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Conservationists may challenge certification of state forest lands

Critics say recent changes in DNR forest management don’t support a seal of approval

Marshall Helmberger
Posted 7/1/15

REGIONAL— For a decade, forests managed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources have received the forestry equivalent of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval. It’s a certification, by …

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Conservationists may challenge certification of state forest lands

Critics say recent changes in DNR forest management don’t support a seal of approval

Posted

REGIONAL— For a decade, forests managed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources have received the forestry equivalent of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval. It’s a certification, by two separate organizations, that says DNR foresters are managing the roughly 4.5 million acres of state lands overseen by the agency with policies and practices designed to ensure sustainability and the protection of a wide range of environmental values.

For wood products manufacturers that operate in the state, the certification provides value in the marketplace, as some large home products retailers, such as Home Depot, have come to insist on certified lumber in their stores.

But the DNR could face a challenge to those certifications when they come up for a five-year renewal later this summer. Conservationists who’ve worked on forest management issues for years say recent changes in DNR policies backtrack on previous commitments and conflict with the ideals established by the two organizations that currently certify DNR-managed forests, the Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC, and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or SFI.

Most of those policy changes were approved back in 2012, but their impact is only beginning to be seen on the ground. The DNR’s recent implementation of a significantly shorter rotation period for planted red pine and the elimination of the DNR’s extended rotation forestry policy for other forest types has re-energized conservationists on an issue that they had once seen as a major victory for environmental protection.

Much of the recent change in approach has come at the behest of the Minnesota Legislature, which amended the law applying to the management of lands belonging to the state’s school trust three years ago. The change in law, combined with a 2012 order from the DNR commissioner, stated that the maximization of economic return from school trust lands was now the highest priority for managers. On most school trust lands, which are overwhelmingly found in northern Minnesota, logging is the primary means of generating that return.

DNR forestry officials say the change isn’t as dramatic as it seems, in part because the law and the commissioner’s order also calls for sound conservation measures. They say sound conservation, which includes detailed site-level harvesting guidelines, is usually consistent with maximizing economic return from the state’s forests.

“And we’ve given our field foresters the flexibility to consider other factors, such as forest diversity, wildlife, and recreation,” said Andrew Anders, the DNR’s Forest Operations and Management Section Manager.

But the change in law and the commissioner’s order makes the priority clear say conservationists, like Don Arnosti with the Izaak Walton League of Minnesota. “The DNR’s position is that most of the time we can have strong economic returns and manage for conservation at the same time, and I agree. But the law and the policy says that if there’s a conflict, you have to favor the economics. To me, on the face of it, that’s not a certifiable policy.”

And it’s more than a policy matter, said Arnosti, who points to the DNR’s recent decision to substantially shorten the rotation age of planted red pine, from the previous policy of 100-120 years to about 60-70 years. “The key point is that they have put producing revenue from natural resources to the top of the priority list. They’re reverting back to the old-fashioned management of the past,” said Arnosti.

“That’s different than what the public believes and it’s certainly not consistent with FSC certification.”

It may not even be consistent with the state’s push to maximize its economic return. “I think a 65-year rotation is robbing the state treasury,” said Matt Tyler, a consulting forester who lives in southern Lake County, near Finland. Tyler said from the models he’s reviewed, red pine trees in properly-thinned stand can achieve substantial growth between ages 65 and 85, and he said the DNR’s model doesn’t properly account for the premium prices paid by most mills for larger saw logs.

“I’ve talked to a lot of foresters about it and the vast majority seem to think it’s a bad idea.”

But DNR’s Anders says there’s a tremendous amount of analysis by DNR economi that went into the decision, and he noted that other states, like Michigan, have gone to a shorter rotation age for red pine as well.

Anders said it’s a complex formula, but one that’s been peer-reviewed by forest economists from the University of Minnesota. “It’s more than just a gut feel that we put into this,” he said.

While the latest change may have focused on planted red pine, Arnosti said there’s no reason to believe the DNR won’t do the same thing with other forest types, particularly if it achieves re-certification later this year. That’s why forest diversity advocates are planning to press their case when the FSC and SFI auditors show up later this year.

Steve Wilson, a retired DNR wildlife biologist who lives in Tower, said the agency’s decision to drop its extended rotation forestry (ERF) guidelines is another example of recent backsliding by the agency when it comes to forest management. The guidelines, established in the late 1990s during a temporary boom in the logging industry, required that some stands of timber be allowed to grow older before being harvested. It was one of a number of mitigation strategies recommended in the generic environmental impact statement, or GEIS, on timber management, completed in the early 1990s.

