“Sealaska Corporation is engaging in ecosystem management on a grand scale unmatched by any federal program,” exclaimed Professor Mike Newton of Oregon State University.
Leading a delegation of Resource Development Council board members through a stand of thinned young-growth trees on Prince of Wales Island in August, Newton explained the benefits of an activelymanaged forest.
“A properly managed forest will grow to maturity faster, benefitting both wildlife and other uses,” Newton added.
A forester with extensive experience throughout the Western U.S., Newton praised Sealaska for doing a superb job of resource management and stewardship, and serving its Alaska Native shareholders.
Thirty years ago, Sealaska entered into the business of harvesting old-growth timber on its lands in Southeast Alaska. Its logging operations were a major pillar of the region’s timber industry and economy.
The corporation’s logging also had a statewide impact as the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) requires Native regional corporations to share 70 percent of their net revenues from the development of timber and subsurface estate on their lands. From 1971 to 2007, Sealaska has contributed over $310 million to other regional corporations, which is distributed in a way that benefits all Alaska Natives and the communities in which they live.
In August, RDC board members and staff from Alaska’s oil and gas, mining, fishing, forestry, and tourism industries hiked through former clear-cuts that have now evolved into a young and thriving second-growth forest. Harvested in 1988, these harvest zones naturally regenerated into a new crop of trees.
After 15 years, the new trees that have grown since harvest, called regeneration, became over-crowded, but Sealaska thinned the stands to allow more sunlight to reach the forest floor, creating an abundance of undergrowth and vegetation for wildlife and local subsistence, explained Newton.
The Oregon professor noted that an unmanaged stand after 30 years would produce a dense forest of trees only five inches in diameter, cutting out sunlight needed for a vibrant understory and making it difficult for wildlife to navigate. However, properly thinned, the same stand would produce fewer but much larger trees over the same period, more than twice in diameter, with adequate sunlight to support undergrowth and provide shelter and forage for wildlife.
“Foresters use thinning to increase growth of the most valuable trees and to increase the understory,” said Newton. “In an activelymanaged forest, it takes 70 to 100 years for trees to reach an economically harvestable size.”
Newton pointed out that in a thinned forest, 85 years after harvest – 70 years after thinning takes place – the average diameter of the trees is 14 inches. Each acre produces roughly 39,000 board feet of timber. In comparison, it takes an unmanaged forest approximately 240 years after harvest to produce the same stand with an average diameter of 14-inches, yielding 38,000 board feet of timber per acre.
The Southeast Alaska Native corporation has invested over $19 million in planting, thinning, and pruning operations, according to Ron Wolfe, Sealaska’s Natural Resources Manager.
Sealaska has pre-commercially thinned over 44,000 acres and has hand planted over 8,760 acres. It has also pruned lower limbs from 15-20 year old trees on over 3,500 acres, allowing more sunlight to reach the forest floor to stimulate growth of deer browse and improve log quality.
“Forest thinning is good for trees and good for wildlife,” Wolfe said. “Pruning produces high-quality trees and is another silviculture treatment that benefits wildlife. Our forest stewardship activity creates jobs in the woods and opportunity for year-round work. Full time family-wage jobs are critical for our rural communities.”
The RDC tour also included a no-cut stream buffer zone. Here the old-growth forest was fully intact, surrounded by the younger stands growing up from a 1988 clear-cut.
Wolfe explained that in 1990, the Alaska Forest Resources and Practices Act was amended to provide for riparian management protection measures on private timberlands in Southeast Alaska. The protection measures depend on stream channel type. The new rules include 66-foot wide no-cut buffers for important anadromous fish streams, restrictions on timber harvest near other fish streams that are controlled by bedrock, and protective measures for unstable slopes. Many of Sealaska’s buffer strips exceed the 66-foot wide minimum standard.
Twenty years of monitoring demonstrate these buffer strips are wide enough to provide large woody debris that forms fish habitat in streams and other critical habitat components, including bank stability and stream temperature.
“Stream buffers protect salmon habitat and they are an important component of responsible timber harvesting, and salmon is a very important subsistence, commercial and sport fishing resource.” Wolfe said.
Wolfe considers the corporation’s investment in its modern silvicultural practices an investment in its shareholders’ future. Its resource stewardship program is guided by the core cultural values that have guided Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Indians for all times.
“Every tree ultimately harvested will support cultural activities, scholarships, jobs, and communities,” Wolfe said. “Silviculture practices such as thinning, fertilization, timber stand improvement, pruning, and planting will ensure productive forestlands while promoting healthy fish and wildlife populations, and subsistence foods. These forestlands will also provide an economic base for local communities and jobs for future generations of Alaskans.”
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