Thanks everyone who sent in comments to the BLM! The South Deer decision was signed Sept 1, 2005. 501 acres to Natural Selection Alternative: Promotes ongoing forest productivity, best fire hazard reduction plan, permament timber jobs and opportunity for non-timber business for recreation.

Deer Creek Valley Natural Resources Conservation Association, has proposed a forest-friendly, science-based way to care for our forests and contribute to the long term economic health in the Illinois Valley. Last March, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) asked for input from the public on the South Deer Landscape Management Project. The Project is located on 7,400 acres of BLM public lands in the Thompson, McMullen and Reeves Creek watersheds in Selma. Since that time the Association has been working with the BLM, and through an August 2004, Memorandum of Understanding has submitted a Natural Selection alternative - one of three action alternatives to be considered for implementation and included in BLM's “Environmental Assessment” for the South Deer Project. The Natural Selection Alternative would create a great many opportunities to enhance the economic vitality in a manner consistent with environmental health and community well being of Selma and the Illinois Valley. It places forest health first, which lays the foundation for all forest products and uses at a sustainable level, providing community long term stability. The Natural Selection Alternative , the first of its kind for public forests, addresses virtually all major forest issues and has the potential to contribute greatly to the social and economic values of the Illinois Valley. The Natural Selection Alternative will retain these few remaining small islands of natural late successional and legacy forests in South Deer to 1) sustain late successional species, 2) provide wildlife reservoirs for restoring early successional plantations that currently encompass much of the South Deer Project area, 3) moderate climate locally, regionally and globally, 4) store and filter high quality water, 5) provide wildlife corridors across the landscape, 6) understand the meaning of forest recovery by showing what they look like and how they function, and 7) serve human visual, spiritual, educational, natural history, recreation, tourism and economic needs.

Southwest partial overview of BLM from Thompson Creek Overlook Trail: South Deer 7,400 acre project, includes three watersheds; Thompson, McMullen and Reeves Creek drainages. To the distant south is the Siskiyou Mountain range in California. To the distant west is the Coast Mountain Range and Biscuit Fire area. Shows one of the last remaining natural late successional forest islands left and the its enormous potential for community social values that will be lost if it is logged and burned for fuels reduction. 2004 BLM thirty acre prescribed burn for fuels reduction in the Deer Creek watershed. Prescribed forest fire pollutes the air, dramatically changes forest climate, causes global climate change, burns up herb, shrub and understory layers important to numerous species, burns up topsoil, reduces forest productivity, could cost taxpayers up to $1200 per acre to do, and it commits to repeated treatments and costs. Trail in South Deer legacy forest where BLM is proposing “density management,” or “modified group selection,” be “tractor and helicopter logged,” and then “slash, handpiled and underburned,” at taxpayer expense. Heavy equipment will be operated on soils and vegetation will be degraded. Canopies will be opened up to accommodate big timber's expensive inefficient helicopters. Priceless visual, spiritual, recreational, educational, tourism values will be lost forever. (Picture sent by Roger) Alternative 2 The South Deer Decision notice, signed by Abbie Jossie September 1, contains information in tabular form about estimated size and number of conifer trees that will be cut down for commercial timber (Table DR-3,  Number of Trees and volume per Diameter Class,  p. 10). The following will summarize the table with respect to old growth and mature trees. 153 old growth trees 30-40 inches diameter comprising 9% of the volume 1,616 mature trees 20-30 inches diameter  comprising 39% of the volume Thus, 49% of the volume of the South Deer Timber Sale comes from mature and old growth trees.  Mature/old growth trees are known to be fire resistant and provide habitat for late successional forest dependent species.  Nearly all of the  conifers of this size have been logged from private lands in  the Deer Creek Watershed.  The only remaining refugia for forest dependent wildlife is on public lands and now these areas are being stripped of mature and old growth trees. Some of these larger trees marked for logging may be in Bald Eagle mangement areas and spotted owl habitat. Alternative 2 will adversely affect biological and ecological health across the 6133 acres.  Alternative 2 makes an ongoing commitment to manage these foests as tree stands and to prevent them from reverting back to natural forests. Habitats for many plants and animals would be destroyed in favor of "desired" tree species.  This will require huge taxpayer subsidies.  This commit to a situation where there is no possible to restore these forests. It will mean a biological and ecological catastrophe for South Deer forests and greater fuel hazard than ever before. Alternative 2 would cut down, burn, and/or destroy the last remaining islands of old growth forests.  The few remaining spotted owls in the South Deer project are crowded into the last remaining natural islands of forests with Old Growth trees. Regardless of BLM team claims, Alternative 2 would devastate these areas leaving us without the species needed to restore the already degraded forests that are the result of these same kinds of practices. The NSA would not do this. The NSA would protect these areas. Alternative 2 is a timber sale, and natural forest conversion into a tree stand plantation, under the guise of fuel hazard reduction. Forest health is evaluated in terms of desired trees, competition is relative to tree stands, non-tree green plant status is relative to tree stand vigor, and tree stands have priority over animals and non-green plants such as fungi. The NSA would not convert natural forests into tree stands. It would attain and retain lowest fire hazard conditions through allowing forests to recover late successional and old-growth conditions where lowest fire hazards exist rather than convert them into early successional tree stands where highest fire hazards are.

The Natural Selection Alternative (.pdf)recognizes that natural forests contain biological, ecological, economic, recreational, aesthetic, historical and spiritual values. It will sustain these values.
Natural-Selection-Based perspectives recognize 1) that other species create forests, 2) that many forest lands, especially non-entered late-succession forests, should be preserved as they are, 3) the need for natural recovery of forests damaged by human management, 4) that human needs require the extraction of resources from some forest lands, and 5) the total forest ecosystem must remain intact, with human activities in harmony with nature.

