Good morning with news from Minnesota Public Radio on Chris Roberts. The National Weather Service says North Dakota and areas of northern Minnesota will get hit with another winter storm today, Minnesota Public Radio news. Hope Deutsche reports for more hat under a blizzard warning with up to 9 inches of snow expected in the northern part of the valley already classes are canceled in Grand Forks, including the University of North Dakota to Moorhead public and non-public schools have closed blizzard conditions are expected to hit the Grand Forks area this afternoon officials across North Dakota or warning motorists roads are slippery due to blowing snow and freezing rain snow is already falling in Northwestern Minnesota. The Weather Service says 5 to 8 in of snow Should Fall by this evening. The storm is expected to move into North Central Minnesota later today. The Weather Service says Northerly winds will increase to 20 to 30 miles per hour causing blowing and drifting snow. No travel advised in the area today and tonight.I'm hope torture Minnesota Public Radio Twin Cities literary groups will complete the purchase of a vacant Warehouse near the Metrodome today. The 50,000 square foot building wood house milkweed editions The Loft literary Center in the Minnesota Center for book Arts. The groups have been working for two years on the project. Each of the organization's would have its own space in the building. There are winter storm warnings for Northwestern Minnesota today and for far Northern Central Minnesota today into tonight and advisories winter weather advisories for West Central Minnesota today and the northeastern portion of the state today and tonight snow accumulating from 5 to 8 in in the Northwestern part of the state by this evening. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio and Chris Roberts. NPR's Main Street radio coverage of Royal issues is supported by the blandin foundation committed to strengthening communities through grant-making leadership training and convening. Good morning, and welcome to a special Main Street radio broadcast on Timber Minnesota's first and still one of its largest Industries. I'm Rachel reabe and we're broadcasting today from Duluth, Minnesota Public Radio Studios of wscn and wcsd. We're bringing together an environmentalist for supervisor and an industry spokesman to answer your questions during the second hour of our show, but first, let's listen to a five-part report on Minnesota's Timber industry and titled our state our forest the series airs this week on Minnesota Public Radio All Things Considered At the turn of the century much of Minnesota's Northern Forest was leveled by logging in massive fires. Now the state is in the midst of a second extensive round of cutting the supply new and expanded meals that have sprung up since the early 1980s in the years since the mill expansions. Begin Timber harvesting in Minnesota has increased more than 60% to the highest level since 1909 slowly the face of Minnesota's Northern forests is changing their few places anymore. You can walk the kind of forest that covered Northern Minnesota 150 years ago giant white pines Rose to 200 feet when Minnesota became a state more than half its land was in deep shade though vast the great North Woods weren't Limitless by the turn of the century Minnesota Timberwolves being marketed from New York to Denver the expanding Frontier needed wood and 30,000 Lumberjacks were doing their best to supply it. Timber was far-and-away the big Industry in the state at a change the very landscape. We live in Main Street radios life anger reports. There's a Woods north of Grand Rapids called the lost 40 in an age when policymakers argue whether a tree is old growth at 90 years or a hundred and twenty. The lost 40 is the real thing. It's never been cut. Some of these white pines are 400 years old in the 1830s three and a half million Acres of Minnesota Forest were dominated by such Pines of the Lost forty since Forester Chuck Winegard is still here only because of a mistake what's a surveyor and the the area that we're looking at was Miss me out of this part of Coddington lake. So I sent it showed in the survey records as Lake. Nobody could buy it and if they couldn't buy it they can cut the Timber from it. So it's hard for us to see you at today. Traditionally measuring 4 and 1/2 feet from the ground. So that's approximately here. Okay and are diameter on this one is 39.6 in circumference versus so 10.9 feet You're probably looking at. 2000 board feet of Lumber in a in a tree that size 400 years old 2000 board feet and nothing one tree for a 2 stall garage or a century ago a small barn Farmhouse or church in 1837 a treaty with a Jibo Indians the same treaty now being contested over hunting and fishing rights open the large triangle of East Central Minnesota to logging but the hay day was still 50 years off. Most of the Timber being used to build the American frontier was being cut in the Abundant Pine Forest of Michigan and Wisconsin what jump-started the timber trade in? Minnesota was a potent Union of technology and demand steam power began to replace water power in the Sawmills before this time you we had to be close to a Watercourse of some kind preferably a Falls Saint Anthony Falls to create water pressure to allow for for Sawmills. Skip Drake is director of the forest History Center. Museum in Grand Rapids steam began to be applied to the Sawmill business which allowed Sawmills to locate virtually any placement up towards Duluth Cloquet Brainerd Bemidji. So there closer to the resource simultaneously the Pine Forest of Michigan and Wisconsin began to give out the lumber company. So Minnesota is the new Eldorado. I promised land of pines with settlement springing up across the Northern Plains. There wasn't just a demand for wood there was desperation for it certainly login highball and that's what happened in the 1880s and you needed good cheap Lumber to help build this country Minnesota to turn of the century was the was the king of white pine logging and the white