore Change Sale Area

Fig 65 Cave entry at Cavern Lake, one of two caves on POW open to the public.

Summore Change Service prior to logging, only Summore Change is an active timber a narrow buffer of trees were sale within the Lab Bay project area. It left standing around the two consists of VCUs 533, 534, 535, 537, 539 cave entrances, and these have and 540 (Fig 64), totalling 62,376 acres, mostly blown down. Throughout Fig 66 Timber waste at Summore. the largest of the timber sales we looked northern Prince of Wales, logging has Low quality hemlock logs left to rot on at. Viking Lumber has purchased 10.9 damaged not only the big-tree forest but roadside. the underground labyrinth. Yarding, tree- million board feet, to be cut by October, Fig 67 Logging in progress at about 700 2007. falling and subsequent blowdown has feet elevation, east of Red Lake. Large We did no assessments in past or eroded soils and plugged sinkholes and western hemlock falling. proposed cutting units at Summore. But cave entries. Pete Smith took us to an active unit where we saw trees falling (Fig 67). The unit was at high elevation and contained many valuable yellow-cedars. The very slow growth rate was apparent in one stump only 18 inches in diameter that had 400 growth rings. About 27% of Summore’s original POG and 58% of the original big-tree forest has been cut. Our map showing proposed cutting units is out-dated. Many of these have been cut already. The northern end of Prince of Wales Island is famous for caves and big trees. Bedrock here is a mix of high grade carbonates (quality karst), sedimentaries and conglomerates, all of Silurian age. Pete also showed us one of the finest caves discovered by the Tongass Caves Project (the locations of these caves are confidential). It was in a 13-year-old clearcut. Although the location of this cave was made known to the Forest Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 37

Fig 68 Tuxekan Sale Area

Fig 69 “Mated” spruce and hemlock on top of sword-fern- covered karst outcropping in unit 560-407. Note cable scar on trunks, used as anchor to yard trees from neighboring clearcut.

In spite of that, a large Tuxekan acreage of big-tree forest The sale on Tuxekan Island (Fig 68) remains on Tuxekan Island. serves as an interesting contrast to the This is best appreciated by offerings in more pristine wilderness areas reference to the pie charts (Fig such as Emerald Bay and Cholmondeley 2 ) that compare before-and- Sound. With the national conservation after logging impacts among community currently focused on our 13 survey areas. Tuxekan protection of roadless areas under threat of and Kosciusko (and to a lesser logging, little energy has been left over to degree, Chasina North) have assess and advocate for overtaxed timber such high-quality karst soils production land like Tuxekan, where far that more than two thirds of too much has been taken, and still more is their original acreage was in for sale. big-tree forest. So although The Tuxekan sale is administered huge quantities of big trees by the Thorne Bay Ranger District. The have been removed, 28% of Final EIS has been issued, offering 18.9 Tuxekan’s land area still has million board feet. Because the island is big-tree forest. (Kosciusko and already intensively roaded, only a few Chasina North have 21% and as big-tree forest, determined that the spur roads to new landings will need 18%, respectively; other sale areas have forests indeed contained large trees, but to be constructed to access more of the mere slivers on the pie charts, typically almost exclusively hemlocks. We do not remaining big-tree forest. only 1 or 2% of total remaining project understand why some karst substrates Tuxekan has 17,506 acres. About acreage in big trees). grow (or grew) gigantic spruces, while 48% of the original POG and 60% of the The 28% remaining big-tree forest others, superficially similar, grow big original big-tree forest has been cut. Of on Tuxekan is the good news. The bad hemlocks or big redcedars (eg, Chasina). the timber sales we looked at this summer, news is that not all karst big-tree forest Nevertheless, the big-tree hemlock only Kosciusko (also on karst) has yielded is created equal, and the best is already forest remaining on Tuxekan (Fig 76) a higher percentage of its productive old gone from Tuxekan. Our surveys in is valuable enough to attract continued growth. proposed cutting units there, mapped logging. It is certainly of very high value 38 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 70 Above: large hemlock to be cut in Tuxekan unit 560-407. Fig 71 Right: Jed Smith on burl of large spruce just outside of unit 34. Pete Smith at base. This tree may blow down when the unit is cut, due to increased exposure. Photo by Kina Smith. to wintering deer and other wildlife. Archipelago are needed to confirm Proposed cuts will take a larger bite out of the geographic range and review the Tuxekan’s remaining big-tree forest than taxonomy of documented taxa and on any of the other timber offerings we to determine if endemic taxa remain analysed. undocumented.” (Smith, 2005) Tuxekan is one of the smallest islands Tuxekan is a textbook case of such in Southeast that supports a resident wolf a small (<50,000 acre) satellite island, pack. Impacts to deer from logging have already thoroughly fragmented by cuts already lowered the chances that this wolf and roads, close to a larger one (Prince of Comparison Unit (VCU), and 50% of pack can maintain itself on the island. Wales) known to harbor endemics. High that area shall be productive old-growth Similarly, the satellite islands of Prince annual population swings in voles, mice forest. The preferred biological objective of Wales are known (Conroy et al. 1999, and shrews make single-visit sampling is for each reserve to contain at least 800 Cook and MacDonald, 2001) to have efforts ineffective. Sampling protocols are acres of contiguous productive old-growth high potential endemism among small not currently in place “to document that forest, but may contain a minimum of 400 mammals. The TLMP Standards and endemic small mammals do not occur on acres of productive old-growth forest.” Guidelines prescribe surveys for voles, islands with any statistical confidence.” Tuxekan presents complexities in mice and shrews on all islands smaller (Smith, 2005). assessing OGR prescriptions because it’s than 50,000 acres. “The extent and rigor TLMP Appendix K Old-growth of surveys will be commensurate with the Habitat Reserve (OGR) Criteria specifies degree of existing and proposed forest setting aside of small OGRs comprising fragmentation . . .[targeting especially] . . “at least 16% of the area of each Value . endemic mammals with limited dispersal capabilities that may exist within the project area.” (S&Gs, Wildlife XVII. A) Fig 72 Deer trail in remant hemlock big- tree forest, proposed cutting unit 560-407. Forest Service ecologist Winston Smith Gap in distance is adjacent clearcut. Here cautions that “comprehensive sampling and on Prince of Wales we repeatedly and rigorous analyses of specimens saw game thoroughfares running through from smaller islands (especially near- old-growth patches surrounded by second- shore islands) throughout the Alexander growth tangles that are extremely difficult for humans or wildlife to negotiate. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 39 Fig 74 Acreage in different tree size classes for the 4 small old-growth reserves on Tuxekan. Fig 75 Comparison of Tuxekan’s geology and forest type with land use designations (LUDs) and logging impacts. The island is predominantly karst with small areas of less productive conglomerates. Note that the 4 small OGRs on the middle map have been placed on some of the only non-carbonate (unproductive) Fig 73 Left: Pale, limey rock types on Tuxekan. The map on right shows rocks embraced in the almost no big-tree forest in these OGRs. Most of roots of a tipped-over the proposed cutting units are on remnant big- hemlock on Tuxekan. tree forest.

actually comprised of 4 different VCUs K rules for small OGRs do not specify exact acreages or Fig 76 Very high (Fig 75). Each of these VCUs has a small percentages of big-tree forest to be preserved, one of the volume stand (in the OGR. Far from encompassing 800 or–in core principles in reserve placement is to “meet multiple strict sense of the word, i.e. many board feet). 2 cases–even 400 acres of POG, these biodiversity or wildlife habitat objectives . . . [by setting Almost pure hemlock, OGRs range from 579 to 656 acres in aside] . . . stands with some of the Forest’s highest volume very old, unit 560-407. total size. While some might individually timber stands.” comprise >16% of their respective VCUs, The Tuxekan collectively they amount to only 14% of OGRs clearly do not Tuxekan. The southeast and southwest meet the intent of OGRs fail to meet the minimum of 400 Appendix K. They acres required POG per VCU (Fig 74). were established On this highly productive island, that on Tuxekan’s few by our estimate once held 12,455 acres of patches of non- big-tree forest, the combined old-growth carbonate bedrock, reserves will ultimately protect only 314 and are completely acres of big-tree forest. The rest will unrepresentative of almost all be cut eventually as the timber the great forests that production lands are cycled through steady once grew on this rotations (Streams are almost non-existant island (Fig 75). on the karst surfaces, and few riparian buffers are required). While the Appendix 40 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 77 Kosciusko Sale Area

Fig 78 Large spruce inside proposed cutting unit 543-580 south of Trout Creek estuary. Photo by Pete Smith.

Fig 79 Clearcut approximately 60 years old south of Cape Pole. This cut does not show on the managed stands layer.

Kosciusko karst big-tree forest in Southeast. Some show on the managed stands layer. These Like Tuxekan, Kosciusko Island is of the earliest extensive pre-chainsaw forests have almost no forage plants largely high-grade Silurian limestone, with clearcuts took place here, targeting very growing in the understory. associated conglomerate (non-carbonate) high grade spruce for airplane construction Another example of unmapped cuts of the same age. A 17-million board foot during World War I. Unfortunately the came from our visit to Trout Creek (see timber sale here is currently on hold. “managed stands” GIS layer that identifies Ground-truthing journal entry for June It was unique among Southeast timber year-of-logging does not cover these 27, 2005). Studying 3D aerial photos, we projects in offering substantial acreage of early cuts. It also gives no information for anticipated finding a Landmark-caliber second-growth forest cut in the late 1950s. private land. We had to trace the cuts from forest about a mile up from the estuary. Forests are regrowing so rapidly here that orthophotos for non-federal lands near On arrival, what appeared on aerials there is interest in a second entry. A logger Edna Bay, adding them to the clearcuts to be a classic patch of coarse-textured who operates a small mill at Edna Bay layer for our analysis (Fig 77). It’s big-tree forest turned out to have been told us that because the second-growth important to include all land ownerships handlogged in the early decades of this spruce are growing at rates of up to 3-feet in an assessment of logging impacts, both century. The riparian trees were already per year, they are fairly knot-free, and within-VCU and at a broader surrounding tall but–judging from the stumps–only suitable for high-grade plywood. Like scale. a shadow of the forest that originally Pete Smith, this logger believes that we Our map certainly underestimates the grew there. Probably there are many should stop cutting old growth on POW total amount of second-growth because more of these small unmapped clearcuts. and the satellite karst islands. older logged stands are hard to detect on And of course the selective high-grading Kosciusko Island probably vied with air photos. We have bushwacked through throughout virtually the entire shoreline Long Island for the greatest expanse of clearcuts approximately 60-years-old on that began a century ago is too fine-scale karst near Cape Pole (Fig 79) that don’t to be accounted for on maps. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 41

Fig 80 Canopy of remnant intact 25-acre karst forest on southwest Kosciusko. Pale silvery crowns are spruces over 200 feet tall in matrix of “small” 150-ft hemlocks. The USFS roads layer shows a proposed road entering this stand, but most of the giant trees fall within the 1000-foot coastal buffer. This of course would not protect them if the land were traded to SeaAlaska.

