From the 1950s through the 1980s, clear-cut logging on our National Forest lands went from small scale and haphazard to widespread and systematic. On just the Willamette National Forest alone, there are 3,994 individual clear-cuts today.

This unsustainable amount of clear-cut logging perpetuated the boom and bust economic cycles in many rural communities in Oregon and Washington. It also wreaked havoc on populations of fish and wildlife and shrank the region's wildlands, harming opportunities for hunting, fishing, hiking, and other activities.

But this legacy now provides us with an opportunity. Over the years these previously clear-cut lands have grown back as dense "tree plantations." These plantations lack the diversity of species and ages of trees found in forests that have not been clear-cut, and fail to provide good habitat for many kinds of fish and wildlife.

Striking a responsible balance

Over 90% of the Northwest's old-growth forests have already been logged. Those that remain provide us with some of our cleanest sources of drinking water and best habitat for fish and wildlife.

These old-growth stands are also the forestlands most resistant to wildfires. In recent years conservationists, community groups, hunters, anglers, and others have come together to call for an end to old growth logging, and have strongly opposed proposals that would log the Northwest's remaining stands of old growth.

However, the trees within the hundreds of thousands of acres of former clear-cuts are now reaching marketable size, and could offer a responsible alternative to logging our remaining old-growth and mature forests.

A common sense solution

The Northwest Old Growth Legacy Campaign supports a responsible program to thin these dense tree plantations while setting aside our state's remaining old growth as a legacy for future generations.

Doing so would promote more diverse and complex forests in these tree plantations, provide long term employment for logging contractors, and produce a certain and sustainable supply of logs for decades to come - all without destroying the precious few remaining stands of old growth forest or opening up roadless wild lands to new logging projects.

Local Forest Service and BLM district offices have now successfully planned and implemented numerous projects that focus on the thinning of tree plantations in former clear-cuts.

These projects have resulted in hundreds of millions of board feet of timber produced and tens of thousands of acres of plantations thinned with the restoration of diversity and complexity to the forest as the project's principle objective.

Such projects restore a healthier environment for fish and wildlife and create a forest landscape that is better able to respond to forest fire and support more recreation.

A successful model

The Siuslaw National Forest in Oregon and the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington are two examples of forest planning that could serve as models for plantation thinning.

The Siuslaw recently won three national awards, including "Breaking the Gridlock" and "Rise to the Future" for their thinning program. They haven't had a timber sale appealed since 1997, and yet they consistently produce as much timber as any other National Forest in western Oregon.

The Siuslaw's work has also built trust among forest stakeholders and led to expanded restoration opportunities in and near federal forest lands through the federal Stewardship Authority.

We believe that thinning plantations holds tremendous promise for ending the timber wars with a win-win solution that balances logging with the need to protect our few remaining stands of old-growth forest.