Post-fire logging is bad for forests and wildlife

Burned forests have great ecological significance and importance. With Congress now debating controversial legislation that encourages logging after fires, it is important for the public and policymakers to recognize the role of burned forests in maintaining wildlife populations and healthy forests.

Legislation introduced by Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Greg Walden, R-Ore., would weaken environmental standards and public involvement, and ignores a wealth of scientific understanding about the benefits of burned forests and the environmental harm caused by post-fire logging.

From my perspective as a bird-research biologist, I have become aware of one of nature's best-kept secrets — there are some bird species that one is hard-pressed to see anywhere else but in burned forests.

The species whose habitat distribution is more restricted than any other to burned-forest conditions is the black-backed woodpecker. Everything about it, including its jet-black coloration, undoubtedly reflects a long evolutionary history with burned forests. There are many additional bird species, including the mountain bluebird, three-toed woodpecker and olive-sided flycatcher, that also reach their greatest abundance in burned forests.

This is important because if we value and want to maintain the full variety of organisms with which we share this Earth, we must begin to recognize the healthy nature of burned forests. We must also begin to recognize that post-fire logging removes the very element — the standing dead trees — upon which each of those bird species depends for nest sites and food resources.

Standing dead trees are one of the most special biological attributes of burned forests. They house equally unique beetle larvae that become abundant because they feast on the wood beneath the bark of trees that have died and are, therefore, defenseless against attack.

We need to change our thinking when it comes to logging after forest fires. There is potential economic value in the timber, yes, but there are numerous other values in a burned forest. And the prospect of losing those values must be weighed against the potential gain that may accompany post-fire timber harvest. The scientific facts also reveal that burned areas are probably the most ecologically sensitive places from which we might extract trees.

With respect to birds, no species that is relatively restricted to burned-forest conditions has ever been shown to benefit from salvage harvesting. In fact, most timber-drilling and timber-gleaning bird species disappear altogether if a forest is salvage-logged. Therefore, such places are the last places we should be going for our wood.

I am not at all opposed to responsible timber harvesting; it's simply that there are numerous green-tree forests, especially those in urban interface areas throughout the West, that can be harvested sustainably and without anywhere near the ecological threat one faces when harvesting in a burned forest.

I referred to this habitat as one of nature's best-kept secrets because the public really hasn't caught on to these facts yet. And I have not even touched on some of the more fascinating stories about plants and animals that are restricted to burned-forest conditions. Being unaware of these stories, people naturally want to harvest trees they see as wasting away. They want the economic value.

But nature doesn't waste anything. Burned forests, even severely burned forests, are forests that have been "restored" in the eyes of numerous plant and animal species and in the eyes of an informed public. The burned trees are essential for maintaining an important part of the biological diversity we value today, and are the foundation for the forests of the future.

So, while it may seem counterintuitive, trying to make a quick buck off the burned forests today is more like borrowing from the forests of tomorrow. Our forests and the biological legacy we leave to future generations will be diminished if we fail to listen to the birds.