Fig 81 Ground view in same stand

The Kosciusko project area contains 47,005 acres. About 55% of the original POG and 68% of the original big-tree forest has been cut. Although much higher percentages of big-tree forest were taken from places like Sitkoh Bay (89%) where it was more concentrated in alluvial bottomlands, the Kosciusko landscape was virtually blanketed with karst giants. By our estimate, about 20,400 acres of big-tree forest were removed from the Kosciusko project area. To put this in context, the next highest acreage of big-tree forest removal among our visited timber projects was 8,930 acres, on the Chasina (mostly on corporation land). SeaAlaska has proposed a land trade with the Forest Service whereby they would receive productive-but-heavily-logged karstland in places like Kosciusko. Although the island deserves its reputation as a sorely-abused sacrifice area, it has about 9800 acres of remaining big-tree forest, the highest among our 13 survey areas. This acreage includes places like the 25 acres of superlative karst forest on the southwest tip of the island (Figs 80 & 81). This stand is considered by members of the Landmark Trees project to be “the most important 25 acres on the Tongass,” a rosetta stone for our understanding of the ecology of the otherwise vanished big-tree spruce forest on karst. 42 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 82 Our GPSed route through proposed Fig 83 Large redcedar, unit 577- cutting unit 577-43 in the Logjam sale, color 43 coded to elevation (red is higher). Larger dots are GPS-linked photos. The smooth textured canopy under the numbers “577-43”is typed as Fig 84 Below right: Counting medium-tree forest but actually contains very rings in freshly cut tree (personal large redcedars such as the one in Fig 83. use?) inside Logjam unit 577-41. Tree was about 500 years old. Logjam The Logjam sale, administered by the finer as medium tree. On the ground, Fig 85 Logjam Thorne Bay Ranger District, was in the Sale Area however, we discovered that there were early scoping stages at the time of our many very large redcedars (eg Fig 83) visit. This sale features 50 million board in the fine-textured forest. Until this feet, by far the largest volume offering Ground-truthing expedition, we didn’t among our 13 survey areas. Accessing have much experience with the upland this timber would require 32 miles of redcedar forest. Perhaps the reason the new road. The proposed clearcuts would big cedars don’t give themselves away amount to 4533 acres of a total sale area of on air photos is that their crowns are 55,164 acres. thin and scraggly, unlike the bulbous About 32% of the original POG and tops of large spruces and hemlocks that 52% of the original big-tree forest has create the “either/or” contrast between been cut. There are small patches of crown and gap that characterises coarse carbonates (including some in proposed texture. units) but most of the bedrock is Devonian If the above seems esoteric, and Silurian sedimentaries and volcanics, remember that cedars are driving unit rock types that are less productive layout throughout the southern Tongass. than karst but more productive than A map that fails to identify big-tree granite. There is more peatland and sub- cedar forests is a major problem for commercial forest in this area than on conservation of this rare habitat. Tuxekan and Kosciusko Islands. Although re-mapping of the The Coffman Cove road was closed entire Tongass may have to await for construction when we arrived, so we lidar technology (see Project scale looked at proposed cutting units in the remapping, below), there is at least now south half of the sale area. We selected a good way to test the effectiveness unit 577-43 because it is partially on of TIMTYP and CLU databases at karst. This unit allowed us to ground- delineating red- and yellow-cedar truth the tree-size map, which is based on forests. The extensive grid-based forest stereophotographic interpretation. inventories of the 1980s and 1990s Notice the clear distinction in Fig recorded tree species on hundreds 82 between coarse-textured patches–for of ground-truthed plots throughout example along the southeast border of Southeast. These data should be the unit–and the finer-textured canopy compared to the photointerpreted forest that runs in a diagonal band through the type polygons to determine the map’s unit center. Judging from the aerials, we accuracy. would have agreed with the tree-size map Our analysis of Logjam also that shows the coarse as big-tree and the Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 43

Fig 86 Game trail (primarily deer) running along the northern boundary of unit 577-41. See Fig 88 for location. Opening in upper right is a clearcut logged in 1989. Trees in this clearcut have passed the 5-foot hieght threshold required before a new cut can be appended to the edge. Although technically this may result in a “mosaic” of different successional stages, functionally it creates one huge second-growth forest of almost no value to wildlife. Fig 87 Change in winter deer habitat, based on TLMP habitat capability models. An example of ideal winter habitat is a south-facing low-elevation old-growth forest with fairly big trees. Proposed units would remove 17% of the “very good” class, 20% of the “good” and 21% of the “moderate” class habitat, converting them all to “very poor.”

indicates problems in future maintenance Of the timber sales we visited this of winter deer habitat, and of connectivity summer, Logjam presents the Southeast for large, mobile wildlife like deer, wolf conservation community with perhaps and bear. For example, unit 577-41 at the the best opportunity to constructively south end of the sale area is sandwiched influence timber planning outside of a between clearcuts (Fig 88). This confines courtroom. The initial scoping letter from wildlife travel to a corridor of remnant Forrest Cole strongly solicits such public old-growth forest. The proposed cut will input: eliminate the corridor. “We have identified some preliminary Deer habitat capability in the Logjam issues, concerns, and opportunities project area has been severely degraded regarding the Logjam EIS, but WE NEED from past logging (Fig 87). About half YOUR HELP to ensure we analyze all the of the moderate-good habitats have been issues that are of concern to you and your converted to poor-very poor habitats community.” because of timber harvesting. In addition The letter further emphasizes the to the total area lost there has been importance of unit-specific commentary, as Fig 88 Logging of proposed unit 577-41 intensive fragmentation throughout the opposed to generic reactions for or against shown in red will remove a critical wildlife project area. Much of the remaining higher logging. Through GIS, the Ground- corridor that connects intact wintering range for deer. We found a major game value habitats occur as relatively small truthing Project can provide public and thoroughfare (Fig 87) running through isolated patches or groups of patches. agency reviewers with such site specific this remnant strip of old-growth. The Mean patch size of higher value habitats is detail, hopefully in time for effective strip is already too narrow to allow for a approximately half of what it was prior to input prior to the DEIS, planned for spring combination of logging and buffers; such logging. Additional logging in these areas 2006. But Logjam should also be a high buffers usually blow down, leading to the current practise of logging right up to the will create vast areas of low quality habitat priority for further ground-truthing, if we edge of previous clearcuts. See section on which may act as population “sinks” secure funding for more work next year. “Unraveling: implications for buffers.” during hard winters. 44 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 89 Cholmondeley Sale Area

Fig 90 Top right: Geology of the Cholmondeley Project. Note the high density of lakes on the 2 colors representing granitics. Most of the proposed logging is off of these scenic but unproductive rock types Fig 91 Middle: Typical scrubby old growth (outside of proposed units) on granite above Trollers Cove.

Cholmondeley removal of high-value The greater Cholmondely Project wildlife habitat from key consists of 3 separate timber sales–Sunny pockets in the project area, granitic bedrock, and there are even a few cove, Clover Bay, and MacKenzie and fragmentation by roads. slivers of cave-bearing karst with big trees Inlet–on a hammerhead-shaped peninsula Comments from ADF&G Habitat above Sunny Cove (Fig 93b). In order to south of Kasaan Bay. The project area as Division (prior to its tranfer to DNR) and access these dispersed pockets, the Forest defined by the Forest Service also includes US Fish and Wildlife Service in the FEIS Service proposes 21 miles of road that will land to the west of MacKenzie Inlet, detail an embarrassing series of over- permanently impair Chomley’s prospects and in the vicinity of Big Creek south of ruled requests and recommendations from for wilderness eligibility. the West Arm of Cholmondely Sound. the interagency team. The Craig Ranger Chomley is the largest project area we But these lands are not connected to the District’s Impact Statement implied a visited, at 59,863 acres. (The full project “hammerhead” and are fairly irrelevant to functional working relationship with this area as defined by the Forest Service is issues of wildlife habitat and connectivity team when in fact they were routinely much larger.) Only 4% of the original in the area of the proposed sales. So ignored. POG but 14% of the original big-tree we have excluded them in our analysis. There’s a good explanation why forest has been cut, mostly in MacKenzie Acreages and percentages cited below “Chomley” (as it has come to be Inlet in the late 1990s. The Record of come from the area mapped in Fig 89. pronounced) has been one of the Decision for Chomley offers 28.8 million In the view of most habitat biologists, last large regions of Prince of Wales board feet of timber. The proposed cutting the Cholmondely is a textbook case of a Island to be targeted for logging. It lies units will remove 8% of Chomley’s bad timber project. There is no hope of predominantly on unproductive granite remaining POG, of which only 15% is public profit from the timber, a certainty (Fig 90). Comparing pre-logging extent of mapped as big-tree forest. Our ground of substantial losses to the taxpayer productive old growth (POG) among the visits, however, showed that marvelous from road subsidies and future thinning 13 survey areas we visited this summer, big spruces (Fig 93b) and redcedars (Fig requirements, and no prospects for further Chomley’s amounted to only 35% of total 93a) abound inside the proposed units. cutting along the road system after the project acreage, the second lowest POG A typical forest stand on granite is cream has been skimmed on this first pass. ratio. For comparison; Chasina once had shown in Fig 91. These scrubby forests One reviewer described Cholmondely to 72% POG and Tuxekan had 94%. have small, widely dispersed trees, us as a “one-shot sale.” Worse than the But Chomley does have a few small often with thick blueberry/menziesia or financial indefensibility is the strategic pockets of valuable forest, mostly on non- salal understories. The tree crowns are Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 45

