I just want to share this with birders who may be interested / concerned. Please see the DNR news release at the bottom of this email. The DNR has announced their stand examination list for public comment. (The comment period is essentially the month of February.) Of the 49,100 acres on the list, it is estimated that 35-40,000 acres will be found suitable for harvest. You can view maps of the selected stands and the State Forest Resource Management Plans at the link provided in the article. Unfortunately, the maps require you to zoom in significantly to see the stands, but you can get information about each stand with the "i" button. If you are so inclined, you can view all of the stands that will be examined for potential harvest in a given ecological subsection on the SFRMP link.
Each stand has been assigned a preliminary treatment, that list can be viewed at: http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/forestry/harvesting/fy13HarvestPlansSummary.pdf You can submit comments on the overall plan or on specific stands. Most concerning to me--and I would suspect to others interested in bird conservation--are the plans concerning lowland conifers which are *extremely slow-growing*, ecologically fragile, and essential to species such as Boreal Chickadee, Spruce Grouse, Three-toed Woodpecker, Gray Jay, Connecticut Warbler, Cape May Warbler, and others. You do not have to be opposed to timber harvest in general (and I'm not) to see that converting extremely important habitat to pulpwood (as long as junk mail is abundant, there cannot be a shortage of pulpwood available to industry) is a tradeoff where the ecological costs outweigh the industrial benefits. At least in my birding experience, the birds I listed above are very partial to very old, very dense lowland conifer stands, so many of the stands harvested in 2013 may not be habitat to those species again in the lifetimes of many of us. The harvest plans for *2013 alone* call to clearcut nearly 4,000 acres of old black spruce stands and to clearcut nearly 2,000 acres of old tamarack on state lands. I've been looking at the map a little bit and it appears that some sizable stands of black spruce (165, 48, 17, 9, & 13 acres) are being considered for clearcut between CR 7 and Hwy 53 in the Sax-Zim area and those stands appear to be part of larger patches. In the Pine Island State Forest, there are black spruce and tamarack stands in the 149-209 year old range, some of which are between 100-200+ acres being considered for harvest. This is all in line with the State Forest Resource Management Plans for the Agassiz Lowlands which calls for accelerated harvest of old lowland conifer stands and a severe overall reduction in the age profile of lowland conifer stands (especially black spruce) in the subsection. If you have ever birded the lowland conifer stands of Pine Island State Forest, I don't have to tell you just how amazing the bird life is there because of those large, continuous old stands and if you have visited multiple times, I don't have to tell you that more and more relatively birdless clearcuts are showing up where Boreal Chickadees and Connecticut Warblers had been almost common. The only way that we can ensure that birds and the concerns of birders are taken into consideration in these harvest plans is to take advantage of these opportunities to comment on forest management plans and stand exam lists. This happens to be a state announcement, but the same is true at the county and federal level. Birders who care about these issues should consider making some thoughtful comments and so should the organizations that count on the support of birders. When so few people comment on these plans, and many of them represent industry, just a handful of voices speaking for protection gets noticed. Keep in mind that a primary driver behind this concern at all is our appetite for cheap paper. Reducing paper use, recycling, and buying recycled paper products is one key way to help reduce the demand for cutting these important habitats at all. Annual forest stand examination list available for review *(Released January 23, 2012)* The annual stand examination list (ASEL) for state-administered forest land, prepared by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), is available for public review. The ASEL is for fiscal year 2013, which begins July 1, 2012, and ends June 30, 2013. Comments will be accepted during a 30-day public comment period that ends on Feb. 29. The public has two options for reviewing harvest plans, according to Dave Epperly, DNR director of Forestry. Proposed stand examination locations, preliminary management prescriptions and forest inventory information can be viewed on the DNR website.<http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/forestview/index.html> Comments regarding a proposed stand examination site can be submitted to the DNR using this website. People without Internet access or those who prefer to review and discuss the annual stand examination list information directly with a forester, may contact or visit a local DNR area forestry office. Individuals should contact the local area forestry office prior to a visit to ensure the appropriate forestry staff will be available. For information, contact Jon Nelson, DNR Forestry, 500 Lafayette Road, St. Paul, MN, 55155-4044; 651-259-5278; jon.nel...@state.mn.us. The DNR administers 5 million acres of forest lands that have been certified as being well- managed under two separate third-party auditing systems. Annual stand examination lists are derived from multi-year forest management plans developed for these DNR lands by interdisciplinary DNR planning teams with public input, and based on long-term forest resource management goals. DNR staff will complete field evaluations on the 49,100 acres identified on the fiscal year 2013 ASEL and determine appropriate treatments, including timber harvest. It is estimated that approximately 35,000-40,000 of these acres will be suitable for timber sales. The timber will be appraised and offered for sale in the upcoming fiscal year. -- Shawn Conrad www.itascacnfbirding.com ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
