STARKER

LECTURES

2001

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VISIONS OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Peeking into the Neighbor’s Yard

Natural resources are a crucial part of our world. This year’s

Starker Lectures theme, “Visions of Natural Resources, Peeking

into the Neighbor’s Yard,” offers a unique attempt to look at

complex resource issues among neighboring boundaries. Our

speakers come from a variety of backgrounds and offer diverse

and thoughtful views.

This lecture series requires a major effort on the part of the

Starker Lecture Committee. I thank Norm Johnson, Phil

Humphreys, Jeff McDonnell, Lisa Ganio and Sandie Arbogast for

the dedication and creativity that turned disparate ideas into a

coherent theme and an outstanding group of speakers.

Manuscripts were edited by Rosanna Mattingly, PhD,

Portland, OR, and designed by Sandie Arbogast, Forestry

Communications Group.

We recognize the encouragement and commitment of

College of Forestry administrators, students, and friends who

support the lectures.

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . .2

Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Film, Forestry and Our Global

Backyard

Monty Bassett . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Gentrifying Ecotopia: A Brown

Girl Looks at Home, Landscape

and Power

Debra Salazar . . . . . . . . . . .18

Iisaak: Respecting Forest

Values—from Process to

Products

Iisaak Panel: Linda Coady, Eric Schroff, and Alton Harestad . . . . . . . . . .36

Urban Forestry: Forestry’s Final

Frontier

Gregory McPherson . . . . . .60

compiled by B. Shelby and S. Arbogast

Table Of Contents Acknowledgments

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Thurman James Starker, known to all as T. J., was born in Kansasand spent his childhood in Burlington, Iowa. He moved withhis family to Portland in 1907 and began working in andstudying forestry. T. J. graduated in the first class of forestersat Oregon Agricultural College (OAC), now Oregon StateUniversity, in 1910. He then studied two years for an MSdegree in forestry at the University of Michigan and returnedto Oregon to work for the USDA Forest Service. Subsequentemployment with the forest-products industry and a variety ofsummer jobs while he was teaching forestry at OAC/OregonState College (OSC), gave T. J. broad and thorough experiencein all aspects of forestry.

In 1936, T. J. began purchasing second-growth Douglas-firland, the beginnings of Starker Forests. Through his work expe-riences and teaching forest management, T. J. had a major influ-ence on sound forestry and community development inOregon.

Bruce Starker studied forestry at OSC, earning a bachelor’sdegree in 1940 and an MS in 1941. After service with the CoastGuard, Bruce joined his father, T. J., in acquiring and managingOregon forest land, always with an eye for careful manage-ment, sound reforestation, and conservation for multiplebenefits and values. He worked with private industry anduniversity, state, and federal forestry agencies to improvereforestation and management, and developed taxation sys-tems that improve forest practices. Bruce continued the familytradition of active community service in many ways, includ-ing participating in civic activities and regional forestry workand contributing to the Oregon Forest Practices Act.

Forestry in Starker Forests has changed with advances inknowledge, technology, and public environmental issues. Butthe constant value of tending the land remains unchanged. Thecommunity spirit and sound progressive forestry of T. J. andBruce Starker continue today.

T. J. Starker

Bruce Starker

Dedication

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Watersheds of Time:

Film in Forestry

Monty Bassett,Natural ResourcesFilmmaker, Out-Yonder Productions,Smithers, B.C.,Canada

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I’d first like to say what an honor itis to be invited to speak at theStarker Lectures. I had the opportu-

nity to see the Starker Family Foresttoday, and I was very impressed. It isan inspiration to see a family dedicat-ed to the use and preservation of theland. Also, I’d like to thank Bo Shelby.Bo and I first met when he came northto run the Grand Canyon of theStikine. Bo stands high in my esteemfor many reasons, not the least ofwhich is that he has the strength ofcharacter to know when to paddle andwhen not to suit up.

Opening film clip, from the documen-tary “Life on the Vertical” shows variousscenes along the narrow vaulted walls ofCanada’s Grand Canyon on the StikineRiver:

It has been called Canada’s GrandCanyon, yet its location is so remoteand wild—so dangerous and unfor-giving—that more humans havewalked on the moon than have trav-eled its length!

Making documentaries is a veryrecent vocation. My formal educationwas in biology and philosophy.Today, I’m going to craft my talk fromboth disciplines. And if that isn’tenough to put you to sleep, I’ll betaking my examples from a couple ofrecent films.

So: “Watersheds Of Time: Film InForestry.” What does film have to dowith forestry in the first place? Well,one correlation that comes immedi-

ately to mind is education. And ironi-cally, it was because of forestry that Ifirst became involved in film.

The story began 7 years ago in aregion of northern British Columbiacalled the Cassiar, after a range ofmountains that form the backbone ofthe area. At the time, I was the direc-tor of a biological research founda-tion, and we were radio collaringwildlife to collect data on how manyof what went where, and other suchtypes of information.

The Cassiar is British Columbia’slargest roadless wilderness, encom-passing one-sixth of the province. It’salpine and boreal regimes support

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“Perched highon pewtercliffs, they con-template thesteep dropbelow andseamless skyabove, atpeace in anenvironmentwhere onewrong stepmeans certaindeath.Welcome to theraw and mysti-cal world of“Life on theVertical.”

the world’s largest population ofmountain goat, mountain caribou,stone sheep, and grizzly. Over half ofthe bird species found in B.C. arefound in the Cassiar.

Still, although it is prime habitat forraising critters, it is poor terrain forwood fiber for production. A single 6-inch pecker pole takes 150 years togrow; a single logging truck carries, onthe average, 30,000 growth-years.Consequently, everyone in the northwas dismayed when, in the mid-1990s,the B.C. provincial government intro-duced an industrial logging program inthe slow growing, boreal forests. In theCassiar alone, the annual allowable cutwas escalated by 300 percent.

The response of all of the region’sstakeholders was immediately andunanimously against the proposal.Many of us felt that the absurdity ofthe idea was enough to stop it, so itwas decided that a short film shouldbe made on the Cassiar issue, and Iwas asked to write a script, whichcinematographer Myron Kozakwould shoot.

In a sudden tragedy, however,Myron was killed in a bush planeaccident and I inherited his footage.As they say, the rest was history. Afilm called “Cassiar at the CrossRoads” was produced, with the gen-erous help of a number of film mak-ers who knew the area. When thedust settled, industrial logging of theCassiar had become a political hot

potato. Suddenly, the Forest Districtwas disbanded, and today theiroffices are occupied by Fish andWildlife and by the Ministry ofEnvironment and Parks.

But my talk today is not abouthow I got a job, or about film and for-est politics. Rather, I’d like to discussa second, more pertinent applicationof film to forestry, and that is whatwe are learning about our planet’sforests from satellite pictures.

It occurred to me, while I wasrecently making a documentaryabout satellites, that time is merely ameasure of change. And all things inchange—which is all things—sharetwo ingredients: direction and speed.By direction, I mean merely that noevent occurs without a cause; evenseemingly random events are off-spring of the moment before. Thepast sculpts the direction of the pres-ent, into the future.

But is this to say that the direc-tion of a particular change is pur-poseful? Yes and maybe! If “purpose-ful” means divine ordination, well“maybe,” but this is not a questionfor science, but for an individual’sown spirituality. On the other hand, ifwe mean—given all the circum-stances leading up to a moment—that an event couldn’t be otherwise,then it seems to me that yes, allchange is purposeful. If I drop a pen,it falls with absolute predictability,according to the influences of gravity

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upon its mass. That is what I meanby purposefulness, which is mostapparent in biological systems.

It seems to me that science discovers. And what we discoverwhen we examine the intricacies ofliving systems is that they violatethe Third Law of Thermodynamics.Instead of becoming more random,more chaotic, biological systemshave evolved with more sophistica-tion, more complexity—retaining, notlosing information—and eventuallybecoming self-cognitive. The reasonthis happens is that an organism isbut a pre-programmed script, writtenin the ink of causality, change withpurposeful direction. Ontogenesisrecapitulates phylogenies.

Besides direction, there’s a secondcomponent of change—speed, or rate.And just as we discover in nature themechanisms of change, we are begin-ning to see the next level of intricacy,the clocks. Again, this is most appar-ent in biological systems. Pregnancy isan example. The development of afetus is an intricate orchestration ofboth sequentiality and tempo—a con-cert of interconnected clocks triggeredto kick in, in precise, chronologicalorder. In fact, it’s my belief, that a sci-ence of the future will be bio-chronolo-gy, the study of biological clocks.

Let us return now to “Watershedsof Time.” Nature, as we’ve said, is acomplexity of systems in a state offlux. And “natural history” is but a

map of change—the surging andebbing rates of evolution over water-sheds of time. From the standpoint ofthe development of species, crossingthese watersheds of change can beas slow as an ice age, or as immedi-ately cataclysmic as a meteoritestrike to the Yucatan.

But today we stand on the knifeedge of a watershed of greater con-sequence than the earth has everknown. For at no time in the historyof our planet has biological changebeen accelerated so fast, nor thefactors influencing its directionbeen so powerful as the last 4decades. In short, nature, once themaster of humankind, is suddenly atour mercy. We are probing andaltering the very genetic coding oforganisms, while inadvertently driv-ing the consequences of millennia ofevolution to extinction.

To illustrate this point, let’s returnto the second application of film toforestry, the use of earth observationsatellites, and what they are tellingus about our biosphere. Becausesatellites can take pictures fromexactly the same place, time aftertime, using time-lapse photography,we can now reduce years into min-utes, months into seconds. And sud-denly we see, with irrefutable evi-dence, the influence of humanityupon both the direction and the rateof ecological change.

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To illustrate thispoint, I would like toshare two film clips froma recently finishedDiscovery Channel docu-mentary entitled,

“Saturn’s Eyes: Satellites Taking thePlanet’s Pulse.”

The first clip shows a number oftime sequences of human-inducedchange to the planet: the desertifica-tion of Lake Chad in Africa, the shrink-ing of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan, andfinally, the permanent destruction ofthe jungles of Vietnam, 30 years afterthe spraying of Agent Orange.

Satellites have become the micro-scopes of the new millennium, withhumanity and our habitat on theexamining table.

And because satellite sciencecan time-lapse years into minutes,we see our long-term impact uponthe environment.

In North Africa, for example, thedesertification of Lake Chad is a starkexample of changes to the planet’sgreat water bodies related to irrigationand global warming.

Similarly, the Aral Sea in southernKazakhstan, once the planet’s fourthlargest inland sea, is a but a fractionof its original size.

It is no longer capable of sustain-ing life!

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Aral Sea,Kazakhstan 1973 2000

Lake Chad,Africa, Top 1973,Bottom 1997

Vietnam 1960s

Vietnam 1990s

Sometimes human impact uponthe environment is immediate,destroying an entire ecosystem witha single act. The spraying of AgentOrange in Vietnam is an example.

These intelligence satellite pic-tures taken in the early 1960s showdefoliation lines after the spraying of11 million gallons of Agent Orange.

On the ground it was Armageddon. Thirty years later, as shown in

gray on these recent satellite images,the spray lines are still vivid…. Theprimary jungle has never returned!

The second clip illustrates humaninfluence upon the rate and directionof forestry. It shows how satelliteimagery is used in forestry: for moni-toring the rates of regeneration, for firealert systems that save millions ofcubic meters annually. But satellitesalso reveal how fast we are harvestingour primary old growth forests, first inthe Amazon, second in the QueenCharlottes.

Through the changing sea-sons, satellites mirror the very airwe breathe. From winter green tosummer red, oxygen production isreflected by the leaf growth of ourforests’ canopy.

For example, with detailedsatellite land use maps, we canmonitor forestry practices overtime, comparing clearcuts withnew regeneration.

In a similar manner, we havedeveloped, through satellite tech-

nology, early fire detection systems, saving millions of acres normally lost tonatural fires.

But the most important applicationof satellite forestry is the monitoring ofthe rate we are destroying our primaryold growth trees.

What we are discovering from spaceis that one of the critical problems weface in our future is the loss of our plan-et’s forest cover due to over-harvesting.

It was only when satellites begandetecting fires in the Amazon junglethat the world suddenly realized wewere destroying too much, too fast, ofour old growth forests.

But it isn’t just South America. InBorneo, Russia, and Canada, the plan-et’s rainforests are disappearing at analarming rate.

The Queen Charlotte Islands off theCanadian west coast, is an example ofthe accelerated rate of clearcutting inour primary forests.

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Graham Island, Queen CharlotteIslands, BritishColumbia, CanadaTop Row 1930, 1960Bottom Row 1980,2000, 2020

Using early forestry maps and up-to-date satellite imagery of GrahamIsland, we see the rate of old growthcutting from 1910 to the end of the2nd millennium. Based upon currentcutting permits, Graham Island’s pri-mary forests will look like this by theyear 2020.

I’d like to leave you with thisthought. Not only does the present setthe direction for the future, it sets thepace. The most immediate challengetoday is slowing down the rate ofhuman influence upon the planet—ourrates of consumption, pollution, propa-gation, and aggression. And to this end,resource management must be timemanagement—decisions that buy thebiosphere more time, which meansmanagement of ourselves. “Naturalresource management” is an oxymoron;it’s humankind that needs managing.

I’d like to end with a clip from“Cassiar at the Crossroads.” The nar-rator is David Suzuki; the native elderspeaking is Chief Melvin Jack of theYukon Tlingit Nation.

The final film clip begins with amother bear and two cubs carryingsalmon, the smallest cub is dragging thelargest fish. In the next scene, against abackdrop of a pastoral, wilderness lake,two children are dancing on the tops oflarge blocks of wood.

An ecosystem is a living entity,an organism far more than the sumof its parts.

Chief Melvin Jack: You cannot putthe forest back the same way it istoday. A tree takes 205 years to grow,and then eventually dies and servesthe forest for another 200 years. Thevalley floor works in harmony withthe caribou, with the moose, with themice, with the bear, with everything.

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That’s not my point. My point is tofocus on the areas that we have notdone well in. But, you’re right; I haveused too broad a brushstroke here.But I still feel that there’s a lot ofroom in British Columbia to expand,and I would still fill up a bus withforesters and bring them down andintroduce them to Barte Starker.

Question: Well, you seem still to behearing the effects of a little conflict,or you’ve had some in the past, judg-ing by some of your comments. And Iwas going to ask how things hadbeen received, how your work hadbeen received in British Columbia,but Denny’s already given some indi-cation of that. He’s got quite a histo-ry there. But on a more general level,how has your work been received inBritish Columbia, and what kind ofconversations has it promoted?

Monty Bassett: Here again, it has todo with the audience. There aresome people who would say that myobservations are either trivial, or notgermane. And yet the ideas devel-oped in my films have also been verywell received.

Question: Well, your work hits us atvarious levels. Obviously it’s verypictorial, and it’s easy to look at, butthere are also some messages inthere that people can take and use invarious ways. And you’re talking to agroup of people from the College of

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When you take part of that away, youare taking away parts that you cannever put back together.

In closing, I’d again like to thankthe Starker family and Bo Shelby forthe opportunity to speak to you today.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERSMonty Bassett: Okay. Now, the bestpart: Questions. Yes, sir.

Question: I don’t think you’re beingfair to British Columbia. For instance,you did not say that the QueenCharlotte has been turned into anational park. You didn’t say a wordabout the Great Bear WildernessArea, which is the biggest rainforestin the world. You didn’t say a wordabout B.C. setting aside 12 percent ofits land area for nothing but nationalparks and recreation. Now, parts of ithave been over-logged. There’s noquestion about that. But B.C. hasdone a very good job of coming intowhat you might call the 21st century,and its current forestry standards arefar better than Oregon’s.

Monty Bassett: After going to theStarker plantations, I would questionthat. Did everyone hear his state-ment? He was saying that I was reallyquite unfair to B.C. We have created anational park, but it’s only half of theQueen Charlotte—the southern half,South (Moresby) Island. The 12 per-cent he spoke of—most of it is inparks. There are a few new parks.

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Forestry here who are interested inyour own thoughts about… Thisseems to be the kind of thing thatgoes over very well with the generalpublic, and I was wondering, fromthe general public standpoint,whether you’ve had success inextending the conversation or pro-moting conversation about what todo with natural resources in B.C.

Monty Bassett: What I hope to dowith that is to move people away fromthe clichés. We slip into the habit oftaking arguments and making themsuperficial, and literally reducing themto “no action in the future”; that is, wefight all the time over logging versusno logging. But that’s not the issue. It’snot even a question of practices. It’sthe rate. It’s a question of science. It’sa question of opening up the canopyto get more trees. Do you see what I’msaying? And I have always been veryapprehensive that I have trivializedsome very, very important factors,and I probably am a little gun shy. If Icome across a little defensive, it’s onlyfrom years of scar tissue.