pine was king of Minnesota's economy in 1901 when Teddy Roosevelt took office 30,000 Lumberjacks were working in the forest. They were European immigrants and part-time. Farmers who slept 2 to a bunk in the logging camps at 8 and Norma's breakfast yet pancakes before heading out to the woods Small Wonder The Lumberjack is an epic figure the trees were epic often 200 ft tall and 6 ft wide waist high even the way they fell was epic once. I got hit in the face and cut my lips a branch punch through my cheek and knocked out a bunch of tea. I was cutting the tree down and it fell over on top of me and that morning. It was about thirty below it broke my leg to had to crawl out about a half a mile spent 90 days in the hospital pretty goofy. Why isn't it each pair of lumberjacks might cut only a few dozen trees per day using an 8-foot Crosscut saw and a team of horses to drag out the logs. But so large was the workforce and so numerous the camps it soon became plan, but white pine was no endless resource people really began to know as early as the 1860s and 1870s at the forest were exhausted, but let me think about it. They were exhaustible back in Maine in the 1800's to turn in that Century. Clearly, you know, they knew that that the Pinewood not last that you'll ask him. Is that the plow follow the ax it happened in those States and I happened in the Ohio River Valley and even in neighboring Wisconsin and happened and the true belief was that that farming would come here in northern Minnesota and be successful so much of Minnesota's forestlands changed into cultivated Fields pastors Meadows old photographs show The Towering White Pine stands of superiors North Shore laid bare wood farming was to fail and much of northern Minnesota and does lumbermen moved on into the arrowhead and Mississippi headwaters. The plow wasn't the only thing following the axe Genie coffee is director of the Hinckley fire Museum. All they wanted was the trunk of the tree. They didn't want the tops. They didn't want the branches. So that was left to lay that became known as / any spark from a tree. Ignore any lightning strikes or anyting could really start a fire very spontaneously with this very dry / in August of 1894 General CC Andrews of the US Army made a speech to Timber industry leaders. He just returned from studying forestry techniques and Sweden and he was alarmed if the lumber companies didn't change their practices. He warn't the Midwest would go up in Flames 9 days later part of it. Did you can still find stamps from the fair? You can still see for instant where these enormous trees were just blown right out of the earth and even today if you dig down into the town of Hinckley, you can see the fire line. It's a it's about a foot down and you can see the black fire line and it's built right on right on Tinder some the fire. The great Hinckley fire was like nothing the stated ever seen traveling faster than a horse could Gallop it blackened 400 square miles and 4 hours it burn besides Hinckley. The towns of sandstone Mission Creek Pokegama Miller and ask off the glow of the fire was visible from Iowa and Anonymous Survivor wrote this account of Escaping The Blaze in a shallow Creek as we got in the water a bunch of confused. You erase past us right into the blast that road over us and seconds Wilson was in the Middle with a wet coarse wool sock held over his mouth with his left hand with his right. He splashed water over us and the creekbank I went under is the water sizzled with the Reign of Fire brands that warm the water and killed the fish in seconds. I breathe through my wet shirt when I came up for air the Hinckley fire killed 413 people it was Front Page News Nationwide and in Europe where articles appeared with grim pencil drawings depicting oxidized bodies. I'm in smoking ruins. It also helped arouse a national debate over how to manage for us early conservationists including Sierra Club founder John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt. Began to argue for Federal Regulation of Timber some like General Andrews and Gifford Pinchot lobbied for replanting and rotation cutting old ideas in Europe. But revolutionary in America Char Millar is a historian with Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. We can see the sort of transfer of ideas and transfer Technologies the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a really fertile moment for the United States in which many many ideas much like these were pouring across the North Atlantic and really transform the way the Americans understood the world. So began the environmental debate that endures to this day how much of the forest should be used and how much left alone in 1892 John Muir founded the Sierra Club to proclaim the aesthetic values of Christine Woods his friends Gifford Pinchot thought pristine was well and good but didn't put bread on the table pincho a skillful politician lobbied for controlled logging mining. Grazing In National Forest Teddy Roosevelt named him head of the brand new u.s. Forest service and while he did push for reforestation Minnesota's White Pines continue to be cut at unsustainable rates. There's no way that the economic value of the white pine so that people could stop that and locomotive is a former Forest Service biologist and founder of the Ely based upon Society in the 1920s concerns over the loss of the giant trees led to a massive replanting program, but there was a problem American nurseries didn't have enough space to raise the seedlings for the Scentsy. Over to Europe to be grown in the European nurseries. And when they brought those seedlings back for planting They Carried European White Pine blister rust when some of those seedlings died of blister rust Rodger says, the whole effort was dropped sometimes red Pines were planted in their place. Sometimes nothing at all in many cases White Pine clear-cut came up and asked. Another aggressive species by the mid-1930s Minnesota's White Pine Sol. La Guerra was finished for the Pulp and Paper industry remained most lumber companies moved on