The Truth about Timber Harvest at Salamonie River State Forest

Responses to claims about forest management

Many misleading claims have been made about the proposed timber harvest. Select a claim to reveal the truth.

• CLAIM: The Division of Forestry is planning to log 260,000 board feet out of 847,000 estimated board feet in the tract to be logged (Compartment 1, Tract 3, 121 acres). This is 31% of the stand and doesn’t count an untold amount of additional trees that the DOF is planning to take in a timber stand improvement (TSI) after the cut that it considers to be inferior species or “cull” trees such as American beech and various hornbeams and maples.

  TRUTH: Most of the planned harvest area (excluding some pine sections) has been previously harvested, once in 1980 and again in 1986. Forests are dynamic places where trees naturally grow and die, but through careful, sustainable management, we can improve wildlife habitat for a wider variety of species, maintain forest health and provide forest products that we all use. Division of Forestry data indicates 32,814 trees were harvested across State Forests last year. These same forests contain more than 7.3 million trees larger than 11 inches in diameter, which is less than one-half of one percent – a very, very small percentage. Because harvesting is done sustainably, these trees will naturally be replaced as State Forests continue to grow. Thirty-one percent of the forest will not be laid bare, as in a clear-cutting operation. The trees will be harvested by a well-planned thinning process.

• CLAIM: It plans to eliminate the sycamores and a native species that is not very common, Kentucky Coffeetree, entirely from the forest.

  TRUTH: Both of these species will remain part of the overall forest makeup at Salamonie River State Forest. In regards to sycamore, that species has a windblown seed that allows it to quickly invade any site with adequate moisture and bare soil. It is an aggressive competitor with other, longer-lived tree species that characterize older forest stands. Kentucky coffeetree has similar growth requirements to walnuts — to regenerate it needs a lot of sunlight on the forest floor. The planned timber harvest will help provide these conditions to allow the species to remain a part of the stand for many years to come.

• CLAIM: While DOF says a major purpose of the logging is to remove pine to allow native hardwoods to regenerate, the fact is only 29% of the wood harvested will be pine, so most of the trees logged will be the majestic hardwoods. Furthermore, the pine stands are receding with hardwoods already regenerating in them. Removing a lot of the pine and adjoining hardwoods all at once will change the character of the forest to make it much more sunny inviting in a lot of invasives and creating a virtual thicket that will be hard for hikers, horseback riders, and hunters to walk through.

  TRUTH: Single-tree harvesting has been a part of the management program at Salamonie River State Forest since its inception. More than 95% of all harvested acres on State Forests are done using single-tree selection—a process of thinning in which mature, sick and diseased trees are removed to allow for the natural regeneration of new trees. Harvesting these trees provides the growing space and conditions necessary for the natural process of forest regeneration. Terming the hardwood trees marked to be removed as “majestic” seems to conjure visions of a non-existing primal forest. The Management Guide developed and posted for this tract provides readers a clearer understanding of the tract’s far-from-pristine forest conditions.

• CLAIM: The DOF is planning to remove invasive, nonnative plants such as bush honeysuckle, autumn olive, and multi-flora rose in the timber stand improvement. However, these and other invasive species have been exploding across the state forests because the DOF’s logging is opening up the canopy to more sunlight and tearing up the forest floor, These changes give these aggressive invasive plants the advantage over native plants. Furthermore the DOF does not have the resources to go back into the forest regularly enough to control these hardy invasive plants which bounce right back from cutting.

  TRUTH: The invasive species present are not the result of past timber harvests. As mentioned previously, this stand has not been recently harvested—instead, these invasive species have “invaded” from off-site sources. The Division of Forestry continues doing its best to control these species; however, because these same invaders continue to push in from outside State Forest boundaries, it will take many, many years to bring the invasion issue under control. Some of the hardest sites in which to control invasives have been in old, declining pine plantations that originated on old agricultural sites. As these plantations continue to decline, sunlight becomes abundant on the open forest floor between the widely spaced trees, creating the perfect growing conditions for invasives to thrive. Converting these old plantations back to native hardwood stands would help to naturally slow the spread of invasives and better allow the Division of Forestry to control them.

• CLAIM: It is hard to find forests as large as the 1,000 acre block of forest provided by Salamonie State Forest for many miles across much of central and northern Indiana—particularly a forest that large that the public can enjoy as wild nature. And the Salamonie’s forested bluffs, ravines, limestone canyons, waterfalls and creeks which flow into the Salamonie River are a beautiful gem of wild nature—of state park caliber—worth preserving in their natural condition.

  TRUTH: A continuous forest of this size is, without question, rare in this portion of the state, and it is because of the Division of Forestry’s foresight and sustainable management program that it will remain that way well into the future. The Division of Forestry’s history with Salamonie River State Forest goes back a long way—some of the first purchases to the property were made in the early 1930s. Under the Division of Forestry’s management, the forest continues to provide numerous recreation opportunities (hiking, fishing, horseback riding and camping) and diverse natural communities, all while being managed as a productive and healthy working forest. The Division of Forestry has been doing this for more than 88 years at Salamonie River State Forest, and for more than 100 years across the entire State Forest system. Deep woods habitat does not disappear when forests are managed as presented in the Division of Forestry’s management guide. This statement also disregards the adjoining DNR and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Reservoir properties, which also conserve large forests on the landscape and contribute to the larger DNR land conservation portfolio in the area.

• CLAIM: While Salamonie River State Forest is a smaller state forest than those in the southern half of the state, where most of our state forests are, in some ways it is more significant, because the deep woods habitat that they provide is much more rare in northern Indiana.

  TRUTH: This claim's primary focus is on the management of our State Forests because, while they are only 3% of Indiana’s forests, the State Forests still provide some of the largest blocks of intact forest in the state and are the only state-owned public lands managed by the DNR where primitive recreation, i.e., camping, backpacking, long distance hiking, orienteering, foraging, etc., is possible. Deep woods habitat does not disappear when forests are managed as presented in the Division of Forestry’s management guide. A continuous forest of this size is rare in this portion of the state. Prior to state ownership, most of the ground was agricultural which resulted in many trees cleared for farming. It is the result of the Division of Forestry’s foresight and sustainable management that the property is developing back into a healthy working forest, and with the continued implementation of these forest management practices, it will remain a healthy forest well into the future.

• CLAIM: We must speak out because the DNR has increased the amount of logging in these forests by 400% over the past 13 years—3 to 4 times more logging than was ever done in these forests for the 102 years that they existed prior to 2005. At the current authorized rate of 14 million board feet being logged per year, the DNR will have logged through all tracts of the state forests within another 12-13 years.

  TRUTH: While it’s true that the harvested volume has increased, it’s also true that the volume available in State Forests has increased as trees have naturally aged and grown larger over time. It is important to understand that the Division of Forestry is harvesting the same proportion of volume today on State Forests as it did 20-25 years ago—what’s different is that the overall forest is older and has more large trees in it. Also, as Indiana’s State Forests have matured over the years, natural mortality has increased significantly. Much of the harvesting done in recent years has focused on salvaging stands affected by the invasive emerald ash borer, significant drought mortality and the natural mortality of “pioneer species” that originally dominated stands that have now reached maturity. The long-term objective for Indiana State Forests remains to conserve these forests and, through active, science-based management, ensure they remain healthy and productive for the benefit of current and future generations. Well-planned harvests are instrumental in addressing this challenge.