The Mattole PTEIR - Light-touch timber harvest as a tool in ecological restoration
Light-touch logging can be part of the ecological restoration toolkit
The Mattole Restoration Council is preparing a Program Timberland Environmental Impact Report (PTEIR) that will give landowners streamlined approval for their logging plans, provided their harvest meets significant light-touch standards.
The kinds of selective harvest contemplated in the Mattole PTEIR will support the recovery of the Mattole watershed in four important ways:
1. Under the Mattole PTEIR, logging would leave behind some of the largest trees in each stand and maintain forest cover over all of the wooded landscape, helping to develop bigger, older forests. In turn, those mature forests will provide habitat for threatened creatures whose populations were diminished by the post-World-War-Two logging boom.
2. Compared with clearcut forestry, which leads to forests being replanted to highly flammable young stands, forests logged under the PTEIR will be less vulnerable to fire hazard, as they will be composed of older trees that are more fire-resistant.
3. Logging permits under the PTEIR will be less expensive, enabling landowners to realize the same net income while cutting less timber. In addition, because the permits will be cheaper to obtain, large landowners may be able to garner enough income from their land base that they will be less inclined to subdivide their land in order to maintain the financial stability of their operation.
4. Logging under the PTEIR would require road upgrades to reduce sediment delivery into streams, providing a source of funds for ecologically necessary road work that may become harder to support with public money owing to the state's financial difficulties.
For more on the specific provisions of the PTEIR, download the files below.
For an overview of the process by which the PTEIR will proceed, click here.
To read answers to some commonly asked questions about the PTEIR, go here.
For a page of resource documents and links, including the classic 2005 workshop from the Forest Reptile and Amphibian Working Group (FRAWG), go here.
The Mattole Restoration Council is preparing a Program Timberland Environmental Impact Report (PTEIR) that will give landowners streamlined approval for their logging plans, provided their harvest meets significant light-touch standards.
The kinds of selective harvest contemplated in the Mattole PTEIR will support the recovery of the Mattole watershed in four important ways:
1. Under the Mattole PTEIR, logging would leave behind some of the largest trees in each stand and maintain forest cover over all of the wooded landscape, helping to develop bigger, older forests. In turn, those mature forests will provide habitat for threatened creatures whose populations were diminished by the post-World-War-Two logging boom.
2. Compared with clearcut forestry, which leads to forests being replanted to highly flammable young stands, forests logged under the PTEIR will be less vulnerable to fire hazard, as they will be composed of older trees that are more fire-resistant.
3. Logging permits under the PTEIR will be less expensive, enabling landowners to realize the same net income while cutting less timber. In addition, because the permits will be cheaper to obtain, large landowners may be able to garner enough income from their land base that they will be less inclined to subdivide their land in order to maintain the financial stability of their operation.
4. Logging under the PTEIR would require road upgrades to reduce sediment delivery into streams, providing a source of funds for ecologically necessary road work that may become harder to support with public money owing to the state's financial difficulties.
For more on the specific provisions of the PTEIR, download the files below.
For an overview of the process by which the PTEIR will proceed, click here.
To read answers to some commonly asked questions about the PTEIR, go here.
For a page of resource documents and links, including the classic 2005 workshop from the Forest Reptile and Amphibian Working Group (FRAWG), go here.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Two-page summary of the main provisions of the PTEIR | 87.61 KB |
| Full working draft, including geological flow charts | 207.45 KB |
© 2010 Mattole Restoration Council