Question: You showed a progressionof how the old growth has disap-peared. In Canada, do they just leavethat land and never replant it? Wehave a lot of replanting here within 2years. And what is your viewbetween the new growth coming onagainst the old growth that is dyingdown and not producing any wood?

Monty Bassett: Absolutely. When youtake out the old growth, you havenew growth canopy coming in; youhave a new environment. Our pointthere was, where there was oldgrowth, we definitely do have refor-estation. We definitely do have regen-eration. But we have a situation thatyou have here. West of the Cascadeswould probably be a wonderful areafor growing trees. East of theCascades, however, or the east slopeof the Rockies, or the east slope ofanywhere, it’s very tough to growtrees. Regeneration has not happenedthere. We are planting, but we’re notgetting successful regeneration.

The reason that I showed this, theQueen Charlotte Islands, is not sensa-tionalism. You have to remember thatthis film was made about the satellitesand what they’re showing. It doesn’tshow a perspective of that second gen-eration coming up. But, for the mostpart, we have only known one type offorestry, and that’s large-block clear-cutting and monocultures. There arelots of places where we’re doing smallblock now, but everything is veryrecent. We were doing monoculturesfor a long, long time, not diversities.For a long time our forestry was noteven the indigenous species that werethere. So, to answer your question, yes,there is regeneration on the QueenCharlotte Islands. Those yellow spotsstill stand out, but what they’re show-ing is other generations coming up.

Question: Then you really couldn’tapply what you’re showing there towhat we do here in Oregon and makea true comparison?

Monty Bassett: No. No. And that’s notmy point.

Comment: Well, that’s what the mes-sage might be to somebody whodoesn’t ask a question, like an oldguy like myself.

Monty Bassett: My point is about therate of a single type of extraction.And to tell you the truth, I don’tknow about Oregon methods of har-vesting, but I know that you’ve got alot more arrows in your quiver thanwe do right now.

Comment: I was just going to say, isit not true that British Columbia hasdivided its land into three classes:one class for intensive forests, oneclass for in between, and one classfor recreation wildlife preservation,etc.? And it’s still working on drawingthe lines? This is a more efficient wayof running forestland than trying toget everything off one area, becausea lot of uses are virtually incompati-ble. So, if you’re setting aside blocks,which B.C. can do because it owns allof the land, then you’ve got a chanceof running your forests more effi-ciently for all the uses you want. Andthe other thing I would say is that Idid my research in the interior ofBritish Columbia, and we [inaudible]

regeneration there, but 90 percentsurvived on our plantation.

Monty Bassett: Where in the interiorwas that, if I might ask? What area?

Comment: Prince George, mostly. St.Saint John and Williams Lake and…

Monty Bassett: Well, there’s no waythat I—and I certainly don’t mean tocontradict you here—but one of theplaces they use for oriented satellitesis that area. They clearcut towardsBowren Lakes out of…

Comment: Yes, that was spruce kill,beetle kill.

Monty Bassett: Well, possibly.

Comment: Everybody knows that,and we recognize it. It was a tremen-dous opening, but the trees were allkilled by insects.

Monty Bassett: Yes, sir.

Comment: I was going to say, I reallyappreciate the use of satellites andchange detection to show what’shappening over large landscapes.And maybe, based on this discus-sion, whether it’s in the Saturn’s Eyesdocuments or a new one, it would begood to show globally that forestschange and how areas that are moreproductive or where regeneration ishigh change over time, and comparethat with places where you don’t seethe regrowth.

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Monty Bassett: Yes.

Comment: There’s a real opportunityto educate the public on global…

Monty Bassett: Exactly. This is one ofthe real aspects of the application ofsatellite imaging that we use daily inforestry—monitoring regeneration.Every forest district buys tons ofsatellite imagery just for that reason.And we were talking about it. I thinkthis show is going to generate aseries, and one of the areas that wewant to explore is Russia and what’shappening there.

Question: You mentioned consump-tion and that it’s part of the equationof the rate of change that your docu-mentary seems to focus on. Is thereany plan in the works to deal withthat consumption issue in a kind ofdocumentary?

Monty Bassett: You know, if I couldsay something about consumption…Right now we’re in a crisis situationin British Columbia with our forests.The market has just collapsed. Andconsumption has two aspects. One,are we taking too much? Actually,three. Are we utilizing it in the bestway? The third factor that I think wereally have to focus on is consump-tion, and I’m not just saying thisbecause you’ve invited me to yourluncheon. I honestly am soimpressed with this idea of taking

out the consumptive element, that is,providing product without doing it atthe expense of that particular region.

We stood in areas where there’s beenthinning, and the trees are much,much larger. I mean, everybody hasgot to go out to the Starker forest,because thinning allows vegetation togrow. It allows the trees to grow. Mypoint is that we could level off that“crash, abundance, and crash” kindof cycle that seems to correspondwith our resource management, par-ticularly in forestry. I think that’s onearea that we have to look at.

I think that we also have to ask, arewe utilizing the wood in the bestway? And are we taking more than issustainable in a lot of places? I thinkthese are legitimate questions. I don’twant to conclude that everybody isover-harvesting. But you said your-self that there are companies usingpractices that a person feels are notthe best procedure, not the best way.But then, demand of a resource isultimately what’s going to drive theway that that resource is extracted, itseems to me.

Comment: I guess what I was moregetting at is our consumption habitsof going to Home Depot and wantingmore and more and more of variousproducts. That’s what drives a lot ofthis—the demand… and whetherthere’s a process by which we can

educate ourselves about using theseproducts more wisely so that wedon’t over-consume.

Monty Bassett: You know, we talkedabout this, and it occurs to me… I’membarrassed to say this, but I thinkwhen the fear level becomes so highthat people suddenly have to inte-grate into their own lifestyles theconcept of resource extraction, then Ithink we’ll start evaluating. I don’tmean to be sanctimonious here. I liveout in the middle of nowhere, and weburn snags for firewood. I do try toavoid habitat that flickers are in. Icertainly don’t mean to be evangeli-cal and say, “Okay. There’s that out-side world, and they’re consumers,but, hey, I have control of it.” I don’t.It’s a global problem.

Comment: Well, actually, this is sortof along the lines of what you allwere saying, but going back to thatword philosophical… When you weretalking about time and change, youmade a statement that nature used tocontrol humanity, and now humanityis pushing and changing nature. AndI guess you’ve all answered the ques-tion… The rubber band can bepulled only so tight and we’re notholding onto it anymore. Now natureis controlling humanity again.

Monty Bassett: Yes.

Comment: I always hear that technol-ogy is going to save us. People still

have this vision that technology isgoing to pull us out of the fire.Unfortunately, I have a pessimisticviewpoint that until we’re gettingburnt badly we’re not going to makethe changes in consumption that weneed to make. Because nature will… Imean, we can (my own personalopinion) push it only so far. We can’tpush it anymore (inaudible). I guessyou sort of answered my questionbefore, that…

Monty Bassett: And, as you know, it’sclichéd. Everybody says you changethe masses by changing the individual.Maybe when—I love that analogy—when the rubber band gets stretchedtoo tight… Okay.

Question: You have a unique per-spective in that you’re a scientist anda filmmaker. How you process yourwords, how you put your scriptstogether, is different from, say, howthe scientists here would put theirreports together. Would you speakbriefly on how you managed to makethose two worlds cross and how youwork as effectively as you can?

Monty Bassett: The one thing thatI’m very self-conscious of is that thefilm “Cassiar at the Crossroads” wasdone as a bit of a sensationalist film.In doing scientific papers, it’s “thefacts and just the facts, ma’am.”When you’re doing a documentary,your first criterion is, can I educateand entertain and keep the person

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from going “blip” with the remotecontrol every time the commercialscome up? And so there’s your balanc-ing act. There’s another element inthat balancing act: keeping your sci-ence accurate without becoming sodetailed that you lose your audience.I own a television set, but we only getone and a half channels. I think that’sprobably done more for me in filmthan anything else.

Question: As a follow-up, you men-tioned working sort of with a sound-bite approach. Do you have to becareful of this? Because these ideasare usable currency that we’re allused to, very sweeping in scope,and yet you sound like you still haveto use those little elements ofthought in order to get these storiesacross to the lay audience.

Monty Bassett: And you have to bevery, very careful, because the clichéis a fast way to get from A to B, butyou also lose all of the detail that wasin that journey from A to B. So youhave to be very careful. One trick isto coin phrases, to give a differentperspective of what you’re trying tosay. For example, you can see the for-est through the trees

Mr. Shelby: Thanks, Monty. That wasterrific.

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Gentrifying Ecotopia: A

Brown Girl Looks at Home,

Landscape, and Power

Debra Salazar, Ph.D.Forest Policy Analyst, Professor of Political Science and AffiliateProfessor of Environmental Studies, at Western Washington University,Bellingham, Washington

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During 10 years of studying inforestry schools, 3 years ofmeasuring trees, and 5 years

of professing forestry, on many occa-sions I encountered the look thatsaid, “What’s a girl like you doing in aplace like this?” I became an expertat interpreting that look, and I cansay with some confidence that it wasnot my apparent innocence or puritythat provoked the question.

Eventually the look grew tediousand I moved on, and got myself a job ina political science department. That isone way of explaining my decision toleave forestry, and it does account for abig chunk of that decision. Another,related, factor was my interest in theenvironmental justice movement1 andthe seeming lack of fit between thelargely urban/industrial focus of thatmovement and the rural/land-basedconcerns that dominated forestry.

Freed from the constraints of a1980s college of forestry, my inter-ests wandered until the social scien-tist made peace with the brown girl.That peace has allowed me to dis-pense with the pretense of disinter-est and to study the things that mat-ter most to me: my family, this place,and two abstractions—justice anddemocracy. I have indulged thesepassions through research on theenvironmental movement. I want tounderstand how environmentalistsmight work with human rights, socialjustice, and labor groups to forge a

broad-based progressive agenda forAmerican politics. I also want toknow what factors get in the way ofthat kind of coalition politics. Duringthe last 5 years, I have spent as muchtime as I could wandering around theNorthwest, interviewing environmen-tal activists. From Ashland to PowellRiver, BC, from Depoe Bay to thePalouse, I have placed my taperecorder in front of environmentalistsand listened to stories about theirlives, homes, and hopes. Along theway, I have attempted to understandwhat this place means to theseactivists, how they understand socialjustice, and how their identities andexperience have shaped their per-spectives. Many issues and themeshave emerged from my conversationswith activists, among them: immigra-tion, citizen monitoring, spirituality,globalization, indigenous sovereignty,and gentrification.

My initial interest in gentrifica-tion preceded these interviews, butthe interviews have reinforced mybelief about the importance of thephenomenon and stretched myunderstanding of it. Today I want toshare with you some reflectionsabout gentrification on the PacificCoast. These observations are shapedin unequal parts by my reading ofsocial science literature, my researchon the environmental movement,and my personal and family history.All of this is to say that, rather than

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a set of graphs to display, I have afew stories to tell.

I grew up in California. Both sidesof my family have been in the statesince the 1920s, initially migrating withthe harvest, later settling in the SantaClara Valley, where I was born. My lifehas taken several trajectories thatseem to me emblematic of socialchange in this region during the last 20or 30 years. Among these are move-ment north, continued study, moremicroprocessors in my house, and anincreasing capacity to discriminatewith regard to coffee. I have spentmost of the last 20 years in theNorthwest. These years have broughtme material comfort, love, proximityto death, and a sense of home. Indeedmy home is extraordinary.

I live in paradise. From my desk, Ilook out at 50-year-old western redcedar and grand fir, with 10-year-oldred alder filling the gaps among theconifers. It is a sheltered spot,although some days the wind roarsthrough the treetops—breaking upthe canopy, an irritation for a used-to-be forester trained to see beautyin normal forests populated bystraight stems penetrating symmetriccrowns; but I am working to appreci-ate chaos. On the ground, though,life is benign. In the spring, pregnantdoes browse their way through thesnowberry and salal that come upunder the alder. Sometimes the deerare a distraction, as when I marvel at

how many thimbleberry leaves a doecan consume in a minute, or imaginehow striking a red-nosed deer wouldbe. But they move on, and my atten-tion returns to screen and keyboard.Beyond the trees, a cove interruptsthe south shore of Chuckanut Bay.The sun sets over that cove, and Icovet days I can be at my desk in thelate afternoon, warmed by spots oflight reaching through the chaoticbranches of my coniferous canopy.

There is a Puget Sound version ofa beach just down the road from myhouse, a strip of gravel, sometimessand, and a wide tideflat. My dog andI used to walk down to this beachevery morning for our rendezvouswith a seal. She (the seal) wouldswim along the shore, stopping occa-sionally to be sure she had our atten-tion, while Saña (my dog) gave mockchase, running back and forthbetween the seal and me, my herdingdog trying to keep everyone going inthe same direction.

We call it a community beach.Membership in our community isopen to property owners occupying adesignated area on a map (remindsme of citizenship in the early years ofthe republic). I have a copy of themap, with my little plot highlighted,and a key to the gate. A sign warnsnon-members to keep out. I haveheard that paradise is gated.

The best coffee in the north PugetSound is a thirty-minute bike ride

21

from my door. I bust my butt ridingto town in the mornings, so that I cansit with my double-americano andbiscuit with raspberries, watchingthe Railroad Avenue traffic. There isthe crazy white supremacist, in histrench coat and blond beard, whosells crystal meth and hate to thestreet kids on the corner of Railroadand Holly. But thirty-something menin Nike clogs and a sense of selfimportance irritate me more. Thismorning the man ahead of me in linepulled out a roll of one hundred dol-lar bills, drawing my attention to hiscoffee-bead choker and too stylishglasses. But most of the RailroadAvenue folks are unobtrusive, if notuniformly crunchy.

After my leisurely coffee, I race upto campus. Once there, I am supposedto dismount and walk. The universityadministration has created a no-pleasure zone, banning skateboardsand in-line skates, and limiting thedomain of cyclists. Out the southwindow of my office, mixed conifer-ous forest on Chuckanut Mountainfills the foreground and, in the dis-tance, the Olympic Mountains some-times sneak through the clouds. Tothe north, the Canadian Coast Rangestretches toward Alaska.

During the dark months, I weartights and long-fingered gloves, andinstall a 32-watt lighting system on mybike. I ride home along ChuckanutBay, sharing the road and the silence

with a few automobiles. There areenough hills to remind me I have abody. And on moonless nights, thereare only my body, my bicycle, and thebay. I live in paradise.

But paradise is changing. Perhapsthe most obvious change, the onemost noted by the environmentalistsI interview, is growth. There are moreand more people, cars, and housesalong Bellingham Bay. The agglomer-ation of structures and roads we calldevelopment stretches north towardthe Canadian border and east up theCascade foothills. Whatcom Countyresidents now negotiate traffic jamson their way to superstores. I planmy evening ride to avoid sharing theroad with neighbors heading homefrom work.

In this regard, my lush corner ofEcotopia is no different from theCentral Puget Sound, the WillametteValley, or the San Francisco Bay Areawhere I grew up. Population on thewest coast has grown rapidly, as jobs,landscape, and climate have luredpeople from east to west and thenfrom south to north. Oregon’s popula-tion doubled during the last 40 years,reaching nearly 3 million in the 2000census.2 During the same period,California gained more than 18 millionresidents, with my cousins accountingfor a substantial number of those, andWashington’s population grew by a lit-tle more than 3 million.

22

Coming to grips with the causesand consequences of growth perhapshas been the defining struggle of theenvironmental movement. Four yearsago, Robert Liberty, of 1000 Friendsof Oregon, offered a Starker audiencea compelling portrait of the extent towhich population growth and subur-ban sprawl are transforming theWillamette Basin, the forest policydebate, and the forest landscape atthe edge of the basin.3 Fragmentedforests serve neither those whobelieve in horse logging of selectivelymarked, mixed-species stands, northose who envision an armada offeller-bunchers slicing through a seaof Douglas-fir plantations. Pavementappears in neither vision.

But another change is also trans-forming our paradise in theNorthwest. As I pedal into downtownBellingham, I observe this change inthe value of the cars passing me, thesize of new homes, the spread offancy restaurants, and yes, the prolif-eration of coffee shops. The housesand automobiles grow larger, the sizeof servings in the restaurantsshrinks, and the foam on top of myespresso shot thickens. Why is thisan environmental concern? I will dowhat I can to answer that question.But perhaps a more important ques-tion is: why should those who careabout environment and naturalresources in the Pacific Northwest—about the integrity of this place—be

concerned with the geography oftrendy restaurants and good espresso?