Clockwise from above: Fig 92 Slopes in excess of 72% are common in unit 615-025 Fig 93a Giant redcedar on steep slope in unit 615-025 Fig 93b Proposed cutting units at 700 feet above Sunny Cove target some of the only carbonate rock in the Cholmondeley Project. These units contain scattered, very large spruces and a high percentage of valuable, ancient red- and yellow-cedars. Fig 94 View southeast to Sunny Cove and West Arm of Cholmondely Sound. White outlines show proposed cutting units, traced from an ArcScene replication. Arrow shows approximate position of 9-foot spruce on karst in Fig 93b Fig 95 Red halo shows area that would be protected if a 100-acre buffer were to be placed around the probable nest site in unit 615-025 at Trollers Cove.

incapable of intercepting enough snow Water I A 5) to allow for wildlife movement in hard Apparently this winters. At such times, the few big-tree case-by-case approval forests of Chomley become critical winter was applied en mass at habitat. Troller Cove. Some of We based out of Trollers Cove at the the slopes we measured north end of the Chomley project area inside unit 615-025 during our Ground-truthing investigations exceeded 100% and (Fig 90). We found massive spruces and were treacherous to redcedars inside cutting units 615-024 and bushwack across (Fig 615-025 (Fig 95). The “matrix” around 92). these units was a mosaic of scrub forest In unit 615-024, and open peatland. In general, the bigger directly above the trees are on steeper slopes that provide Trollers Cove USFS better drainage. These precipitous hillsides cabin, almost all of are problematic in logging, however. The the very large trees are TLMP Standards and Guidelines state: on slopes in excess of “At the forest plan level, slope 72% slope. This unit a nest in the vicinity. TLMP Standards and gradients of 72% or more are removed would certainly not be worth logging if Guidelines state: from the tentatively suitable timber base the TLMP-prescribed slope threshold were “Preserve nesting habitat around all due to high risk of soil mass movement honored. confirmed and probable goshawk nests and accelerated erosion of class IV Inside proposed cutting unit 615-025 whether or not they are currently occupied channel systems. At the project planning we encountered an adult goshawk that . . .Consider the following evidence for level, the Forest Supervisor or District called incessantly for 15 minutes until determining confirmed or probable nest Ranger may approve timber harvest on we left the area. There was “whitewash” sites: . . . goshawk prey remains . . . slopes of 72% or more on a case-by-case on the ground, goshawk feathers, and the aggressive, territorial breeding season basis, based on the results of an on-site foot of a butchered varied thrush. The adults vocalizing or attacking an observer analysis of slope and class IV channel agitated calling behavior, plus sign of (with or without locating a nest) . . .” stability. . .” (TLMP S&Gs, Soil and long-term occupancy, is good evidence of To protect such nests, the guidelines 46 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 97 Cover of Chasina FEIS

Fig 98 1996 orthophoto. GPS-linked photos show as yellow dots in roadless Chasina Fig 96 Chasina Sale Area North unit and red dots in roaded Fusion unit. stipulate: and 59% of the original big-tree forest has “the cumulative impacts on wildlife “Maintain an area of not less than 100 been cut. The USFS managed stands layer viability from continued ‘highgrading’ acres of productive old-growth forest (if does not include the sprawling clearcut by non-federal entities . . .ought to be it exists) generally centered over the nest on Kootznoowoo Corporation land in considered in a single, programmatic tree or probable nest site.” (TE&S II J 1) the eastern half of the peninsula. We EIS.” Failing in this, the 1997 TLMP If a 100-acre no-harvest buffer were to traced this single, 7960-acre contiguous was held in violation of NEPA. (US Court be placed around the probable nest site, it clearcut (NNF = non-national forest) of Appeals, 2005) By such logic, the could render all of unit 615-025 inoperable from 1996 orthophotos to make the above Chasina FEIS–treating an area in which (Fig 95). calculations.* non-federal impacts are proportionately Although forest losses on private far greater–also fails to meet NEPA Chasina lands per se are not the responsibility of requirements. The Chasina Project currently consists the US Forest Service, federal and state The conservation community is of 3 timber sales. Proposed units north of agencies are charged with the care of focused primarily on roadless issues the dashed line on Figure 101 are called fish and wildlife populations that move at Chasina. We were asked to examine Chasina North, a roadless-area sale. Those between public and private ownerships. proposed units at Chasina North, beyond on the small southeasternmost peninsula For some species, the disruption of the current maze of logging roads. During are in the Johnson Mountain Sale (not wildlife movement across the Chasina our pre-field GIS scoping we also became visited on this trip). Proposed and active peninsula could hardly have been more interested in the bands of karst running units along existing roads in between these severe if a fine-mesh game fence had east-west across the peninsula through two sales fall under the “grab-bag” Fusion been constructed along the public/private the already-roaded Fusion Sale (Fig 100). Sale, which also includes units outside of boundary. The Chasina Timber Sale FEIS This productive carbonate surface was the Chasina. All are administered by the Craig gives no guidance on how to address this reason for selection of eastern Chasina by Ranger District. Viking Lumber currently problem, although the cover-designer Kootznowoo Corporation. The remaining has a logging camp in Lancaster Cove. (Fig 97) nicely alluded to it in the graphic fragments of karst big-tree forest on public The overall project area as we have elements that “divide the pie.” land are targeted by proposed units such as outlined it in Figure 96 contains 34,078 According to the Ninth Circuit Court 679-409. acres. About 39% of the original POG of Appeals decision on August 5th, 2005: Thus, the adjacent Chasina North and

* While megacuts on corporation lands are eye-catching, many USFS cuts gradually accrete over several decades to reach similar proportions. The losses to wildlife habitat are almost as serious as in this Chasina example, where logging occurred more rapidly. (Fig 118, Creeping “megacuts.”) Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 47 Fig 99 Karst big-tree “mug shots” from proposed Fusion cutting unit 679-409. The extremely large karst spruces appear to have already been cut during the 1990s (see stumps in Fig 30). Fig 100 Land ownership and human impacts–past and proposed–at Chasina. The roadless part of the project is called Chasina North. The portion south of the roadless line is now part of the Fusion Sale. Note karst band spanning mid-peninsula.

Fig 101 Oblique taken during Lighthawk Flight, June 20, 2005. Yellow dots show our later ground-truthing visit on July 2nd. Character of the old-growth redcedar/spruce forest is indicated in the collage of tree portraits in Fig 99. Lovely, chalky-colored carbonate outcrops are exposed in the forest floor (Fig 103). The original cut in 1989 was entirely east (right) of the logging road. Blowdown west of the road was “cleaned up” in 1998 but this failed to halt the unravelling (see also Fig 107). Note the almost continuous unravelling at the border of the 1998 salvage cuts and proposed unit 679-409. Traversing this band of downed trees was painstakingly slow compared to the easy walking in the old-growth understory. Probably because this unraveling shows no signs of stabilizing, no buffer is proposed between past and future cuts. In the lower left, things really dominoed; unraveling at the clearcut edge started a chain reaction that continued for 2050 feet down to the beach. We don’t know if this happened in a single or multiple storms. The full swath was captured during our Lighthawk flight (Fig 102).

Fig 103 Pale limey “karst- knees” stick up through the shallow duff Fig 102 Blowdown swath runs for nearly half a mile between in proposed 1998 clearcut and saltwater. unit 679- Kenyon Fields Lighthawk photo, June 20, 2005. 409. Fissures lead into underground cave networks. 48 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS Fig 106 The 3 sales of the Chasina Project are straddled by 4 different VCUs (outlined in black. Assessment of small OGRs (outlined in red) is difficult because this must be done in relation to VCUs. One extensive reserve– the S OGR– is strategically well-placed at the “pinchpoint” of the peninsula, and also contains substantial acreage of big-tree forest. Unfortunately its value to wildlife is Fig 104 One of many compromised by very large redcedars in roads. At the north proposed unit 679-382. tip of the peninsula Steep slopes here will on unproductive be a challenge for road- diorite, the small builders. OGR has very little winter deer Fig 105 Subadult forest and fails goshawk at the border to meet some of unit 679-382. Appendix K criteria.

Fusion sales present conservationists with of the Tongass timber program. mapped rock types is actually not on the same kind of philosophical dilemma As expected, we found massive trees granitic rock. The tree-size map shows as we have described above in contrasting in the Fusion karst unit 679-409 (Fig big-tree forest along the south edge of the Emerald with Tuxekan. Do you invest 99). What we could not have anticipated unit, grading northwards to medium and all of your energy in stemming road from photointerpretation was that they small-tree forest. proliferation into de facto wilderness, or were mostly western redcedars. TIMTYP As on Tuxekan Island, the positioning do you show equal concern for the loss likewise fails to pick up the cedar of Value Comparison units (VCUs) at of ancient big-tree karst forest in already- component; the unit is typed as big- Chasina (Fig 106) makes it very difficult roaded terrain, especially if that forest tree hemlock. While western hemlocks to judge compliance with TLMP Appendix holds the last vestiges of critical habitat certainly are common here, cedars K Criteria for small Old-Growth Reserves in a matrix of clearcuts? For an animal dominate by volume and are by far the (OGRs). These should comprise “at least such as black or brown bear, roadless largest trees in the stand. 16% of the area of each VCU, and 50% issues might hold greater weight. For less As at Tuxekan, where karst produces of that area shall be POG. The preferred mobile species like small mammals and primarily big hemlocks, we are unable to biological objective is for each reserve to amphibians, escalating fragmentation explain the variable species dominance contain at least 800 acres of contiguous within already-roaded landscapes is more on this rock type. Carbonates here are of POG, but may contain a minimum of 400 immediately threatening. different origin from the Silurian rocks acres of POG.” Blowdown on clearcut margins has of Sea Otter Sound; Chasina karst is pre- VCU 6790 includes lands off of the been a serious problem at Chasina. (Figs Ordovician marble. Chasina peninsula that are also outside 98, 101, 102) The tall trees at the edge of To our surprise, the forest in Chasina of the Fusion Sale, making this an clearcuts on karst are especially vulnerable North (roadless) cutting unit 679-382 was illogical unit for laying out small OGRs. because they present such huge “sails” just as majestic as the Fusion karst unit The fragment at the north end contains to the wind. Note in the pre-blowdown 679-409. We would not have expected minimal forest suitable for winter 1996 orthophoto that the forest which Cambrian diorite to support trees of such deer habitat. This, combined with the eventually “dominoed “ all the way to size. Slopes are much steeper in this unit overwhelming conversion of once high- the beach had the coarsest texture on the but the tree species composition seems value deer forest to second growth could aerial; these were magnificent trees. Such similar: very large redcedars dominate force most of Chasina’s deer to retreat off “natural” losses of cut-margin forests are (Fig 104), with occasional big spruces. the peninsula or die in hard winters. not commonly reckoned among the costs Perhaps this area on the boundary of The portion of that same small OGR Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 49

