Can the Forest products industry and conservationists work together?

An Idaho Environmental Forum program this week illustrated that there is reason to hope for progress, however slow, in the decades-long struggle over management of Idaho forests.

Bill Higgins with the Idaho Forest Group and member of the Clearwater Basin Collaboration and John McCarthy, with the Idaho Forest Campaign and the Idaho Wilderness Society talked about shared values between their respective ideologies including the need to repair disturbances, manage fires, maintain habitats and infrastructure and encompass the needs of local communities.

McCarthy noted that there are several reasons to be involved in the collaborative process: to work together to repair problems, build resilience and protect the products that we have in the forest.  The key idea from both the conservation and industry perspectives is that of resiliency, he said.

“Are we better off with fire being the agent of change in our forests with or without human intervention?” McCarthy said.  “Does it make sense to change fuels, change fire management options, hopefully changing the results from fires? People can argue about it all they want, but today’s climate is drier and hotter and longer fire seasons and we are going to have more fires.”

McCarthy acknowledged that environmentalists have often played the foe to the forest products industry.  They were also unhelpful to themselves in advocating for forest practices that didn’t help the forest, he said. 

For proof of the success of collaborative effort, McCarthy pointed to efforts like the Owyhee Initiative.  He said other people think there is another key value in forest production industries, but this fact doesn’t cause a conflict with conservation.

“We're not trying to drive people out of the woods,” He said.  “We're not for no-cut policies.  I can work with Bill (Higgins), because he understands and accepts my core values of wilderness.”

For his part, Higgins noted that he once found the problems at hand with forest management collaboration as too big to tackle.

“Before I got involved in collaboration, I'd look at the lack of activity that's going on out there and think this was too big of an issue to handle,” he said. “Well, it's a new day, and these collaborative efforts are affecting change.”

Higgins noted the Clearwater Collaborative was generated from a lawsuit by a motorized access group that wanted access in the Bitterroot divide.  A group of people got together to go through the long and arduous process about identifying the right groups to be represented, and ultimately have a seat at the table.

Higgins said federal lands represent one of the best opportunities for growth in Idaho.  

“Federal lands are an underutilized asset, both through higher utilization of forest products and as a recreation destination,” he said.  “They have not been carrying their weight economically.  Doing so doesn't require an ecological sacrifice; we can simultaneously improve ecological and economic conditions.”

Higgins said he has learned things in his four years with the Clearwater Collaborative about how to have an effective collaboration. 

“Everybody has to have some skin in the game,” he said. “Everybody has to have something to gain and something to lose.”

 “We hope this is the end of the Timber Wars,” he said.  “It's not all about timber, it's about recreation and land protections and all types of conservation.