Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

A Forest Of Jargon The New Lingo Of Lumbering Is Very Confusing

Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Sift through the pages of a Forest Service document, and you may wish you had a magic decoder ring. The lingo of lumbering isn’t the same as it used to be, and the jumble of jargon that’s replaced it wrinkles the brow.

“They used to just cut trees,” said Dennis Baird, a Moscow environmentalist.

Now, the Forest Service is likely to put it another way: They prescribe forest treatments.

“It sure makes it hard for a citizen to know what the forest is going to look like,” he said.

A case in point: This week the Palouse District of the Clearwater National Forest announced the Wepah-Pup timber sale, east of the Giant White Pine Campground on State Highway 6. They’ve proposed a “regeneration harvest in the form of a clearcut with reserves harvest” for 180 acres.

Say what?

Carmine Lockwood, the Palouse District ranger, explains: It’s a kinder, gentler clearcut, unlike those that cleared blocks of land as recently as 10 years ago. These “clearcuts with reserves” leave “the best trees we have out there,” Lockwood said. In the case of the Wepah-Pup timber sale, that means anywhere from five to 15 living trees per acre will remain behind after logging crews are gone. And ideally, those remaining trees will include ponderosa pine and western larch, species that resist pesky diseases.

The Forest Service’s perennial critics charge it’s merely window dressing for business as usual.

“They look like clearcuts. They smell like clearcuts. As far as I’m oncerned they’re clearcuts,” said Larry McLaud of the Idaho Conservation League.

Lockwood disagrees. “An objective person will tell you a clearcut with reserves is better than a bare clearcut,”he said.

The language is new because there truly is a difference on the ground, Lockwood said. The new generation of clearcuts makes allowances for the pileated woodpecker, a sensitive bird species that nests in tree cavities. While a traditional clearcut might wipe out their habitat for as many as 120 years, a new version of a clearcut known as a “seed tree cut” could provide the habitat the woodpecker needs in 60 years.

He added that the Forest Service is trying to get out its message without confusing the public, though there’s a fine line between dumbing down a complex science for people and going over their heads.

But he admits the language is cumbersome. Even within the district office, he said, “removing the sick, the lame and the lazy” is slang for “sanitation salvage.”

Lockwood understands the need to communicate ideas clearly, and the district has begun adding diagrams and color photographs of the forest along with the written remarks.

That’s the kind of effort Baird applauds. “The proper role of a critic is to say good things about good things and bad things about bad things,” he said.

He keeps documents from the Elk City Ranger District on hand as examples of good, plain English. While the agency still uses words like “treatment” the district clearly explains how the forest will look after the timber sale is through. The report he showcases explains how many trees will remain per acre and what species those trees will be.

Baird sympathizes with the agency’s jargon woes. “You can forgive some of this by recognizing that silviculture is a living science practiced by very bright, well-educated people,” he said. New methods of clearcutting deserve new, but clear, lingo. “No matter what you call it,” said Baird, “is producing lots and lots of those a good idea?”