National Forest: Land of many uses or land of limited uses?

The management mix that goes into giving everyone what they want

The 1.3 million acres of national forest in our backyard is a land of many uses. That isn’t just a slogan written on the signs we see as we drive across the forest boundary, but a fine line for managers to walk as they try to maintain the nation’s forests to give everyone what they want.

For each group of people that utilizes the forest as a resource or for a resource, the wish list is different. For Tony Smith, who has spent the last 22 years harvesting Christmas trees from public and private land around the state, the list is short. He only wants to be able to take trees he says are his.
“I get frustrated because I feel like all of our national forests have been closed up because of regulations and I keep asking these forest rangers, Who is ‘your’?” says Smith, referring to the Forest Service credo, “Protecting your national forest.”
Smith got his start in the Christmas tree business following large logging operations on the Front Range, taking the culled, small-diameter evergreens that had been relegated to the slash pile for his lots.
A Boulder native who moved to Gunnison seven years ago, Smith is used to hearing how his business is the scourge of the woodland habitat, but he denies it. He tries to educate the public about what he sees as the vital role he plays in maintaining a healthy forest.
“There are spots in Taylor Park where I could cut out 300 or 400 trees and you would never know it. What that would do is let the trees grow healthier. When you get 20 trees in a 100 square feet, they’re fighting for survival,” says Smith, pointing to the diseases and parasites that are threatening some of the state’s forests.
Instead, the forest plan for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests calls for carefully managed commercial logging, whether it’s a large-scale operation or by someone like Smith, working a few acres at a time.
Of the nearly three million acres that make up the three national forests, just over one million of those acres are “suitable for timber production,” supplying nearly 30 million board feet of wood to the timber industry every year, according to the plan.
Gunnison District ranger Jim Dawson points out that the forest is not managed solely from a Gunnison National Forest point of view. Rather, managers look at specific areas of the forest when devising a management plan and also look at how the local forest fits into the national and state forest systems.
“Commercial uses of the national forest are subject to a permitting process and those permits are issued based on the sustainability of the area to support that use,” Dawson says.
Gary Klifman, owner of Red Mountain Logworks, says he gets some of the aspen and lodgepole pine that he uses for furniture and other finished wood products from the Gunnison National Forest, but is running out of sources for the wood.
Because of the specific type of wood he is looking for—structurally sound deadwood two to three inches in diameter—Klifman takes trees that the Forest Service is willing to part with.
“I get my wood from private loggers who go in and clear out dead standing and dead fallen beetle kill. They don’t cut anything living. Unlike trees that have been cut green, the stuff that has been naturally killed off is the best for furniture,” says Klifman.
Beetle kill in the Gunnison National Forest where Smith wants to thin a few acres is relatively rare and localized. A beetle infestation isn’t something GMUG forest managers are jumping to treat.
“We’ve been lucky in that the impact of the pine beetle has been pretty minor. The potential certainly exists but the real issue is that you have to have a market. Without a place to sell trees the opportunity is limited,” says Dawson, adding that they are exploring ways of using the affected trees in the valley.
Although Smith has a place to sell trees, he isn’t selling the trees that are at the greatest risk for beetle infestation. Instead, Smith says he’s the “king of Charlie Brown Christmas Trees,” taking the smallest and least developed.
Since those trees aren’t at risk of supporting a beetle infestation or choking healthy stands of lodgepole pines, Smith is unable to get a permit to remove those trees. Instead, the law prohibits those types of trees to be commercially harvested, because they provide critical habitat.
Since the mid-1980s, there has been an effort to study and reintroduce the lynx into its native habitat throughout Colorado, including the Gunnison National Forest. Because small trees provide cover for the snowshoe hare, which is the lynx’s favorite prey, they are preserved in many areas in an effort to sustain the hare population.
“I was told that I can’t cut trees on the 1.3 million acres in my back yard because there might be two Canadian lynx running around out there and we don’t want to disturb them. It also means, even if I could get in there to cut, I wouldn’t be able to cut a tree with branches within three feet of the ground. That’s every Christmas tree,” says Smith.
All those Christmas trees make a forest; Dawson says part of his job is to see the forest for more than just the trees.
“If there is a conflict between a commercial forest use and a species of concern, like the lynx, we will always side with the lynx,” Dawson says, and when the species of concern is linked to a prey species, like the hare, which relies on a specific habitat, the habitat will generally be preserved.
The habitat that is preserved to protect the lynx also serves the interests of several groups in the area that use the national forest for commercial guide services.
The Crested Butte Nordic Center offers guided tours to backcountry huts in the area, like those in the 10th Mountain Division hut system. He says people aren’t making the 15-mile trip into the national forest to take anything but photos.
“Most of the people we deal with are snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing and they’re looking to enjoy the natural beauty,” Nordic Center manager Mark Smiley says.
Dave and Lisa Mapes use the national forest for their livelihood, as the owners of Cosmic Cruisers sled dog tours and Quaking Aspen Outfitters.
Lisa Mapes, who has been in the business of mushing dogs for 15 years, takes her clients 12-20 miles into the forest, often using snowmobile tracks to give her dogs firm footing.
She says that although they sometimes run into conflict with snowmobilers who are driving too fast, she has to remember that she needs them to get her clients away from their cell phones and into the quiet.
“If people can slow down in life they change. They change the way  they talk, it’s slower once they’re out there, they get really quiet and they just take it all in,” says Mapes.
Although she doesn’t always understand or agree with the way the forest is managed, Mapes says she has no problem with the managers.
“I really think they’re looking out for the best interest of the forest. I really do think they look at what the public wants and they do really respond to what we want. We just have to be consistent and persistent,” she says.
Keeping the national forest in a condition that can be used by everyone, even if it isn’t in the backyard, is what the Forest Service does, says Dawson, and balancing the various interests that make up the ‘your’ in “protecting your national forest,” that’s business as usual.