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| Sagen Maddalena |
UAF’s Sagen Maddalena is an amazing shooter. Two-time All-American and co-team captain, she just missed representing the United States at the Rio Summer Olympics. Maddalena is just making it through the University of Alaska Fairbanks Forestry program.
She will be one of the last students to get a minor in Forestry as part of her Natural Resources Management degree.
It wasn’t that long ago that forestry was the second largest industry in Alaska. According to the Alaska Forest Association, 4,600 workers made better than average wages producing shop lumber destined for remanufacture, dimensional lumber, railway ties, shakes and shingles, and music wood out of the high quality Sitka spruce and western hemlock.
Lower quality timber was made into dissolving pulp, which was sold around the world for producing rayon, pharmaceuticals and paper products.
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| Courtesy of Ron Niebrugge |
Resource Development Council website says Alaska’s forest products industry provides hundreds of jobs and contributes millions of dollars to Alaska’s economy still.
Furthermore, each direct timber job creates at least three indirect jobs for doctors, retailers, teachers, and more.
Properly managing our forests for multiple uses requires an intimate knowledge of our unique ecology. Alaska hire? Good luck with that.
UAF School of Natural Resources & Extension Director of Academic Programs Dave Valentine: “Four years ago, students could take courses in forest management, silviculture, forest health and get a Natural Resource Management degree with an accredited Forestry option. We no longer have that Forestry option. We no longer have a Department of Forest Sciences that administers that option, and we no longer have accreditation from the Society of American Foresters.”
Valentine says that budget cuts mean that retiring faculty don’t get replaced, and in this case – much is lost.
We are losing more than just jobs for Alaskans, by losing the university program we are losing vital academic research that decision makers should be relying on when making key policy decisions in a changing climate.
UAF Director of Academic Programs Dave Valentine: “If we are in a new climate regime, and it appears that we are, it appears that the spruce bark beetle is able to have a couple of generations a year nowadays where it used to be just one.”
UAF is still offering a minor in Forestry, but Valentine says it struggles to hire retired faculty back to teach the required courses, and he really doesn’t know how long they can continue the program.
Forestry is a scientific discipline. It’s very specific knowledge that keeps our forests healthy. Different species of Alaskan trees need different methods of harvest for optimum regrowth and economic return.
In Alaska, there are two distinct forest types that comprise the two largest national forests in the United States. The coastal rainforest begins in southern southeast Alaska, and extends through Prince William Sound, and down the Kenai Peninsula to Afognak and Kodiak Islands. The boreal forest covers much of interior and southcentral Alaska.
The cedars of the Tongass can benefit from being in a mixed forest with multiple age management that would allow them more shade. Here in southcentral, species like western hemlock and Sitka spruce desire sunlight and space for optimum regeneration and regrowth.
Clearcut logging can give young trees the opportunity to thrive – better choice than selective harvesting, because the relatively thin bark on these species makes them more susceptible to harm. Spruce beetle kills, wild fire regrowth, and salmon stream protection are all issues that foresters need site specific knowledge to manage properly.
With staff coming up from elsewhere, forest managers will spend more time training new recruits than managing one of Alaska’s vital resources.
Story as aired on KSRM News:
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