LATEST NEWS
A BETTER UNDERSTANDING
WRITTEN BY MIKE ALBRECHT, ALC PRESIDENT
On May 16, 2024, I had the distinct pleasure and honor of cosigning, along with Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, a “Memorandum of Understanding” between the American Loggers Council (ALC) and the USDA Forest Service.
Initiated by the Forest Service, this MOU was fully endorsed by the American Loggers Council Board of Directors at our April 19th Spring Meeting. Our ALC Executive Director, Scott Dane, deserves tremendous credit for steering this MOU effort, working with key Forest Service staff through sessions of editing and compromise.
The final result is a document titled “American Loggers Council and USDA Forest Service Collaborative Efforts for Healthy Forests, Markets, and Logging Industry.”
At this point, I suggest you let that rather lengthy title “sink in” for a moment. No, it is not a misprint. This title now represents what every American logger and every Forest Service employee should understand. We are now encouraged and expected to work collaboratively (read: together) to produce healthy forests, healthy timber markets, and a healthy logging industry.
To further underscore what we should all now understand, the MOU has a “Statement of Mutual Benefits and Interests.” I will quote a portion of these mutual interests as follows:
“The Forest Service utilizes professional logging contractors and timber haulers through various contracts and agreements to accomplish forest restoration and hazardous fuels treatment projects on National Forest System (NFS) lands. The ALC works to support, as part of its mission, an economically viable, healthy, and sustainable logging workforce with a ready supply of timber and restoration byproducts and robust markets to deliver raw materials. The Forest Service depends on an adequate professional logging/hauling contract workforce to bid on Forest Service timber sales and contracts along with robust markets to deliver material to so that the National Wildfire Crisis Strategy and the goal of accelerating the pace and scale of forest restoration can be accomplished and sustained into the future.”
Back row, from left to right: Julie Tucker (National Program Manager for Wood Innovations – Bioenergy, Biofuels, and Bioproducts), Steven W. Koehn (Director for Cooperative Forestry; State, Private, and Tribal Forestry) Andria Weeks (Associate Deputy Chief for State, Private, and Tribal Forestry) and Vicki Albrecht, (ALC Presidents Wife) Front Row: David Cupp (ALC 2nd Vice President), Randy Moore (Chief of the USDA Forest Service), Mike Albrecht (ALC President), and Scott Dane (ALC Director)
The press release that followed the MOU signing quotes Forest Service Chief Moore saying, “Loggers are on the front line every day, contributing directly to the health of the nation’s forests . . . while also creating jobs and strengthening local economies.” And I added to that: “America’s loggers are the “boots on the ground” providing essential wood products while helping to protect and restore our forests to their fullest potential. We cannot do our job without a strong working relationship with the United States Forest Service.”
In the discussions that followed the signing of this MOU, one of the Forest Service officials was inspired to say, “We are a team; we can’t exist without each other.” Well, if we are truly a team, and our goal is “working together for healthy forests, markets, and logging industry” . . . then who are we competing with? My answer: up until recently, there hasn’t been any other team – we’ve been faced off against each other.
Many, if not most, of you are better historians than me, although I find history fascinating and insightful. In my opinion, the best book chronicling the history of American forestry was published back in 1971. Written by Henry Clepper, it is titled Professional Forestry in the United States. No, it doesn’t include the past 50 years, but it does provide a detailed and accurate accounting of the storied events that shaped America’s current forest management policies.
Chapter 1 is aptly titled, “The Plunder of the Pineries,” recalling when loggers and lumbermen operating in the 1800’s were described as, “villains, scoundrels, and thieves.” Chapter 10, titled, “Timber Famine Warnings: Prelude to Regulation,” ushers in the notion that America’s forests would soon be depleted. This concern gave birth to the US Forest Service and two teams. The American timber industry and the Forest Service began to battle in an undeclared war, perpetuated by misunderstanding.
Forest Service Chief Randy Moore stated, “Loggers are on the front line every day, contributing directly to the health of the nation’s forests . . . while also creating jobs and strengthening local economies.” And I added to that: “America’s loggers are the “boots on the ground” providing essential wood products while helping to protect and restore our forests to their fullest potential. We cannot do our job without a strong working relationship with the United States Forest Service.”
There were cease-fires along the way that allowed for progress. America’s wildfire events gave birth to Smokey the Bear, who became the Forest Service symbol for an effective wildfire prevention program, and despite a litany of government regulations, America built a vibrant timber industry.