Ten years ago, as part of a projecton how environmental justice activismmight take shape in the Northwest,one of my graduate students inter-viewed African American communityactivists in Seattle. Before there wereany environmental justice organiza-tions in the region, before many peoplehad heard of the movement or theidea, she worked her way throughblack activist networks in Seattle,asking people how they definedenvironment, what they thought ofenvironmental groups, and whatenvironmental problems wereimportant in their community.4

Surprising to both of us were sever-al responses that gentrification wasan important environmental prob-lem for black residents of Seattle. Asone interviewee remarked, “The gen-trification issue…is an environmentalissue because [people] are gettingdisplaced…out of the environmentthat is wanted, and needed, andhome…[into] an environment that isvulnerable to diseases and otherenvironmental problems.”5 Thisresponse reflected an understandingof environment as the place one lives,works, and plays.

In Seattle during the late 1980sand early 1990s, middle class whiteswere buying homes at the edge of theCentral District, a neighborhood thathad been home to most blacks in

23

Seattle. I will forgo elaboration on thepolitical geography of racial segrega-tion in our happy Northwest cities.6

As property values (and rents) in thearea increased, less affluent blackswere pushed south into the RainierValley. For those unfamiliar withSeattle geography, the attractiveattribute of the Central District was—its centrality. It offered ready accessto stores, parks, schools, and othercity services. Bounded by MadisonPark and then Lake Washington onthe east, Capitol Hill on the west, andthe university arboretum on thenorth, and within easy bus rides ofdowntown and the University ofWashington, the neighborhood thatused to constitute the northern sec-tion of the Central District was agood place to live. It had its imper-fections, but these were minor com-pared to the environmental deficitsof the Rainier Valley.

This shift in Seattle geographywas, of course, not unique. Theterm gentrification was first used in1964 to refer to the transformationof working-class neighborhoods inLondon.7 Sociologist Ruth Glass doc-umented the movement of middle-class people into neighborhoodswhere property values were low.New residents then rehabilitatedhouses that had fallen into disrepairand created a climate favorable toadditional middle-class migration.For the last 30 years, urban geogra-

phers and sociologists have vari-ously defined gentrification as:

• the “reinvasion”…of the cen-tral city by affluent young“urban pioneers,” who displacethe less affluent from urbanlocations8

• the process by which workingclass residential neighborhoodsare rehabilitated by middle classhomebuyers, landlords, and professional developers9

• the widespread emergence ofmiddle- and upper middle-classenclaves in formerly deteriorat-ed, inner-city neighborhoods10

• the physical renovation andsocial-class upgrading of inner-city neighborhoods11

• a process of spatial and socialdifferentiation in which a newmiddle-class segment rejectssuburbia for a consumption-oriented lifestyle in the citycentre12

Though scholars have argued vig-orously about the causes and extentof gentrification,13 they tend towardconsensus with regard to a view ofgentrification as an urban phenome-non, with the neighborhood as unitof analysis.14 Neighborhoods subjectto gentrification often have physical-ly deteriorated because of dis-invest-ment, both by private investors andthe public sector, and gentrificationbrings re-investment in houses, com-

24

mercial structures, and infrastructure.The displacement of poor people frominner-city neighborhoods is a conse-quence of gentrification.

Scholars commonly describe atleast two stages of gentrification.15

The first stage of gentrifiers oftencomprises artists, gays, hippies, andsingle mothers—slightly marginalgroups who are at the forefront ofcultural change and who value urbanlocation. These gentrification pioneersinvest their own labor to rehabilitatehomes, open new businesses, some-times integrate themselves into localcommunity networks, and create thecultural infrastructure that attracts theless adventurous gentrifiers of the sec-ond stage. The second stage migrationtends to be dominated by affluentyoung professionals—on the PacificCoast, software engineers and otherhigh-tech professionals. The increas-ing gap between the financialresources of newcomers and those oflong-time residents, as well as theinvestment of additional private andpublic funds in “urban redevelop-ment” at this stage, tends to give riseto displacement. As gentrifiers investin structural improvements, andmore affluent people migrate tonewly cool areas, rents increase andmany previous residents, includingsome of the first-stage folks, mustlook elsewhere for housing.

The economic dynamics of gentrifi-cation have been central to scholarly

mud wrestling, but the cultural aspectsof the transformation have generated a less combative discussion. Somescholars disposed toward culturalanalysis, especially the post-modernkind, emphasize the lifestyle associatedwith gentrification—its mix of consump-tion, aesthetic, environmental, andpolitical values.

16Scholars observe

three kinds of change: the transfor-mation of the urban landscape from a site of production to a site of consumption, the expressive use ofconsumption, and the privatizationof public spaces.

As for the first change, the transi-tion to a landscape of consumptionmight not necessarily be a conse-quence of gentrification. Factory closings often precede the in-migrationof new urban gentry. Indeed, the de-industrialization of the US has beenwidely studied. One consequence ofde-industrialization is the loss of unionjobs paying a living wage.17 It is nowonder that in locales where the facto-ries have closed, residents are espe-cially vulnerable to competition forhousing. It is also not surprising thata city without smokestacks mightattract those who value ambienceand whose employment is not tied tofactory production. Nevertheless,gentrifiers re-inforce the loss of pro-ductive enterprise through theirpolitical and economic behavior.They organize to protect their newneighborhoods from undesirable land

25

uses and they provide a ready cus-tomer base for new businesses—forexample, natural food stores, bodywork professionals, and the ubiqui-tous coffee houses. 18

In the second change, gentrifiers’consumer behavior is cited as ameans of expressing their identities.In what political scientist BenjaminBarber has called “McWorld”19—withStarbucks, the Gap, PlanetHollywood, and McDonalds in citiesaround the globe, with trans-nationalcorporations marketing a numbing,global sameness—it is no wonderthat people use whatever means areavailable to express their individuality.One mode of expression is throughthings—clothing, homes, automobiles.The irony of this expressive effort isthat it too has reached a stage ofglobal uniformity.20 The hip hop kids’dangerously baggy pants now perme-ate the suburbs; the pierced, tattooed,DIY21 punk is now barely recognizablefrom the high-tech scenester. Even ouridentities are commodified, marketed,and soon to be patented.

The third change associated withgentrification is the privatization ofpublic space. In the cities, privatiza-tion occurs when security guardspatrol stores, gates block access toneighborhoods, affluent familiesdecline to send their children to pub-lic schools, and so-called civility lawsprohibit sitting on downtown side-walks.22 These and other measures

create an atmosphere of unwelcometo those without the right pedigree,credentials, or clothing.

Of course, those on the verge ofdisplacement often are not pleased,and their displeasure may beexpressed through lobbying to pre-serve low-income or affordable hous-ing. But other, less genteel, responsesalso occur, including squatting toresist eviction and other protests toreclaim public spaces.23 The 1980sbumper sticker, “Die Yuppie Scum,”was a clear, if unseemly, expressionof resentment toward gentrifiers. Butresentment has not slowed gentrifica-tion of the Pacific Coast.

The outlines of this phenomenonprobably are familiar to many. InPortland, first the inner southeastneighborhoods went espresso andbecame increasingly unaffordable toworking-class whites. More recently,blacks in north and northeastPortland have been feeling the pres-sure of gentrification. The Coalitionfor a Livable Future (CLF), a networkof organizations working at the inter-section of social justice and environ-mental protection in the Portlandmetropolitan area, sponsored a studyof displacement in Portland. Theirreport, published in 1999, document-ed substantial increases in house val-ues, rents, and median income ininner eastside neighborhoods duringthe 1990s.24 The report also showed ashift in the geography of poverty in

26

Portland; the percentage of house-holds below the poverty leveldeclined in the inner neighborhoodsand increased in the outer eastsideneighborhoods. CLF, attempting tobuild a broad-based constituency forprotecting urban environments, hasmade affordable housing in ecologi-cally rich communities a key priority.Their proposals to stem displace-ment include community land trusts,inclusionary zoning, and a require-ment that commercial developersprovide low cost housing.

25CLF’s

examination of gentrification preced-ed, by several years, attention to theissue by the environmental justicecommunity in Seattle.

In Seattle, a multi-racial group ofactivists organized the CommunityCoalition for Environmental Justice(CCEJ) during the mid-1990s. Likemany other environmental justicegroups, the organization’s first cam-paign focused on hazardous waste,specifically hospital incineration ofmedical waste in the Beacon Hill areaof Seattle.26 After a successful effortmobilizing neighbors and forcing thehospital to shut down its incinerator,the organization proceeded to do battle with a paint company locatedin the middle of a residential neigh-borhood, one that was home to mostlylow-income residents.27 Residents com-plained bitterly about the toxic sub-stances regularly emitted by the paintplant, forcing the government to cite

the company. After several years ofconcentrating its organizationalresources on issues related to haz-ardous substances, CCEJ has turnedits attention to gentrification.Incensed with city and federal hous-ing policies that reinforce the abilityof the affluent to displace people ofcolor from their homes, CCEJ isorganizing a drive focused on thegentrification/displacement issue. Inplanning their campaigns, activists inthe Northwest have paid attention tothe California experience.

Urban Habitat, an environmentaljustice group in the San FranciscoBay Area, completed its own study ofgentrification and displacement in1999,28 demonstrating that the prob-lem in the Bay Area has becomeregional, rather than neighborhoodlinked. The scale of gentrification inthe Bay Area is staggering. I saw theearly years of this phenomenon inSan Francisco during the late 1970s.The first-stage artists and activistswho had joined working-class familiesin the Haight were then being forcedout by rising rents and the new urbanprofessionals. A decade earlier, gaymen had initiated gentrification of theCastro neighborhood by rehabilitat-ing Victorian houses purchased fromolder, working-class Irish people.29

The Castro is adjacent to the MissionDistrict, the neighborhood with thebest weather in the City and long thehome of Latinos. More recently,

27

trendy cuisine and designer clothingestablishments have spread easttoward the Bay, edging into the heartof the Mission. The Castro pre-dictably has become more exclusive;only very affluent gay men can affordto buy homes there now. Wealthystraights have moved into adjacentneighborhoods, contributing to gen-trification of the Mission. The vatosin low-slung khakis, who worked inautomobile repair and lunched in thetaquerias, are becoming scarce onMission Street. There is now a bill-board announcing the discovery ofthe last Mexican in the Mission, sub-sisting in a park on “roots andberries, focaccia crumbs, and left-over bits of antipasti.”30

The Latinos still residing in theMission could soon face long com-mutes to their jobs in San Franciscorestaurants and hotels. The entireBay Area is becoming unaffordablefor all but the most affluent. ThePresident of Stanford Universityengaged in a very public fight to stopthe expansion of a golf course, inorder to preserve affordable housingfor university faculty. Silicon Valleyaffluence squeezes upwardly mobilecollege professors and pushes upagainst even the poorest communities.

When I return to the Bay Area tovisit my family, I am struck by howwealth has reshaped the Santa ClaraValley landscape. The places wheremy uncles and aunts worked are

buried under condominiums and corporate campuses. It doesn’t matterthough, because the wages thatallowed them to buy houses in the val-ley would no longer suffice. With eachvisit, my personal paradox sharpens:my people are being pushed out andpeople like me are doing the pushing.

Two of my aunts died last spring.The younger one had lived nearly herwhole life in the Santa Clara Valley. Inthe early 1980s, she put togetherenough money to purchase a smalltrailer and lived in it until about 3years ago. In her mid-fifties, my auntElisabel saw that she would never beable to buy a house anywhere near thegarden her mother had tended for 30years, the prune orchards her oldersisters had picked, or the canneriesthat had consumed her own teenagesummers. Land in the Silicon Valleyhad become too valuable to housemiddle-aged women earning middlingpaychecks. So, like her parents had 80years before, she migrated.

Elisabel López journeyed over the Diablo Range, into the heat of the Central Valley, where her civilservant salary would suffice to gether name on the title of a house in aMerced subdivision. During the lastyear or so of my aunt’s life, she spent4 to 5 hours a day on the road, com-muting to and from her job in SanJosé, capital of the Silicon Valley. Shewas not alone on her daily pilgrimagealong the valley highways.

28

Thousands of Californians who workon the periphery of the Silicon Valleyeconomy have moved (been pushed)east, leaving their home to find hous-es. My aunt would have had muchcompany as she maneuvered herFord sedan south on old highway 99and then west on state route 152,past the women’s prison, over theChowchilla gas field, through down-town Los Baños, and along the SanLuís Reservoir. Then, as the roadstarted to climb, she would havecrossed from Merced County intoSanta Clara County, over PachecoPass, with Pacheco Peak to the southand Elephant Head to the north.After an hour or so, she would havereached Highway 101 at Gilroy, whereshe would have turned north, joiningeven more drivers (in nicer cars) forthe final crawl into downtown San José.

My aunt’s experience as one of thedisplaced—and she is not the onlymember of my family in this category—has compelled me to study gentrifica-tion. The transformation taking placenear my home in the north PugetSound, at the foot of the Cascades, sug-gests parallels between the gentrifica-tion of urban and rural places. Thoughgeographers have yet to study it, gen-trification is occurring outside of majormetropolitan areas. Let’s return toCalifornia for a moment.

Santa Cruz County is at the south-ern end of the Bay Area sprawl. Muchof the county is still agricultural, but

it is also home to an increasing num-ber of Silicon Valley commuters andto a University of California campus.Watsonville, south of Santa Cruz, hasbeen a service center for the region’sagricultural economy; it is also wheremany Latino farmworkers have foundhousing.31 But recently, the high-techprofessionals have invaded evenlowly Watsonville, taking up agriculturalland outside of town as well as devel-oped areas within it. Farmworkersincreasingly must look elsewhere forhousing. However, the artichoke farmsalso may soon disappear from the area.The gentrification of Watsonville, withits accompanying displacement andexacerbation of rural poverty, exem-plifies a set of development problemscommon to rural California’s agricul-tural and timber regions.32

Northwest timber communitieshave been even more attractive to gen-trifiers. Beverly Brown’s 1995 book, InTimber Country, describes the gentrifi-cation of southwest Oregon and arguesthat land-use planning, migration ofwealthy urbanites to forested regions(the dread Californians), and decliningemployment in the wood products sector combined to displace rural,working people from desirable land-scapes in southern Oregon.33 In addi-tion to jobs, these landscapes hadprovided sites for low-cost housing,access to berries, firewood, game,and rivers for fishing and recreation,and a setting for the development of

29

community. Similar observations canbe made about the effects of affluenturban migrants on historicallyresource-dependent communitiesthroughout the Northwest, includingBritish Columbia.

These changes do not perfectlyparallel the model developed todescribe gentrification in urbanareas, but there are some strikingsimilarities. First, the kinds of placescreated by gentrification in urbanand rural settings are similar. Thetransformation to a consumption-based landscape/economy alsooccurs in the rural context. Theshops in downtown Bellingham couldfit easily into the Kitsilano neighbor-hood of Vancouver or the exceeding-ly hip Fremont neighborhood ofSeattle. Tofino, a village on the westcoast of Vancouver Island, boasts asophisticated bookstore and an arrayof expensive restaurants. For the lastcouple of decades, downtownCorvallis, Oregon, in the WillametteValley, also has increasingly servedthe new consumptive economyrather than the old resource extrac-tion economy. Landscapes through-out the Northwest reflect this eco-nomic transformation. The commer-cial fishing boats and lumber millsthat once dominated these land-scapes exist now as remnants.

Second, working-class people arebeing displaced and many publicspaces have become private. A volu-

minous literature has emerged duringthe last two decades, analyzing thethreats faced by resource-based com-munities.34 Rural sociologists havedocumented displacement, job loss,and family disruption as these com-munities cope with political econom-ic change. But these studies tend notto confront a key aspect of the politi-cal economy of this transformation:it is wealth that gives one the powerto define and shape the landscape.35

The more money I have, the morechoice I have about the place inwhich I live—not only where it is, butwhat it will be. Beverly Brown’s studyof southwest Oregon demonstratesthis fact, as local people describeover and over again the ways inwhich they have been pushed to themargins of their communities—physi-cally, economically, and politically.Brown records the local way of refer-ring to the gentrification that hastransformed those communities:“people with money moving in andtaking over.”36

Gentrification can be defined asthe purchase and occupation ofdesirable places by affluent peopleand the consequent displacement ofthe less affluent. Many environmen-talists with whom I have spoken havedifficulty seeing gentrification as anenvironmental issue. To them I makethe case that when people have tomove far from their jobs, they spendmore time in automobiles and

30

increase their contribution to air pol-lution. Moreover, poor people drivingolder cars pollute disproportionately.