to the next Eldorado the Pacific Northwest. They left behind Mill towns. They brought to existence hundreds of marginal farms and thousands of unemployed loggers. They also left behind a forest changing over to Aspen and other fast-growing species trees that would become the focus for Minnesota's 2nd Great Wave of logging a century after the first The old growth forests were long gone Minnesota's Timber industry revived in the 1980s when new technology made the comment aspen tree a desired commodity for a decade Minnesota had the fastest growing timber trade in the country, but even is Pulp paper and chipboard Mills continue to expand questions have Arisen about whether the forest is growing as fast as the business it support my finger continues his report when George Foreman was a young Lumberjack in the 1920s and 30s, the men used axes and Crosscut Saws and horses and they cut Big Pines nothing scrawny. I never work in the camp that they cut Popple if it's him and drag him out of the way. Aspen was Weeds, you know Mormon witness the end of the giant saw La Guerra by the mid thirties the Great White Pines were all but gone and huge tracts of forestland are starting to come back as pulpwood jackpine at Aspen 60 years later. These are the trees everyone wants no one calls them weeds anymore. 3rd Generation longer Robin Walsh swivels inside the beeping blinking cockpit of the family punzi A logging machine with a robotic arm what I'll do to the tree it reaches out 33 ft. So I can sit in one place and then pick quite a few trees out the puns. He's armed groups a jackpot and automated chainsaw cuts it off the base the pine tilts and Spike rollers Force the trunk between a set of heavy blade limbs drop away. The trunk is sliced into clean 8-foot logs describing. It takes longer than doing it. The login tradition has turned inside out from George Foreman's day. The trees are smaller. The machines are bigger. The workforce is much smaller. There are fewer than a thousand full-time loggers today compared with 30,000 at the turn of the century. Yep Timbers still Northern Minnesota economic engine a 7 billion dollar industry that starts right up here in a computerized. Can I have a little nephew? That's three almost four years old now, he just love sitting in here is like a video game. Really? I mean you're sitting here watching the all the window. Pushing buttons like the walshes cut 4 million cords of wood annually in Minnesota. That's a pile 4 ft wide 4 ft high and six thousand miles long about half that woodpile is Aspen which grows so fast and migrated so easily it invaded much of the Pine Forest land that was logged off early this Century tall and slim with smooth greenish Trunks and trembling leaves that turn gold and Autumn Aspen is sought by the paper industry because it's dense fibers make strong paper. It also makes good OSB that's oriented strand board the sheathing you see on new home before the siding goes on Minnesota has so much Aspen but in the last 50 years paper and OSB plant spent 3 billion dollars building new factories or expanding old ones. The Potlatch company has three Minnesota OSB plants. Like this one is Grand Rapids a log riding. The automated line is debarked song too short links and fed into what's called a wafer Riser from which it emerges as a pile of thin Flakes a few inches long the flakes passed through cylindrical twirling dryers as big as school buses that are aligned and crisscross layers and permeated with residents and wax before being pressed into sheets stand back since plant manager. Randy Anderson the presses breed Heat. We have about two thousand pounds per square inch on the mat and about 400 degrees Fahrenheit temperature is actually what activates the resins OSB factories like this one employ hundreds of minnesotans. This is highly automated manufacturing. You can walk much of the line without seeing a soul that and cheap Aspen have made OSB. So economical to produce it now claims 50% of the market once on buy plywood. Ron Salsbury is potlatches vice president for Minnesota wood products in the early eighties. Well, I wasn't that unusual to have 300 or so workers are laying up the plywood today. If you look at it at an OSB plant a particular shift takes a 22 people to run a 12-hour shift that's from guard to supervisor to the maintenance to Quality Control. That's everybody that takes to make a quality product. Remember that 6000 mile pile of wood OSB accounts for 2000 of those miles all by itself simultaneously the paper industry has mushroomed every major paper producer in Minnesota has expanded since 1980 all this growth driven by Aspen and says Doctor Jim Boyer who teaches wood and paper science at the University of Minnesota by those famous spotted owls in the forest of Oregon. Elsa's gain and then the case of the Pacific Northwest were they were massive job losses and so on we saw tremendous growth of Minnesota's Forest industry and I think in fact it for a 10-year. Starting in the early 1980s. We were the fastest growing Forest products industry of any estate in the 50 states has put pressure on Minnesota forests and on the industry, they support environmentalist contended too much logging was underway, the state-sponsored a generic environmental impact statement or GE is designed to guide future Timber policy. The GE is has been denounced by environmentalists to say it's too industry-friendly allowing. For example, a possible increase in logging to four and a half million chords per year. Industry spokesman Wayne Brandt says the increase wouldn't hurt the forest a bit but says pressure from environmental groups has already taken a lot of trees off the market for a service has decreased the amount of a Timber that they put up for sale. Now, the DNR has decrease the amount that they put up for sale. Now, there's only so much shifting between landowners that can occur in the past the industry bought about half its trees from National Forest State and County Land the other half from private landowners Brant says with public sources scaling back. The price