in VCU 6800 is easier to assess for Appendix K compliance. Fig 107 Before and after at Chasina. Above: ancient It comprises 22% of the total VCU land area, meeting the 16% redcedars on marble outcropping, scheduled to be logged in minimum. It contains 510 acres of scattered POG, but most of this the active Fusion Sale. Below: small 1998 salvage unit that “cleaned up” the unraveling edge of a 1989 clearcut. is small-tree forest incapable of intercepting snow in hard winters. Only 34% of this small OGR is POG, falling well short of the 50% required minimum. The small Old-Growth Reserves in both VCUs 6800 and Fig 108 Wood waste at Chasina’s Fusion Sale. Redcedar 6810 will be hard-pressed to provide deer and other wildlife with disintegrates into slabs and fragments during yarding. The enormous stump by the road in center is the same tree shown sanctuary from the impacts of corporation logging. When so vast a in Fig 30. There are probably no trees of this size remaining proportion of a watershed has been logged by private owners, it is in the watershed. irresponsible of the US Forest Service to suggest any additional cuts. All proposed units in VCUs 6800 and 6810 should be deleted. OGRs here may (barely) meet some elements of Appendix K criteria but they clearly don’t account for“the cumulative impacts on wildlife viability from continued ‘highgrading’ by non-federal entities” (US Court of Appeals, 2005). We saw huge mounds of cull logs at Chasina, cast down hillslopes from logging roads (Fig 108). They were very different in appearance from the stacks of wasted low-value hemlock logs that Pete Smith showed us on northern Prince of Wales. Here the wasted wood was largely redcedar. Ancient, often hollow-centered redcedars tend to disintegrate during yarding, and the fragments, although probably quite valuable to small-scale shake and siding businesses, are discarded. 50 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Findings and recommendations

TLMP revision revise existing regulations to reflect these many other wildlife species. Shortly after our 2005 field work changes. The continued intensive high- was completed, the Ninth Circuit Court • Fortify existing Standards and grading of big trees is ecologically and of Appeals sent the US Forest Service Guidelines (S&Gs) in these areas; 1) economically unsustainable. Because of back to the drawing board, demanding a salvage, 2) endemic species, 3) slope scale issures and systemically poor record- revision of the Tongass Land Management steepness, 4) road construction/removal, keeping it is difficult to place Tongass- Plan. This decision provides the Forest and 5) creeping “megacuts.” wide acreages or percentage figures on the Service and their agency and NGO • Add new S&Gs addressing: 1) inter- degree of loss. But the 13 case studies in partners with a wonderful opportunity to: unit buffer width, 2) karst forests, 3) this report make the pattern quite clear. • Institute a more rational ASQ that timber waste, 4) connectivity analyses, does not compromise environmental and 5) tree-size cutting thresholds. Protection of rare big-tree stands protections, and honors true sustainability; and individuals • Put more teeth into the design criteria The following subsections provide High-grading must be brought to an for small old-growth reserves (OGRs) so background material on each item needing end by new guidelines protecting the that they no longer represent the “dregs” attention in TLMP, giving rationale for remaining big-tree forests. Stands with i.e the forests unwanted by the timber our recommendations. We then conclude mean diameter above a certain threshold industry; with a more “trimmed-down” Summary of should have the same legal status as • Create a more transparent timber recommendations, in some cases detailing forests within fish stream buffers. To start planning process that fully explains proposed rewording of S&Gs, etc. the conversation we suggest two scale- potential impacts and involves public dependent thresholds: 21 inches mean and agency partners from inception to Upland big trees diameter sustained over a minimum 25- completion; Although the emphasis has shifted acre stand, or 30 inches sustained over a • Adopt the improved forest from alluvial to upland surfaces, big minimum 5-acre stand. These thresholds structural measures (size/density, Fig 7) trees are still being targeted far out of might also be applied differently on the that are superior to volume measures in proportion to their occurrence in the northern and southern Tongass; southern characterizing ecologically meaningful forest. The upland big-tree forest has stands have larger mean diameters. attributes of forest structure. Employ acknowledged importance to deer, Cruisers laying out timber sales should these measures in all new regulations, and goshawk, marten, murrelet, creeper, and flag stands exceeding the mandated diameter threshold “out-of-bounds” in Fig 109 Percentage of Productive Old Growth and big-tree forest logged on the 13 sale areas visited in summer 2005. For GIS estimates of pre-logging Fig 110 Percentage of original Productive Old condition in each area, we assumed: Growth and big-tree forest remaining on the 13 1) all forest on alluvial bottomlands and karst was big-tree forest; sale areas visited in summer 2005. See Fig 109 2) forest on logged upland slopes was 50:50 medium-tree and big-tree forest. caption for assumptions.

%POG cut1 %BTs cut2 Corner Bay 31% 62% Sitkoh 24% 89% False Island 29% 89% Saook 7% 67% Ushk 2% 51% Three Mile 8% 51% Emerald Bay 0% 3% Summore Change 27% 58% Tuxekan 48% 60% Kosciusko 55% 68% Logjam 32% 52% Chomley 4% 14% Chasina North 39% 59%

1) Percentage of Productive Old Growth logged in the sale area. 2) Percentage of big-tree forest logged in the sale area. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 51

Fig 111 Remnant intact karst forest on the same way that wetlands or stream should broken-topped spruces of that southwest Kosciusko. buffers are measured and marked. Using diameter less than 100-feet-tall. diameters to define the threshold, it will Special permits should be available for Scale is an important issue in forest be impossible to cover up illegally high- highly selective logging of large, ancient type mapping. TIMTYP polygons average graded stands because stumps provide red- and yellow-cedars and Sitka spruces, 60 acres in size, and small patches of evidence that would hold up in court. to support small-scale, Southeast-based, big trees 5- or even 10 acres in extent In stands that fail to qualify for value-added wood-products industries and generally are not shown on existing maps. exclusion under the mean diameter traditional uses such as totem and canoe Airborne lidar (“light detection threshold, individual large trees should carving. and ranging”) technology may soon also be protected. Of course it can resolve these problems. See, Project- and sometimes be futile to leave a tall tree Forest structure maps Tongass-scale remapping below. standing after partial cutting; the giants Existing maps of forest structure usually blow over. But very large red- and (vegmod, the tree-size map, etc.) are all Cedars yellow-cedars are excellent candidates by necessity based upon original TIMTYP On the central and southern Tongass, for leave trees. With large diameters and polygons that were not drawn with an eye red- and yellow-cedar are driving the short, rapidly tapering trunks, these are to differentiation of the most ecologically layout of proposed cutting units in almost the most windfirm species in Southeast. important characteristics. They provide every timber project we investigated. Large but broken-topped spruces are only a coarse and sometimes inaccurate Considering the extremely high market also windfirm, and valuable for wildlife. picture of the extent of big-tree forest, red- value of these trees, one would think In many cases these short/fat trees have and yellow-cedar forest, wet, small-tree that we should be able to afford better already endured blowdown events that forest, etc. While useful for ecoprovince- on-the-ground mapping of their size and felled most of their neighbors; they are scale assessments, they are not intended distribution within timber project areas. quite capable of persisting for centuries to be used to reliably identify forest types Adding to this the concerns with into the post-logging second growth. We at a watershed scale. Our ground-truthing regeneration problems, high cultural suggest regulations leaving all yellow- routinely uncovered errors in TIMTYP significance, and yellow-cedar dieback, cedars larger than 30 inches in diameter designations. In fact, one could argue, not the logging of large, extremely old cedars (these are commonly more than 500 years entirely facetiously, that the best existing demands re-evaluation. It takes a thousand old). Redcedars more than 72 inches dbh maps of the upland big-tree forest are the years to grow a thousand-year-old tree! should also be exempt from logging, as shapefiles of proposed cutting units. We are unaware of a single Southeast 52 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 112 Ancient yellow-cedars in Fig 113 Giant redcedar on beach fringe, Chasina. Fortunately this tree falls within the proposed cutting unit, Ushk Bay. 1000-foot protective coastal buffer. study addressing the unique wildlife bryophytes (calcicoles). To some degree, their descendants could see the beginnings values of red- or yellow-cedar-dominated the above-mentioned mean-diameter of a new karst old growth (Figs 111, 114). forests (fig 112). What would a rotation threshold could arrest the high-grading period look like that honestly accounted of big-tree forest both on and off of karst Alluvial forests for this regeneration cycle? At what rate surfaces. We are pleased to report that during can we sustainably cut trees whose lives But in view of the almost total our summer 2005 surveys we never are measured in millennia? eradication of big-tree spruce forest on encountered a proposed cutting unit on Individual tree-diameter cutting karst, and the continued, focused targeting a purely alluvial surface. Probably the thresholds as described above under of big-tree hemlock and redcedar karst closest we came to this was a small patch protection of rare big tree stands would forest, we would prefer to see a complete of nice spruces on an alluvial/colluvial provide the most effective guarantee moratorium of all old-growth logging toeslope in an Ushk Bay cutting unit. against the continued high-grading of red- on karst surfaces. Substantial portions Not all alluvial big-tree forests are and yellow-cedar. of second-growth karst forests should completely protected by stream buffers. also be allowed to return to old-growth There are some stands remote from Class Karst conditions. At least one of the great karst I and II streams–particularly on broad Current Standards and Guidelines only satellite islands–Kosciusko, Tuxekan, floodplains and larger alluvial fans–that require that karst assessments document Heceta or Long–should be designated could legally be logged. But roading physical features such as sinkholes and wilderness, with apologies to our and yarding restrictions would present caves. They do not safeguard the karst immediate descendants whom we have challenges. It is good to see that our great big-tree forest, or mandate surveys for deprived of the chance to experience these streamside forests are finally receiving carbonate-adapted vascular plants and greatest of Alaskan forests. With care, care commensurate with their immense Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 53 Fig 114 Alaska’s 1st and 2nd largest known trees (Sitka spruce) occur in a tiny remnant of unlogged karst near Kake. This is the highest scoring one-acre Landmark Trees site.