Species sustainability relies on reproduction of best survival traits. Naturally evolved environments allow species to adapt to them. The natural-selection-based approach retains best traits for all species.

Green plants sustain life on Earth. Green plants with best traits sustain their species. Under the natural-selection-based approach, organisms with best traits (stronger dominants) are retained. Only the dying ("weaker members") or dead, are removed to serve human needs. The dead and dying (including snags and woody material of the forest floor) sustain the living. To extract sustainedly (both green and dead), humans must share these resources with all naturally evolved species. The more trees extracted the less snags and woody material will be left to serve other species needs. The Natural Selection Alternative will extract resources at sustainable levels.

Sustainable extraction levels require stewards with fundamental understanding of how ecosystems function, and how resource extraction will affect each of the "eight essentials": Climate, soil, water, air, food, shelter, habitat, and reproduction necessities that determine which species can survive. When there is uncertainty about resource extraction, those in question will be left until doubts are resolved. The Natural Selection Alternative will offer high skill forest work to qualified stewards that adhere to natural-selection-based criteria for sustainability.

The Natural Selection Alternative will meet or exceed the Medford District Resource Management Plan objectives and actions/directions requirement for down wood, snags, and riparian reserves (p. 26-28) including ACS objectives (p. 22), and for Matrix lands (p. 38-40).

The Natural Selection Alternative will retain all naturally evolved successional habitats across the landscape. Since no trees are removed before they have been naturally selected, the volume of removal is restricted to what the forest is naturally able to produce. Retaining forest structure and functions at all times means no forest "down time" so the forest is always in full productivity. No down time, means no restoration costs. Forest resource volume is expected to increase over time.

Every part of the forested landscape including meadows, aquatic, and riparian areas, will remain or become a corridor for evolved species. The Natural Selection Alternative leaves habitats intact so early and late successional ecosystems can evolve to their natural conclusions.

In natural-selection-based practices, the term ‘restoration,’ or ‘recovery’, means to restore original late successional communities to their original species and ecological functions.

The Natural Selection Alternative will retain the few remaining small islands of natural late successional and legacy forests in South Deer to 1) sustain late successional species, 2) provide wildlife reservoirs for restoring early successional plantations that currently encompass much of the South Deer Project area, 3) moderate climate locally, regionally and globally, 4) store and filter high quality water, 5) provide wildlife corridors across the landscape, 6) understand the meaning of forest recovery by showing what they look like and how they function, and 7) serve human visual, spiritual, educational, natural history, recreation and tourism needs.

Resource extraction will occur in early successional forests where past extraction has occurred and be such that young forests will be allowed to evolve to late successional community conditions. Legacy, and structurally intact late successional forests, will not have resource extraction.

The Natural Selection Alternative will address climate change issues through optimal green plant and carbon storage, and reducing fire risk without burning.

A higher level of resource extraction will be used in areas of South Deer that have dwellings within the home-ignition zone (approximately 100 feet beyond the dwelling).

"Treating the home-ignition zone . . . can almost eliminate the possibility of homes burning in wildfires."

Historic studies of fire in the region show a wide range in fire intervals. Late successional forests in South Deer represent a historical fire variable and will be retained in their natural state (natural fire will occur).

Increased early successional tree plantations in the Deer Creek watershed have resulted in increased forest fire hazards and risks. The Natural Selection Alternative will restore and retain low fire hazard conditions by retaining stronger dominant trees and closed canopies. Lower fire hazard conditions will return as canopies close and trees grow taller, ground fires are less likely to reach the canopy and as understory is reduced or disappears.

Natural Selection Alternative will not use prescribed fire unless it can be shown that an evolved species is in danger of extinction because of lack of fire. Since prescribed burning will not be used, the Natural Selection Alternative will retain natural levels of woody material on the forest floor necessary for retaining forest biological and ecological health and productivity. With the Natural Selection Alternative there is little slash and that is lopped and scattered.

Non-native plants

The Natural Selection Alternative will retain environments best suiting native species, preempting invasions of non-native species through: 1) canopy coverage that will retain climate, soil and water conditions not favorable to non-native species (one-lane roads will help retain or achieve canopy coverage), 2) minimal soil disturbance (through use of rubber-tired resource extraction equipment on roads and restriction of off-road heavy equipment), and 3) minimal fire.

Visual, spiritual, recreational, educational, historical and tourism

Highway 199 is the premiere recreation and nature-education development opportunity for Oregon's coastal mountains. South Deer is within this visual corridor and there is easy access from 199 past Lake Selmac through South Deer to the Oregon Caves. The Natural Selection Alternative will retain visual values and an environment in which the untrained eye will be unaware of ongoing forest product removal. It will develop aesthetically pleasing, hiker-friendly trail and road systems, creating opportunities for recreation, nature-based education, and tourism.

The Thompson Creek Overlook Trail System has a long history of being used for visual, spiritual, recreational, educational and hiking values. Further development of this trail system will provide low elevation easily accessible recreational opportunities to meet the growing demand for recreation on public land. A 1.5' to 2' wide trail system, with grades of generally 10% or less, will serve both short and long hiking needs for all ages. The trail system will be built or upgraded by hand or with mechanical equipment (e.g., chainsaws, trail building machines). The upgraded trail system will have 6 miles of various looping hiking options through a variety of ecosystems including late successional legacy forests and rock outcroppings with spectacular panoramic views of South Deer, Grants Pass, Oregon Coast Range and California mountains. If access can be acquired, the trail is proposed to continue to Kerby Peak.