REGIONAL— A decision by the Department of Natural Resources to harvest red pine plantations at a younger age on state school trust lands has prompted concern among conservationists who worry it’s the first step towards a greater focus on generating dollars from timber cutting over the ecological benefits that forests also provide.

The policy change was approved in late 2012, but the effects of the change are only now being seen on the ground, which is why conservationists and others have begun paying attention to the issue once again. The new approach is designed to boost revenue to the state’s Permanent School Trust, and it comes at the direction of the Minnesota Legislature, which passed a law three years ago that requires the DNR to put economic return to the trust ahead of environmental stewardship goals.

The DNR manages about 48,000 acres of red pine plantations on school trust lands, according to Aaron Vande Linde, who coordinates the trust lands for the DNR. Such stands, many of which were planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps, don’t look much like traditional forests, with their trees planted in straight rows, and they typically lack the diversity of natural forest stands. Still, over time, they can begin to provide some of the ecological characteristics commonly found in old pine forests, which forest ecologists argue makes them valuable for more than just saw timber.

“It’s important to have some stands on the landscape that have these old characteristics with a lot of old, downed wood,” said Lee Frelich, a University of Minnesota forest ecologist. By allowing pine plantations to age to 100 years, Frelich said even pine plantations started to exhibit some of that natural structure, but that likely won’t be the case with significantly shorter rotations.

In the past, DNR foresters would arrange for two or three commercial thinnings of red pine plantations before a final clearcut harvest, typically at around 100-120 years of age. Under the new policy, the DNR will still conduct thinning cuts, which remove pole-sized trees and give room for the remaining trees to grow faster, but will undertake the final harvest on stands at between 60 and 70 years. Vande Linde said the DNR’s forest economists have determined the shorter rotation will help maximize the financial returns from these acres, as the Legislature has ordered.

Yet, the policy change will apply to more than just school trust lands, according to Andrew Arends, the DNR’s Forest Operations and Management Section Leader. It will also apply to other DNR-acquired lands, expanding the impact to about 36,500 additional acres of red pine plantation.

The change in policy does not apply to the approximately 22,000 acres of DNR-managed red pine of natural origin, according to Arends, and on that point conservationists express some relief since the natural stands tend to be more ecologically significant.

DNR officials argue the change is largely insignificant when considered against the size of the state’s forests overall. They note that the change only affects about 85,000 acres out of the 4.5 million acres of forestland the DNR oversees. And of that, notes Vande Linde, only a small percentage— about 2,500-3,000 acres— is currently 65 years or older and will now be subject to cutting over the next three-to-five years. “We’re talking about roughly 800 acres a year,” said Vande Linde. “I don’t think it’s as big a change as some people think.”

In addition, notes Arends, other landowners, particularly the U.S. Forest Service, several northern counties, and private owners, maintain the vast majority of the state’s red pine cover type and typically manage those acres for multiple uses, including environmental stewardship and recreation. He said the state often ended up with lands no one else wanted, and that means mostly lowland and lesser-valued timber. “We just don’t have a lot of pineland,” said Arends.

That’s all the more reason for the state to properly manage what it has, according to Don Arnosti, who oversees conservation issues for the Izaak Walton League of Minnesota. Arnosti, who sat through many of the meetings that led to the policy shift, said he has no doubt it was driven by the demands of industry, not by a desire to boost returns to the school trust. “This whole thing is being done to support the Potlatch stud mill in Bemidji,” he said. “That’s what’s going on here.”

While many of the state’s other sawmills are designed for larger saw logs, which require longer periods to grow, Arnosti said the Potlatch mill is designed for smaller logs, the kind that take about 60-70 years to grow.

“Potlatch was in these meetings saying they weren’t getting enough for studs,” he said.

Arnosti takes issue with the DNR’s economic analysis, suggesting the agency cooked the books to justify cutting red pine on such short rotations. “In their own model they describe saw timber of over 18 inches as having the highest economic return,” he said. And Arnosti dismisses the suggestion that the move is being undertaken to generate more money for schools. “The notion that we are going to log and mine our way to educational prosperity is a joke. This is about intensifying our use of resources.”

DNR officials counter, saying they have no interest in putting too much new red pine up for auction. “We don’t want to flood the market,” said Vande Linde. “It has to be able to handle that influx of additional wood,” he said.

So far, according to Vande Linde, demand for the red pine timber seems to be strong. On 12 sales (totaling 258 acres) offered in 2014, Vande Linde said most timber went for at least twice the base price. “The average bid was $73 per cord,” he said. “That demonstrated that the market can handle some additional wood.”

DNR officials estimate the change in policy will generate more revenue for the school trust, somewhere between $500,000 and $700,000 annually.

However, not all of that would go to the trust. The DNR is allowed to cover some of its management costs from the proceeds of the sales. The DNR is also required to reforest the sites after logging, which costs about $250-$300 an acre. But those costs are covered by state bonding, and so aren’t deducted from the proceeds to the school trust.

Policy change came following review

The change in DNR policy regarding red pine plantations on school trust lands came following an overall review of all of the agency’s extended rotation guidelines, which had been adopted in 1994 out of concern that sharp increases in harvest levels at the time could have left too little older forest on the landscape. DNR officials, at the time, addressed those concerns by agreeing to allow some stands to grow longer than the usual rotation.

But concerns about a shortage of older forests have eased significantly in recent years due to the loss of a number of wood mills around the state. The mill closings have significantly reduced demand for timber, and that’s pushed the statewide harvest level, which peaked at 4.1 million cords per year in the mid-1990s, to about 2.6 million cords in 2013.

According to Vande Linde, DNR officials and other stakeholders considered rotation changes for three species— aspen, black spruce, and red pine— but ultimately only agreed to a change for red pine plantations. That change first went into effect last year, but Vande Linde said as a policy it’s not a hard and fast rule. He noted that the DNR provides area foresters considerable discretion in determining when forest stands, including pine plantations, are appropriately harvested.

And while the DNR may hope to harvest as much as 800 acres of older plantations annually for the next few years, Vande Linde said he expects actual harvests to come in below that. “My projection is that DNR will offer roughly 400-500 additional acres of planted red pine annually until final harvest is completed for the 2,500 acres currently in the 65-plus age class,” he said.