Fig 115 This 200- foot spruce (note Bob for scale at bottom) stands with several equal- sized neighbors at the confluence of the Thorne and Rio Beaver. This is a potential Community Landmark Forest. Only 8 miles from the logging town of Thorne Bay, it miraculously survived the era of no-buffer riparian logging, and now benefits from close proximity to a Class I stream.

worth to fisheries, wildlife and watershed relative amounts of uprooting versus stability (Fig 115). windsnap. When trees are uprooted they The targets of high-grading are now on churn the soil, bringing fresh nutrients the productive upland surfaces, and that to the surface and over long time spans has been the focus of this Ground-truthing improving site productivity (Borman et al, report. But many Southeast foresters and 1995). Exposed mineral soil also promotes fishery biologists will spend the rest of germination of valuable alder and spruce, their careers administering to riparian giving them an edge over hemlock. wounds. See, for example Unraveling: Logging with modern low-disturbance implications for buffers, below. yarding methods does not provide this long-term soil rejuvenation service. Over Unraveling: implications for time, site productivity declines, and buffers hemlock dominance is the rule. We saw many examples of continuing While blowdown does play important blowdown along the margins of clearcuts. roles in long-term forest health, it is not The forest exposed along the edge of a a desired outcome where clearcuts meet new cut contains many trees that have not narrow buffer strips that are already so been “trained” by wind-stress from early thin that they barely serve their intended growth stages to endure occasional very functions of fish-stream (Fig 116) or cave strong gusts. Tall, valuable trees are often protection or provision of wildlife travel lost in this manner. corridors. We saw many examples during There are occasionally some positive our ground-truthing visits to Threemile aspects to unraveling, depending on the Arm and cutover lands on Prince of Wales where unraveling had reduced or 54 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

Fig 116 A) Typical spruce-dominated alluvial floodplain forest with deciduous alders fringing the channel. Tree heights are shown to scale. The USFS channel type guide states that typical riparian tree heights are 140 feet. Landmark tree investigators find that heights of 150 to 200 feet are common on productive alluvial surfaces in the southern Tongass (eg, Fig 115). Heights shown here are therefore conservative.

B) Same stand shortly after logging. Class I and II streams are given buffer protections of 100 feet on either side of the channel. These newly exposed, very tall riparian trees have not been “trained” by perennial wind stress since their youth and are highly susceptible to “unraveling.”

C) A common scenario several decades after logging. By this time the majority of taller buffer trees have come down in several different storms. While these trees may provide a short-term flush of large woody debris (LWD) to the channel, the buffer does not serve its intended function of shading (cooling) the stream and providing LWD to the channel throughout the 300 years or so that are needed to regrow trees of this size. The buffer has also lost its function as an easily-traveled corridor for bear and deer. Unraveled buffers are very unpleasant to navigate. On top of that, the dense second growth is by now worthless to wildlife and difficult to bushwack through. eliminated buffers that had been debatably Creeping “megacuts” Prince of Wales have gradually enlarged adequate to begin with. In light of such experiences with to thousands of acres. (Fig 118) Abutting At Threemile Arm there have so unraveling, more recent logging new clearcuts to old ones to avoid buffer far been two main episodes of logging. prescriptions do not recommend buffers unraveling begs the question: If cutting Coastal patches were cut as A-frame between previous and new clearcuts. unit density is so high that 500-foot-wide operations in the 1960s and yarded Instead, the new cuts are simply added on travel-corridor buffers are not feasible, directly to the beach. The area was then to the edges of the older ones, creating in should we be planning further logging roaded in the late 1980s and a patchwork essence one large clearcut that often far here at all? of units were distributed along these exceeds the current Forest Plan maximum The Standards and Guidelines should roads in the early 1990s. In some cases size limit of 100 acres. Technically this is be revised to close the creeping megacut the 1990s cuts came quite close to the legal because a new cut can abut an older loophole. New clearcuts should always be earlier 1960s patches. Narrow buffers one if the latter is “adequately stocked buffered from older ones by ample old- separated the two vintages of clearcuts, with desirable tree species, which are growth forest for wildlife movement. probably intended to serve as corridors approximately 5 feet in height . . .” (TLMP connecting old-growth refuges for deer, Standards & Guidelines, bear and mustelids. By the early 1990s Timber IV F). it should have been clear (Harris, 1989) Through this loophole, that the narrow buffers were at high risk some clearcuts on northern of blowdown. In 1998, a windstorm took down most of the corridor buffers (Fig 117) and also unraveled a good deal of the Fig 117 This line of trees upper clearcut margins. In retrospect, the is all that remains of a buffers should have been at least 4 tree- narrow buffer strip that heights in width (> 500 feet wide) in order once separated the 1992 to account for marginal unraveling, and to clearcut in the foreground from the 1970 cut that continue their function as corridors. extends from the “buffer” to the beach. A windstorm in 1998 essentially removed the buffer. Kenyon Fields photo Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 55

