How the forest-wide plan determines timber offered for sale
In the first two parts, you learned how the Forest Plan is organized, and how the Forest Service designates land for different kinds of logging, restoration, and recreation. Now let's talk about how the Plan is applied in local logging projects.
On all national forests, the US Forest Service auctions off rights to log trees off the public land to the paper and timber industry. This is called a timber sale. In order to prepare a timber sale, the Forest Service goes back to the computer with all the stand data, and asks it to report all the logging the forest plan says they should do in a specific project area. A project area is a section of the national forest that the agency manages all in one chunk, drawn along watershed and landscape ecosystem boundaries. Timber sales are usually named after a lake or river in the project area.
| In each project area, Forest Service staff or contractors survey stands of timber large enough to send to mills, and survey for important wildlife and plants in habitat that should be protected. When they compile this information they have a sense of how the area will contribute to the goals set in the forest plan for its zone, landscape ecosystem, and management area. | See a list of timber sales in Minnesota currently up for public input. |
| The Echo Trail logging project is a good example. This project area covers 126,000 acres north of Ely and Lake Vermilion. It covers a large chunk of the Jack Pine-Black Spruce LE, so the RNV goals for that LE apply. | Forest Watch: Echo Trail
project What are LEs, MAs and Zones again? Learn about RNV goals. |
| The Echo Trail project area falls within Zone 3, so no large-patch goals apply. But how much habitat will be lost is still important. | Why are large patches of unfragmented habitat important? |
Next lesson: Learn about RNV goals.