of raw Timber is climbing some manufacturers now import a percentage of their pulp from Canada. Their stumpage is under $5 and ours is in on 35 and above. If so the trees in Minnesota get too costly the manufacturing plants only have two choices find less costly fiber. Are shot themselves down the first option may be difficult Environmental Studies show in a decade or less there could actually be a shortage of Minnesota Aspen of the size used in paper and OSB. Meanwhile Mills in Canada, and the southern us are giving Minnesota producers more competition each year. Your clone is an M6. It's actually a cross between the black topper from Europe and Maxim easy out of Japan tested. Well in Minnesota winters and you can see that it's grown. We must be pushing 26 27 feet now to supplement what maybe a shrinking would Supply the industry is turning to science Boise Cascade is one of several papermakers playing with Aspen genetics. This NM 6 clone 26 ft tall is just two years old in a fusion of Forestry and agriculture. The company has least 700 acres to test thousands of hybrids research had Tom Nichols describes the ideal Aspen. The perfect tree would be almost 100% fiber Center. Bar could be an ideal sing nice white color insect resistance disease resistance cold hardiness is crucial to us though still experimental here. Boise Cascade has an 18000 acre fiber Farm in Washington state the trees there reach 80 ft. And 6 years and are cut for pulp every paper maker in Minnesota is either experimented with hybrid or considering it the U of M's. Jim Boyer says in a culture torn between consumption and preservation growing wood fiber as an agricultural crop, maybe an important compromise States every year we use more wood than All Metals fall Plastics in Portland and masonry cement combined and yet our willingness to put up with the impacts of producing basic raw materials appears to be pretty much at an all-time low somehow we've got to find a way to bring those two things in the sink. They have to come from someplace displayed wood. Supply worries lawyer believes the US market for paper and OSB will continue to drive Minnesota is Tim. Industry at least one market analyst has predicted a slow down for the industry in 1999 followed by a recovery in 2000 or 2001 Les Fenger, Minnesota Public Radio. Coming up at noon today is a conversation with Jim Sanders of the Superior National Forest Betsy. With the Audubon Society and Wayne brand representing Minnesota Forest Industries. The phone lines will be open for your questions and comments. But first, let's take a look at this changing winter weather today for koochiching Northern St. Louis County's The Boundary Waters canoe area, including International Falls and Ely and voyageurs National Park and Grand Marais heavy snow and blowing snow is making driving dangerous winter storm warning is in effect for this afternoon. And tonight a band of heavy snow has become established across the warning area. They're talking about snowfall rates of an inch or two per hour some locations could receive up to a foot of new snow from the storm by evening heavy snow made briefly diminish and some areas but is expected to resume and continue this afternoon and through tonight driving will be dangerous is some roads become blocked. Travel is not recommended in the warning area. Unless absolutely necessary. In the Twin Cities, there's a 50% chance of rain possibly changing to light snow tonight and a 40% chance of light snow tomorrow morning. Mpr's Main Street radio coverage of rural issues is supported by the blandin foundation committed to strengthening communities through grant-making leadership training and convening. We invite you to visit the Main Street website go to www.mpr.org where you can hear today's program at your convenience. The address again is www.npr.org. I'm Rachel reabe. This is a special to our Main Street radio broadcast from Duluth on Minnesota's Timber industry. We're listening to our state are for us a five-part series airing this week on Minnesota Public Radio All Things Considered The vast Woodlands of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and upper Michigan have long served as a refuge for wildlife but is the intensified logging continues environmentalists and many biologists are concerned that birds and wildlife that depend on older diverse for us will suffer Minnesota public radio's Mary Lozier report in the third part of our series on Timber Harvest issue. You can see the changes in Minnesota's forests near cash Lakes cabin near Remer in northern Minnesota lock of former school teacher bought her land there in 1968 and those days she says there was logging in the woods, but it was different than it is now they would select certain a certain species cut it with a chainsaw and move it out with the lights Kidder. I know when I'm seeing now is semis in our for us. I counted at one time 35 going down Highway 6 out here within 5 hours loaded to the gills I go out and I watch How It's being cut today. I see huge Machine Heavy machines Feller bunchers heavy Skidders out there cutting everything off. A few miles from her cabin luck walkthrough a leveled area the size of several football fields. Only a few dozen trees are still standing clear cutting methods like these account for more than 80% of Timber harvesting in Minnesota. Originally. I was not against logging now that I blocked these for us and and seeing what's going on. I'm pulling back from walking them anymore because it is too disheartening as a copy of a Sierra Club book called clear-cut with photos of vast denuded Landscapes many of them in the Western United States. The logging in Minnesota doesn't look like the Sierra Club pictures though. It's in much smaller patches less visible in the state's flat terrain cuts near highways are along spots frequent by tourists are hidden behind quarters of trees called Beauty strips. But Betsy. Above the national Audubon Society says Minnesota's Northwoods are slowly changing as older. With a mixture of different types of trees are clear-cut