Fig 119 Bleaching logs stacked at landing sites, King George, Etolin Island. Kenyon Fields Lighthawk photo Fig 118 Technically, the largest individual cut shown here is “only” 283 acres. But scabbing cuts onto each other ad infinitum has created a 6253-acre “megacut” at Staney Creek, Prince of Wales Island. (Many more cuts not contiguous with this one are Fig 120 Cull logs more than 300 years old “turned off” in this view.) left to rot near Control Lake, POW. Connectivity analyses wide Lighthawk survey using realtime Proposed cutting units showed GPS navigation to landings previously inadequate consideration for wildlife identified in ArcMap. Low flyover movements at Logjam, Tuxekan, and photography could quantify the amount Chasina. Critical habitats were targeted of wood waste in different timber projects at Threemile Arm and Cholmondeley. and Ranger Districts, and in some cases Proposed roads will cross and eventually even differentiate between cull-log species threaten hundreds of stream tributaries. (See discussion of cedar-log disintegration Standards and Guidelines should mandate in Chasina section, Fig 108). a procedure for connectivity analyses Inefficient use of wood means more and evaluation of long-term population forest must be cut per volume yielded. viability, to be conducted on all timber Wood waste is industrial vandalism – the sale areas by interagency teams including “bycatch” of the forest. TLMP Standards Southeast, especially focusing on stream wildlife and fishery biologists and GIS and Guidelines must address this problem. crossings. We did not try to duplicate this technicians with expertise in landscape effort, but saw many examples of existing assessment. Roads and stream crossings or pending impacts to fisheries (Fig 122). Logging roads have a limited lifetime, The Tongass Road Condition Survey and soon begin to require either expensive Timber waste Report found that: In most clearcuts we visited, very maintenance or expensive “putting old trees had been felled and left to to bed.” The Department of Fish and rot alongside the roads. This would be Game has conducted extensive surveys Fig 121 Wood waste in 4-year old cut near an excellent subject for a Southeast- of logging road condition throughout Pt Baker, POW 56 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS Fig 124 Comparison of classification methods for deer habitat capability on the Logjam sale area. The equal area classification will always indicate that 1/5 of the area has very good winter habitat, regardless of escalating logging impacts or the actual amount of low-elevation, south-facing old growth. An equal interval classification Fig 122 Collapsing log-stringer bridge at comes closer to Sitkoh Bay. Fill is falling off the logs into “reality.” a steelhead stream. Fig 123 Road density on parts of Prince of Wales Island is already twice that at which wolves elsewhere have vanished. Although we have stated in the areas hold preferred winter foods and Ground-truthing journal and final report accumulate least snow on the ground. that truly “decommissioning” roads is The data presented in our atlas derive virtually impossible, any effort to shut directly from USFS regional data. For down roads and return stream crossings the deer and bear models we chose to their original condition is laudable. to reclassify the values into a simpler This is one of the most appropriate tasks symbology made up of 5 equal-interval for collaborative restoration. Standards classes ranging from very good to very and Guidelines should specify selection poor winter habitat. and timeline criteria for road removal, The bear habitat capability model is prioritizing “high-risk” ecoprovinces. largely based upon salmon availability and forest condition. Salmon are believed to “66 percent of the culverts across Habitat capability models be the primary limiting factor in overall anadromous streams (FS’ Class I streams) In the Tongass Timber Sale Atlas–our habitat capability. Values range from are assumed not to be adequate for fish companion document to this project 0-100 with top values occurring in old- passage (a total of 179 culverts). Eighty- summary report–we present GIS maps growth forest with high fish availability. five percent of the culverts across resident based upon various Southeast-wide forest Other cover types that score fairly high are fish streams (FS’ Class II streams that condition and wildlife habitat data layers. estuaries and young riparian forests with naturally do not support anadromous In the Atlas we show condition of deer and abundant fish. fish) are assumed not to be adequate for bear habitat before and after logging for The Logjam sale provides an example fish passage (a total of 531culverts).” each timber project surveyed. of the uses and limitations of habitat (Flanders and Cariello, 2000) The data used for these presentations capability models. Deer habitat capability Our report has focused on impacts are derived from a habitat suitability in the Logjam project area has been of past and proposed clearcutting, with index. These indices are created by the severely degraded from past logging. almost no discussion of impacts caused USFS using their habitat capability Logging has converted about half of the by the spiderweb of roads that make the models. moderate-good habitats to poor-very poor cutting possible. This is not a reflection of The deer habitat capability model is (Fig 87). In addition to the total area lost their relative importance. For some species based upon winter range values. Winter there has been intensive fragmentation and conservation issues, roading is a more range is believed to be the primary throughout the project area. Logging serious impact than the actual logging. limiting factor for overall habitat exacerbates the fairly high level of natural Fish-passage, bear hunting, spread of capability. Values range from 0 to 1.3 and habitat fragmentation and much of the invasive species, long-term access for are based primarily on aspect, elevation remaining higher value habitats occur as legal and illegal ORV use; these are just and vegetation type. An example of relatively small isolated patches or groups a few of the vexing problems caused by ideal winter habitat is a south-facing low of patches. Mean patch size of higher roads. elevation old-growth forest because these value habitats is approximately half of Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 57 what it was prior to logging. Additional growth Reserves are found in TLMP logging in these places will create vast Appendix K. Because these regulations areas of low quality habitat which may act are so important to fish and wildlife as population “sinks” during hard winters. population vigor and even viability on the The accuracy and relevance of these timber production lands, we quote from models is dependent on the quality of data them below, selecting those parts most used to generate the habitat suitability relevant to problems we noted in GIS indexes. The problems with existing forest analysis: structure maps mentioned earlier (p 51) cascade through these models and reduce “Rules Applicable to all Reserves: Fig 125 Acreages in tree-size classes the reliability of the results. As with the . . . C. Minimize to the extent feasible, within Small Old-growth Reserves at identification and conservation of rare the amount of early seral habitat and Tuxekan and Chasina. (Only one of the big-tree stands the inaccuracy of forest roads within mapped reserves. SOGRs at Chasina is easily analysed; the others straddle VCUs that extend out of structure data is greatly amplified in areas D. Consider site-specific factors in the project area). Red-highlighted figures of intense logging. Natural and industrial placing reserves to help meet multiple are out of compliance with Appendix habitat fragmentation results in smaller biodiversity or wildlife habitat objectives. K regulations stipulating: 1) 400 acres habitat patches that are more likely to be Factors include, but are not limited to: 1. minimum POG; 2) 50% of OGR in POG, mis-identified in forest type maps than Important deer winter range . . . 2. Known and 3) 16% minimum area of VCU in the SOGR. are very large patches. This is unfortunate or suspected goshawk nesting habitat because it is in the highly fragmented . . . 4. The largest remaining blocks of areas where issues such as habitat quality contiguous old growth within a watershed. more POG and big-tree forest. We would and connectivity are so very important. 5. Rare features such as underrepresented not recommend moving this impaired- An additional important issue relates forest plant associations or stands with yet-valuable SOGR, but the guidelines to the application of these data in timber some of the Forest’s highest volume* should stipulate that when reserves can project planning. In several timber sales timber stands. only be placed in such roaded and logged on the Tongass the plans included for Specific Design Criteria for Small landscapes, they should meet higher conservation of deer were based on an Reserves: Small reserves are required in minimum POG acreages. “equal area classification” of habitat all VCU’s . . . small reserves shall be 16% We never saw a case where item D4 suitability. What this means is regardless of the area of a VCU and at least 50% of was applied; no SOGR at Tuxekan or of the quality of the habitat on the ground that size shall be productive old-growth Chasina included the “largest remaining the suitability index numbers are adjusted forest. The preferred biological objective blocks of contiguous old growth within a in order to yield equal proportions of each is for each reserve to contain at least 800 watershed.” habitat quality class for a given timber acres of contiguous productive old-growth In Chasina VCU 6800, only 33% project area (i.e. high quality, medium forest, but may contain a minimum of 400 of the SOGR is productive old growth, quality and poor quality). This gives acres of productive old-growth forest. violating the 50% minimum (Fig 125). the reviewer the impression that habitat . . . 6. Attempt to avoid existing roads, “Preferred biological objectives” quality is well represented throughout clearcut units, and log transfer facilities are apparently not taken very seriously the project area when it may actually be within small reserves. by designers of SOGRs. The 4 Tuxekan dominated by low and medium habitat 7. Attempt to identify and map SOGRs and one SOGR for the roadless qualities. This is a misleading application contiguous blocks of productive old Chasina North sale averaged only 440 of the habitat capability model and growth forest. Old-growth forest that acres of productive old growth (POG), deserves rigorous review by wildlife constitutes scattered fragments of barely meeting the 400-acre allowable biologists. An equal interval (as opposed unsuitable timberland does not contribute minimum (and in 2 cases violating it). to equal area) approach is a much more to meeting small reserve design. None came close to the recommended 800 transparent and logical way of providing . . . C. In designing small reserves, acre minimum (Fig 125). adequate habitat for the long term include consideration of landscape Finally, 3 out of 5 SOGRs in table 125 sustainability of species. Our Logjam linkages between larger reserves.” comprise less than 16% of their respective example (fig 124) compares equal area VCU acreages. versus equal interval classifications. Language such as “to the extent None of the above violations are feasible” makes it difficult to enforce the enforced or even measurable by agencies Small Old-growth Reserves intent behind these guidelines. We found whose timber-sale review divisions lack (SOGRs) roads and clearcuts in a SOGR at Chasina in-house GIS capability. We only looked closely at the layout of (Fig 106 - the reserve for VCUs 6810 and We feel that the 400-acre allowable SOGRs for the Tuxekan and Chasina sale 6790). However, compared to the other minimum was intended for rare cases; it areas, but in both cases we noted alarming SOGRs on the tip of the peninsula, the is clearly not meant to become the rule, as inadequacies (Figs 75, 106, 125). roaded one was much better placed for suggested by Fig 125. Since the 800-acre Prescriptions for the design of Old- wildlife connectivity, and included much preferred POG target seems to be routinely

