Clearcutting the Pacific Rain Forest: Production, Science, and Regulation

Environmental History, Jan 1999 by Weetman, Gordon F

Clearcutting the Pacific Rain Forest: Production, Science, and Regulation. By Richard A. Rajala. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1998. xxiii 286 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, index. $75.oo.

Clearcutting the Pacific Rain Forest: Production, Science, and Regulation, by Richard A. Rajala, reviews the development of logging in the Douglas-fir region of the Pacific Northwest from i88o to 1965. It does not cover the western hemlock forests of the northern Pacific coast, nor the high elevation forests. The topical but misleading title does not indicate that the book is an historical review. Also, the expression "process of deforestation in the Douglas-fir region of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon" is used in the introduction (p. xix). Deforestation is the long-term removal of trees from a forested site to permit other site uses. Logging in the Douglas-fir region was not and is not deforestation. Even abandoned cutovers eventually developed a new forest cover. These untended second-growth forests are being logged today.

The first part of the book uses the analogy of a factory to examine how logging technology became more factory-like from i88o to i965, and then examines how the "factory regime" was managed in both the United States and British Columbia. The concise review of logging equipment development is followed through to grapple yarding. The management review covers the developing use of university-educated engineers and professional foresters to handle the increasingly complex planning requirements. The claim that the Pacific coast was the continent's last logging frontier ignores the still present challenge of logging Canadian boreal and interior British Columbia forests (p. 71).

The second part of the book examines the relationships between logging, conservation ideas, and government regulatory controls. It should be noted that up to i965, in a more innocent and less complex time, the issues of the day were the pros and cons of U.S. federal and state or provincial controls on logging, the rate of harvest and sustained timber yield, and whether there was adequate regeneration. Biodiversity, landscape ecology, wildlife habitat, conservation biology, and ecosystem management were just not considered. One of the great values of the book lies in its review of the controversies over natural versus artificial regeneration, the erroneous "seed stored in the duff" belief that influenced Douglas-fir harvesting practices, the debates on partial cutting ("selective logging") versus clearcutting, and continuous versus partial-cut arguments and the failed attempts in the United States at federal regulation on private lands and Gifford Pinchot's role. The U.S. Forest Service silviculturist Leo Issac's key role in the "science" of Douglas-fir silviculture is correctly outlined.

There is some confusion in the book over what is true selection cutting and uneven-aged management. It is not clearly defined (the definition attributed to Ames on p. i28 is not correct). The tenor of the text is that of failure of governments to adequately regulate the logging industry. The assumption seems to be that that is the solution. The book implies that it was naive for administrators, politicians, and foresters to trust the forest industry to adequately sustain timber supply and adequately regenerate.

This reviewer can only comment on the British Columbia situation and the "missed opportunity for reform" outlined in Chapter 5, and the "denial of silviculture" in Chapter 6. Both these chapters are valuable historical reviews because the issues and debates are very alive today, sixty years after the first provincial attempts at regulation. Private land silviculture is still not regulated in British Columbia. C. D. Orchard's faith in the forest industry to manage public lands in British Columbia (private interests can be made to coincide with public interest) may seem naive, but both Ontario and Alberta today look to the industry to manage their crown forests. Today, many more of the controls on the forest industry come from outside of government-from certification, customer pressure, international opinion, boycotts, and self-regulation.

Historical reviews like this are rare. This book reinforces the notion that we can learn from history. Environmentalists, foresters and politicians, and above all, students can, by reading the book, learn much about problems still being debated. In a simpler era, when more people trusted government management and believed in government controls and the only real issues were timber supply and regeneration, with little hard science or data to use, Rajala has provided an excellent review on the history of the debate.

Reviewed by Gordon F. Weetman. Mr. Weetman is Professor of Silviculture in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia. He has also taught silvicul ture at the University of New Brunswick and was an industrial silviculture researcher for the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada.