Forest owner denies Measure 64 claims

A former forester in eastern Oregon has found himself at the center a debate over the effects of Measure 64 in eastern Oregon forests.

The authors of Measure 64 , which would heavily restrict many forestry practces including clearcutting, claim to have based their eastern Oregon clearcutting criteria on the private Oberteuffer Forest in Elgin, Oregon, outside La Grande.

The forest's former owner denies such collaboration.

"I had on my forest no criteria for the number of trees to be left per acre," said Bill Oberteuffer, former owner of the Oberteuffer Forest. "They didn't get any numbers from me."

While Oberteuffer censures today's clearcutting practices, he says the measure's definition of clearcutting for eastern Oregon - leaving at least 60 trees per acre - could not have been based on his forest, as proponents declare.

Matthew Watkins of Oregonians for Labor Intensive Forest Economics (OLIFE), Measure 64's political action committee, earlier told The Nugget that the measure's clearcutting numbers were "based on tree farms," and in eastern Oregon they were developed from the "Oberteuffer Research and Education Forest."

"If they used me and my forest as an example, they used it as an example of good uneven-age, multiple species forestry where logging is done by individual tree selection," Oberteuffer explained.

The 113-acre Oberteuffer Forest was donated to the Oregon State University College of Forestry by Bill and Margaret Oberteuffer in 1994 and is now managed by OSU Extension.

Extension Forestry Agent Paul Oester also denies sharing any information with the campaign.

"As far as the numbers OLIFE says they used to establish (their) guidelines, I didn't supply them with any information," Oester said.

According to OLIFE co-director Richard Bowden, "these numbers were developed over many years from lots of different sources ... by lots of different people.

"We talked to a lot of 'eco-foresters' and had to come up with a balanced amount," he said. "Any selective-cutting scientists in that field would tell you it's very reasonable."

Oberteuffer has mixed feelings about Measure 64.

"Parts of it are very good and parts of it are not," he said. "In my estimation, it addresses too many things in one measure. It's too complex."

For example, while he says it is not necessary to use chemicals in a healthy forest, Oberteuffer describes the measure's proposed ban on pesticides and herbicides as "an issue in itself."

"You can't, by law, force good forestry," he added. "You've got to get it done through education. (This measure) will immediately end up in court.

"I don't want to see any clearcutting," he added. "Clearcutting reduces the productivity of the land." Oberteuffer said he would rather "define clearcutting in terms of what must be left on land to maintain biological capital for forest health.

"A sustainable forest is a forest you leave behind that can sustain itself in a natural condition," he said. "The Yakama nation has 300,000 acres of forestland that they cut in a 20-year cycle, and the numbers of trees are slowly increasing. Yet they cut $40 million per year of (forest) product.

"Their Chief Forester told me 'Our prime consideration is the health of the forest; a secondary consideration is economics,'" Oberteuffer said.

Admitting the challenging conditions facing foresters today, he proposed a new perspective on how forest management should occur.

"Go out there and know your forest, know every tree," he says. "Guys in industry say they can't do it because they have too many trees.

"There are way too many trees per acre on (this side of the Cascades), but that doesn't bother nature at all," he added. "Nature's got a different plan for forestry than we do and she's got more time. We've got to work with her and help by thinning out trees."

(See related story, page 31.)