Introduction

The purpose of my blog is to share with you what I have learned based on my experience as a practicing forester in California and Washington and as the general contractor in our former homestead in Mendocino County, California and our current homestead in Kittitas County, WA. As a forester, for more than a decade, I have practiced forestry within the context of a strong land ethic that endeavors to balance economic return with the beauty, clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat, recreation and carbon storage offered by well managed forests. As home and property owners, my family and I challenge ourselves to make our footprint smaller, through conservation, sourcing quality materials from well managed sources as close to home as possible and use of alternative technologies within a budget. Thank you for visiting my blog and I hope that the information provided will help you as a steward of the forest and in the place that you call home.

September 25, 2005

Balancing Economics and Ecology

By Thembi Borras

Ask not what your forest can do for you instead ask what you can do for your forest. The reversal of this relationship is not mutually exclusive. Breaking forestland into ever smaller parcels, called forest fragmentation and converting forestland are widely considered "not good" for the forest. It is likely that the forest will benefit if forestland owners are able to withstand the lure of higher incomes from other uses. Forestland owners receiving income from forest management are better able to carry on, thus not fragmenting or converting forestland further.

If receiving income from forest management is key to keeping forestland intact so is forest management in which less than maximum profit is accepted to better support forest related values, including watershed, wildlife, aesthetics and recreation. Balancing economic return and ecosystem return is the challenge for foresters today. Mendocino County and Humboldt County forestland offer some examples of this balance.

Political Scientist William Obhuls stated, "Nature abhors a maximum." Following is Dr. Garrett Hardin's interpretation of this quote: What Obhuls meant by this: that if a you settle on a single measure of excellence, such as profit in a profit and loss system, and decide you're going to maximize the profit, no matter what, you can be quite sure that before you get through, you will have minimized some other value that you hadn't thought of, but which you really have high regard for. So the idea is, don't be so one-minded as to try to maximize any one thing. But instead, say here's a whole mixture of things I would like to have. Profit is one of them. Also, you would like to have beautiful scenery; you would like to have some wild animals, some wilderness areas, and so on; and you cannot maximize all at once.

September 4, 2005

Road Drainage

By Thembi Borras

Chances are you have seen the result of poor road drainage manifested in water that has been allowed to concentrate and reach a velocity that moves soil causing accelerated erosion. Addressing road drainage is central to meeting two of the road management goals, reducing chronic delivery of sediment and reducing maintenance.

There are three ways to drain a road. Insloping is where the roadbed is tipped toward the cutbank, water flows to the inside ditch where it mixes with flow intercepted from the hillslope. The water is then carried to a ditch relief culvert and underneath the road to the outside edge of the road. Outsloping is where the roadbed is tipped out; water is not concentrated and flows to the outside edge of the road. Rolling dips supplement outsloping by insuring water gets across the road. The third way to drain a road is crowning, 1/2 the roadbed is tipped out and 1/2 the roadbed is tipped in.

Any of these methods, installed well, will minimize chronic erosion. The key is to drain roads well and frequently onto stable surfaces.

After road improvement, chronic erosion will continue. However, improvements are intended to minimize and redirect the sediment generated to stable locations and filter strips, such that the sediment has a chance to drop out before reaching the waterway, thus disconnecting roads from streams.

For more information on road drainage reference the Handbook for Forest and Ranch Roads by Pacific Watershed Associates or the "Roads" video, adapted from the Handbook. Both are available through the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District (707-468-9223) and the Navarro River Resource Center (707-895-3230).