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Center for Sustainable Forestry at Pack Forest. Gregory J. Ettl, Director Associate Professor University of Washington. Eatonville Fire 1926. Reforestation. Working Forest. 4300 acres 38 acres/year harvested Revenue supports Pack Forest.
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Center for Sustainable Forestry at Pack Forest Gregory J. Ettl, Director Associate Professor University of Washington
Working Forest • 4300 acres • 38 acres/year harvested • Revenue supports Pack Forest
Vision for the Center for Sustainable Forestry at Pack Forest • Demonstration—Pacific Northwest leader in demonstrating forestry practices that provide profits and biodiversity (Approach should be experimental, innovative, providing diverse structures and species) • Education • Outreach to provide technology transfer, certification training, community based forestry organization and mediation • Undergraduate, graduate, teacher training, and K-12 experiential opportunities • Research—Provide opportunities through diverse stand structures, freedom for experimental prescriptions, funding to support faculty research • Collaboration—Provide a focal point for collaborative research • Advocate for Sustainable Forestry—Promote sustainability at all levels
What is sustainable forestry? • Non-diminishing timber production • Ecological Integrity • Socially and economically sustainable?
Environmental World Views • Naturalistic—humans integrated in the system • Anthropocentric—humans in control and management’s only obligation is to humanity [Stewardship vs. Exploitation] • Market based economics • Ecocentric—management activities focus on maintaining ecosystem integrity [Aldo Leopold, land ethic] • Biocentric—Organisms have intrinsic rights and therefore management should not harm organisms • Conservation—pragmatic resource use-Gifford Pinchot • Preservation—minimize use-John Muir
Sustainable Forestry Definitions • Even flow—renewable forest products and proper management leads to a consistent non-degrading even flow of wood • Ecological-based—Ecosystem Management (Loftus), New Forestry (Franklin), Biodiversity Pathways (Carey and Curtis)—variety of names all representing approaches with a greater focus on ecology • Perpetual Forest—no net loss in forest cover, nor diminishing quality of forests (age and structure) • Could mean no net loss spatially • Could mean no loss in age, species composition and structure at the stand level
Aldo Leopold • Conservation with an axe • “We seem ultimately always thrown back on individual ethics as the basis of conservation policy. It is hard to make a (person), by pressure of law or money, do a thing which does not spring naturally from (their) own personal sense of right and wrong.” • Conservationist in Mexico, American Forests, March 1937. • “We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations, the important thing is not to achieve but to strive.” • Round River, 1953
Big Huckleberry • Sustainable human use? • Even flow of huckleberries? • Habitat loss or degradation? • What is the ecosystems fair share?