and converted into young stands dominated by one species Aspen Aspen is a fast-growing tree that Sprouts from stump is left after clear cutting a perfectly good tree the proliferation of it across the northern landscape means that we are simplifying our forest and we are making it a much younger Force than it historically has been and then the concern is what happens to all the plants and animals that have evolved over time with a much more diverse and a much older forest and older forest with many different types and sizes of trees looks different from the young uniform stands that Sprout after clear cutting it also sounds different. At dawn in the Chippewa National Forest wildlife biologist read a higher. It listens intently to the bird song all around her. Did you have any idea behind me there? Really, Appetite there sounds like here. I am look at me here. I am this particular site is a mature diverse Forest old Aspen with Birch fur and some Maple next in the birds calling here are typical of that kind of diverse habitats. A few miles away is a site that was clear-cut 15 years ago. It's grown back to a Brushy uniform Thicket of 10 to 15 foot tall Aspen trees what Foresters call a regenerating stand her at notes down songs from a few bird species that like shrubby habitats. But most of the bird song seems to come from outside the Aspen tickets to live in hearing a lot of birds are outside a hundred meters and actually within the regenerating stand. I'm noticing and the birds here seem much more distant there. Just that far away, right? And they're probably singing from the mature forest or somewhere else outside of this stand of regenerating Aspen. His was quiet to hear the question now is whether so many of Minnesota's older diverse forests are being cut down that Wildlife that depend on order for us will suffer Wayne Brandt Executive Vice President of Minnesota Forest Industries a trade group representing the state's biggest pulp paper and lumber Mills dismisses the idea. There is too much logging soda, we grow approximately 7.42 million cords of wood a year. We presently Harvest 3.8 million cords of wood. So the Harvest level is substantially below the growth of the level of Timber harvesting is still so low and Minnesota has so many trees that logging is not making a dent in the state's older forest habitat besides projections that show the area of the state solder Forest will actually increased despite the cutting because so many middle-aged trees are being left untouched to go. Going to older Forest harvesting occurs on a little over 1% of the Acres of forest land in any given year. So while harvesting has increased in the past 20 or 25 years, we believe that it's been done responsibly and continues to be done responsibly and that there is an opportunity for additional increases on into the future in a responsible manner. They say the industry's assurances that the area of older Forest will increased are based on shaky models and faulty projections and University of Minnesota Forest ecologist. John pastor says while logging 1% of forest land a year might not sound like much the vast majority of that is clear cutting and clear cutting 1% of the forest a year means 10% in 10 years and half of it in 50 years. He says under that scenario. Huge tracts of older diverse forests will be lost at the rate of 1% of the acreage per year. And that's a lot because it's 1% per year going into those kinds of young Forest over a long. Of time much of the forest gets converted to younger age classes. Pastor says given the industry's current practice of cutting trees at younger and younger ages. Once those stands are clear-cut. They will be cut again before they can mature. So those clear-cut areas will not revert back to older diverse Forest. It's not easy to tell which side is right the industry or its critics. There are no up-to-date Forest inventories that show clearly weather the composition of Minnesota's forests is changing both sides off inside a massive state-sponsored study completed in 1994, but its rounds of tables and statistics can be selectively use to support widely different interpretations of what's actually going on in Minnesota's Forest the issue of whether the state is losing too much of its older Forest has deeply divided the State Department of Natural Resources, which is responsible both for making Timber sales on state land and for protecting the state's Wildlife some DNR staff say there is little cause for worry the younger forests Left Behind after clear-cutting provide good habitat for popular game species, notably moose and whitetail deer deer populations have been thriving in part due to the increase. Clear-cutting but others in the agency Express deep concern. Something's got to give says one DNR biologist who declined a taped interview Gretchen mammal Red Lake Area Wildlife manager for the DNR says Foresters and biologists make the best decisions. They can when deciding where to log and how many stands of older tree is to leave for wildlife, but it's a hard call. There's so much that is unknown. And you know, I just hope when I drive by a stand where I used to you notes when I did a burden survey heard a Wood Thrush and now the Sands been cut and you can't hear the wood thrushes call anymore. And I just hope that we're making the correct decisions and that there are other areas where the Wood Thrush can go and then eventually come back then stand when that's and Rose up again because there is so much uncertainty over the effect of logging on Minnesota Wildlife. The DNR is overseeing an 8-year study of Minnesota's Forest birds in locked and unlocked areas the study Show no clear overall patterns its usefulness is limited because it applies only to the most abundant species since two-thirds of Minnesota's Forest birds are too rare to accurately monitor University of Minnesota Forest ecologist, John Pastor. Where is that by the time scientists can find out for sure whether stepped-up Timber harvests are hurting the state's Wildlife. It will be too late and he says the wider