Christmas Spirit Helps Keep A Forest Healthy

This week the Deschutes Land Trust, a land preserve in Central Oregon donated two dozen fresh cut Christmas Trees to the MountainStar Family Relief Nursery in Bend.

The trees came from the Metolius Preserve, a 1200 acre parcel of land acquired by the land trust just east of the Cascades.

This past weekend, the preserve held it’s annual Christmas tree hunt.  As David Nogueras found out, the event is about more than just celebrating holidays.  It’s about keeping the forest healthy for years to come.

Listen by downloading the audio file here (1.5MB).

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At this remote site about a half an hour north of Sisters, more than a hundred members of the Deschutes Land Trust are bundling up and braving the cold in search of the perfect Christmas tree.

Volunteer Carol Wall is giving directions on what to look for.

She’s set up at a folding table surrounded by metal urns filled with coffee and hot chocolate.

Carol Wall: “So what we’re cutting this year are Grand Firs or White Firs and you can tell them by the fact the needles come out flat....”

Before the land was acquired by the trust in 2003, it spent the better part of a century under the control of private timber companies. Since then the trust has made efforts to rehabilitate the land.  And part of that that plan involves reducing the number of Grands which are also known as White Firs.

Josh and Jen Newton have made the tree hunt an annual tradition since 2005.  Since the snow is a little deep, they’re towing their 5 and 3 year olds, Ryan and Shaun in a red plastic sled.

Josh Newton: "You guys ready?"

Ryan Newton: "Yeah.  Whoa!”

Newton is attorney in Bend, but he also happens to have a degree in forestry, which makes him a good person to ask why a land conservation organization would want it’s members to cut down its trees.

Josh Newton: “Because historically this area east of the Cascades, your sort of in a transition zone between the pine and fir forest types and historically there was more fire present in this whole area.”

Those fires, he says, would periodically come though these lands and wipe out the firs, leaving the Ponderosa Pine as the tall trees of the forest.  But Newton says nearly a century of fire suppression has allowed the fir trees to prosper. And they suck up moisture at the expense of the surrounding forest.

Josh Newton: “And then when you do get fires now, you get so much more flammable material that instead of having what they call high-frequency, low-intensity happen a lot, but low intensity, you end up with lower frequency high intensity or stand replacement fires that can damage the ecosystem.”

In other words, all those small trees can fuel fires that burn at much higher temperatures and can get hot enough scorch the soil.

Newton’s children however seem to have little if no interest in the ins and outs of high-frequency, low intensity, stand replacement fires.  3-year-old, Shaun just wants Dad to get on with it.

Shaun Newton: “Just cut it down, Dad”.

Josh Newtown gets underneath a white fir about 6 feet tall and gets to work with a hand saw.  One of the rules here today is no chainsaws allowed.

Deschutes Land Trust outreach manager, Sarah Mowry says it’s not uncommon for the ecologically-minded to have reservations about cutting a down a live Christmas tree.

Sarah Mowry: “But the great thing about cutting it down here is that it’s part of our forest restoration work and we would be doing it anyway and it’s nice that it can end up in someone’s house and they can enjoy it for a little bit, versus just going into a slash pile that we’re going to burn.”

And Mowry says by helping this land get closer to a more natural condition, these Christmas tree seekers will help other members of the public enjoy these 1200 acres on the edge of the Cascades.