Based on my admittedly datedknowledge of the forestry communi-ty, it seems likely that forest man-agers and policy makers, often oblivi-ous, if not hostile, to cities, alsomight be skeptical of the relevance ofgentrification to their world. Thus,for a forestry audience, I could arguethat those who are concerned aboutsustaining natural resource indus-tries on the west coast ought to takeseriously the consumption economyand landscape that accompany gen-trification. Rural gentrifiers, withoutsubsistence or employment ties tothese industries, are likely to opposeresource extraction that disturbstheir ideal landscape.37 Moreover,they have the wealth and power toenforce their ideals.

But I prefer not to focus oneither of these arguments. Gentri-fication is important because of itsimplications for environmental justiceand democracy. Those of us who careabout this place, about this land ofgray and green, must care too aboutthe people who live and work here.Gentrification changes where peoplelive, diminishes the quality of somepeople’s environments, and can createconflict based on racial and culturaldifferences. Gentrification confrontsworking people in both urban andrural settings. It indicates the power

of the affluent not only to occupy, butalso to shape landscapes. Thus gen-trification is more than an economicphenomenon, though it has verymuch to do with the distribution ofwealth. Gentrification has politicaldimensions. The process that istransforming ecotopia is about morethan the residential choices of afflu-ent professionals; it is about the polit-ical economy that supports theirchoices while limiting the opportuni-ties available to others. Thus thelegitimate interests of the displacedwill not be served by scapegoatingaffluent gentrifiers, (though there isno harm in having a little fun withthem). Rather we ought to focus onthe structural conditions underlyinggentrification and displacement.

At least three political economicphenomena shape this process. Ourgovernments are unlikely to adopteffective policies that minimize dis-placement, as long as we fail to con-front the discursive and institutionalelements that give rise to environmen-tal injustice in a variety of contexts.

First is the distribution of wealthand income. Since the 1970s, theUnited States has experienced grow-ing inequality in the distribution ofincome.38 While real wages of the top20 percent of earners have grown, thebottom 80 percent have lost income.The decline has been greatest at thelow end of the distribution. Given thisincreasingly skewed income distribu-

31

tion, it is no surprise that the lessaffluent have been unable to competein dynamic housing markets. Thegrowing disparity in income thus facili-tates the creation of a geography inwhich the most desirable locations inurban and rural settings become theexclusive province of the wealthy.

The second phenomenon is theconsumer mentality that dominatesour political discourse, along withthe associated dominance of “themarket” as a distributive mechanism.A key premise of this discourse isthat individuals control their materialdestiny; hard work leads to wealthand comfort. The quality of one’senvironment is seen largely as a mat-ter of private initiative and choice.Money, of course, is the instrumentof choice in nearly every sphere ofhuman endeavor.39 The idea thatsome things—health care, education,magnificent landscapes, housing indesirable settings—ought not to bedistributed solely through the pricesystem goes almost unvoiced in pub-lic discussion. Politicians ventureinto this territory at their peril. Taxesand regulations are considered nomore than burdens, ineffective andunjust. And yet, we will not break thechain linking displacement to gentrifi-cation if we do not even discuss lim-iting the domain of markets. Unlesswe agree that housing, indeed com-munity, in even the most desirablelocales, should not go exclusively to

the highest bidder, displacement willcontinue. Public and private capital willcreate beautiful central cities with sky-lines dominated by million-dollar con-dos, while rural landscapes will beparceled out so that Ted Turnerwannabes can acquire viewscapes forthe rustic homes they construct.

Finally, our unwillingness as apolity to grapple with the concept of“public-ness” constrains policychoice in many domains. Publicspace is essential for democracy.American thinkers from FrederickJackson Turner to Robert Marshallhave cast this relationship in a par-ticularly American light.40

Contemporary political theoristsargue more generally that publicspace creates an arena for discussionand for confrontation.41 Moreover,democracy is strengthened by opportu-nities to engage our fellow citizens.This nation, this region, includes manykinds of peoples and the differencesamong us often create conflict. To theextent that we live our lives in homo-geneous enclaves, buffered from thepluralism that is a fact of Americansociety, we limit our capacity tounderstand, much less effectivelyengage in, democratic politics. Thusneither justice nor democracy areserved when the poor are excludedfrom the best places and the rich areable to fence the sunset.

Those who seek environmentaljustice seek to democratize access to

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good places. Such an expansion ofdemocracy requires grappling withthe increasingly skewed distributionof wealth, the power of money innearly all areas of social life, and theimportance of sustaining publicspaces in our communities. Theseissues overlie the problem ofgrowth. I have not discussed thequestion of how much we will con-strain growth, though I certainlyhave some answers to that question.But regardless of the level of suchconstraint, let us avoid displacingthe less affluent from Ecotopia.

This brown girl has had the goodfortune to make a home in a beautifulplace. But I cannot help but be troubledby the gates excluding so many othersfrom this corner of paradise. If we musthave gates, perhaps the keys need notbe plated in gold.

Thank you.

Notes1 The environmental justice movement

emerged during the late 1970s and early1980s, as working people and communitiesof color challenged inequities in the distri-bution of environmental pollutants. Themovement has since expanded its scope toaddress inequities in access to naturalresources. The central empirical claim of theenvironmental justice movement is thatone’s political economic status is a keydeterminant of the quality of one’s environ-ment. The normative position the movementtakes is that a just society ought to providea healthy environment for all. Thus environ-mental “bads” (pollutants) and goods (natu-ral resources) ought to be fairly distributed

through decision-making processes that areopen to all citizens. Debra J. Salazar,“Environmental Justice and a People’sForestry,” Journal of Forestry 94 (1996), 32-36.

2 US Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstractof the United States: 2000 (2001); availableonline at http://www.census.gov. Lastaccessed August 2, 2002.

3 Robert Liberty, “The Future of Eden’sHedge: The Forests of the Willamette ValleyBasin in the 21st Century,” in NaturalResources & the 21st Century: Where Are WeHeaded?, compiled by Bo Shelby and SandieArbogast (Starker Lecture Series, OregonState University, 1997), 6-35.

4 Lisa A. Moulds, Race, Social Justice, andEnvironmental Politics: A Case Study ofAfrican American Leaders in Seattle (unpub-lished masters thesis, Western WashingtonUniversity, 1993).

5 Debra J. Salazar and Lisa A. Moulds,“Toward an Integrated Politics of SocialJustice and Environment: African AmericanLeaders in Seattle,” Society & NaturalResources 9 (1996), 622.

6 But for a general analysis of segregation inthe urban United States, see Douglas S.Massey and Nancy A. Denton, AmericanApartheid: Segregation and the Making of theUnderclass (Harvard University Press,1993). For a discussion of racial exclusionpolicies and practices in Oregon, seeElizabeth McLagan, A Peculiar Paradise: AHistory of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940(Georgian, 1980).

7 Cited in Jan van Weesep, “Gentrification asa Research Frontier,” Progress in HumanGeography, 18 (1994), 76.

8 John R. Logan and Harvey L. Molotch,Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy ofPlace (University of California Press, 1987),115.

33

9 Neil Smith, “Gentrification and UnevenDevelopment”, Economic Geography, 58(1982), 139.

10 Bruce London, Barrett A. Lee, and S.Gregory Lipton, “The Determinants ofGentrification in the United States: A City-Level Analysis,” Urban Affairs Quarterly, 21(1986), 369.

11 Robert Kerstein, “Stage Models ofGentrification: An Examination,” UrbanAffairs Quarterly, 25 (1990), 620-639.

12 John A. Hannigan, “The Postmodern City:A New Urbanization?” Current Sociology, 43(1995), 173.

13 For examples of contention regardingthese issues, see Blair Badcock,“Notwithstanding the Exaggerated Claims,Residential Revitalisation Really isChanging the Form of Some Western Cities:A Response to Bourne,” Urban Studies, 30(1993), 191-195; Steven C. Bourassa, “TheRent Gap Debunked,” Urban Studies, 30(1993), 1731-1744; Neil Smith,“Gentrification and Uneven Development,”Economic Geography, 58 (1982), 139-155.

14 For reviews of this literature, see Jan vanWeesep, “Gentrification as a ResearchFrontier,” Progress in Human Geography, 18(1994), 74-83; John A. Hannigan, “ThePostmodern City: A New Urbanization?”Current Sociology, 43 (1995), 173-182.

15 Loretta Lees, “In Pursuit of Difference:Representations of Gentrification,”Environment and Planning 28 (1996), 454-455; John A. Hannigan, “The PostmodernCity: A New Urbanization?” CurrentSociology, 43 (1995), 175, 180-181.

16 Juliet Carpenter and Loretta Lees,“Gentrification in New York, London andParis: An International Comparison,”International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch, 19 (1995), 286-303; John A.Hannigan, “The Postmodern City: A New

Urbanization?” Current Sociology, 43 (1995),173-182; Loretta Lees, “RethinkingGentrification: Beyond the Positions ofEconomics or Culture,” Progress in HumanGeography, 18 (1994), 137-150; Loretta Lees,“In Pursuit of Difference: Representationsof Gentrification,” Environment andPlanning 28 (1996), 453-470.

17William Julius Wilson, When WorkDisappears: The World of the New UrbanPoor (Knopf, 1996); James K. Galbreath,Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay(The Free Press, 1998).

18Juliet Carpenter and Loretta Lees,“Gentrification in New York, London andParis: An International Comparison,”International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch, 19 (1995), 286-303; John A.Hannigan, “The Postmodern City: A NewUrbanization?” Current Sociology, 43 (1995),173-182.

19 Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld:How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshapingthe World (Ballantine Books, 1995), 12-20.

20 Juliet Carpenter and Loretta Lees,“Gentrification in New York, London andParis: An International Comparison,”International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch, 19 (1995), 298-299.

21 DIY (do-it-yourself) rejects the marketingof adornments (and art more generally) infavor of cutting your own (or your friends’)hair, doing your own tattoos, making yourown music.

22 Juliet Carpenter and Loretta Lees,“Gentrification in New York, London andParis: An International Comparison,”International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch, 19 (1995), 299; John A. Hannigan,“The Postmodern City: A NewUrbanization?” Current Sociology, 43 (1995),180.

34

23 John A. Hannigan, “The Postmodern City:A New Urbanization?” Current Sociology, 43(1995), 178-179; Rebecca Solnit and SusanSchwartzenberg, Hollow City: The Siege ofSan Francisco and the Crisis of AmericanUrbanism (Verso, 2000), 54-58.

24 “Displacement: The Dismantling of aCommunity,” A Study Commissioned by theCoalition for a Livable Future (Portland,1999), 12-16.

25 Sheara Cohen, “Solutions toDisplacement: How we get from here tothere,” Connections, 4 (2001), 4-5, 10.

26 http://www.ccej.org/campaigns.shtml.Last accessed August 6, 2002.

27http://www.seattleweekly.com/fea-tures/0134/news-anderson.shtml. Lastaccessed August 6, 2002.

28 Cameron Y. Yee and Julie Quiroz-Martínezwith Torri Estrada and Catalina Garzón,There Goes the Neighborhood: A RegionalAnalysis of Gentrification and CommunityStability in SF Bay Area (Urban HabitatProgram, 1999).

29 Rebecca Solnit and SusanSchwartzenberg, Hollow City: The Siege ofSan Francisco and the Crisis of AmericanUrbanism (Verso, 2000), 60.

30 Rebecca Solnit and SusanSchwartzenberg, Hollow City: The Siege ofSan Francisco and the Crisis of AmericanUrbanism (Verso, 2000), 63.

31 Ted K. Bradshaw, “In the Shadow of UrbanGrowth: Bifurcation of Rural CaliforniaCommunities,” in Thomas A. Lyson andWilliam W. Falk, Forgotten Places: UnevenDevelopment in Rural America (UniversityPress of Kansas, 1993), 223-224.

32 Ted K. Bradshaw, “In the Shadow of UrbanGrowth: Bifurcation of Rural CaliforniaCommunities,” in Thomas A. Lyson andWilliam W. Falk, Forgotten Places: UnevenDevelopment in Rural America (UniversityPress of Kansas, 1993), 218-256.

33 Beverly Brown, In Timber Country: WorkingPeople’s Stories of Environmental Conflictand Urban Flight (Temple University Press,1995).

34 See, for example, Patricia Marchak, GreenGold: The Forest Industry in British Columbia(University of British Columbia Press,1983); Robert G. Lee, Donald R. Field, andWilliam R. Burch (editors), Community &Forestry: Continuities in the Sociology ofNatural Resources (Westview Press, 1990);Jo Ellen Force, Gary E. Machlis, LianjunZhang, and Anne Kearney, “TheRelationship Between Timber Production,Local Historical Events, and CommunitySocial Change: A Quantitative Case Study,”Forest Science, 39 (1993), 722-742; ChristineOverdevest and Gary P. Green, “ForestDependence and Community Well-Being: ASegmented Market Approach,” Society andNatural Resources, 8 (1995), 111-131;Thomas M. Beckley, The Nestedness ofForest Dependence: A ConceptualFramework and Empirical Exploration,”Society and Natural Resources, 11 (1998),101-120.

35 Marchak is a notable exception in thisregard; Patricia Marchak, Green Gold: TheForest Industry in British Columbia(University of British Columbia Press,1983).

36 Beverly Brown, In Timber Country: WorkingPeople’s Stories of Environmental Conflictand Urban Flight (Temple University Press,1995), 258.

35

37 Though research suggests that environ-mentalist ideals are strongly rooted in ruralas well as urban places, those with directexperience of particular ecosystems andthose whose livelihood depends onresource extraction tend to have differentperspectives on resource managementthan those whose lives are not closelyintertwined with ecosystem management.See Andrea M. Brandenburg and MatthewS. Carroll, “Your Place or Mine?: The Effectof Place Creation on Environmental Valuesand Landscape Meanings,” Society andNatural Resources, 8 (1995), 381-398; BrentS. Steel, Peter List, and Bruce Shindler,“Conflicting Values About Federal Forests:A Comparison of National and OregonPublics,” Society and Natural Resources, 7(1994), 137-153.

38 William Julius Wilson, The Bridge Over theRacial Divide: Rising Inequality andCoalition Politics (University of CaliforniaPress, 199), 23-29.

39 Michael Walzer argues that different dis-tributive mechanisms (e.g., price, merit,membership, lottery) ought to be used fordifferent types of goods. These mecha-nisms reflect the social values attached toparticular types of goods. To sell (pricemechanism) our friendship would destroyits meaning; Spheres of Justice (BasicBooks, 1983).

40 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier inAmerican History (Holt, Rinehart andWinston, 1962); Robert Marshall, ThePeople’s Forests (Harrison Smith andRobert Haas, 1933).

41 See, for example, Iris Marion Young,Justice and the Politics of Difference(Princeton University Press, 1990).

36

Iisaak: Respecting Forest

Values—from Processes

to Products

Eric Schroff, GeneralManager, IisaakForest Resources; B. C., Canada.

Linda Coady, Ph.D.Vice-President,Weyerhaeuser, B.C.Coastal Group

Alton Harestad, Ph.D.Associate Professor ofWildlife Biology,Simon FraserUniversity

This panel is composed of participants in the recent PBS, Bill Moyers’special, “Earth on Edge”: a timber operation designs commercial harvestto mimic the forest’s natural processes. Panel member not present at theStarker Lecture is Larry Baird, Chief, Ucluelet First Nations, CentralRegion Chiefs, Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council.

This story of forest manage-ment in Clayoquot Soundand the formation of Iisaak

Forest Resources, Ltd., has threeparts, presented by a panel com-posed of Linda Coady, Eric Schroffand Alton Harestad. Each persondescribes different aspects of theIisaak story, from the company’shistory to its future, and from itsideals to its reality.

History and CreatingSolutions through FirstNations and CommunityInvolvementLinda CoadyI’ve worked on the Iisaak project inClayoquot Sound for almost 10 years.I was there for the protests and forthe collapse, and I’m still part of thescene. I guess this is proof to manypeople who are watching the

37

Weyerhaeuser-Willamette negotia-tions that even after theWeyerhaeuser takeover in BritishColumbia, the company has contin-ued with the critical projects thatwere underway at the time of con-solidation. There are continuingopportunities for people like me towork on things they like to do. Ilove this project. I think it’s veryimportant and I’m certainly dedicat-ing the rest of my career to workingwith the other groups involved tomake it successful.

We titled our presentation,“Iisaak: Respecting Forest Values—from Processes to Products,”because the development phase ofthe Iisaak experiment has been very“process heavy,” in terms of boththe social controversy and the sci-entific rethinking of forestry andlogging in Clayoquot Sound. It hasbeen a very long road. Now, sudden-ly, we are at the point of bringingproducts to market.

