In the Summer of 2005, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance kicked-off their campaign to end clearcutting on the Medicine Bow National Forest, as well as National Forests throughout the Rocky Mountains.  Biodiversity Conservation Alliance is putting forth alternative methods that ensure the health and sustainability of forests. Alternatives to clearcutting are readily available. 

Clearcutting has ravaged the Medicine Bow National Forest.  According to the Forest Service, nearly 80,000 acres of the Medicine Bow has been clearcut since 1950.  The Snowy Range west of Laramie has experienced the majority of clearcutting. Satellite images of the mountain range , which is immensely popular for forest recreationists, show a massive patchwork of clearcuts.  In the years 2003 and 2004 alone, nearly 1,000 acres of clearcutting were authorized. 

Unsustainable logging remains a clear and present threat to the health of the Medicine Bow National Forest.  Under the new long-range management plan for the Medicine Bow, the Forest Service is proposing nearly 2,000 acres of additional clearcutting.  And last spring, the Forest Service proposed the Devil’s Gate timber sale, a massive industrial logging project that calls for over 500 acres of clearcutting in the Snowy Range near the Platte River Wilderness. 

According to the Forest Stewardship Council of the United States, a leading non-profit organization that certifies sustainable forestry practices, clearcutting is not sustainable (www.fscus.org/images/documents/standards/STND_RM_final_V2.PDF).


RESPONSIBLE ALTERNATIVES TO CLEARCUTTING: 

• Use of selective harvesting (where many trees are left standing) is less harmful to forest ecosystems compared to clearcutting, resulting in a more homogenous landscape (Aplet 2000).
• Group selection cuts (which create tiny openings) were found to be less destructive to forest bird communities than either clearcutting or selective harvest that removes most of the forest overstory (Chambers et al. 1999).
• The use of minimum-impact techniques, such as the use of large-wheeled vehicles, helicopters or winter horse logging can minimize the impacts of road building (which also increases fragmentation) within the harvest area.
• Lengthening timber harvest rotations should be used to mimic the intervals of natural forest disturbance (which ranges from 200 to 700 years depending on forest type), and natural disturbances such as fire and insect infestation should be allowed to run their natural course.
  
  
  

Click on the pictures to see the high resolution version

End clearcutting fact sheet (PDF 267kb)

LITERATURE CITED
Aplet, G.H. (2000).  A landscape approach to managing southern Rocky Mountain forests; pp 361-376 in Forest Fragmentation in the Southern Rocky Mountains, R.L. Knight, F.W. Smith, S.W. Buskirk, W.H. Romme, and W.L. Baker, eds. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. 

Chambers, C.L., W.C. McComb, and J.C, Tappeiner II (1999).  Breeding bird responses to three silvicultural treatments in the Oregon Coast Range.  Ecol. Appl. 9:171-185.