Plan to Reduce Sierra Logging Is Signed

California’s top federal forester Friday signed a long-anticipated master plan for the state’s Sierra Nevada--a document that will significantly reduce logging and may save some vulnerable species from decline.

The management blueprint for 11 national forests in the state’s northeast continues the U.S. Forest Service’s turn from an emphasis on commercial logging to a more conservation-oriented approach.

The guidelines call for the amount of timber cut on 11.5 million acres of national forest land to drop within five years to a little more than half of what it is now--to 108 million board feet annually.

Regional forester Brad Powell, who oversaw the $12-million, 2 1/2-year effort to draft the plan, said the guidelines were designed to strengthen wildlife protections and reduce the risk of wildfires.

The decision, accompanied by an 1,800-page environmental report, creates three major management categories.

On about 4 million acres in which old growth is found, the service will rely primarily on controlled burns to thin young trees and brush. Where burns are not desirable, timber cutting will be allowed, but restricted to trees no larger than a foot in diameter.

On about 5.5 million acres of general forest land, trees as large as 20 inches can be felled but there are extensive restrictions on the overall openings that can be created by the logging.

The heaviest logging will be allowed in zones next to developed areas. Activities will also be limited next to streams. And the nesting sites of the California spotted owl and dens of the Pacific fisher, a weasel-like animal found in small numbers in the southern Sierra, will be protected.

The plan is stirring intense criticism from the timber industry, which says the severe logging limits will leave the forest so dense it will encourage huge wildfires.

Powell countered that, between the controlled burns and thinning, the fire hazard will decline in the Sierra forests. Some “may argue it’s not quick enough or they may like to see more, but I think it’s really clear we have addressed the fire issue,” Powell said.

Mike Spear, regional manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the management guidelines do a commendable job of balancing wildlife requirements with the need to reduce the fire threat on woodland that is much denser with growth than it was historically.

Without the new protections, Spear said, the owl, fisher and two Sierra amphibians would inevitably have been added to the federal endangered species list.

Logging curbs adopted in 1993 to protect the forest’s largest trees have failed to halt the decline in the owl’s population, which Spear said is falling an estimated 5% to 7% a year. There are only about 30 known fisher dens, and the Yosemite toad and mountain yellow-legged frog are also in trouble.