These are not your average prod-ucts. For me, working from a compa-ny perspective, this is a very inter-esting and incredibly exciting stageof corporate development for ourfledgling business. Two kinds ofproducts are emerging fromClayoquot Sound. One, of course, isthe timber products, which we hopewill be a very high-value type ofsolid-wood product that can be madefrom the sawlogs harvested. The

other types of productswe are working to createin Clayoquot Sound areconservation-basedfinancial investmentinstruments based onwater, biodiversity, andcarbon. There are signifi-cant challenges associat-ed with developingfinancial mechanisms, ormodels, around thesevalues so they can besold as conservation“credits.”

We are proposing to develop avery different mix of products forIisaak than would be expected to flowfrom an average forestry operation onthe British Columbia coast. Our mis-sion is to create a viable businessstrategy based on timber and nontim-ber products in Clayoquot.

We believe Iisaak is a symbol, anevolutionary and evolving experi-ment that we hope will signal thatthe time is right for the emergence ofan approach to conservation andsustainable forest management inClayoquot. Bill Moyer’s video presen-

38

tation, “Earth on Edge,”shown at the beginningof this presentation,portrays Iisaak as theresult of a politicalnegotiation amongstakeholders to end avery difficult conflict

that went on for a long time. The conflict resulted in the arrest

of more than 800 people in ClayoquotSound during the 1990s;—the largestmass arrest for civil disobedience inCanadian history. Large-scale demon-strations and arrests are neither com-mon nor taken lightly in our part ofthe world.

I’m not sure how much is knownabout the Canadian and BritishColumbian context, so I will providea little background material todevelop the policy and historicalcontext. In British Columbia, forestlands are mainly publicly owned.There is a small amount of privateforest land, but it is not significantfrom a timber-harvesting perspec-tive in terms of volume.

Forest policy in British Columbiaonce was primarily the realm of threegroups: government, industry, andlabor. That started to change in the1980s and 1990s as various groups,including the World ResourcesInstitute, began to inform the publicthat our coastal old growth forestswere rare at a global level. The avail-ability of “new,” well-packaged infor-

Biodiversity

39

mation catalyzed the involvement ofnew organizations. There are nowmany different players in the provin-cial policy arena, including the origi-nal big three, environmental groups,First Nations, and local communities.

For some time now, you haveachieved treaty settlement in theUnited States’ Pacific Northwest. Wehave not completed comprehensivetreaty settlement in British Columbia.Aboriginal rights have been recog-nized and there is a modern-daytreaty process underway to defineand delineate aboriginal rights andassociated titles to portions of theprovincial land base. We are, in manyways, just beginning a negotiatedtransition to a post-treaty world. InClayoquot Sound, we are ahead ofmany other locations in B.C. becausethere is an “Interim Measures” exten-sion agreement in place that pro-vides a framework, or “bridge,” totreaties among the fiveNuu Chah Nulth FirstNations and theprovincial and federalgovernments.

An important back-drop for any discus-sion of forestry on theB.C. coast is anacknowledgment of thedegree of changeoccurring in the indus-try. The Weyerhaeuserpurchase of MacMillan

Bloedel 24 months ago was just onedeal within the bigger picture of theongoing and somewhat unpredictablerestructuring and consolidation nowtaking place within the coastal forestindustry.

It is a time of uncertainty andchange. Every forest company mustexpect protracted land-claim negotia-tions and treaty development; wemust deal with excess milling andpulp capacity in the industry; and, totop off the mix, we must continue todeal with the ongoing Canada-U.S.softwood lumber dispute. Manychanges are occurring in BritishColumbia’s forest industry. This envi-ronment of change creates opportu-nities to craft new solutions.

On a positive note, In May 2000,Clayoquot Sound became BritishColumbia’s first UNESCO biospherereserve. The area is now formallyrecognized as a world heritage site

ClayoquotSound

from a biodiversity perspective.One result of the controversy andthe accomplishments is thatClayoquot Sound has internationalname recognition.

This is the big-scale overviewwithin which the Iisaak model isemerging. In many ways, this processwas very much a political one. Thecompany is now trying to make thehuge leap from a political solutionand a negotiated settlement intosomething that actually works viablyon the ground—from a business per-spective, from an ecological perspec-tive, and from the perspective oflocal communities and First Nationsin the area.

Iisaak is a model being piecedtogether in Clayoquot Sound toaddress some of the aboriginal, envi-

ronmental, andeconomic issuesassociated withmulti-valueresource manage-ment in coastalold growth forests.Tree Farm License57 (TFL 57) is thefirst tree farmlicense on thecoast of B.C. to becontrolled by FirstNations. Forestresource manage-ment within TFL57 is guided by a

unique set of recommendations for-mulated by a panel of scientists andFirst Nations elders. Alton Harestadwill explain the role and guidance ofthe Scientific Panel. He was one ofthe scientists who worked with theaboriginal elders to review past prac-tices and formulate new guidelinesfor harvesting in Clayoquot.

“Iisaak” is Nuu Chah Nulth for“respect.” It took 4 years to negotiatemulti-party support for the company,and the importance of “respect” isnot to be taken lightly. Iisaak and“hishuk-ish ts’ awalk,” which is alsofrom the Nuu Chah Nulth languageand translates into “recognize thelimits for what is extracted and inter-connectedness of all things,” are corevalues of the company. We are pro-moting the evolution and develop-

40 First NationElders

41

ment of a model of ecosystem-basedforestry that goes beyond what theenvironmental movement would callbenign industrial forestry.

The company is owned 51 percentby the five First Nations that live inClayoquot Sound and 49 percent byWeyerhaeuser (originally byMacMillan Bloedel). I am one of twoWeyerhaeuser personnel on the five-member Iisaak Board of Directors.The First Nations have three direc-tors on the board, who represent thecollective interests of the centralregion First Nations. The FirstNations shares are held by their eco-nomic development corporation.

I said earlier that we were endeav-oring to develop a business strategybased on timber and nontimber val-ues. That strategy is really what differ-entiates Iisaak from any other compa-ny on the B.C. coast. Of course wehave timber in our product mix.Sometimes we go to so many meetingsthat people forget that we are also inthe timber harvesting business. Wethink the key phrase is “conservationforestry,” but sometimes it’s “conver-sation forestry”. We have had yearsand years of meetings!

We do have timber in our busi-ness strategy. We have harvestedwithin Clayoquot Sound. But it is tim-ber harvesting based on what BillCafferata, the former chief forester ofMacMillan Bloedel, who I think grad-uated from this school, described as

an ecosystem-based approach to log-ging—an approach designed to maxi-mize value from production volumesand create brand value from the for-est to the end user.

We recently received FSC (ForestStewardship Council) certification forour operation; however, we see FSCas just the “floor” to what we aredoing. We plan to go beyond basiccertification and build a reputationfor innovation and conservation-based forestry, which Eric Schroffwill describe in more detail.

Obviously we are not a huge com-pany. For the first 2 years, we ran thebusiness out of Eric’s truck. Now wehave an office in the backyard of anostrich farm in Ucluelet, B.C. We arelooking for a niche market positionand we are deadly serious aboutlooking for a premium on our wood.Not a single person at Weyerhaeuser

42

believed we could ever do this—thatwe are looking for a 100 percent premi-um on the Vancouver log market pricefor our high-end wood. That’s wherewe’ve got to be if we’re going to stayin business.

Coincident with achieving a premi-um on high-end timber products, weneed to develop some investmentproducts from the nontimber values,so that we can demonstrate to audi-tors and to the satisfaction of othersthat we are actually maintaining orenhancing the forest ecosystem inClayoquot Sound. We are exploringtwo potential business segments inour nontimber business strategy. Oneis “nontimber commercial,” withopportunities for enterprises based onbotanical forest products, recreation,and eco-tourism. We’re not going to gointo these businesses as Iisaak. We’renot going to be into mushrooms orsalal or tours. However, our manage-ment will create and enhance opportu-nities for locally based entrepreneurs.

We need to recruit the money weare investing de facto in those non-timber values, and we hope to do itthrough the third business element,which we call our “nontimber conser-vation” business segment. The goalof this part of the business is todevelop and market an investmentproduct based on conservation val-ues. Our primary focus is on explor-ing opportunities associated withcarbon and biodiversity.

Developing and marketing aninvestment product of this nature inBritish Columbia is a complex task.We are negotiating with the B.C. gov-ernment to see if we can develop arevenue-sharing mechanism aroundcarbon and biodiversity values thatwould enable us to expand our mar-kets beyond our current range of tim-ber products. Obviously there is noshortage of work or challenge facingour small company.

I conclude by passing on someobservations from the State of theWorld’s Forests 2001 report recentlyput out by the United NationsEnvironmental Program. Two sen-tences in the report captured exactlywhat we’re trying to do with Iisaakand, more generally, precisely whatwe’re trying to do in ClayoquotSound. I’ll paraphrase:

While parks and protectedareas have long been consid-ered a cornerstone for con-serving important environmen-tal values, new developmentsand understanding of conser-vation biology are shifting theemphasis away from islands ofprotected areas and toward agreater emphasis on the inte-gration of conservation anddevelopment needs at the localcommunity level. Thisincreased understandingencourages a greater emphasison ecosystem management

43

and the adoption of a biore-gional approach whereby pro-tected areas are consideredwithin a wider geographic andland use context.

Planning and ImplementingConservation-basedForestryEric SchroffI thank the sponsors and the organiz-ers for the opportunity to be heretoday. It is great to be back inOregon, and it’s also wonderful to beback at OSU.

I will outline some of the keyoperational elements affecting thecompany. When working in forestry,particularly in the Clayoquot Sound,we cannot isolate the actual opera-tions (i.e., what we do on the ground)from the context within which weoperate. During my part of this col-lective presentation, I will touch onissues that Linda raised, present newdetails for consideration, and intro-duce a few ideas that Alton will covercomprehensively. I will focus on fourcomponents of our conservation-based forestry: relationships, plan-ning, operations, and certification.

Conservation-based forestry;what the heck is that? We spent, asLinda mentioned, hours in “process,”including a fair bit of time discussinghow to mesh “conservation” with for-est management. I must say that the

“process” part of developing thecompany was relatively easy com-pared to the daunting task of gettinga bunch of diverse people with diver-gent “world views” together at onetable to talk about a wide range ofsensitive issues.

Our working definition of “conser-vation-based” forestry is: forestresource management planning, prac-tice, and operations that aredesigned and conducted to achieveconservation as a primary manage-ment objective.

In very simple terms, there aretwo components:

• the ecosystem-based forestrycomponent, which includes theecological values

• the sustainable forest manage-ment component, which incor-porates the social and econom-ic values

I’m sure everybody’s thinking,“Ah, if it were only that simple.” Yourcritical evaluation is justified. Wehave spent considerable time dis-cussing this matter and it is definite-ly not simple! Please grant me this lit-tle bit of editorial license.

The ecosystem-based forestrycomponent includes consideration ofsoils, water, slope stability, wildlife,and so on. We do our best to antici-pate how the forest will function—asa forest—after our harvesting is com-pleted. The maintenance of wildlifehabitat across the landscape is also a

44

very important consideration. Ratherthan the old adage of “build it, andthey will come,” our approach is,“keep it, and they will stay.” Hence, wekeep the habitat within our operatingareas. We do not focus on individualspecies or individuals of a species, butrather we strive for maintenance ofhabitat across the landscape. Thisapproach is based on the premisethat, given appropriate habitat avail-ability, the various species found with-in the forests of Clayoquot Sound willpersist over time.

The sustainable forest manage-ment component—the social andeconomic values—includes consider-ation of visuals; the cultural, recre-ational, timber commercial, and tim-ber non-commercial values (includ-ing nontimber conservation values);biodiversity; carbon; and water.

Conservation-based forestry was,at the very least, anticipated by AldoLeopold. Jim Boyle, of OSU, deservescredit for my introduction to thework of Aldo Leopold, whosedescription of a conservationist goeslike this: “I’ve read many definitionsof what is a conservationist and writ-ten not a few myself, but I suspect thatthe best one is written with an ax. Aconservationist is one who is humblyaware that with each stroke he’s writ-ing a signature on the face of theland.” I feel that is a very powerfuldescription of what we’re trying todo at Iisaak, as we endeavor to make

this conservation-based approach toforest management operational.

We’re working with several stake-holder groups in the area to ensurethere is a shared vision of what con-servation-based forestry is and canbe. Linda mentioned these relation-ships earlier: formal, civil relation-ships, embedded in memoranda ofunderstanding with two primary sec-tors of the local community: the envi-ronmental NGOs (nongovernmentorganization) and forest-dependentcommunity interests.

I tie this back to Bill Moyer’s video.It is telling that some of the folkswhose faces appeared early in thevideo presentation during the periodof conflict, confrontation, and anti-log-ging demonstrations also showed uplater, sitting around the Iisaak board-room table talking with us about howto market our products—the same peo-ple. For many of us, there has been areal shift in attitude.

The formal agreements betweenIisaak and the stakeholder groupswere negotiated “up front” to provideadditional certainty for the groupsinvolved. We find the agreementsvery useful in defining relationshipsbetween signatories. There aredefined expectations for the environ-mental groups, the community-basedgroups, and for Iisaak. It is criticallyimportant to understand whereeveryone “sits” at the table beforeyou start logging.

45

For the NGOs, forest certificationunder the FSC was important. Iisaakalso agreed to operate in “eehmiis”areas (another Nuu Chah Nulth word,meaning areas that are very, veryprecious) with an emphasis on non-timber activities and products. Theeehmiis units remain in our manage-ment land base.

The memorandum of understand-ing with the community interestgroup (primarily non-aboriginal, butincluding some aspects of the aborig-inal component), was basically anemployment protocol. The documentdescribes how we will work togetherto build Iisaak as a business provid-ing economic and employmentopportunities for local people. To bemore specific, the document formal-izes the opportunity for the commu-nity group to negotiate a future own-ership position within Iisaak, andoffers support for the establishmentof community forest. We also jointlyconsidered broad issues affectingcommunity stability.

Moving from relationships and cor-porate vision to the elements of Iisaak,I’ll talk a little bit about multi-scaleplanning. Clayoquot Sound includesapproximately 262,000 hectares, orabout 700,000 acres, of land area.Iisaak operates a Tree Farm License, atimber concession with a 25-yearrenewable term license from theProvincial Government, on about87,000 hectares, or 200,000 acres. In

1993, the Provincial Government madea land use decision that was intendedto settle the conflict. The ClayoquotLand Use Decision set aside about 35percent of the 262,000 hectares forprotected area status and put the restof the area into an integrated manage-ment zone. A portion of the integratedmanagement zone is rocks, swamp,and one thing or another, but in broadterms, 65 percent of Clayoquot Soundwas “made available” to be managedfor forestry uses.

The Clayoquot Land Use Decisiondid not resolve the conflict. Nobodywas completely happy with the “solu-tion.” The timber companies and log-gers felt that less area should be pro-tected. Members of the environmentalcommunity felt that more area shouldbe protected. Some members of theFirst Nations community said, “Whatis this ‘protected areas’ idea anyway?You’re restricting our opportunity forfuture livelihood.” Nobody was happywith this decision imposed on thelocal area from the “outside.”

In 1995, the Clayoquot SoundScientific Panel established recom-mendations to guide forestry opera-tions on the land area outside theprotected areas of the Sound. Verybriefly, the recommendations werefounded on an ecosystem-basedapproach, with the primary objectivebeing to sustain the productivity andnatural diversity of the ClayoquotSound region. The Panel observed that

46

the rate and geographic distribution oftimber harvest should be givengreater emphasis than volume targets.

The Panel recommended that webegin at the landscape level or thesub-regional scale of planning—considering connectivity, land use,and natural disturbance patterns—then move down to the level ofwatershed unit. The whole ofClayoquot was divided into 15 water-shed units, each of which contain anumber of watersheds. Within those15 units, the government fundedcomprehensive resource inventoriesidentifying cultural resources, tim-ber inventories, vegetation invento-ries, and so on. An incredible data-base, unique in British Columbia inscope and in detail, was developed.

A community-based process wasdesigned to take the inventoryinformation and mesh it with therecommendations of the ScientificPanel. For example, in ClayoquotSound planning must consider:

• old growth requirements rec-ommended by the Panel: aminimum of 40 percent of anywatershed unit has to be inold growth at any given time

• rate of cut, which says nomore than 5 percent of awatershed can be cut during a5-year period

• visual, recreational, cultural,timber resource, and othervalues

It is a daunting task to take all theinventory information and approxi-mately 100 Panel recommendationsand create a multi-sector planningprocess. It was a great idea, but we’restill waiting for the plans to be deliv-ered. There has been much progress,but it’s a very lengthy process. Weare learning that it takes a long timefor community-driven processes tocome to fruition.