*This is an example of the prevalence of “volume” language in TLMP. All such uses should be altered to reflect the more appropriate size/density measures. In this case the sentence should read “the Forest’s big-tree stands.” 58 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS Fig 126 There are 4 island and 1 mainland subspecies of Mustela erminea currently described for Southeast. Molecular analysis has further identified 3 “deep lineages.” A continental lineage is found on many Southeast Islands. A Beringian lineage on Admiralty seems closest to samples from the Fairbanks area. And a coastal lineage occupies Prince of Wales and satellite islands (Cook et al. 2001) Such enticing glimpses into Southeast Alaska’s recent and remote past are repeated in species after species. Each holds a critical piece of the puzzle of mammalian colonization and radiation. ignored, the 400-acre-minimum loophole should be eliminated, and replaced with a non-negotiable 800-acre minimum. This minimum should be increased in SOGRs such as south Chasina (Fig 106) that are to true islands but to “islands” of intact current state and federal regimes, this compromised by roads and clearcuts. habitats in developed matrices. could have disastrous consequences for In VCUs where retrospective analyses In Southeast we probably have both Southeast Alaska’s fauna. of past logging patterns indicate heavy “neoendemics”–taxa that colonized Evolution is dynamic. Subspecies are targeting of specific forest types–for and diverged since deglaciation–and species in the making. David Quammen in example north-facing medium-to-big-tree “paleoendemics”–older preglacial Song of the Dodo tells us that “islands are stands–Small Old-growth Reserves should lineages of formerly wider distribution where species go to die.” be located in areas that protect large that possibly survived in refugia. To Extinction is the most catastrophic acreages of these diminished forest types. radically alter island environments environmental impact. But species and Nothing in the specific criteria for without an understanding of threats to this subspecies are also born on islands. SOGRs mandates acreages or percentages evolutionary heritage is inconsistent with Southeast Alaska has the potential to lead of big-tree forest; this is only stated in a NEPA. the world in safeguarding that opportunity. vague and unenforceable way in the “rules The TLMP Standards and Guidelines applicable to all reserves.” We suggest prescribe surveys for voles, mice and Summary of recommendations specific wording such as “SOGRs should shrews on all islands smaller than 50,000 Here is the full list of our contain a minimum of 200 acres of big- acres. For context, Gravina Island, recommendations for improvements to the tree forest.” at 57,689 acres, barely escapes these Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP.) prescriptions, while Heceta Island, at In some cases only slight rewording of Poorly-known mammals 46,815 acres, requires surveys. specific Standards and Guidelines (S&Gs) Fascinating information about the “The extent and rigor of surveys will is needed; in others, entirely new S&Gs genetics, distribution and habitat relations be commensurate with the degree of are recommended: of Southeast mammals has accumulated existing and proposed forest fragmentation at a rapid pace over the past decade . . .[targeting especially] . . . endemic Recalculate ASQ If there must be (Conroy & Cook, 1999, Cook et al. 2001, mammals with limited dispersal an Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ) it Cook & MacDonald, 2001, Smith, 2005, capabilities that may exist within the should account for true long-term (multi- Weckworth et al, 2005). Much more project area.” (TLMP S&Gs, Wildlife rotation) sustainability, not only in terms remains to be learned; the faster the better. XVII. A) of timber yield but for species viability All 3 of these aspects of mammal study To survey Heceta but ignore mammal and the protection of rare and declining have direct conservation implications, distributions on Gravina, where major forest types. This a complicated task not only for species protection within logging is planned, clearly misses the that cannot be credibly completed until Southeast Alaska, but also for the light intent of the TLMP S&Gs. In view of several of the issues noted in the following that local findings shed upon theories rapidly accumulating evidence for isolated recommendations (e.g. forest structure of speciation and endemism. Biologists populations of endemics in all vertebrate maps) have been addressed. worldwide are watching the Southeast groups (amphibians and birds as well), we work of Cook and MacDonald and recommend multi-visit wildlife surveys on Mean diameter threshold This requires a colleagues, because our Archipelago every timber project, regardless of location new S&G specifying the maximum mean forms a natural evolutionary laboratory or island size. diameter above which forests may not be for the study of mammalian response to As we complete this report, national logged (e.g. 21-inches sustained over at island size, isolation, water barriers, land attention is focusing on the question of least 25 acres). Similar species-specific corridors, glaciation and fluctuating sea whether subspecies deserve recognition diameter thresholds should be instituted levels. Findings are relevant not only under the Endangered Species Act. Under for individual very large trees (e.g. 72 Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 59 inches for spruce and redcedar; 30 inches all timber sale areas by interagency teams Timber waste Stricter S&Gs should: 1) for yellow-cedar). Cutting of trees larger including wildlife and fishery biologists prohibit felling of trees that the operator than these for cultural uses, music wood, and GIS technicians with expertise in does not intend to remove; 2) prohibit etc. should require special permits. landscape assessment. clearcut logging in forests where a large component of unmarketable trees makes Karst forests We ask for a full logging Habitat capability models The use of such timber waste inevitable. Aerial moratorium on all karst surfaces. equal-area classifications in deer habitat surveys should document historical timber modeling is misleading and should be waste. Improve forest structure maps USFS abandoned in favor of classifications should invest in airborne lidar-based developed by qualified biometricians. Restoration The TLMP revision is likely mapping for all timber production lands to contain new provisions for treatment of (and eventually the entire Tongass). Blowdown We recommend intensive cutover land. We support this continued No further logging should be permitted aerial surveys of blowdown along clearcut experimentation so long as it is not without improved forest structure maps margins, and especially on stream and focused on timber production to the based either on such lidar or a combination cave buffers. Results should inform exclusion of habitat enhancement. of re-photo-interpretation plus ground strengthened buffer-width requirements. Investment of wildlife funds in inventory for rare and declining features restoration are more wisely directed to such as large red-and yellow-cedar. Inter-unit buffer width Clearcuts should proven applications such as streambank never be placed immediately next to older stabilization, road removal, and invasive Size/density measures Volume ones. A buffer of 4- to 5 tree-heights in species control. measurements should be replaced by size/ width should separate new from old cuts, density measures in all TLMP regulations regardless of age. (Existing S&Gs allow Endemic species The S&Gs currently addressing forest structure. Volume adjacent cuts when trees in the earlier cut mandate small mammal surveys for measurements should be used only for reach 5 feet in hieght.) islands <50,000 acres. We recommend their intended purpose–growth and yield mandating multi-visit surveys for calculations, etc. Creeping “megacuts” The above mammals, birds and amphibians on all prohibition on “scabbing” new cuts timber sale projects. Mandate multi-scale assessments in to older ones should prevent further TLMP and timber sale EIS documents enlargement of megacuts. In VCUs with The 3 recommendations below are more All USFS planning documents must contiguous megacuts of more than 1000 fully explained in the following section on account for high-grading, wildlife acres, existing Small Old-growth Reserves NEPA planning: movements, etc in a range of spatial scales should be expanded by an acreage equal from individual-tree to Tongass-wide. to the total size of the megacuts. (In most Prohibit post-ROD (Record of Decision) “Big-picture” assessments must account cases such expansion will inevitably have unit boundary changes – Field flagging for impacts on adjacent private lands as to include cutover lands.) should be done much earlier in the well as National Forest conditions. timber planning process–accounting for Salvage logging S&Gs define salvage as unmapped streams, steep slopes etc–and Mandate historical and future impact “the removal of dead trees or trees being be “locked in” prior to the DEIS or at least assessments in TLMP and timber sale damaged or dying . . .” (TLMP S&Gs, FEIS. Logging impacts will thus be better EIS documents Retrospective analysis Timber VIII A). Salvage units should be defined throughout the public and agency of roading and logging impacts must be held strictly to this definition. Healthy review process. The only allowable “11th- explicitly mandated at both project and green trees should not be logged under the hour” boundary adjustments should be Tongass levels. Maps and tables must guise of salvage. contractions, not expansions. compare original, current and proposed future conditions. These presentations Slope steepness S&Gs allow exceptions Show proposed cuts on orthophotos must be based on improved forest to the current prohibition of logging on In all timber sale planning documents, structure mapping as recommended above. slopes greater than 72%. Because this proposed units should be shown as privilege appears to have been abused outlines over high-resolution orthophotos, OGR prescriptions Small Old-growth on certain ranger districts, we feel the so that selective targeting of “coarse- Reserve criteria should be revised so that exceptions should be eliminated. canopy” big-tree forest can be evaluated. at least 200 acres of big-tree forest and 800 acres of POG are included. SOGRs Roads and culverts TLMP should Stand exam data – Unit-specific results compromised by roads or past logging identify a prioritization process and of timber cruises should be presented on should meet higher minimums. Stricter timeline for deactivation of roads and size/density charts in all EIS documents GIS review and stronger enforcement is restoring of crossed streams to their and ROD unit cards. needed to detect and prevent violations original condition, especially in “high- such as we noticed in our brief review. risk” ecoprovinces such as Northern Prince of Wales. No new roads should be Wildlife corridors & connectivity S&Gs constructed. should mandate connectivity analyses for 60 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS

NEPA planning recommendations

Site specificity Chasina North) falls short of Forest Plan however, do any unit card descriptions In May, 2005, the Tongass National Standards and Guidelines, TLMP Old- mention the presence of scattered, very Forest Supervisor issued a request for Growth Reserve prescriptions, and time- large trees. In view of the fact that these public comments in a “collaborative honored principles of wildlife habitat dispersed, extremely valuable trees are planning” process to inform the Logjam protection, preservation of biodiversity driving the unit layout, it seems odd that Project on northern Prince of Wales and rare forest types, and standards of their numbers and dimensions are not Island, one of the largest timber offerings full disclosure. We regret that it has been disclosed. in Southeast. In his plea for public necessary to serve the Forest Service with This lack of specificity is not from participation, the Supervisor lays it out in a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act lack of data: units are adequately cruised capital letters: request) in order to obtain the proposed to assess marketability. But the resulting “WE NEED YOUR HELP to ensure we unit boundary location data upon which forest structure data are also essential analyze all the issues that are of concern we and the public have been requested to information for ecologists assessing to you and your community.” comment. habitat value, and tree-lovers who wish The letter further elucidates what We support the Forest Service’s to know what public treasures have been kind of public comments are most useful. emphasis on site specificity, and ask for marked for the saw. Information from Generic comments such as “Logging is the same in return. Specificity is a two- stand exams should be summarized and inappropriate on the National Forest.” will way street. Conservation collaborators made available to public and agency not be considered at this project scale and need more detailed information about reviewers at an early stage in timber sale are better addressed at the national level. the character of forests proposed to be scoping. Instead, the letter asks for: logged. We respectfully suggest that the Results of stand exams should be “ . . . site-specific areas of concern Forest Service can best facilitate such provided in text and charts specific to that we should be considering. Is there unit-specific dialogues by providing the each unit; not just averaged over the unit anything about the Project Area that the following information: pool. (Fig 127 ) It would also be very Forest Service may not know, which might useful to list, for example, the species, affect the activities proposed? Refer to the Stand exam data diameter and height of the 10 largest trees enclosed maps and make your comments Unit card descriptions of forest type in the proposed cutting unit. With this as site-specific to the project as possible.” (the “silviculture/timber” sections) information, ecologists and lay-reviewers In case there is any further doubt, the are notably uninformative about stand could begin to judge whether a rare forest solicitation provides an example, and structure. Sometimes the net volume/acre type is being targeted. Only in this way underlines “site-specific” 2 more times: is given, and occasionally a comment can genuinely site-specific commentary be “An example of a site-specific about insects or disease. In the Threemile provided. comment is: ‘Harvest in unit XYZ does Arm ROD, many units are described as Unless mandated by the forthcoming not meet Forest Plan Standards and 200-year-old blowdown stands. Rarely, TLMP revision, these products of stand Guidelines because….’. Stating ‘how’ and ‘why’ this item does not meet the Forest Plan make this comment site-specific.” We read the above request on northern Prince of Wales in late June, 2005, just prior to a planned Ground-truthing visit to the Logjam Project area. We felt a sense of validation, that the work in which we’d engaged was exactly on target. Site- specificity is the Ground-truthing Project’s middle name; it’s the reason we came down out of the sky. Fig 127 Ground-truthing data and images Example of an provide site-specific reasons why logging effective way to in proposed “units XYZ” on the Logjam present stand (and at Ushk Bay, Threemile Arm, exam data Emerald Bay, Tuxekan and Kosciusko for proposed cutting units. Islands, Cholmondeley Sound, and Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 61 Fig 128 Proposed cutting units overlaid upon digital orthophoto. This example from Threemile Arm shows disproportionate high-grading of the coarse-textured big-tree forest in center photo. Most units on the right are not particularly coarse textured but probably target large, ancient yellow-cedars. See Fig 53 for a Lighthawk oblique view of these same proposed units.

