Column: Supervisor seeks to set the record straight on Hoosier forest management

You may have heard recent claims that call into question how the Forest Service cares for our public forests and wildlife. Many of these claims are not accurate, and I’m compelled to set the record straight. I respect that there are, and always will be, varying opinions on how best to care for our public lands. However, when facts, laws or scientific data and consensus are misrepresented, understanding of the issues is lost, which can lead to confusion and mistrust.

The Hoosier National Forest (Hoosier) is currently a carbon sink, meaning it takes in more carbon than it releases. Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by trees and plants through photosynthesis with carbon then stored in wood, leaves and soil. The most recent data shows that carbon stocks, or the amount stored, on the Hoosier increased by 42% from 1990 to 2020. Recent research also shows that as forests in the central United States reach 120 years and older, they begin to have negative carbon accumulation rates, meaning they become less efficient at carbon absorption. As trees die and decompose they become carbon sources (releasing more carbon than they take in). While removing trees for a variety of forest health goals may create a short-term loss in the amount of stored carbon, the new growth of trees will sequester abundant carbon, thus off-setting the short-term loss fairly quickly.

Our forests now face numerous critical challenges. These ecosystems have always been influenced by a range of factors including climate, wildlife (beavers, bison, passenger pigeons, etc.), Indigenous and settler burning and settlement, agriculture and weather. In recent history, fire suppression, pests, diseases, and non-native invasive plants have had tremendous impacts.

In addition to being highly fragmented, the loss of most past human and natural disturbances has led to overly dense and shaded forests, which lack diversity in age and structure – very different than the historical conditions. These conditions make them less resilient to predicted warmer, drier summer conditions, wetter winters and future pest outbreaks, thereby making them more vulnerable to becoming a carbon source.

When forests are not managed, they do not gradually revert to what they may have looked like decades or centuries ago. Furthermore, it is important to balance the role forests have in countering carbon emissions through sequestration and storage with the need to address forest health and diversity, including ensuring a diversity of habitats to support all native wildlife.

While carbon accounting can be complicated in a natural system where trees die and grow whether managed or not, it is important to keep a few facts in mind. The cutting of a tree does not release the carbon stored in its wood. What matters is what happens to that tree after it is cut, and what happens on the land where it was growing. While land-use conversion (deforestation) is a net loss for carbon, forest management is not. Harvested timber is used for wood products that store carbon for many years and displaces the need to utilize more carbon-intensive materials (plastic, metal, concrete) and incentivizes keeping land as forests, where trees re-grow and continually sequester more carbon.

I must correct a recent false assertion that proposed timber harvest activities on the Hoosier National Forest would remove 45% of the standing carbon on the Forest. As of 2020, 47% of the carbon stocks in the entire Hoosier National Forest were stored in aboveground live biomass (trees). Only a tiny proportion (~0.13%) of the Hoosier has timber harvested from it each year, while less than 3% sees prescribed fire.

These actions only remove a portion of the aboveground biomass from the treatment areas. Therefore, only a very small proportion of carbon is removed from the Forest, with most stored in forest products, while the land begins sequestering new carbon immediately after each activity through new growth.

The long-term health of the forest ecosystem and its ability to provide the many things we expect and need from it, including diverse wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration and storage, clean water, and sustainable recreational opportunities are at the core of the Forest Service’s work. To view the research linked to this article visit the Forest’s website at https://www.fs.usda.gov/Hoosier.

Mike Chaveas is forest supervisor of the Shawnee and Hoosier National forests. This is the first of three opinion pieces addressing forest management.