Under the Clayoquot planningregime, we next move to the sitelevel. At the site level, it is theresponsibility of the licensee to takeall of the recommendations and theForest Practices Code (forest prac-tices rules in British Columbia), andmanage within those bounds. Whenour on-the-ground plans are com-plete, our goal is to create a continu-ous reserve network integrated tothe site level. We plan to weave anetwork of reserves that protectsrecognized forest values. The areaoutside of reserves is what we callthe “operational matrix” and it ispotentially available for harvesting.

Once the area potentially avail-able for harvesting is determined,we can examine maps for the areaand ask, “Is there any ground therethat has trees on it where we canlog, or not?” If the answer is, “No,”well, we don’t go there. We don’t tryto fit a cutblock into an area andpush other values out. If we identify aplanning unit where significant area is

47

available for harvest,then we ask the ques-tion—again, a simplequestion—”Should welog there or not?” If theanswer is, “Weshould,” then we gothrough the complexprocess of defininghow we are going to doit. Guided by forestsvalues, the key is “lis-tening to the land”—letting the land “talk”to you about where to log, how tolog, and ultimately whether youshould be there at all.

This past summer, I was out in thewoods with Doug Chadwick, a writerfrom National Geographic. We spentthe day wandering around one of theareas we logged in last year. We dis-cussed many things, including “val-ues” protection, logging methods,planning, and cultural resources.Near the end of the day, I askedDoug, “What do you think about ourharvesting in this area? How doesthis area where we have harvested,using variable retention, fit with yourdefinition of a forest?” He stopped,was really quiet for several long min-utes, and then said, “It sounds like aforest to me.” It was raining and therain was being intercepted by thetrees; the wind was blowing and wewere protected by the trees; birdswere chirping in background. I

thought that Doug’s response was agood way of assessing things. “Itsounds like a forest to me.”

When we were out this morningwith Bond Starker, we stopped at aspot along the walking tour on partof the tree farm, and he said, “Wehave the students stop here and bereal quiet and listen. You can hearthe water in the brook down below,and you can hear birds, and you canhear the wind.” We were quiet andlistened. It sounded like a forest tome. Starker forest and ClayoquotSound are different places and havevery different management histories,but both areas are forests. I thinkhaving folks take the time to pauseand to listen is an effective way ofconnecting people to the forest, andhelping them understand what we doas foresters.

As part of Iisaak’s operationalactivities, we are implementing what is

48

called “variable retention harvesting.”We’re focusing on the trees remainingin the forest after harvesting, ratherthan only on the ones we take. This isa very powerful shift in the way weview forests when we’re out thereoperationally. Instead of walking intothe woods and determining, “Gee,there’s a nice stand of timber; let’s puta ribbon line around it and log it,” youwalk in and you think,“What are the values outhere? Are there culturalresource values? Arethere riparian areas thatneed to be protected?Are there sensitive soils?Are there special ecosys-tem units?” Our planningis designed to protectthe range of values first,and then focus upon thetrees that can be removed. It is truly aparadigm shift.

We’ve implemented a monitoringprogram to learn from our experi-ences. We have to be diligent withmonitoring so that we can measurechange and adapt our practicesaccordingly. The things we’re measur-ing include the amount of residual-treedamage associated with the falling andhelicopter yarding, soil compaction,and stream water quality. We are alsomonitoring soil disturbance, the abun-dance and distribution of large organicmaterial before and after harvest, andtree regeneration. We have designed

this formal monitoring program tocomplement and guide our planningand operations.

We have extended this focus onthe trees one step further, to antici-pate the forest remaining rather thanthe trees removed. On June 15, 2001,we achieved Forest StewardshipCouncil certification. Alton is going totalk more about that process. There

are business opportuni-ties associated with cer-tification. We can con-nect with the public andwith customers out inthe marketplace. Byvirtue of a recognizable“label,” and given thecredible assessmentprocess associated withthe FSC label, Iisaak pro-vides assurance to the

public and to our customers thatIisaak’s products are coming from awell-managed forest.

We are producing a range of prod-ucts, primarily logs. We have donesome custom milling. Our focus, how-ever, is round-log production, and thesale of those logs into the market-place in a way that supports our con-nection with the final customer. Wemarket our wood as “wood withrespect”: respect for the land, for thepeople, and for communities associat-ed with the land. This special wood isavailable because of the hard work ofmany people and is the result ofsome very interesting processes.

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Scientific Panel Recommen-dations, Implementationand Forest CertificationAlton HarestadPart of the British ColumbiaGovernment’s response to the “trou-bles” or protests at Clayoquot Soundwas to convene a panel of experts toprovide the government with recom-mendations on how the forestresources of the area should be man-aged. They convened the ScientificPanel for Sustainable Forest Practicesin Clayoquot Sound. The ClayoquotScientific Panel was a team that includ-ed First Nations members. There werethree elders, a hereditary chief, scien-tists, and managers of variousresource specialties. All of us werestrongly committed to developing avision for a new way of doing forestry.

The Premier of the province gave usa mandate to recommend forest prac-tices in Clayoquot Sound that were notonly the best in the province but thebest in the world. What a charge! Iremember from our first few meetingsthat our thoughts and questions initial-ly were along the lines of, “Should theroad culvert be 24 inches, or should itbe 16 inches or 18 inches in diameter?How big should that culvert be?” Weworried about that; we argued about it;we thought about it. Then we realizedthat the most important question was,“Should there be a culvert at all?”

A culvert is a consequence of aroad. A road is a consequence of log-ging. The first question should bewhether forest products should beextracted from a piece of land. Thenext questions are all contextdependent, with the size of culvertway down the list. So don’t thinkabout the culvert. Focus on theprocesses that influence water. Thinkabout the forest values, such assalmon and things that are tied towater, and then determine ways toeither adapt the forest practices towater or manage water. You have tothink about those processes first.Then the size-of-culvert questionbecomes relevant. That was a realchange in perception. We shifted theway that we thought about the forestand forest management.

The Clayoquot Scientific Panelhad many recommendations. Ericreported over 100, but I’ve nevercounted. The Panel finished itsreport, and we waited for the govern-ment to deal with the report and giveus comments or feedback or ques-tions. Then, the government accept-ed all recommendations. To appreci-ate the significance of this action,you’ve got to remember where wecame from in British Columbia. In the1970s and ‘80s and early ‘90s, some-times even today, although not inClayoquot Sound, the forest manage-ment approach in British Columbiawas to “plan to get the wood out,”

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then afterwards “plan to minimizethe impact of getting the wood.”What the Clayoquot Scientific Panelrecognized is that you have to planfor all of the forest values up front.You’ve got to identify the values youwant to maintain, then focus onthose values and on how to achievethem. Finally you conduct forestplanning to meet that goal. You focuson the trees retained and you identi-fy the land that is not needed forthose values. Then, on this opera-tional land, you can cut some trees.

The Scientific Panel’s secondmost important observation was itsrecognition of cascading scales.Think about the subregion, then thelandscape, the watershed, the stand,and the site, and imagine them aslevels in a little waterfall—well, a bigwaterfall. The water is cascadingdown and the order of the cascade isimportant. You cannot go out anddeal effectively with issues and val-ues at the stand level without under-standing the larger scale processesand issues.

Throughout the Panel’s delibera-tions, the First Nations elders con-stantly reminded the team of the bigpicture, the big spatial scale, and thebig temporal scale. At times we drifted,because as scientists, it’s so easy tolook into issues in extreme detail. Thebig-picture view that the elders broughtto the Scientific Panel was very impor-tant to the success of our work.

As a member of the ScientificPanel, I got to go out to ClayoquotSound and tell forest managers whatto do by specifying new standards forforest practices. Then the Ministry ofForests, the Ministry of Environment,and the companies that wereinvolved did their best in terms ofplanning, and with some measure ofjudgment, implemented operations.These people faced reality. Membersof the Panel were the theoreticians.

When I learned about Iisaak andits goal to achieve FSC certifications,I had some questions. “Well, first, didthey do what we told them?” Thesobering question was. “Did we tellthem to do the right things?” I wasasked to be the ecologist on the FSCcertification team. As a member ofthe team, I got to examine the wholeoperation. It’s like an environmentalaudit. I never knew Eric before, andat the first meeting with the team, hewas in his chair looking like he wassitting through an IRS investigationor something similar. The process isan intensive environmental and man-agement practices audit. The FSC hasa comprehensive list of principlessupported by a list of criteria. Theentire field team works throughthose criteria to assess and deter-mine the extent that the forest valuesare present in the area under review.We then examine how well the com-pany is maintaining and managingthose forest values.

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I’ll give you one example, for bio-diversity, contained under Principle6, Environmental Impacts. “Forestmanagement shall conserve biologi-cal diversity and its associated val-ues, water resources, soils, andunique and fragile ecosystems andlandscapes, and by doing so maintainthe ecological functions and integrityof the forests.” The criteria (thethings you measure) to assess if theoperation are consistent with theprinciple:

• Is the number of reserves ade-quate for the representedecosystems?

• Is there riparian protection?How good is it?

• Is there a provision of wildlifehabitat for various species?

• Is there retention of snags?

• Is there sufficient dead anddown material on the groundto provide requisite habitat forall sorts of organisms?

As a member of the ClayoquotScientific Panel, I got to use ecologi-cal theory to bound and identify theplanning and practices that would bedone. Then I was fortunate to be ableto revisit Clayoquot during the FSCcertification and see the results formyself. That was the exciting part. Igot to see my science in action. Thescary part was, “What if I waswrong?” Carrying this worry, I wentto the FSC assessment thinking, “Oh,

gee. If it were a typical laboratory, Icould just throw the test tube outand start over again.”

We weren’t wrong, but we weren’tperfect, either. The Scientific Panelcontributed to the evolution of forestmanagement and practices, but it’sthe hard work and cooperation of thecommunities, the First Nations, theagencies, Weyerhaeuser (orMacMillan-Bloedel in those days),and the environmental NGOs that hasresulted in change. Iisaak’s corporatecore principles, applied at the opera-tions level by staff and managers

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who devised the management plansand demonstrated the innovativepractices, ultimately satisfiedSmartWood, the Forest StewardshipCouncil accredited certifying agent,and led to Iisaak’s certification.

Iisaak is still learning, but part ofIisaak’s plan is to learn through adap-tive management. Yes, there are a fewwarts and blemishes, as you willalways see when you view yourneighbor’s backyard. But that’s justthe way life is, especially forestry life.

As a scientist, I have in mindsome issues that still need solutions.First, with the variable retention har-vesting system, there are opportuni-ties for maintenance of the many for-est values in that matrix among thereserved areas. Although many forestvalues can be maintained, I worryabout that “Swiss cheese” problem.Imagine that forest ecosystems arelike a slice of Swiss cheese. Doesvariable-retention harvesting create astand that is ecologically spongy?Openings, even small ones, removecanopy, and so, is there a thresholdbelow which old-growth forest nolonger functions as old growth? Doesthis threshold vary for differentresource values (e.g., each species ofwildlife, visual quality)? At whatpoint does the swiss cheese droopafter additional holes are added?This ecosystem functioning is beingexamined in some of the researchconducted by Weyerhaeuser.

The second big issue is that wehave to learn to do better. Part of thisprocess is FSC certification. It’s oneincentive to do better. The pursuit ofcertification parallels agency initia-tives to manage old growth forests,and that’s a worry that I have. Wemight be supplanting one manage-ment system with another. I don’twant to supplant our own govern-mental processes, because those peo-ple are doing a good job. Collectively,we just have to do better.

When you peer into our backyard,there is lots to see. There are manyapproaches to old growth forest man-agement across Canada: you preservesome, you restore some, and someyou tinker with; that is, in somestands in the operational matrix, youcan harvest by thoughtfully modify-ing the stand to extract part of theneeded timber while retaining treesto meet other forest values.

When the FSC team first viewedthe harvesting area from the air, Iasked the pilot to fly over the areaagain because I hadn’t seen the log-ging. After a second pass, I began tosee the logging—a small openinghere, another over there—and scat-tered through the forest, a fewstumps showing where trees hadbeen felled and the logs liftedthrough the canopy. This was applica-tion of the variable-retention systemin a very measured way. Further evi-dence for careful management was

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Iisaak’s practiceof on-site revi-sions. Forestmanagers firstview the site andwalk the areathoroughly; thenthey make theirplans. As the cut-blocks are beingprepared in situ,continual feed-back betweenthe field opera-tions and theplanners occursand, if needed, boundaries aremoved to ensure that objectives forforest values are met. This approachrequires teamwork and trust in termsof flexibility in the management andharvest permitting system.

Iisaak—Its Future inClayoquot Sound

The Iisaak story isn’t over. It is ayoung operation. It has learned alot, but it has much more to learn.Iisaak will continue to learn becauseit has the right corporate attitude.Iisaak is going to improve processesand practices because of itsapproach to forest management andbecause of the scrutiny that it isunder. Iisaak also is examiningavenues of green investment. It ispursuing future development andplans include quests for solutions.

Iisaak Forest Resources wasforged from the same issues thatmany forest-based communities facearound the world. Solutions are teamgenerated, by First Nations,Weyerhaeuser, the ProvincialGovernment, and environmentalgroups. Iisaak is a new way of doingforestry in Clayoquot Sound; that is,in part, why we are excited about it.

The communities and forest compa-nies in Clayoquot Sound also are stilllearning. They’re struggling with thepast while they proceed toward thefuture. There are many issues to face inClayoquot Sound, and in some ways,uncertainty clouds the future. Iisaak’sflexible approach and commitment toadaptive management ensure thatthere will be options and opportunitiesin the future. Iisaak doesn’t have all ofthe answers, but it has the will to findthe solutions and to implement them.

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The title of our presentation is“Iisaak—Respecting Forest Values:From Processes to Products.” Iisaakis increasing its understanding of theecological processes that underpinits “conservation-based” forestry.Iisaak uses the processes of commu-nity consultation, multi-scale plan-ning, on-site revision, and adaptivemanagement to guide its operations.It is respecting forest values throughthese various processes. We hopethis approach will allow Iisaak to pro-duce products and achieve sustain-able forest management.

Questions and AnswersQuestion: I have two comments andone question. I’ve read the ClayoquotSound report that the Scientific Panelprepared and have, as well, thor-oughly reviewed other inventoriesand reports pertaining to the forestsof that area, and I’ve listened to youpeople, but nowhere did the term“dwarf hemlock mistletoe” appear.Now, dwarf hemlock mistletoe is theworst disease of hemlock, and thecenter of it is in Clayoquot Sound. Ifyou cut the way you suggest you’regoing to cut, your harvesting prac-tice is absolutely guaranteed to cre-ate a mass of seedlings with dwarfmistletoe on them. If that’s what youwant, that’s fine. You wind up withnothing but a cedar forest, ratherthan a forest comprising 70 percenthemlock and 30 percent cedar andother species.

My second comment is that onereport gave a cruise of the areas thatthey looked at, and at least a third ofall of the biomass on the area waslying underground. When the ques-tion of cutting windthrow came up,the statement was made, “No, wecan’t let you harvest the windthrowbecause we need coarse woodydebris on the ground.” There’salready too much coarse woodydebris on the ground. That’s one ofthe reasons that trees are growing

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much more slowly than they aredown on the Oregon and Washingtoncoasts, where there is very little car-bon for bacteria to live in and makeproductive soils.

Question: My question is, I want toask, Alton, if you or anyone madeinventories of things like millipedes,centipedes, and springtails, etc.?How many species do you get persquare yard in your forest?

Mr. Schroff: Alton, would you dealwith the last question first? I’ll dealwith the mistletoe question.

Mr. Harestad: The question con-cerned biodiversity, especially of thesmaller organisms, in these forests.There have been studies in coastalBritish Columbia in which invento-ries of vertebrates and invertebrateshave been conducted. Some workhas been done in the canopies of oldtrees on southern Vancouver Island.

Question: But have you done it inthis area?

Mr. Harestad: Not that I’m aware of.

Question: Then how are you going tobe able to judge the effects of yourforest practices?

Mr. Harestad: This management sys-tem is based, in part, on the assump-tion that you should provide theappropriate habitat and have foreststructures similar to forest structures

found in old-growth forests. Some ofthese structures are the dead anddowned wood in various amounts. Ifyou provide these structures andthese habitats, then organisms willoccupy them. The research has yetto be done to verify this assumption.Some research on this topic is beingconducted in the province.Weyerhaeuser, in some of its opera-tions on Vancouver Island, is moni-toring in controlled experiments thatexamine the effects of variable reten-tion. Some of that work is beingdone, but I am not sure if any isbeing done in Clayoquot Sound.

Mr. Schroff: There have been a num-ber of baseline studies around organ-isms in streams, and very detailedinventories of the various aquaticcomponents. Dr. Lavender, would youlike a comment about the dwarfmistletoe issue, or were you makingan observation?

