Salmon a growing factor in forest restoration policy

SITKA, ALASKA

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In March of 2009 Senator Lisa Murkowski visited Sitka. There hadn’t been any substantial timber activity in the local ranger district for years, really, except a second-growth thinning project in the Starrigavan Valley. The logs were harvested and taken to the hangar on the campus of UAS, where they were assembled into a couple of beautiful cabins, and later moved to the Starrigavan campground and Wrangell.

The Sitka Ranger District thought the restoration project held promise for reinvigorating timber activity on the northern Tongass. Murkowski did not share their optimism that providing cabin logs would even approach the large-scale timber operations of the past.

“I don’t believe that we will ever see that type of industry on the Tongass. I don’t believe that our federal policies will allow for that. As I look long term, what I’m trying to do is figure out a way we can provide a secure level of product for the small operations that continue to hang in there against incredible odds.”

As a member of the Republican leadership in the senate, Murkowski has been obligated to pushback against Obama administration policy. Her remarks in Sitka might have been a way of positioning herself for this speech from US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, delivered a few months later (August 2009) in Seattle:

“We must work and be committed to a shared vision, a vision that conserves our forests and the vital resources important to our survival. While wisely respecting the forest economy that creates jobs and vibrant rural communities. Our shared vision must begin with a complete commitment to restoration.”

Both Alaska’s senators were initially cool to restoration. Murkowski and her Democratic colleague Mark Begich signed a letter in February of this year to Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee in the senate, opposing the restoration line item in the president’s proposed 2011 budget. They recommended increasing the Forest Products line item to “signal continued support for the wood products industry.”

In May of this year, Senator Begich visited Sitka for the state democratic convention. At a press conference, Begich reaffirmed his interest in protecting a forest products industry. But shortly afterwards at a town hall meeting, salmon troller and fisheries activist Eric Jordan called the Tongass “the most pristine wild salmon hatchery in the world.” He fired a volley of questions at Begich.

“What are you doing to promote the wild salmon hatchery that we have, to protect and promote it, and restore these salmon streams that have been damaged by clear cut logging, and re-direct funds from preparing timber plans for a non-existent timber industry, to protecting and restoring and publicizing this salmon habitat that we have in Southeast Alaska?”

Begich’s response suggests that watershed restoration had new traction in Washington DC, far more than cabin-log or other thinning projects.

“Instead of waiting for these streams or areas to lose their capacity; instead of waiting for them to get to a point where you cannot get to recovery (or you can, but it might be 30-40 years); the better approach is to say where are we today and how do we preserve that, prevent that, put real money behind it?”

What also caught my attention in Begich’s words were how closely they echoed Bob Gubernick, a forestry engineering geologist for 25 years, when I asked him about restoring watersheds like the Sitkoh River.

“What we recognize though is that they are degrading, and now is the time in the history of the river (40 years after initial impact) when we’re still losing historic wood that’s holding it in there. Now’s the time to get in there before it becomes like the situations down south where there’s no fish in there and it’s going to be very expensive to bring back any of those systems.”

It’s rare that language passes so cleanly from the boots on the ground to the beltway. The power and value of salmon have not escaped the notice of the conservation community. Andrew Thoms, the director of the Sitka Conservation Society, has tightly linked salmon preservation with forest restoration.

“You know here on the Tongass the mandate is still ‘Seek to meet market demand for Tongass Timber.’ And for a community like Sitka we really get left out. What if the mandate was ‘Seek to meet market demand for Tongass salmon’ – how would that change the way the forest is managed?”

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