But misunderstandings continued to polarize the two sides, prompting Henry Clepper to note that, “to more than one contemporary observer, it appeared strange that, as industrial forestry became better, the attitude of the regulators became more critical.” As the design of logging equipment became more environmentally friendly, more public land was designated as wilderness, near natural, wild and scenic, and roadless. Timber operators are now licensed and take continuing education courses but remain untrustworthy in the eyes of many within an agency I still hear referred to as the “Forest Circus.”
The bottom line is that in 2024, even though America’s forests now cover almost 800 million acres, we have become the world’s leading importer of softwood lumber. We are losing sawmills at the rate of about two per month. Over the past ten years, the Forest Service has lost 40% of its non-firefighting workforce.
It’s time for a reset.
Enter the 2024 ALC/USFS Memorandum of Understanding. This historic and very positive document outlines a path forward to promote the three priorities listed in its title: Healthy Forests, Healthy Markets, and a Healthy Logging Industry. It underscores the following statement made recently by Chief Moore as he addressed the Department of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee: “I can tell you with certainty that if we do not have a vibrant timber industry, we are not going to be able to manage our forests and keep them healthy and resilient.”
Let me say with certainty that the American Loggers Council completely agrees with Chief Moore’s statement, but a final step is required to make the MOU more than 3 holes punched into a binder. It needs to be circulated, read, and understood. Every Regional Forester should brief his/her staff. Every Forest Supervisor and District Ranger should brief their staff and employees. To have teeth, the concepts in this MOU need to be integrated into forest plans and there needs to be accountability showing progress in achieving the stated goals.
Every state logging association needs to share this MOU with their Board of Directors, passing it on to all their membership. The only way this MOU will result in additional acres treated, fires prevented, and more wood products for America, is to have it communicated through the Forest Service and the timber industry, thoroughly understood, and transformed from a “Memorandum” into an “Action Plan.”
I request that you read the Memorandum of Understanding for yourself. All the main points are discussed in the first 3 ½ pages. It takes ten minutes to read and understand it. If and when we agree with it, the doors of “understanding” and “action” open wider. VIEW OR DOWNLOAD THE MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING >>
The American Logger A Legacy of Achievement
Mike Albrecht has a master’s degree in forestry from Duke University, is a Registered Professional Forester in California, and has worked for over 45 years in forest management and the forest products industry. Mike currently serves as president of the American Loggers Council and is a past president of Associated California Loggers and the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference.
"Grandma's Wisdom" Written By: ALC President, Mike Albrecht
As the American Loggers Council President, I will do my best to help represent loggers at the national level. My best will require continually falling back on quotes from my two grandmas, one from Grandma Ainsworth, and one from Grandma Albrecht. I will share these quotes in just a moment, but I’d like to first better explain who I am.
The “tag line” at the end of my article notes I have a forestry degree from Duke with some past industry leadership roles. Nice, but that doesn’t really explain who I am. The most spot-on characterization I’ve ever received was from an old cat skinner named Roy Paterson. I was in my early 30’s on a forest road crew down at Shaver Lake, California. There were about eight of us, a cobbled together crew tasked with getting some logging roads built. The first night at dinner, Roy had us go around the table and introduce ourselves.
A couple of guys were loggers, one was just out of prison, one was Roy’s nephew . . . don’t remember the others. Each introduction was short, not eloquent, but sufficient. I was last, and proceeded to pontificate about my forestry degree, my previous work as a consultant in North Carolina, and other drivel. When I was done, there was an awkward silence. Then Roy looked straight at me, and in his low, gravelly voice said, “You ain’t nothin’ but an educated saphead.” The seven other guys guffawed as I turned beet red. From that day on, we all worked as a team, and got a lot of road built.
Over the past 40 years since that humbling beginning, I have been blessed to work with, and learn from, some of the best loggers in California. I was privileged to be hired 35 years ago as general manager of a logging and trucking firm. The owner of that family-run company patiently mentored me, and I became co-owner a few years later. I have always appreciated the great education that my parents worked hard to make possible for me, but my real-life education happened much later in the woods.
I got past Roy’s fairly accurate description, and logging got into my blood as much as, maybe even more than, the love of forest silviculture and management that had brought me there in the first place. Over the years, our company has had as many as 75 employees, with 22 trucks, 2 cut-to-length sides, a mechanized side, 2 chipping sides, and a CAT side. I’ve been to numerous logging truck wrecks, and have transported a few employees to ER, trying to decide whether or not to stop at the stoplights.
We’ve had years that ended with all the bills paid and money in the bank. We’ve had really rough years with one that ended up visiting with a bankruptcy attorney. That served to make us realize that bankruptcy is much worse than the hard work to avoid it. Our company has thinned roughly 75,000 acres of public land on the Stanislaus National Forest. If anything, this “educated saphead” has learned that he is no more than one cog in the wheel we call logging.