question is not what level of logging Wildlife can live with but what kind of forest minnesotans want to see in the future. You want to see predominately Forest that are 30 and 40 years old or younger. Yeah, I think what people should do is go look at a 30 year old forced into it. Looks like there's lots of it around its thick Aspen maybe 6 in diameter and with not a whole lot underneath it and look at it and say think about the whole of northern Minnesota being predominantly in this kind of forest. Is that what you want to bequeath your grandchildren Timber industry Representatives say this vision of a radically changed face of Minnesota's Forest will never come true. It will be decades before the citizens of Minnesota can see who's right. Minnesota's Timber Harvest is increased 60% since 1980 when the Pulp and Paper industry begin multimillion-dollar expansions at Mills across Northern Minnesota concerns over the stepped-up logging have long prompted calls for improved forestry practices to protect woodland plants and Wildlife. The timber industry says there has been substantial progress but environmentalists say there have been few real reforms Mary Lozier continues her report. We're skipping a thousand feet above the Treetops from that altitude. You can make out the various shapes and colors of the Superior National Forest the dark spires of Evergreens and bright green puffy tops of Birches and Aspens biologist. Chill Anderson looks down at the line that divides The Boundary Waters canoe area Wilderness, which is protected from cutting from the rest of the Superior National Forest, which is not the difference is Stark. It's really obvious where the working for us, the the harvestable part of the forest and the Wilderness begin the Wilderness really hear you. Look out on contiguous Forest. It's on roaded. It's it's not fragmented if the Wilderness looks like a new Green carpet the working Forest alongside. It looks like an old ragged one the brown patches of recent clear-cuts look as though the carpet had worn through to the bare floor here in Where you can see roads leading to piles of Grey down trees the view from the air is eye-opening. It's clear the extent of the logging as much greater than anyone would realize from the ground and her son of former Forest Service employee who is now an independent Consulting biologist is disturbed by both the amount of locking and how it's being done good example of how there's been. But without much attention to the landscape results Anderson calls it the cookie cutter approach to 4th Street uniform 40 to 100 Acre clearing a cut then a fringe tree then another cut a pattern extending off into the distance. She says that approach Mesut people but it doesn't suit the wide range of animals and plants that live in the forest from songbirds to wildflowers to worms by chopping everything up into small part and not acknowledging them some some living things need different size cabin has in different combinations of habitats that are intact. We basically forgo the opportunity to serve those environmentalists have long been worried about practice is like meet their concerns about the effect of intensified logging prompted the state of Minnesota to sponsor a massive study known as the generic environmental impact statement, which was complete. In 1994 the GE is as it's known recommended changes in forestry practices. So stepped up Timber harvesting would not damage Minnesota's forest plants and Wildlife 1995 the Minnesota Legislature set up the forest Resources Council to draw a voluntary logging guidelines, but those guidelines are still not complete environmentalist like Betsy. Above Minnesota's National Audubon Society or getting tired of waiting since the beginning of this process studying and talking. It's been 9 years and we're still have years ahead of us according to the land managers before we might might visualize change on the ground and that's a very long time. And in the meantime, our forests are suffering Jim Merkel of the Minnesota Center for environmental. Advocacy says environmental groups are becoming more and more disillusioned with a lengthy bureaucratic workings of the forest Council. Does an environmental community that that think that this this has been the strategy all along for the forest products industry that just to stretch out the process to drag it out so that when sight level guidelines if any are implemented it will be way down the road in the meantime Oracle and others say hundreds of thousands of acres are being logged the vast majority of them clear-cut without proper safeguards to protect forest plants and Wildlife environmentalists. Like audubon's Betsy Dobbs. They even areas identified by Forest Service in Minnesota Department of Natural Resources biologist as Prime candidates for protection are being sold for Timber while the reform process Grimes on we feel since these are processes that are going to take years still and so we say what happens in the meantime. In the meantime, we see DNR Timber sales and Forest Service Timber sales in some of the Identified special place has the best the crown jewels of what we have left in Minnesota supporters of the state's current approach to Forest River Forum. Say the forest Resources Council is a national Model A process in which varied interests groups sit down together to work out difficult solutions to highly complex problems. The council's executive director. Mike kilgour defends the pace of progress. We're working in a collaborative mode for you know, we're not command-and-control. We are seeking approaches that bring people together and try to find common ground and when you do that, it takes the timber industry also defends the consensus approach Wayne Brandt Executive Vice President of Minnesota Forest Industries, a trade group of the state's largest pulp paper and saw mills says even without a formal guidelines there have been real on the ground reforms in logging practices those who would suggest the forest management has been static since the gis was in She added or was completed