DNR officials contend that the ERF guidelines are no longer necessary, since the amount of timber being harvested in the state right now is much less than was the case when the rules were put into effect.

But Wilson, who was involved in the development of the guidelines, calls that a “sleight of hand.” He said top agency officials always knew that harvest levels would decline in the future. “They acknowledged in writing that we were going through a temporary bump in harvest levels and that the levels would drop back. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t still need the policies,” he said.

Wilson said the state’s forests continue to experience an age class imbalance, particularly for aspen, which comprises the bulk of the timber harvested in the state. While much of the 1990s timber boom was focused on harvesting a glut of old aspen, that glut is mostly gone (either through harvest or decay) and it will be 15-25 years before any of the aspen harvested in late 1980s through the early 2000s has matured again. Wilson believes that may be one reason that the DNR opted to drop its ERF guidelines— without the guidelines in place it can harvest more of a relatively limited supply of aspen.

Challenging

certification

A key part of the certification process is the ability of groups or even individuals to challenge a certification if they believe a landowner isn’t meeting the principles of the certifying organization. “The beauty of FSC [Forest Stewardship Council] certification is that it allows any stakeholder to challenge it,” said Corey Brinkema, president of FSC. “One of our core values is stakeholder engagement. It provides for ongoing checks and balances.”

FSC is a global organization that certifies hundreds of different landowners around the world. In the United States, the Minnesota DNR is the largest single landowner certified by the organization.

FSC doesn’t just wait for stakeholders to raise issues. Every year, the organization sends in an independent auditor who spot checks timber sales and reviews policies in order to verify compliance. Every five years, auditors conduct a much more thorough review before the certification is reauthorized for another five-year term. And that’s the audit that’s coming up later this summer.

The Legislature’s change in law and the DNR commissioner’s order has come under some scrutiny in the past. In 2013, FSC’s auditor, Robert Hrubes of SCS Global, noted the change as an observation. After reviewing a red pine timber sale near Sandstone in 2014, Hrubes raised the issue again as a minor corrective action request, or CAR. At the time, Hrubes was concerned that the clearcut of a middle-aged stand of red pine, with no trees left behind, was inconsistent with DNR harvest site guidelines. When he asked about it, the forester told Hrubeas he was complying with the commissioner’s order to maximize revenue on school trust lands.

DNR’s Anders said the harvest was appropriate, but the forester had reasons other than maximizing revenue for deviating from typical site guidelines. He said the increase in a red pine disease, known as diplodia, was the reason for cutting every tree on the site. When forest health is involved, land managers can use harvest methods that might not otherwise comply with certification or with site-based guidelines.

“That is such a fraud,” said Arnosti, who complains that the DNR is using diplodia as an excuse to go back to old-fashioned clearcutting without any leave trees or other considerations of forest diversity. “I’m not saying there isn’t diplodia, but we’ve been harvesting stands with diplodia for two decades. Right up until two or three years ago [when the DNR made the policy change] we were doing just fine. It’s really a sanitation thing.”

It remains to be seen if such arguments will prevail with Hrubes, however, who said the law and policy changes adopted by the Legislature and the DNR aren’t necessarily incompatible with certification. “Forestry and the FSC standard is an issue of balancing competing objectives,” said Hrubes. “You will find indicators that speak to environmental standards, and others that speak to maintaining a financially viable operation. There’s an inherent tradeoff there.”

“I’m aware that the state Legislature has made it very clear that on these school trust lands there, the primary purpose is to provide funding to schools in Minnesota. Balancing that doesn’t qualify as a violation of FSC standards,” Hrubes said. “The question is has the rebalancing become so severe that there is no longer reasonable consideration of environmental factors. That becomes a judgment call.”

It’s one that Hrubes said he isn’t prepared to make until he’s had time to review all the data. “We’ll find out more in September,” he said. For now, he said, the DNR has been keeping him informed as they’ve adjusted their forest management policies. “They’ve been very up front. They haven’t tried to hide things,” he said. But Hrubes was unaware that the shortened rotation age for planted red pine applies to all DNR lands, not just school trust parcels.

While Hrubes was circumspect, Brinkema expressed more concern. “I can confidently tell you that if all of our forest managers were managing with short and long term economic value as their only indicator of success, most of them would lose their FSC certification. The purpose is to manage the land for a myriad of values,” he said. “They must balance economic return with other factors.”