Effects of Salvage Logging

"Salvage logging" is the general term for timber harvest that is done after a natural disturbance such as wind storm, fire or insect infestation. The idea is to salvage downed and dead trees and bring them to market.

Indeed, between 1995 - 2005 a full 40% of U.S. Forest Service timber harvest was from salvage logging. After Hurricane Katrina, the Forest Service planned the largest salvage logging sale in history.

Unfortunately, salvage logging sales are too often designed to also include healthy large trees to sweeten the economic bottom line of these sales. More recently efforts have been pushed in Congress to expedite and expand salvage logging in order to recover forests that have been disturbed by fire, snow or wind. However, increasing scientific studies show that salvage logging actually reduces, rather than increases the recovery of disturbed forests.

Bad Science

• “ …[salvage logging] would actually slow the natural recovery of forests and of streams and creatures within them.”
• "…no substantive evidence supports the idea that fire adapted forests might be improved by logging after a fire. In fact, many carefully conducted studies have concluded just the opposite.”
• “…post disturbance logging often intensifies the potential severity of future fires by concentrating the slash from logging at or near the ground.”

A recent letter from Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology also raises concerns salvage logging would,

"... make forests more flammable and increase the safety risks for wildland firefighters. Firefighters often rely on recent burns to help contain wildfires or provide firefighter safety zones. [The proposed salvage logging bill] would… instead cover these areas with a volatile mix of fresh logging debris and young nursery-grown conifers, immediately placing these areas at higher risk of wildfire and negating the beneficial thinning effects of wildland fire.”

Bad Public Policy

• completely waiving environmental review and public participation requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for salvage logging activities;
• allowing the Forest Service to sidestep requirements under the Endangered Species Act;
• allowing expedited salvage logging by defining natural catastrophes so broadly that virtually any natural disturbance would qualify as a "catastrophe," including fire, snow, rainstorms, drought or insect infestations.

Wastes Taxpayers' Money

A report by the General Accounting Office (GAO)concluded that: Contrary to claims that salvage logging saves taxpayer’s money, activities associated with the Biscuit project in Oregon are expected to lose $2 million in taxpayer dollars. While the logging has already taken place in the Biscuit project, it remains to be seen how much of the recovery work – wildlife habitat rehabilitation, monitoring and management studies -- will be accomplished due to funding issues.

This effort appears to be one of many instances where the Forest Service promised restoration and fuels reduction in conjunction with timber sales, did logging at a cost of millions of tax dollars, and still has not started most of the restoration and other work.

--- Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

WWC's Efforts To Oppose Unjustified Salvage Logging