Address by B. Bruce Bare, Dean and Rachel A. Woods Professor, College of Forest Resources, University of Washington
Forest management in western North America has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past 15 — 20 years. A basic shift in management philosophy from an agriculturally-based approach to an ecosystem-based approach has occurred. On balance, the latter approach is now favored by most public forest land managers while the former approach is still favored by the managers of many private forests. Historically, sustained yield timber management principles have guided forest management practices under the agricultural model while sustainable forestry has emerged simultaneously with the ecosystem-based management approach.
We explore underlying reasons for this paradigm shift and examine consequences of this change. We review classical management concepts of sustained yield, multiple use, dominant use, and land use zoning within the new paradigm of sustainable forestry and find them lacking as contemporary land management guides. We also examine forest certification systems and international systems of sustainability based on various criteria and indicators and review their role with respect to sustainable forestry.
To illustrate the new paradigm of sustainable forestry, we focus on a case study involving the management of Washington State's forest trust estate in western Washington. Trust land management presents a unique set of opportunities due to the legal status of the lands, expectations of the trust beneficiaries, and growing demands that these lands provide benefits to the citizenry of Washington State. The case study demonstrates that by reducing the acres of forest land placed in reserves; emphasizing the practice of active stewardship; using biodiversity pathways to create a more biologically diverse forest structure; and designing a management plan that is consistent with the existing habitat conservation plan; a program of sustainable forestry was designed to be consistent with management objectives.