Some of the Players

Jay O'Laughlin is Director of the Idaho Forest, Wildlife and Range Policy Analysis Group at the University of Idaho. He crunches forest health numbers and writes policy reports on sustainable forestry practices... when he's not fishing for steelhead on the Clearwater River! "What I've seen is what's typical of all national forests in the Northwest, about an 80 percent reduction in timber harvest on the Clearwater."

"Two things have changed about the forest. . The forests are denser now than they were fifty years ago. A lot denser. And also the species composition has changed. There's less white pine and ponderosa pine; there's a lot more douglas fir and grand fir. That species change has forest health implications. Firs are more susceptible to a wider variety of diseases. Also, they're more susceptible to crown fires than, say, ponderosa pine."

"What I'd like to see ten or twenty years from now is all the public involved in the proceedings, so that the forest manager says, 'now the science is telling us that this is what we ought to do and here's some proposals. Now what do you all think about this?'

"The key thing is to set objectives with the public. There's really no other way to do it on the public lands."

"This isn't just a matter of cutting timber so that companies can make profits from it. That's not the purpose of cutting timber anymore. The purpose of cutting timber now is to meet ecological objectives. And the timber harvesting is now a byproduct of other land management activity. It is not the final objective in and of itself."