or that Forest management of Timber harvesting is done the same way today as it was done 15 years ago how to get out of their cars and get out into the woods and take a look at what's going on at 3/4 of the wood harvested in Minnesota is by certified loggers that loggers are leaving more standing trees for wildlife habitat. I'm leaving buffers along streams loggers have also invested in new equipment to reduce soil compaction and erosion Gerald Rose director of the State Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry says the DNR has made major policy changes to ensure that increased Timber harvesting does not diminish the biological richness of the state 11 years ago. We have an extended rotation Forest program. List of happened because the need evolved as we begin to harvest more intensively it became necessary then to be to be more deliberate and identifying opportunities to maintain these kinds of habitats that that were going to be lost. If we didn't deliberately planned to get those done analysts say the real test of whether reforms are working is what happens to rare biologically Rich Forest Place is like a remote area in the Superior National Forest known as Big Lake 7 Beaver, the site has been identified by both state and federal biologists as a prime candidate for president in what environmentalist like dogwood call a crown jewel. From the air Big Lake 7 beer is a mosaic of different shades of green wild forest surrounded by Bob's Big shallow lakes and stretches of wild rice biologist shell and there was one of several scientists commissioned by the forest service and the DNR to identify places within the Superior National Forest as possible preserves. She rated Big Lake 7 Beaver at the top of the list because of its exceptional size diversity and lack of disturbance on the landscape scale. This has the potential to be a wonderful place to see the variety of habitats occurring in the natural landscape context and how those relationships play out in in in the natural world. The State Department of Natural Resources plans to build a road through big lake 7 Beaver to log DNR land inside the potential preserve DNR officials defend the timber sale, which was planned long before the area was identified as a value. Study site, but Anderson and other critics say the planned logging a big lake 7 Beaver is a prime example of the lack of true reform. If public land managers aren't willing to take the steps necessary. Well, then they should say so not say well. Yes. We wanted to ecosystem management or we want to you know, we want to lyrics the chorus for all values but yet we're not willing to change anything about the way we can manage the dnr's decision to sell timber in an area identified by its own studies as a potential preserve has been the subject of intense controversy within the agency One Source inside the DNR puts it this way. We're talking the talk, but we're not walking the walk it might be argued that no one else. I can be a test of how a whole state reform process is working. But if Big Lake 7 Beaver is such a test then Minnesota appears to be failing. efforts to preserve habitat for an elusive bird Could cause much greater restrictions on the logging of the state's older forests Mary Lozier continues in the Pacific Northwest millions of Acres of old-growth Timber have been protected from logging to save an endangered species. The famous spotted owl so far Minnesota has had no equivalent to the spotted owl but it's candidate for that role is an 18in tall Hawk with a slate gray back streaked breast and fierce red eyes, the northern goshawk from the point of view of conservationists eager to save Old Forest. The spotted owl was a perfect to federally endangered species that depended for its Survival on the ancient old growth forests of the west, but the goshawk isn't quite such a perfect tool to begin with it's not on the federal endangered species list, but it is a rare species that government agencies such as the forest service are obligated to protect and it may depend on just the kind of forest. Servatius in Minnesota want to save in the back. Look at its shadowy light filtering through the canopy of big Maples basswood's Aspen and other trees. I can just make out the clump of sticks in the crook of an old Aspen biologist Clint bowl is pointing out a guy hawksnest. The goshawks have gone hunting short perch and white Predator the flight to a perch and this is Under The Canopy of the forest, you know, what that the bottom of the canopy the trees they scanned the area for a minute or two and then move again scan move scan. They're Built For Speed for a quick Sprint and they have a long tail that act as a Rudder and gives him a real amazing degree of maneuverability and force provides an obstacle course in the goshawk is perfectly built to a to take on that challenge. The forest we are standing and is not true old-growth. It's not very Timber that has never been cut there's almost none of that left in Minnesota massive logging at the turn of the century wiped out the state's Cathedral light Groves of big white pines stand in the Chipola is what is now considered Old Forest for Minnesota mature trees that have grown back since the states Paul Bunyan era. The question now is whether the goshawk depends on these regrown mature Forest. This summer Bull radio colored nine goshawks in and around the Chippewa. Transmitters have a position switch so we can typically tell when they're perched and when they're flying the beep accelerates when they're flying through the forest to find out exactly where the birds hunted they mapped out the locations, which will be analyzed to find out exactly what kind of habitat the goshawk requires in Minnesota the timber industry environmental groups and the u.s. Forest service are cooperating on a two-year study all are anxious to find out whether in Minnesota the goshawk needs large blocks of mature forest or can coexist with extensive logging. They don't know the answer yet. But the stakes are high Raptor biologist Patricia Kennedy of Colorado