boundary as shown on shapefiles. Without GPSing the entire unit boundary (which would take longer than we could typically spend) we can’t say whether the flagged units contain more or less acreage than the shapefile units. Units should be flagged not only prior to the ROD, but before the DEIS. Explicit maps of actual (not pre-field) unit layout should be provided (on an orthophoto base as described above) from the earliest stages of timber sale planning. This will help foresters avoid unpleasant surprizes exams are unlikely to be shared with the the impression that only an insignificant leading to falldown in the 11th hour. It public outside of specific FOIA requests. fraction will be lost. The need to contain is also essential in meeting the intent of Meantime, acquisition of the raw stand high-grading was a major element of the NEPA (National Environmental Policy exam data and analysis of at least a few opinion concluding the recent NRDC vs Act) to fully disclose environmental sample sale areas is a high priority for USFS court case (US Court of Appeals, consequences and inform the public 2006 Ground-truthing work. 2005). Orthophotos unmask high-grading throughout the entire process. more effectively than any derived spatial A retrospective GIS analysis of Show units on orthophoto base database currently available. discrepancies between planned and actual The first thing we do in the Ground- unit outlines in past timber sales should truthing Project during pre-field evaluation Unit boundary changes be relatively easy. Proposed unit polygons is to drop the shapefile of proposed We found discrepancies between unit from each ROD should be overlaid upon cutting units as thin white outlines on top boundaries as shown in GIS shapefiles the actual subsequent cuts as shown in the of an orthophoto of the project area (Fig and as we GPSed the flagged border-trees managed stands database. Areas cut that 128). Even without stereo examination in the field. To thoroughly assess these were not mapped as proposed units could it is usually very clear that the unit pool discrepancies, we would have had to walk best be scrutinized by georeferencing low systematically targets the scattered “coarse entire unit borders, something we did not elevation (1:15,840), true-color aerial texture” patches of large trees. This have time to do in our summer 2005 visits. photography, and also examining these procedure is very simple for a GIS person Boundary changes are apparently patches in stereo to see if large trees were but not possible for the average citizen standard practice but present obvious targeted. We would like to include this or even most agency reviewers, who are problems in effective project review. in future analysis, if the Ground-truthing forced to rely on the Forest Service for The ROD (Record of Decision) for Project continues in 2006. GIS analyses. Our ArcReader projects for Cholmondeley states: “Minor adjustments the timber sales visited this summer will to unit boundaries are also likely during Project- and Tongass-scale make this something that anyone can do final layout for the purpose of improving remapping on their home computer. logging system efficiency or for site A radically new map of forest structure But timber planners should not wait conditions.” may not be as far away as we might have for those lacking such technology to In other words, even the maps predicted even one year ago. Lidar–“light “catch up.” Orthophoto bases at several associated with ROD unit cards (the last, detection and ranging” or airborne laser scales (from project-wide to small areas post-decisional document offered to the scanning technology–can map details of encompassing just a handful of units) public) do not reflect the final layout. How crown cover, 9-inch ground contours, should be a required presentation format then are public and agency reviewers to individual tree locations and heights, and in timber sale scoping, DEIS, FEIS and provide effective commentary? What is distinguish conifer and deciduous species. ROD documents. The TLMP revision the definition of a “minor adjustment?” We Once prohibitively expensive, lidar now in progress must address this. Simply saw cases at Emerald Bay and Tuxekan “may be routinely available for an entire presenting the proposed cuts against an Island where trees worth thousands of forest, currently at a cost of about $1 to $2 outline map of the project area creates dollars were added to a unit outside of its per acre.” (Rapp, 2005). Such a map could 62 • Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS soon resolve the problems that have plagued TIMTYP and all subsequent iterations of USFS forest structure maps. Lidar mapping for the 2.4 million acres of “suitable and available timber lands”–a critical long-term investment–would cost only a fraction of what the Forest Service spends annually to build new roads and prepare timber sales. Meanwhile, however, decisions at the scale of timber projects urgently demand higher quality forest maps. All timber projects should either await aquisition of lidar-based forest structure maps, or in the interim provide new photointerpreted (stereoscopic) mapping of the coarse textured big-tree forest, and ground-verified mapping of the distribution of red- and yellow-cedars. In one day’s work, using existing fine-scale stereophotography, an experienced forester could create a much better map of the extent of big-tree forest over several contiguous watersheds than is currently provided by the various iterations of TIMTYP. Maps should identify patches of big trees as small as 5 acres; these stands are typically not shown on existing forest maps.

Sustainability After visiting dozens of proposed units in a wide array of timber projects across the Tongass, we cannot say that we have seen even one that seemed to have been laid out with a view to sustainability, with full respect for considerations of wildlife habitat, or with regard for the rarity value of large, extremely old trees. We sincerely wish we could say otherwise. We had hoped to see some examples of past and proposed logging that could be pointed to by proponents of environmentally sustainable Southeast forestry. The problem seems to lie in the highly adversarial process by which Southeast forests are “managed.” We fight over the cookie, and both parties end up with crumbs. It might be hard for conservationists to accept that the thousands of acres of lost old growth were merely “crumbs” to the timber industry. Granted, there are many retired timber millionaires, but the existing Southeast timber industry is financially dysfunctional. Conversely, it might be hard for the timber industry to accept that the millions of acres off-limits to logging represent “crumbs” to conservationists. But a century of high-grading has cut the heart out of our forest. Without this heart, the Tongass holds only a memory of its former vibrancy. Without our big-tree forest we face extinctions and what ecologists call “trophic cascades,” or trickle-down effects from the reduction of one species or habitat, affecting many others in turn. We hope our report has made clear that through multi-scale high-grading, removal of only a small fraction of our old-growth acreage has had dire consequences, and could have still more if these lessons are ignored.

There are 3 fundamental tasks before us, as we struggle toward sustainability for the Southeast Alaskan forest:

1) Reduce the human footprint. Live more lightly as individuals and communities. Use less wood more wisely.

2) Recognise and arrest the ongoing loss of irreplacable forest habitats. The Ground-truthing project is directed at this task.

3) Repair the damage of a century of high-grading. New restoration initiatives within and outside of the Forest Service deserve support, if they are genuinely aimed at sustainability.

While all 3 tasks are essential to success, when we compare their relative importance and urgency, it seems to us that task number 2 rises to the top. Ground-truthing Project final report • Carstensen & Christensen • SCS • 63 attributes in productive old-growth forests Rapp, V. 2005. Monitoring forests at the Acknowledgements of southeast Alaska speed of light. Pacific Northwest Research For assistance in the field, many thanks Station Science Update. Issue 12, Dec to: Neils Dau, Kenyon Fields, Mariya Carstensen, R., M. Willson, and B. 2005. Louvichuk, Pete, Val, Jed and Kina Smith, Armstrong. 2003. Habitat use of and Cheryl Van Dyke. amphibians in northern Southeast Alaska: Runck, A., and J. Cook. 2005. Post-glacial For discussion and guidance prior Report to ADFG. Discovery Southeast. expansion of the southern red-backed to and following the summer 2005 field 77pp. Available at: http://www.seawead. vole (Clethrionomys gapperi) in North work, our thanks to: Sitka Conservation org/amphibs/ America. Molecular Ecology 14:1445- Society, Southeast Alaska Conservation 1456. Society, Earth Justice, Alaska Rainforest Conroy, C., Demboski and J. Cook, Campaign, Greenpeace, and anonymous 1999, Mammalian biogeography of the Russell, J. 2005a. Tongass young-growth agency biologists. Alexander Archipelago of Alaska: a – thinning and the resource. USFS fact For full or partial reviews we thank: north temperate nested fauna. Journal of sheet. Kenyon Fields, John Schoen, and 2 Biogeography, 26, 343–352. anonymous reviewers. Russell, J. 2005b. Managing young- This project was funded by: Cook, J. Bidlack, C. Conroy, J. Demboski, growth stands for multiple resource Sitka Conservation Society, The M. Fleming, A. Runck, K. Stone, and S. values. USFS fact sheet. Turner Foundation, The Wolfensohn MacDonald. 2001. A phylogeographic Family Foundation, Southeast Alaska perspective on endemism in the Alexander Schoen et al. (in preparation) Conservation Council, The Skaggs Archipelago of the North Pacific. Foundation, Ken Leghorn, David Biological Conservation 97:215-227. Shepard, M., L. Winn, B. Flynn, R.Myron, Wigglesworth, and Jack Ozment J Winn, G Killinger, J. Silbaugh, T. Special thanks to Lighthawk for a day Cook, J., and S. MacDonald. 2001. Should Suminski, K. Barkau, E. Ouderkirk, J. of aerial support. endemism be a focus of conservation Thomas. 1999. Southeast Chichagof This project could not have taken efforts along the North Pacific Coast of Landscape Analysis. USDA Forest place without the initiative, enthusiasm North America? Biological Conservation Service General Technical Report R10- and guidance of Kenyon Fields, executive 97:207-213. TP-68. 210 p. director of Sitka Conservation Society. Drever, R., 2000 A cut above: Ecological Shoaf, B. 2000. The taking of the Tongass: Principles for Sustainable Forestry Alaska’s rainforest. Running Wolf Press, References on BC’s Coast. The David Suzuki Sequim. Foundation. Bidlack, A. and J. Cook. 2002. A nuclear Smith, W. 2005, Evolutionary diversity perspective on endemism in northern Ecotrust 2002. Forest Condition in and ecology of endemic small mammals flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus) Southeast Alaska, Juneau. of southeastern Alaska with implications of the Alexander Archipelago, Alaska. for land management planning. Journal Conservation Genetics 3:247-259. Flanders, L.S. and J. Cariello. 2000. of Landscape and Urban Planning. 72(1- Tongass Road Condition Survey Report. 3):135-155. Bormann, B.. Spaltenstein, M. McClellan, Technical Report No. 00-7. Alaska F. Ugolini, K. Cromack and S. Nay. 1995. Department of Fish and Game, Juneau, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Rapid soil development after windthrow Alaska. 2005. Natural Resources Defense Council disturbance in pristine forests. Journal of vs US Forest Service. Opinion No. 04- Ecology. 83. 747-757. Hanley, T. 2005. Potential management 35868. of young-growth stands for understory Caouette, J., Kramer and J. Nowacki. vegetation and wildlife habitat in USDA Forest Service 1997 Tongass 2000. Deconstructing the timber volume southeastern Alaska. Journal of Landscape National Forest Land and Resource paradigm in management of the Tongass and Urban Planning. 72(1-3):95-111. Management Plan National Forest. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PNW-GTR-482 Harris, A. 1989. Wind in the forests of USDA Forest Service 2003 Tongass southeast Alaska and guide for reducing Land Management Plan Revision: Final Caouette, J., and E. DeGayner. 2005. damage. USDA Forest Service General Supplemental Environmental Impact Predictive mapping for tree sizes and Technical Report PNW-GTR-244. 63 p. Statement R10-MB-481a. densities in southeast Alaska. Journal of Landscape and Urban Planning. 72(1- McClellan, M. 2005. Recent research on Weckworth B., S. Talbot, G. Sage, D. 3):49-63. the management of hemlock-spruce forests Person, and J. Cook. 2005. A signal for in southeast Alaska for multiple uses. independent coastal and continental Caouette, J., and E. DeGayner, in Journal of Landscape and Urban Planning. histories for North American wolves. preparation. Broad-scale classification 72(1-3):49-63. Molecular Ecology 14:917-931. and mapping of tree size and density