Question: Well, it’s more than anobservation, because the plans thatyou’re showing on your tape arebound to propagate dwarf mistletoe,particularly on hillsides.

Mr. Schroff: To restate the question:have we considered the issue ofdwarf mistletoe infestations of thehemlock expected to regenerate insmall openings, and what are wedoing about it?

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We have considered dwarf mistletoeand the issues associated with imple-mentation of variable retention har-vesting and harvest planning thatincludes small openings. There arerequirements under the ForestPractices Code Act that mandatemanaging stands to minimize theadverse effects of insects and dis-ease. We’re required to address theseissues in our silvicultural prescriptions.We have recognized the potential forinfestation of new stands by dwarfmistletoe and we considered the chal-lenge when we were designing ourmanagement plans and strategies. Weare looking at long-term, uneven-agemanagement at the landscape scale.This broad look at the forest is basedon maintaining landscape-level functionand processes over time. We are notmanaging on a timber production maxi-mization model.

The harvesting methods and the con-figuration of the harvest units aredesigned to mimic the patternsresulting from the natural distur-bance regimes. Alton mentioned thesingle tree falling over and takingthree or four more with it, smallwindthrow events, small openingsresulting from root-rot pocket, andsmall open areas resulting from treesbeing blown over. The thought is tomimic, or attempt to mimic, thosetypes, sizes, and configurations ofdisturbance within a forest.

Dwarf mistletoe is endemic in mosthemlock stands across the landscapeof Clayoquot Sound. We are operatingin a primary forest that hasn’t beenlogged before. Mistletoe has beenpart of that ecosystem for a longtime. We anticipate dwarf mistletoewill remain part of that ecosystem. Ifwe go in and harvest a small area, weget a lot of hemlock reproduction inthe area and we’re going to get dwarfmistletoe. Over time, some of theinfected hemlock will die and dropout of the stand. We believe that, inthe long-term view of the forestresulting from our proposed manage-ment, we’re going to end up with astand that looks very much like whatexists today. The existing stand isvery suitable for timber production,but also provides many other forestvalues.

In some ways, we are quite content tolet the natural processes continue,including the infestation of dwarfmistletoe, because we’re movingaway from a timber maximizationmodel. If we were going to go in thereand try to grow the best quality tim-ber in the shortest possible time, wewould have to have an aggressiveprocess for minimizing the infestationby dwarf mistletoe. It’s a long answer,but it’s a very difficult question todeal with.

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Question: In one of my classes, we’vebeen discussing certification and allof the different options for certifyingbodies and standards. I thought thatSFI was Weyerhaeuser’s standard orprocess of choice. Why was FSC cho-sen in this case?

Ms. Cody: The question is, “Why wasFSC chosen in Clayoquot?”

Because it’s not possible to operatein a forest that has the conservationvalues that Clayoquot Sound has in amanner that is not supported byenvironmental groups. That is a polit-ical, economic, and social reality. Theenvironmental groups wanted us togo for FSC, and as part of our agree-ment with them, we agreed to dothat. The alternative in Clayoquot isno operation at all. So, if we wentdown that path as a company, wecould not operate. Because of envi-ronmental issues, we had no opera-tion there for 5 years.

I guess it depends on your views asto whether or not there should beany harvesting in Clayoquot. It isvery difficult to harvest in Clayoquot.It is very expensive. It is somethingthat the local community, with theFirst Nations that live there, wants tosee. The jury is out as to whether ornot a viable business can be createdaround it, but we think that the FSCcertification starts moving ustowards a branding strategy around a

certain type of product line, bothtimber and nontimber.

Question: Do you know what youraverage annual growth per hectare isand how that relates to averageannual allowable cut on this system?

Mr. Schroff: The question was,“What’s the annual increment on avolume-per-hectare basis and how doesthe incremental growth factor into theaverage allowable cut for the tenure?”

It’s difficult to give you an average,but I’ll try. It ranges from about 1.8cubic meters per hectare per year toaround 14 cubic meters per hectareper year.

Arbitrarily, let’s pick 6 cubic metersper hectare per year. If we assume 6and have a productive forestlandbase of just over 40,000 hectares, thisgives about 240,000 cubic meters ofannual increment. We’ve got a stand-ing volume of about 16 million cubicmeters on the tree farm license.These numbers are based on prettyrough inventories, so I ask thatnobody hold me to them. The allow-able annual cut for all of the treefarms and most other tenures in B.C.is determined by the chief forester.The allowable annual cut is a deter-mination rather than a calculation. Ijust did a quick calculation thatshowed a potential allowable cut,based on incremental growth, of

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240,000 cubic meters. However, adetermination takes into accountsocial issues, anticipated environ-mental issues, and things such aspotential reductions in harvests forinsect, disease, and fire.

The chief forester takes into accountmany things, some quantifiable andsome much more subjective, anddetermines the allowable annual cut.For TFL 57, the harvest level isapproximately 123,000 cubic metersper year. In Clayoquot Sound, wehave a unique situation in that thechief forester has decided that thatallowable annual harvest level will bean upper maximum.

What we’re dealing with now is thatthe allowable harvest level inClayoquot Sound is influenced muchmore by the social elements at playin the area than by the biophysicalproductivity. We’ve got plenty ofstanding inventory. We’ve got plentyof increment. If we go to a harvestlevel that is too high, we’ll be shutdown because of not meeting thedemands or expectations of protestgroups or society.

Our 3- to 5-year plan is to be some-where in the range of 50,000 cubicmeters per year. Then we have to asksome additional questions. Does thatget us above the economic thresh-old? Is the company viable at thatlevel? Is this harvest level socially

appropriate? Have there beenchanges in the forest practices rulesthat would mean we could not sus-tain that level of harvest? Harvest lev-els are just one more component ofthe ever-changing landscape ofClayoquot Sound.

Question: Speaking of numbers, canyou give us the magnitude of theincreasing cost that’s involved in theseplanning and harvesting techniques?

Mr. Schroff: The question is, “Canyou give us some idea of the addition-al costs that are associated with thistype of operation?”

The biggest increase in cost is inplanning, and planning includes someof these social processes that wehave spoken about. The multi-scaleplanning hierarchy, going out andhanging the ribbons in the woods,adjusting the ribbons to meet site-specific requirements that we noticeon the ground—all of those thingscombine to add about $20 per cubicmeter to our overall cost burden.

Standard B.C. coastal cost for planningis about $6 a cubic meter. Ours is closerto $26 a cubic meter. So there is a hugeincrease. We’ve been able to be verycost-efficient in our harvesting phasesand have kept our cost either at orbelow the industry average.

If you look at our operations and ourcost structure in the larger context,

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through all of this planning and theway we’re logging, we are internaliz-ing some of the things that were, ineconomic speak, “negative externali-ties.” In Clayoquot Sound over thepast 5 years, huge amounts of moneyhave been spent on restoring water-sheds, taking out old roads, reconfig-uring the landscape, and dealing withissues around streams—in short,repairing the damage done by pastlogging practices and consequenterosion. Those costs weren’t on thebalance sheet for the logging. Ourplanning and our approaches to man-agement are designed to protect theenvironment and maintain the socialand cultural values inherent in theforest. We will incur additive costs.We are building the costs into ourledger. But we are not leaving a costlyliability to be dealt with later. A signifi-cant challenge facing the companyremains how to pay for those costs upfront. We believe that the answer is tobe successful in developing our conser-vation-based business withinClayoquot Sound. This brings us backto having a multi-product conservation-based business.

Question: You’re obviously into man-aging adaptively and making adjust-ments on a day-to-day basis, but doyou have a plan to do an in-depthreview at certain intervals of time, interms of how the operation is going,so you can have a big picture assess-

ment of successes and adjustmentsthat might be needed?

Mr. Schroff: Do we have a plan and amonitoring process to assess ourachievement and track our progress?

We do in some ways. We have towrite silviculture prescriptions forevery area prior to harvesting. Thesilviculture prescriptions have veryspecific references to what we expectto do on each area over time andhow we expect the managed standsto develop. We can be measuredagainst the prescriptions; this is stan-dard practice in B.C. We have madecommitments in our managementplan and in our forest developmentplan—plans specific to operations inB.C. The Ministry of Forests monitorscompliance with all required plans.We also have made commitments aspart of our FSC certification. Periodicaudits will test actual performanceagainst stated intent.

We have plans, and reviews of per-formance can be based on the con-tent and intent of those plans. At thistime, there is no opportunity for “onestop shopping” when it comes toassessment and adjustment. Alongwith our plans, we are working inpartnership with the Long BeachModel Forest on the design andimplementation of a monitoring pro-gram with specific timelines forreporting on a range of indicators.

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Urban Forestry:

Forestry’s Final Frontier?

E. Gregory McPherson, Ph.DDirector, Center for UrbanForest ResearchUSDA Forest Service, PacificSouthwest Research Station,Davis, California

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Although forestry and urbanforestry share the word“forestry,” they seem to occu-

py different worlds. Forestry con-notes sylvan environments—timber,streams, wildlife, and a close connec-tion with the land. Urban forestryevokes cognitive dissonance; theimage of cities with buildings andpavement seems inimical to forests.Equally bizarre is the idea of forestmanagement in cities. How can silvi-cultural practices applied in foreststands be adapted for specimen treesin cities? As America’s populationbecomes more urban, answers toquestions such as these are impor-tant to the future of forestry andurban forestry.

This paper describes whatforestry and urban forestry share incommon. By working together, bothprofessions can become stronger andbenefit from a shared sense of pur-pose. Constructing healthier habitatsfor humans could provide a focus forsuch collaboration.

The first section of this paperintroduces urban forestry as an emerg-ing institution. Although the public nolonger regards trees as solely orna-mental, and funding for tree plantinghas increased dramatically, imple-menting successful urban and commu-nity programs has not been particular-ly successful. This section identifiessome obstacles to success.

The second section discussesconcepts of forest structure, func-tion, value, and management, andtheir application in urban forestry.Like foresters, urban foresters manip-ulate the composition of species,stand density, and structure toachieve management objectives.Although management concepts,such as forest stand and stockinglevel, have relevance in both fields,economic rotation is not useful inurban forestry, because public atti-tudes often make it difficult toremove healthy trees. Aspects inwhich expertise in forestry canenhance the science and practice ofurban forestry are described ascross-over areas.

The final section summarizes theways in which forestry can benefitfrom expertise shared by urbanforestry, and vice versa.

Urban Forestry: FromFrontier to EmergingInstitution

Seventy-five percent of Americanslive in metropolitan areas, and theurban forest is where most of themwork and play. It is the forest thatthey experience on a daily basis.Urban forestry is the planning andmanagement of trees, forests, andrelated vegetation in our communi-ties to create or add value. Urban

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forests are important because theyaccount for about 25 percent of thetotal tree canopy cover in the UnitedStates and contain approximately 75billion trees (Dwyer et al. 2000).These trees clean the air we breatheand the water we drink, protect usfrom the elements, and heal us emo-tionally, spiritually, and psychologi-cally. They are integral to the qualityof life in our communities.

One definition of frontier is “anew or unexplored area of thought orknowledge.” Compared to forestry,urban forestry is a frontier.Silvicultural theory and the profes-sion of forest management are hun-dreds of years old, and forestry is anestablished institution worldwide.Urban forestry is young in theory butold in practice (Miller 1997).Although people have managed treesin cities for eons, academic and sci-entific interest didn’t reach a criticalmass until the 1970s. For example, in1978, over 100 papers were deliveredat the nation’s first National UrbanForestry Conference (Hopkins 1978).Now more than 50 universities offercourses in arboriculture and urbanforestry within departments offorestry or horticulture (Wingate etal. 1995).

Interest among professionals inurban forestry is growing.Membership in the InternationalSociety of Arboriculture (founded in1924) is 14,000, only 4,000 less than

membership in the Society ofAmerican Foresters (founded 1900).Although urban forestry is a relative-ly new area of thought and practice,it continues to deepen and broadenits base of human interest, profes-sional participation, and intellectualcapital (Bradley 1995).

During the past decade, there hasbeen a shift in the way many peopleperceive trees in their communities.Trees have always been viewed asornament and beautification, but theyare now seen as providing social, eco-nomic, and environmental benefits aswell. This shift has led to new part-nerships, such as the tree plantingprogram between Portland GeneralElectric and Friends of Trees. Theyare training 40,000 volunteers to plant350,000 trees to reduce atmosphericcarbon dioxide (Friends of Trees1995). In the process, residents real-ize a new sense of empowerment andsatisfaction from the positive influ-ence they have on their environment.

Rapid urbanization and increasedaffluence is driving the developmentof our urban forests. Populationgrowth in the Pacific region increased8 percent in central cities and 15 per-cent in the urban-rural interface areasduring the 1990s (U.S. Census Bureau2000). Because of sprawling cities,fragmentation of habitats and loss ofcritical natural resources haveoccurred. This gradual chipping awayof the natural resource base has led

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to urban growth boundaries andsmart growth initiatives.

Many Americans have experi-enced greater affluence andincreased standards of living duringthe past several decades. At thesame time, they have experiencedincreased air pollution, more conges-tion on our highways, loss of biodi-versity, and occasional shortages ofenergy, water, and other resources.And pockets of poverty still existwithin inner cities and rural commu-nities. Because urban forestry is inte-gral to land use planning, environ-mental quality, economic growth, andsocial justice, it has the potential tomitigate some of these problems.

In 1995, for example, California’surban forest contributed $3.8 billionto the state’s annual sales, about one-third of the $12.5 billion contributedby the state’s forest product industry(Templeton and Goldman 1996).However, California cities spent $70million annually on problems createdby conflicts between street tree rootsand hardscape (McPherson 2000).That expenditure ($2.68/capita) wasmore than half the total averageannual amount ($4.36) cities spent ontheir tree programs (Thompson andAhern 2000). The green industry isan important part of the economy,but when trees are unwisely selectedor mismanaged, they can create cost-ly problems for communities.

California’s 177 million shade

trees in cities reduced annual air con-ditioning energy use by 6,400 GWh,equivalent to 7.3 100-MW powerplants and $500 million in wholesaleelectricity purchases (McPhersonand Simpson 2001). Yet, somespecies of trees emit highly reactivehydrocarbons that are involved inthe formation of atmospheric ozone.In southern California, an estimated15 percent or more of total hydrocar-bon emissions come from landscapetrees (Corchnoy et al. 1992). Thislevel of emissions could make itimpossible to achieve ozone attain-ment after other hydrocarbon emis-sion reduction measures are institut-ed and the relative contribution bytrees increases to 40 percent. Treescan be part of the answer to ourenvironmental problems, but theycan create problems if we fail tounderstand or consider how theyinteract with the urban environment.

During the past 20 years, U.S.Forest Service spending on urbanand community forestry programshas increased from $2 million to $36million. Despite greater support atlocal, state, and federal levels, manyof the same obstacles that limiteddevelopment of healthy and exten-sive urban forests 20 years ago stillhinder efforts today.

Available growing space is limitedin city centers, and this problem iscompounded by pressure to convertgreenspace, parks, and vacant lots

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into building sites. Studies byAmerican Forests and others indicatethat as cities in temperate climatessprawl outward, there is loss of treecanopy cover. Land around PugetSound, Washington, once heavilyforested, now has less than 20 per-cent tree cover (American Forests1998). This de-greening has resultedin a loss of critical natural areas andthe ecological services they provide.Constraints to planning and manag-ing healthy urban forests include:

• Inadequate funding for munici-pal tree care programs, whichincludes resources forresponding to natural catastro-phes (e.g., ice storms, hurri-canes), conducting urban for-est inventories, developingmanagement plans, enforcingordinances, and monitoringtree health

• Inadequate space for treeswithin the urban infrastructure

• Overuse of park and naturalspaces

• Harsh growing conditions thatmake tree survival a challenge

• Lack of information on the tol-erances of urban tree cultivarsto environmental constraints,such as de-icing salts andozone

• Poor tree selection, which cre-ates maintenance problems

• Poor nursery stock and failureto provide adequate care afterplanting

• Domination of many municipalurban forests by relatively fewspecies, along with limitedgenetic diversity

• Poor tree care practices by citi-zens and untrained arborists

• Too few communities withworking tree inventories; veryfew with urban forest manage-ment plans

• Limited adoption and enforce-ment of ordinances that regu-late street tree removal andtypes of species planted, pro-tect trees during construction,preserve heritage trees, andrequire planting with newdevelopment

• Jurisdictional complexity thatfrequently results in agenciesworking at cross-purposes orduplicating each other; lack ofdevelopment of regional poli-cies and standards for bestmanagement practices

• Limited outreach to profession-als and residents

• Limited grass-roots participa-tion in tree planting and stew-ardship

• Lack of public awareness aboutthe benefits of healthy urbanforests

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Although urban forests can miti-gate a variety of problems associatedwith development, several obstaclesmust be overcome before significanturban forest benefits can be realized.These constraints run the gamutfrom loss of planting space to lack offunding for tree programs. Resolvingthese limitations will require coordi-nated efforts among cities, regions,and states.

