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United States Pacific Northwest

Hal Salwasser
Oregon State University

The forest ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest extend without ecological discontinuity into British Columbia, Idaho, Nevada and California.  This overview is limited to Washington and Oregon, but the ecological and management issues are often similar.  The government policies and economic importance of those forests often do differ by state, and certainly by country.  

Forests are the most abundant biomes in Washington and Oregon, comprising 48% of the land cover in Oregon and 51% in Washington.  Temperate coniferous forests dominate but some temperate broadleaf forests occur in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Like other western states, Washington and Oregon forests are largely in public ownership. Federal forests comprise 59% of Oregon forests and 43% of Washington’s forestlands (Smith et al. 2004).

Economic Contributions

From the earliest colonization by humans, estimated to be at least 12,000 years ago, forests have played significant roles in supporting the cultural and economic needs of people. They supplied many of the foods, building materials, fuels, water-borne transportation and medicinal plants for the first people and more recently have provided substantial economic benefits and direct forest-related jobs: $19.9 billion in combined annual economic output and 121,000 direct jobs in the first decade of the 21^st century.

Washington and Oregon forests encompass the headwater streams of all the two states’ major river systems, including many but certainly not all tributaries of the Columbia River. As such, they not only affect water flows and water quality but also spawning habitats for economically, ecologically and culturally important salmonids (salmon, steelhead and trout). The state capitol in Salem, OR has three carpet patterns in the chambers: one with a Douglas-fir tree, one with a salmon and one with a sheath of wheat, emblematic and the state’s principal early industries.

Wood products from Washington and Oregon forests have been and continue to be substantial in the nation’s timber supply. In 1986, the two states had timber removals of 20% of all softwood and hardwood production in the nation. The current market share of domestic wood production from these states is only 11% of U.S. timber removals due to declining harvests from federal forests and increasing imports to meet increased consumption.

The decline in softwood timber harvests and lumber production is more precipitous.  The 1990s saw an 80% decline in timber harvest from Washington and Oregon’s federal forests and the loss of domestic production was matched by increasing imports, largely from Canada. No experts predict any return to historic harvest levels on federal forests though many foresee a future where higher harvests than current (2007) may occur as part of reducing fuel conditions and changing fire behavior. A change from the current 300 million board feet per year from national forests to perhaps 1 billion would probably be the upper limit under current policies.

Biomass and Fires

Forests west of the Cascades crest in Washington and Oregon are among the most productive in the nation. They currently store large amounts of carbon both above and below ground. While old-growth forests store the most carbon of any stage of forest development, they are not sequestering any more carbon than they are releasing through decomposition and respiration. To serve as long-term carbon sinks, Westside old growth must be protected from fire and insects. Most – nearly 7 million acres in both states -- are already protected from logging via federal forest policies for fish and wildlife.

Eastside forests are a different story. There, drier more fire-prone forests have accumulated more on-site biomass that nature abetted by aboriginal burning would have normally provided. Over the course of 100 years, eastside fire regimes have gone from being mostly low to mixed severity to now being mostly mixed to high severity. The implications for fire, water, fish and wildlife of leaving these overstocked conditions in place are significant.

Fire is now the major factor transforming mature forest wildlife habitat east of the Cascades in both states and south of the Rogue River in SW Oregon. Unfortunately, federal agencies in the two states are currently spending so much of their financial resources on fire related activities that they do not have the resources to actively and aggressively reduce fire hazards through landscape-scale fuels treatments at a pace of scale that would slow if not reverse the growing size and intensity of wildland fires that are also influenced by a warmer climate with drier summers.

Ownership and Forest Change

Like many other regions of the nation Washington and Oregon have experienced a major transformation in private forest ownership during the past 20 years. Weyerhaeuser Company is now the only large publicly traded, vertically integrated wood products manufacturing business that owns significant timberlands in the two states. There are large privately held companies that still hold timberlands and mills. The new owners of what used to be industrial timberlands are Timber Investment Management Organizations and Real Estate Investment Trusts. Most are in forestland ownership for the long term but they have different time horizons and goals for management of those lands.

Coupled with parcelization of family-held forestlands at the time of intergenerational transfer – the land passes from two owners to several or is broken up and sold when the new owners cannot agree on goals and purpose – these changes in ownership create a far amount of uncertainty about the future of Washington and Oregon private forests in the nation’s wood supply. Highly productive soils, globally competitive management and manufacturing, a sharp marketing imagination, and rapid access to major markets are the region’s assets when competing against low-cost producers in distant countries. Product differentiation through marketing how the trees are grown -- several sustainable forest certification programs are common in the Pacific Northwest -- and continual innovation and marketing to differentiate products are keys to future forest-sector business vitality.

Though loss of forest to urban sprawl is not as pervasive as in the eastern U.S., it is still a major factor in forest loss. Washington estimates it losses 30,000 acres of forest to other land uses each year in the current decade. Oregon’s losses are far less but current uncertainty about its land use laws spills over into concerns for future forest losses. Mainstream conservation organizations have readily recognized forest conversion as their number one problem. Groups cannot debate about how a forest should be managed and for what values if it is no longer a forest.

Washington and Oregon have substantial areas of reserved forest and forests that are never likely to see roads or logging, an estimated 5,965,000 acres, nearly all in federal ownership. The two states own slightly more of the nation’s reserved forests than their proportional land and forest area.  Oregon has 2.7% of the nation’s land area, and 3.2% of its reserved forests. Washington has 1.8% of the nation’s land area, and 4.5% of the nation’s reserved forests.  In comparison, Alaska has 16.1% of the nations land area, and 42.9% of the reserved forests (Smith et al. 2004). 

Climate Change Impacts

The 45^th parallel runs through Oregon so the two states will likely be more impacted by climate warming than states to the south. While they are not likely to be as impacted as boreal and arctic regions, there is still significant potential for impacts to forest species that evolved to live in colder climates or were given centuries if not millennia to adjust to climate change.

The major reason for concern in Oregon and Washington is the rate of change and whether species can adapt quickly enough or find new growing sites to inhabit. Some alpine species may find there is no place to go and species that rely on unobstructed dispersal routes may find it nearly impossible to get from one mountain range to the next if all the routes are now farms and towns, freeways and reservoirs. Climate change will almost certainly favor some native species in Oregon and Washington’s forests but it may harm many more.

Conclusion

The forests of the Pacific Northwest are a dominant natural resource in the states of Oregon and Washington.  The forests provide economic contributions of income and employment; diverse forest biomes, natural habitat, and biodiversity; recreational values for wilderness and developed recreation; and a high quality of life.  The two states produced more than one-fifth of the timber removals in the U.S. 20 years ago, but continue to produce more than 10% of our timber.  Ownership of the forest lands in the Pacific Northwest also has undergone a major changes, with integrated forest companies selling most of their timberlands, either to other timber production organizations or for development. 

The uses of the Pacific Northwest forests have shifted in the last two decades from a more exclusive focus on timber and manufacturing to diverse economies with recreation, dispersed service businesses, retirement and second home sectors. The issues of forest fires and climate change have endured as the forest economy changes, and indeed have become even more intractable as homes, residents, and production, and service sectors are interspersed throughout an increasingly fragmented forest landscape. The evolution of forests, ownership, and climate throughout the region will continue require careful scientific and policy responses to ensure sustainable development of these valuable resources.

Reference

Smith, W. Brad, Patrick D. Mile, John S. Vissage, and Scott A. Pugh.  2004.  Forest Resources of the United States, 1997. General Technical Report NC-241. St. Paul, MN: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, North Central Research Station. 137 p.

Posted 30 September 2007