Over the past three decades, our logging business has downsized right along with California’s timber industry. I’ve watched logging get rebranded as timber harvesting, then forest thinning, then vegetation management, to the newest moniker, forest restoration. Today, loggers are tasked with producing a product America needs and wants, while trying to protect anything that might get harmed by our operations. Over the years, that has included spotted owls, pine martens, goshawks and a myriad of floral species. I remember a job where we had to protect a “frog crossing.” Loggers have always worked hard to protect forest ecosystems and the creatures that live there, but we too often see environmental protections designed to “prevent” rather than protect.
Now looms another challenge to “protect” trees. Spurred on by an environmental watchdog group called Environment America, the newest issue confronting our industry is the recent Biden Administration directive regarding “mature and old growth” forests. Here’s where Grandma Ainsworth’s advice would come in handy. As folks considered this topic, she would have advised, “Keep an open mind, but don’t let your brains fall out.”
I’m afraid that on the old growth topic, it may be too late. If some folks’ brains haven’t fallen out, they most certainly are leaking. Under these recently implemented guidelines, any new projects proposing vegetation management that occurs where “old growth conditions exist” must be “submitted to the National Forest Deputy Chief for review and approval.” It often takes years to get forest management projects approved at the Forest Supervisor and Regional Office levels. I can only imagine how long it will take to also clear the Deputy Chief’s office.
Since 2015, 20% of all the mature giant sequoias in the world have been lost to catastrophic fire. This fact inspired Congress in 2022 to pass H.R. 8168, the “Save Our Sequoias Act.” Endorsed by the Save the Redwoods League, the act declares an emergency to expedite work on the ground intended to “save” the sequoias. That work has to include thinning out forests that are now so overgrown that even the fire-resistant old growth giant sequoias are succumbing to catastrophic wildfire. How work around the giant sequoias will square with the old growth “hands off” edict from the President remains to be seen.
America currently has approximately 112 million acres of Designated Wilderness, 425 National Parks, 6,792 State Parks, and approximately 13,000 miles of Wild and Scenic Rivers. The proposed protections for mature (80 million acres) and old growth (32 million acres) would more than double the amount of American “protected” forestland restricted to minimal or zero production of wood products.
This is a good spot to update an important fact: America is no longer the second leading importer of lumber in the world. We are now the number one IMPORTER of lumber in the world. So, Congress, US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management . . . as extreme environmental groups lobby you daily and litigate you often, Grandma Ainsworth would remind you, “Keep an open mind, but don’t let your brains fall out.”
I’ll end this message with Grandma Albrecht’s quote. She said these words during the height of WWII just after receiving the news that her oldest son had been killed when the B-17 he piloted was shot down, and her other son (my dad) had just been wounded with a bullet that grazed his head. She said, “God knows, He loves, He cares, nothing this truth can dim.” I share these words for any of you loggers that are facing personal hardship right now, whether with business, employees, family, the challenges of logging, or simply discouragement with the direction our country seems to be taking.
One Sunday afternoon after church, our pastor pulled me aside and said, “Mike, you are called to be an “encourager.” I think I’ve failed that calling with my past few messages, so I’ll tell you now the title of my next message: “What’s Going Right.”
The American Logger – A Legacy of Achievement
Mike Albrecht has a master’s degree in forestry from Duke University, is a Registered Professional Forester in California, and has worked for over 45 years in forest management and the forest products industry.
Mike currently serves as president of the American Loggers Council and is a past president of Associated California Loggers and the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference.
“That Was Then . . . This Is Now” A Tale of Two Fires
I’d like to start with a “thank you” to those of you taking the time to read this, and to keep you reading, I’ll share a quick joke that is pertinent to this topic . . . you’ll see why at the end.
A logger went to see his doctor. The doctor said, “Unfortunately, I have some bad news and some even worse news for you.” The logger nervously asked the doctor to give him the bad news first. “The bad news is you only have 24 hours to live.” The logger said, “What could possibly be worse than that?” The doctor said, “I should have told you yesterday.”
We’re going to take a look at two catastrophic western wildfires, the 1933 Tillamook Fire that burned on the Oregon Coast and the 2021 Dixie Fire that burned in Northern California. The following short description of the Tillamook Fire comes from a 320-page book titled “Tillamook Burn Country: A Pictorial History.” It is a comprehensive documentation of one of America’s most horrific wildfires written by Ellis Lucia.