Structure, Function, Value,and Management: Cross-Over AreasStructure

Forest structure refers to speciescomposition, age diversity, and thespatial arrangement of trees andassociated vegetation in the land-scape. Forest structure is determinedlargely by natural factors such as cli-mate, soil types, seed sources, anddispersal processes. Just as influen-tial in urban forests, however, aredevelopment patterns that createspace for trees, and human manage-ment that determines what is plantedand removed, as well as how vegeta-tion is manipulated (Sanders 1984).Street tree populations are intensive-ly managed, while forest stands onurban vacant land develop in wayssimilar to rural forest stands(Rowntree 1984). Urban environ-ments are heterogeneous, a complex

mix of different land cover types anduses. Growing conditions for treesare highly variable. Where trees arewell-adapted and sites are favorable,growth rates of city trees can betwice those of nearby forest trees,because of watering, fertilizing, andreduced competition (Jo andMcPherson 1995).

Species richness, the number ofspecies in a population, is usuallygreater in urban forests than in ruralforests. In southern California com-munities, open-grown street tree pop-ulations frequently contain over 200species. Richness decreases in colderclimates, where minimum tempera-tures reduce the numbers ofbroadleaf evergreen and palmspecies (McPherson and Rowntree1989). However, species compositionis similar in both forests and citieswhen the distribution of individualsamong species is considered. In bothcases, a few well-adapted speciestend to dominate (Richards1982/1983).

Ecologists have found that foreststructures vary along urban-to-ruralgradients that extend from city cen-ters, through suburban development,and into the rural hinterlands(McDonnell et al. 1993). Significantvariations in climate, soil, flora, andfauna along the gradient reflect theinfluences of pre-settlement vegeta-tion, people, development patterns,and natural factors (McBride and

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Jacobs 1984). Our urban ecosystemstudies in Chicago and Sacramentorevealed that tree density, basal area,and canopy cover increased along theurban-rural gradient in Chicago butdecreased in Sacramento, where sur-rounding rural lands were largelygrassland communities instead offorests (Nowak 1994, McPherson 1998).

Most ecological measures appliedto forests can be fruitfully applied tourban forests. For example, urbanforestry studies have describedcanopy cover, species composition,species diversity, age diversity, domi-nance, importance, stocking level,and health (McPherson et al. 1999).Many instruments developed byforesters are also used by urbanforesters to measure basal area(diameter tape), tree height (altime-ter, clinometer), and tree spacing(range finder). Urban foresters alsoapply remote sensing, GIS, and GPStechnologies to measure land cover,identify tree types, and detectcanopy cover change.

Our research focused on under-standing the growth and architectureof open-grown trees. We developednew techniques for measuring leafarea with digital photography andimage processing (Peper andMcPherson 1998). To better estimatehow much rainfall different treespecies intercept we measured gapfractions and surface detention stor-age capacities (Xiao et al. 2000). We

used measurements of crown densityto estimate the effects of tree shadeon building energy use. In Longview,Washington, we developed data ongrowth rates and correspondingdimensions of different street treespecies to project benefits from timeof planting to removal for communi-ties in western Oregon andWashington (McPherson et al. 2002).

Preliminary results suggest that the architecture of open-grown treesdiffers fundamentally from that of for-est trees. Open-grown trees have sub-stantially more above-ground biomassin their foliage and branches, whereasforest trees have more biomass intheir boles. If this is the case, applyingforest-derived biomass equations anddeposition velocities to calculate airpollutant uptake by urban forestscould lead to inaccurate findings.

Cross-Over Areas Related toStructure

Characterizing the urban-wildlandinterface. Very little is known aboutthe structure of this frontier betweenforest and city. For example, we needinformation on relations among popu-lation density, building density, andtree density to better assess the cost-effectiveness of fuel managementstrategies. Also important is the useof remote sensing to detect the loca-tion of critical and threatened habi-tats. Field studies would help usunderstand how the structure ofthese habitats is affected by urban

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processes such as development,introduction of exotic species, andmanagement practices.

Canopy change detection. Forestsabound in the Pacific Northwest, andnowhere is it more imperative toknow how they are changing in bothextent and health. Foresters arefamiliar with the new generation ofsatellites that obtain hyperspectral,high-resolution data, but this technol-ogy has not been applied in cities.We need specific studies to deter-mine the feasibility of using differenttypes of imagery to identify urbantree species, vegetation height, andleaf area.

Disturbance mapping and restora-tion. Foresters and ecologists studythe effects of disturbance in forestsand natural communities on struc-ture and function, but we know verylittle about disturbance and restora-tion in urban environments. There isno taxonomy of urban disturbancesby disturbance agent and communitytype, and little understanding ofeffects on vegetation structure.Understanding the impacts of distur-bances on structure is the first steptowards developing restorationstrategies. There are no better labo-ratories for studying disturbanceecology than our cities.

Function and Value Function refers to the dynamic

operation of the forest. It includesbiogeochemical cycles, gas exchange,

primary productivity, competition,succession, and regeneration. Inforests, these functions largely arenatural processes. Intervention isusually limited to silvicultural prac-tices. In urban environments, forestfunctions frequently are related tothe human environment. Trees areusually selected, planted, trimmed,and nurtured by people, often withspecific intentions. For example, ared oak is planted in a front sideyardto shade the driveway and frame theresidence. The functional benefitsprovided by this tree depend onstructural attributes such as speciesselected and location, as well as man-agement activities that influence itsgrowth, crown dimensions, andhealth. The value of these benefits ishighly personal and may be quantifi-able (e.g., cooling savings) or intangi-ble (e.g., increased satisfaction).Urban forest functions frequently areoriented toward human outcomes,such as shade, beauty, and privacy(Rowntree 1986).

Perhaps the most fundamental dif-ference between forestry and urbanforestry is the way trees are valued.Most people believe that city treesare more valuable alive than dead,whereas trees in forests obtain theirgreatest market value after they arecut. Trees in cities are imbued withmeaning; some are landmarks, othersare memorials. People develop emo-tional attachments to trees that give

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these trees special status and value.Removing hazardous trees can be dif-ficult when it means severing theconnection between residents andthe trees they love. For many, feel-ings of attachment to trees in citiesinfluences feelings for preservationof trees in forests.

Cross-Over Areas Related toFunction and Value

Waste-wood utilization. Modelwaste-wood utilization programsexist in some cities. Lompoc,California, for example, uses aportable mill to make lumber for pic-nic tables, benches, and tables fromurban saw logs. Nevertheless, mosturban waste wood is chipped formulch or taken to landfills. Foresterswith expertise in wood science, for-est products, and economics couldassist urban foresters in developingnew products from this resource,identifying new markets, and buildinga substantial consumer base.

Water and soil relations. We knowlittle about soils in cities, how theyare altered during the developmentprocess, and how development influ-ences relations among soil, water,plants, and atmosphere. Foresterscould assist with research aimed atrestoring urban soils to conditionsresembling forest soils.

Water is the lifeblood of our cities.Principles of watershed managementapplied in forests also apply to catch-

ments along the urban-rural gradient.Foresters can help urban hydrolo-gists develop and test the effective-ness of new ways of planning andmanaging urban forests to reducerunoff, improve water quality, anddecrease flooding.

Urban wildlife. People enjoy seeingwildlife in cities. Wildlife provides aconnection for people with nature.How are urban forest landscapesdesigned and managed to nurturedesirable urban wildlife and preventcertain species from becoming a nui-sance? Salmon is a key speciesbecause of its very high recreationaland commercial value, as well as itsendangered status. The streams itinhabits link urban and rural environ-ments. Foresters who manage forestlands with salmon in mind can helpurban foresters develop managementplans for wooded riparian areas nearcities. Also, they can assist in develop-ing realistic guidelines for landscapedesign and management that willrestore salmon to the area’s streams.

Tree improvement. The WillametteValley is one of the nation’s largestproducers of landscape trees. Manynurseries have selected new intro-ductions for their ornamental or aes-thetic attributes, such as flower color,fall leaf color, and crown shape orsize. There are other attributes, how-ever, that might reduce the costsassociated with maintaining trees incities. For example, deep rooting pat-

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terns could reduce conflicts with side-walks. Trees that drop their leaveswithin a short period of time couldreduce clean-up costs and local flood-ing caused by clogged drains duringthe fall. Increased tolerance to heatstress might reduce loss rates.Foresters working in the field of treeimprovement could work with localgrowers and other members of thegreen industry to develop improvedtrees for urban environments.

Forest ManagementForestry has a rich tradition of the-

ory and practice related to forestecosystem management. Urbanforestry has borrowed and adaptedsome concepts from this body ofknowledge. Silviculturalists view aforest as a collection of stands man-aged as an integrated unit (Smith1962). Forest stands are relatively easyto identify because of their distinctivestructure and species composition.They are more difficult to discern incities because the boundariesbetween plant communities arevague, seldom following environmen-tal gradients as they do in forests.Urban forest stands can coincide withneighborhoods developed during simi-lar time periods (Palmer 1984). Treesin the same neighborhood are usuallyplanted at approximately the sametime and tend to reflect the horticul-tural preferences of that era (Whitneyand Adams 1980).

Much like a forester, urbanforesters manipulate the composi-tion of species, stand density, andstructure to achieve managementobjectives. They strive to obtainoptimal stocking levels for eachstand, recognizing that conditionscan change from site to site withinan urban forest stand (Richards1992). One forest management con-cept that has not been very usefulis rotation, or economic rotation.The urban forestry analog to eco-nomic rotation is “useful lifespan,”the idea that after a species reachesa certain age, the annual cost ofmaintaining it will exceed the valueof benefits it produces. Urban forestplans have recommended plantingtree species with different useful lifespans to promote age diversity.However, this notion has failed inpractice because the public seldomallows managers to remove healthytrees solely because they havereached the end of a predetermineduseful lifespan.

Managing costs is particularlyimportant in urban forests becauseof the many potential conflictsbetween trees and the surroundinginfrastructure. In California, munici-pal programs spend, on average, $19per tree each year to plant, trim, pro-tect, and remove public trees(Thompson and Ahern 2000).However, annual benefits from a largetree can exceed $100 (McPherson et

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al. 1999). Like foresters, urban forestmanagers face trade-offs betweenshort-term economic interests andlong-term ecological issues. Short-term interests are frequently the timebetween elections or budget cycles,but net benefits from trees increaseas they live 30 to 50 years or more.

The concept of sustained yield ofbenefits from the urban forest hastheoretical application but is difficultto measure (Clark et al. 1997). Yieldof benefits, measured as board feet oftimber harvested, watershed values,or wildlife habitat has been moresuccessfully quantified in foreststhan in cities.

A vision statement for a sustainableurban forest incorporates these con-cepts of benefits, costs, and sus-tained yield. An example vision state-ment is “providing for the cost-effec-tive planting, management, andpreservation of trees to promotepublic safety, control costs, and max-imize the social, economic, environ-mental benefits produced for currentand future generations.”

Cross-Over Areas Related toManagement

Small stand management. MostPacific Northwest communities havebeen sculpted from a forest matrix.As a result, there are scores of small,relict, forest stands. In many cases,people and the development processhave had heavy impacts on thesestands. There is a need for foresters

to develop principles and practices ofsilviculture for application to smallstands. The linear shape of thesesmall stands and their roles as con-nectors and refugia for native plantsand animals will influence manage-ment prescriptions.

Decision support for planning.Foresters have developed sophisticat-ed decision support tools such as GISmapping, stand growth models, visualassessment simulations, and econom-ic analysis programs. Although someurban foresters use tree inventoryand management systems, these pro-grams lack the decision support tech-nology and visualization capabilitiesneeded to project the future impactsof alternative management strategies.

Forest health monitoring. Urbantrees are susceptible to threats frompests and disease and are subject toa variety of abiotic disorders.Although the U.S. Forest Service andpartnering states spend millions ofdollars annually to monitor foresthealth, they spend very little moni-toring urban forests. Protectionefforts are mounted in reaction tolocal crises, and remedies are oftentoo late to curb the damage. Many ofthe concepts developed to monitorforest health apply to trees in cities.Foresters can help urban forestersdevelop statistically valid samplingapproaches for urban areas.

Hazard tree reporting is relevant toforesters in high-use recreational

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areas, as well as in cities (Costelloand Berry 1991). Data from tree fail-ures are recorded in a central data-base. Species profiles are developedthat describe how, where, when, andwhy each species is likely to fail. Thisvolunteer-based program deservesgreater support from the forestryand urban forestry community.

Watershed restoration. Watershedslink the city with the surroundingforests and provide a definableorganizing structure for study of aregion’s ecosystem. Foresters andurban foresters could work side byside to determine how the quality ofwater, air, soil, vegetation, andwildlife habitat changes from theheadwaters of rivers to their conflu-ence with downstream water bodies.To address this issue, we need tounderstand the individual and cumu-lative effects of urbanization andland management practices on land,air, and water resources (e.g., water-shed health) along the urban-ruralgradient. A second issue is determin-ing the best management practicesfor sustaining healthy watersheds inurban, suburban, and rural lands.

ConclusionsAs Americans become increasingly

urban, urban forests become increas-ingly important. These forests wherewe live provide benefits related tolocal, regional, and global issues.Stewardship of urban forests con-

nects people to nature and to eachother. If a new land ethic is going toemerge during the 21st century, itwill spring from our cities.

Although the paths of forestry andurban forestry might appear to bediverging, they are actually converg-ing. Forest management will continueto be influenced by the changing atti-tudes, perceptions, and lifestyles ofurban residents. This convergenceoffers mutual benefits to forestry andurban forestry.

Forestry can benefit from an urbanpublic that is more accepting of man-agement. Urban forestry can makeresidents more aware of why treetrimming and tree removal are neces-sary management activities. Thisawareness can translate into greateracceptance of forest managementpractices that reduce fire hazardsand increase tree health.

Forestry can benefit from urban for-est stewardship because it fosters aconnection between people and near-by nature that can be a pathway forreinvestment in forest management.People who develop respect and lovefor nature in cities might adopt simi-lar feelings for forests near theircommunities and thereby becomebetter stewards and supporters offorest resources.

Forestry can benefit from theexpertise that urban foresters haveacquired working with diverse stake-holders in the public arena. Different

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attitudes about trees come from dif-ferent visions about how societyshould be organized. Many urbanforesters have learned that under-standing these attitudes helps articu-late goals in ways that avoid misun-derstandings and enlist support fortheir efforts. Finally, forestry can ben-efit from urban forestry that makesour cities more livable. By creatingmore livable cities and reducingsprawl, urban forestry can indirectlyreduce the loss of forest land and thenatural resource base it supports.

Urban forestry has a great deal togain from convergence with the fieldof forestry. Forest management theo-ry and practice, in many cases,applies to urban forestry. Mostmunicipal arborists have little train-ing in forestry. They apply horticul-tural and arboricultural practices toindividual trees, but seldom planthese applications from a forest man-agement perspective. There is needfor more forest management theoryin urban forestry.

Forestry has developed an impres-sive range of scientific expertise andtechnological sophistication. Becauseof the careful development of forestscience over the last century, urbanforest science has been able, in threedecades, to achieve a comparablelevel of theoretical and empiricalrefinement. Further developmentscould be of mutual benefit to forestryand urban forestry.

Urban forestry could benefit fromincreased support by the forest prod-ucts industry and the academic com-munity. Both these groups have sig-nificant resources that, if brought tobear, could benefit both urban andcommunity forestry.

The final frontier is where forestryand urban forestry join together toconstruct healthier habitats forhumans. It is the nexus of forest ecol-ogy and human ecology, and from itwill spring environments that nurturethe human soul. Creating forestswithin our cities might well be one ofthe least expensive and most effec-tive means of promoting our ownhealth and well-being. Managinggrowth will increase population den-sities and reduce overall greenspace.We will need to meet the challenge ofmaximizing benefits from everysquare meter of greenspace by engi-neering trees and other vegetationinto the infrastructure. We will haveto argue persuasively for new green-space, which cannot be done aloneby foresters or urban foresters. Wewill need each other, as well as land-scape architects, horticulturalists,planners, engineers, and developers.It will take a collaborative effort toturn cities of gray into cities of green.By spearheading this effort together,foresters and urban foresters willstrengthen their professions and gaina new, shared sense of purpose.

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