Defining Sustainable Forest Management
Sustaining Where? On What Scale?
In a global marketplace, the scale of sustainability is often vague. Our forest types should be sustained on a township, or at least on a sub-watershed scale. Each township should be able to sustain forest products such as fuel, as well as native wildlife.
Sustaining When?
Time
Is clearcutting of an entire township every 50 years considered sustainable forestry? Yes, but no. Sure, it can be done that way for the next 1,000 years, but will all the values of sustainability mentioned earlier be maintained? No!
Even-Flow is the Way-to-Go!
The best strategy for sustainable forestry is for a sustainable annual harvest within each township. The amount of time required to produce the intended values is the rotation time. For example, if you want to harvest 15" tolerant hardwoods, and it takes 100 years to grown tolerant hardwoods, then you should do partial harvest taking about 1%/year/township. Each forest type will have minimum sustainable rotation periods for different goals. The minimum goal should be an even flow of wood, and some areas should be managed on longer rotations to support wildlife associated with mature forest conditions, and to produce large saw timber.