State University says in other parts of the country there have been significant reductions in Timber harvesting to protect goshawk habitat and what they've done instead of just protecting the nest site which maybe say a 20-acre area What's up? What they look at is protecting the area where the bird nest as well as where the bird hunts and these birds hunt over four to six Thousand Acre areas. It's not clear. What effect protecting the entire range of nesting pairs of goshawks would have in Minnesota. No one knows exactly how many pairs of the birds live in the state? They're 13. No nests but goshawks are reclusive and notoriously hard to study and there have not been extensive surveys. Kennedy says whether the goshawk proves an effective tool to reduce Timber harvesting in Minnesota will also depend on whether State Environmental groups are willing to press the issue Jenny Yuengling Minnesota state director of the Sierra Club says so far many of them have been holding back my senses the most of the environmental organizations in Minnesota have not wanted to Develop a spotted owl like conflict in this state, even though that did a lot for raising the issue of logging in the western states and was a very good legal tool for slowing or stopping some of that logging Yuengling says the public often saw the spotted owl conflict as owls versus jobs instead of an issue of preserving Ancient Forest. The bodies of spotted owls were found nailed to road signs a backlash against the bird itself that environmentalist in Minnesota don't want to see happen to the goshawk Jim Merkel of the Minnesota Center for environmental. Advocacy calls fights over endangered species a backstop to use when all other efforts fail but he says as the logging of mature forest in Minnesota continues environmental groups are becoming more willing to consider such tactics no matter what happens with this issue will continue coming up. It's not something that We can avoid it if it's not the goshawk. It may be a different species of bird that is dependent or has some need for a Old Forest conditions. And we either address the problem now with with the goshawk or it will be another species. It will have to work with last year the Minnesota Center for environmental. Advocacy along with the Leech Lake band of Chippewa appeal that Timber sale in a goshawks territory in the Chippewa National Forest. The forest service suspended the sale indefinitely in the meantime, all sides are waiting for the results of the study of the goshawks habitat needs the timber industry does not expect it will have to make major changes Tim O'Hara of Minnesota Forest Industries a trade group representing the state's major pulp paper and lumber Mills says, there's no evidence that in the midwest the goshawk needs large box of unbroken Forest. Spray bases things like squirrels and rabbits and Grouse which is a name for a base 4th. And in those species are associated with younger force and I have the need for a older mature Forest comes with you know, where it where it makes its nest and raises Mosaic after Which Wich Minnesota has so, you know plenty plenty of that habitat company representative State Minnesota has plenty of older for us and can even increase logging rates without damaging Wildlife species like the goshawk John chill manager of public affairs for blandin Paper company in Grand Rapids. One of the state's biggest Timber users says from abroad environmental perspective cutbacks and Midwest logging aren't even a good idea. He says worldwide Demand for paper is growing and if less logging is done here more will be done in tropical rainforests and other places far less suitable to logging than the Midwest have to step outside Minnesota and say on a worldwide basis. What is the best where's the best place to be growing these Force for Industrial Products and your choice? It really comes down to the Upper Midwest with a thriving industry know or other places such as a eucalyptus plantations in South America, which are displacing huge areas of native rainforest in the richness of biodiversity that they represent Owl and the Canada Lynx are growing in Minnesota, but he says as an environmental issue Timber harvesting here is minor compared with the logging of Ancient Forest that sparked the spotted owl controversy out west Really difficult for me to to anticipates a representative of Earth First for example, chaining himself around a seventy-year-old aspen tree that is not to say that these are resources that we need to manage effectively. It's simply saying that the issues of the West in the issues of the Midwest are not comprable. It's true that cutting 100 year old trees in Minnesota is a less dramatic issue than the logging of thousand-year-old trees in the west. But the state is beginning to see more environmental activism as it's stepped up Timber Harvest continues for the past two Winters Earth First activists have protested in the woods of northern Minnesota. Nationwide environmental groups have begun to take more interest in the fate of regrown forest and to pressure the u.s. Forest service to let older trees revert to Wilderness instead of being cut for Pulp and Paper the goshawk maybe a player in this battle, but it's roll like it's few. Is still unclear I Mary Moser, Minnesota Public Radio. Our state our forest was written and produced by Mary Lozier and Leif enger edited by Bill abused and Bergen Mike Edgerly. I'm Rachel reabe next hour. You'll have a chance to call in with your questions and comments. It's all ahead after the news. On the next All Things Considered our series our state our forest continues to look at wildlife and logging All Things Considered weekdays at 3 on Minnesota Public Radio. You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. It's 43 degrees at k n o w FM 91.1 Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Today's Twin Cities weather calls for a 50% chance of rain with a high in the mid-40s 60% chance of precipitation tonight in the form of rain changing to light snow temperature again in the Twin Cities 43°