The Tillamook burn raced through over 300,000 acres of mostly Douglas fir, and was described this way by a reporter: “From the summit of the Coast Range to tidewater lines, it is simply one vast and dense forest. It is a forest area of the giant breed, with trees ranging from eight to thirty feet in circumference, and reaching upward from 150-300 feet. In August of 1933, the Oregon coast weather was extreme, humidities dropped to record lows, and a bad fire that had been burning for several days “exploded with the ferocity of an H-bomb.” In twenty incredible hours the Tillamook Fire “rampaged over 220,000 acres, burning fine trees at an astounding rate of 600,000 board feet an hour.”
What occurred on that burn-scarred landscape in the following decades is truly a “legacy of achievement” by citizens, foresters and loggers. “The flames had hardly died and the embers cooled “when foresters and loggers launched what was one of the great salvage efforts of all time.”
At the time, the entire burn area was privately owned. To get this burn salvaged and restored, private timber interests met with local, state, and federal officials who all agreed to the formation of the huge Consolidated Timber Company. This was a bold cooperative enterprise at a time when such things were considered sinful, “almost bordering on Communism.” Consolidated immediately spent $1.5 million for railroad construction, $800,000 for truck roads, and $1.25 million for locomotives, cars, and rolling stock.
And so, the salvage and restoration began. When it was all over, 7.5 billion board feet of the estimated 10 billion board feet killed had been salvaged and converted to lumber. 73 million trees were hand planted with an additional one billion Douglas fir seeds dropped from helicopters. Although a private undertaking, the US Forest Service offered this advice and encouragement: “Measures to rehabilitate the burn should be taken, the cornerstones of which are intensive protection, hazard reduction, intensive salvage logging and reforestation.” There was no environmental impact statement written – the environmental impact spoke for itself.
Decades later, when all the salvage and restoration work had been completed, Ellis Lucia summarizes: “What once was a bleak desolate land is again alive and beautiful.”
That was then . . . this is now.
On July 13, 2021, the Dixie Fire started in the Feather River Canyon of Northern California. When finally contained on October 25, the Dixie had burned through 963,000 acres of Sierra Nevada forests and became the most expensive wildfire suppression effort in US history, costing $637.4 million. The fire damaged or destroyed several communities including Greenville on August 4th, Canyondam on August 5th, and Warner Valley on August 12th.
Two years have passed since the Dixie Fire was contained. Estimates of the total timber destroyed range from 10 to 12 billion board feet on private and public timber combined. The bulk of the private timber has been salvaged. Upwards of 10 billion board feet of public timber remains standing, most of it worthless as lumber at this point. Between 2021 and 2024, the Forest Service Dixie Fire salvage program is estimated to yield 64 million board feet, or .64 percent of the burned timber. The Dixie Fire landscape is destined to rot, grow brush, and reburn.
There is no Ellis Lucia documenting the Dixie Fire story. The scenario that exists on the Dixie Fire today reflects the deterioration of forest management that has been quietly progressing through the western timber-producing states for over four decades, accelerating dramatically since the turn of this century. The extreme environmental groups are being allowed to “manage” our forests by litigation.
The end result is that grossly overcrowded forests rot from insect attacks and burn in catastrophic wildfires while America increasingly imports lumber from other countries. Consider this from the United States International Trade Commission: in 2020 the US imported $44.6 billion of forest products. 16% of US imports (over $7 billion) came from China, the country that is the leading importer of lumber in the world.
The logger sat before the California Legislature at a hearing called to discuss the condition of California’s forests. His testimony was quick and to the point. He told the chairman, “I have some bad news, and some even worse news for you.” The chairman asked the logger to tell the bad news first. “The bad news is that even though California is one-third forested, it now imports over 75% of its wood products. In 1985 California had 150 sawmills. Now, in 2023, only 27 sawmills remain. The chairman replied, “I had no idea . . . what could possibly be worse than that?” The logger said, “We’ve been telling you this for over 50 years. Now America, with almost 780 million acres of forests, is the second leading IMPORTER of lumber in the world, only behind China.
The joke I started with and the story of the logger both have bad news and then worse news, but the difference is, in the joke the patient has no hope. He dies. In the story of the logger, there is still some hope, but only if legislators and agencies recognize that time is getting short for our western forests and take bold action.
Like the legacy of the Tillamook, our legacy needs to be one of achievement. The apathy of “Dixie” stands in the way.
- Mike Albrecht, President, American Loggers Council
The American Logger – A Legacy of Achievement
Mike Albrecht has a master’s degree in forestry from Duke University, is a Registered Professional Forester in California, and has worked for over 45 years in forest management and the forest products industry.
Mike currently serves as president of the American Loggers Council and is a past president of Associated California Loggers and the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference.