by Leah Palmer, TNC Writer/Editor
In American slang, “O.G.” stands for original gangster. It’s used to refer to legends, the best in the game, people deserving of respect and whose legacy will live beyond them. In forestry, there’s a different kind of “O.G.,” the old growth forest. It’s just as legendary and deserving of our respect. And, yes, locked away in old growth forests are indicators of a rich legacy—a time capsule of growth, decay, fire, water, flora, and fauna all in balance with one another.
Herman Flamenco and dog, Remus, spend their days in the forest.
In the Central Cascades Forest (CCF), Herman Flamenco, Conservation Forester at TNC Washington, says he envisions a day where the CCF reaches O.G. maturity. Though the timescale of forest maturation means, “reaching old growth won’t necessarily happen in our lifetime.”
*Record scratch* reaching old growth takes patience and a commitment to a long-term vision.
While TNC stewards this forest, Herman says it’s all about balance, “getting the forest to manage itself in a way—having forests work for themselves and work for people.”
He says when he first started work in CCF, there were “really dense forests—a lot of trees and a thick understory brush. That was typically maintained through wildfire, but it was allowed to balloon and overgrow.” The landscape he’s describing was previously owned by a logging company based in Washington.
In 2014, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and The Forest Service completed an analysis of forestlands in Eastern Washington. They found 2.7 million acres of forest, including the CCF, were in desperate need of restoration.
“From my point of view, it was left to fend for itself. We have areas that were replanted after logging. They are overstocked now—way too many trees—and they’re all competing with each other,” he says. Ultimately, Herman works to make sure “our forests are around” beyond this lifetime.
To do this, he and a dedicated team of foresters, scientists, land stewards, and community members have teamed up to restore the land. Recently, they masticated over 200 acres of the forest using heavy machinery to thin the understory in efforts to avoid devastating wildfires. If a fire came through the forest’s current conditions, “you’d have what we call ladder fuels, where fire climbs through the understory, into the midstory, and then up into the overstory and becomes a catastrophic wildfire.”
A big part of ongoing forest restoration is focused on protecting local communities situated just below the forest’s ridge: Ronald, Roslyn, Cle Elum and the Teanaway Community. Mastication, snow pack research and prescribed burns, like those led by Sami Schinnell, Cooperative Fire Director at TNC Washington, support thriving and safe communities.
These restoration practices will open up the forest, giving larger trees room to grow. “We want our trees to be spaced apart and large enough that they can withstand fire coming through. That’s characteristic of what these Eastside old growth forests would have looked like. Also, reducing the amount of trees in the landscape can help with water scarcity,” making way for watersheds to feed the agricultural lands below the ridge.
Stewardship is a long game. It will have more impact downstream than we experience immediately, making those committed to forest restoration real-life legends among us.
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