After 15 years of the mountain pine beetle epidemic killing pine species in around 4 million acres of forest in the southern Wyoming and northern Colorado, the United States Forest Service is looking toward a new era of forest restoration.
Phil Cruz, Forest Supervisor with the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, said timber management on the forest has focused on reducing or removing dead and dying trees from key areas like campgrounds, roadsides and power line corridors. The forest service has been working on the removal of the key areas and around communities over the last several years, Cruz said.
After completing the emergency mitigation work, Cruz said the forest service is moving their focus to speeding up the restoration of the forest ecosystems.
Cruz said forest managers are using a variety of tools to foster a new forest that is diverse in age and species and will be resilient to stressors like drought or insects. These tools include traditional timber sales, stewardship contracts, prescribed burns, Cruz said.
Cruz said the forest service is also grateful for the traditional timber and the biomass industry partners as both are need to accomplish landscape-scale restoration. Active forest management with partners develops a variety of viable and sustainable forest products such as board, biomass for wood pellets, energy and paper, Cruz said. Forest management also provides jobs for surround communities and a healthy, diverse forest.
Timber from lands managed by the forest service provide wood fiber for seven mills, tow pellet factories, two post/pole facilities and several secondary wood product producers in Wyoming and Colorado, Cruz said.
Between 2008 and 2013 the forest service offered 513,940 centum cubic-feet (CCF) and sold 388,817 ccf of timber, Cruz said. One ccf equals 100 cubic feet. The 10-year average for volume sold in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest was 66,673 ccf. Cruz said this equals about 5,620 loaded log trucks coming off the forest annually.
In 2013, 4,300 acres were treated in the forest with the offer of 75,481 ccf and sale of 70,474 ccf. Around 4,000 acres of forest were thinned to improve the health of stands not impacted by beetles and more than 600 acres were prepared using machinery to facilitate natural regeneration, Cruz said.
Cruz said more than 77,440 acres of fuel were treated between 2008 and 2013, using prescribed burns and machinery. Prescribed burns were used on 16,779 acres and machinery on 60,668 acres. Of those acres, 18,838 of the treated acres were within the Wildland Urban Interface to help protect communities.
As green seedlings replace the red-needled canopies of the forest, Cruz said it is important for the forest service to reflect on what contributed to the epidemic and carry those lessons forward. “Actively managing the Medicine Bow and Routt National Forests to accomplish ecosystem restoration objectives will be part of our standard business into the future,” Cruz said. “As this occurs, we look forward to continued engagement with the public at various stages of planning and implementation.”
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