Loggers' LEAP of faith - Logger Education to Advance Professionalism

American Forests, Sept-Oct, 1993 by Yuriy Bihun, Stephen B. Jones

This innovative approach to empowering on-the-ground harvesters is a giant step in the right direction.

Reckless, rough-and-tumble lumberjacks, complacent pawns of a ruthless forest-products industry. The stereotypical image of the logger is not one of benevolent steward of the land.

"Loggers are lightning rods for public opinion on forest use, mostly because people are ill-informed about the principles of forest management and the crucial role loggers play in helping to keep the nation's woodbasket full," says Thomas McEvoy, Vermont Extension forester. "Most loggers are serious professionals who care about stand productivity and forest health. They want to know more about the ecological relationships that are the basis for prescriptions they are asked to implement. And they want to be recognized for caring about the forest as something more than just a place to cut wood."

Concepts like landscape ecology, bio-diversity, and ecosystem management are integral to understanding and managing our forest resources. "The whole concept of ecosystem management is in jeopardy," says John Garland, associate professor of forest engineering at Oregon State University, "if the people who implement forestry practices on the ground don't understand the fundamentals of ecology and the practice of silviculture." Silviculture is the art and science of managing a forest ecosystem.

Garland and McEvoy are part of a growing number of foresters turning to a formal education program that is exposing timber harvesters to the ideas of forest management. Over the years, foresters have worked one-on-one with loggers to explain the concepts of silviculture, but it was only recently that a systematic method of teaching loggers was developed.

Modeled after Vermont's successful Silviculture Education for Loggers project, LEAP--Logger Education to Advance Professionalism--is a national pilot program designed to provide loggers with a working understanding of forest ecosystems, highlighting the positive, and potentially negative, impacts their activities can have on forest stands. The program introduces loggers to the technical underpinnings of forestry, allowing them to share a common language with foresters.

"Since more than half of the timber harvesting on private lands in this country is accomplished without planning and assistance from forest-resource managers," McEvoy explains, "it is especially important that timber harvesters know more about the objectives of silviculture."

Traditionally, logger-outreach efforts have concentrated on safety and production-oriented courses. Until the 1988 Silviculture Education for Loggers project in Vermont, there was no precedent for an ecology-based curriculum specifically geared toward timber harvesters. With seed money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Renewable Resources Extension Act, the University of Vermont Forestry Extension Service, in cooperation with industry and state forestry organizations, sponsored a series of three all-day workshops on forest water quality, forest ecology, and silviculture. The field-oriented workshops were free to loggers nominated by foresters and sawmillers.

New Hampshire followed suit with a similar set of workshops, and by the end of 1989 the efforts had educated more than 300 loggers in northern New England. Regional conferences in Maryland in 1990 and Georgia in 1991 laid the groundwork for a national effort. The LEAP program emerged in 1992 when the U.S. Extension Service committed $300,000 to fund pilot projects over a three-year period.

Why would a logger take three days of production time to learn about theoretical concepts like forest ecology and silviculture? The answers are as varied as the loggers who attend. Most want to improve their poor image in the eyes of the general public and become more knowledgeable, as well as gain recognition from landowners--their potential clients. Contrary to some preconceived notions, loggers who come to the workshops are drawn to understanding the science that drives forestry and harvesting decisions.

Some loggers fear penalties, and many are willing to support the program in an effort to stave off the threat of regulation. To attract participants, certain states may link the program's ecological component with more conventional erosion-control workshops. It is in the loggers' best interest to learn about their state's Best Management Practices (BMPs)--laws that define acceptable practices to prevent sedimentation of forest streams. Loggers who practice in accordance with existing BMPs can protect water quality and avoid discharges that lead to fines. The program, however, goes beyond compliance and encourages loggers to adopt practices that minimize environmental impact and incorporate responsible stewardship.

"Over the last three or four years, I've started working more and more with foresters," says Mike Guyer, a young logger from Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. "Taking the silviculture workshops helped me understand where they're coming from." After completing the program, Guyer doesn't pretend to be a forester, but he can explain to a reticent landowner or hostile citizen that logging is a disturbance, like insects or fire, but a necessary process for renewal of the forest.