ASSESSMENT OF TIMBER RESOURCES AND LOGGING HISTORY OF THE VALLES CALDERA NATIONAL PRESERVE

Balmat, Jeff

The purpose of this research is to describe the history of timber harvest in the 89,000 acre Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Logging was arguably the most extensive and ecologically significant twentieth century human modification to forests now enclosed by the Preserve. This research synthesizes various forms of harvest records, timber cruise data, airphotos, maps, and other forestry data to create a cohesive and spatially explicit narrative of logging history. There were three distinct eras of harvest between 1935 and 2000. From 1935 to 1962 easily accessible, lower elevation ponderosa pine and mixed conifer stands were heavily harvested. Clear-cutting took place at most elevations and affected nearly all stand types from 1963 to 1972. After a brief moratorium, harvesting resumed in 1980 and continued until the 2000 creation of the Preserve. We created GIS coverages of each harvesting era (including 1980-1991 and 1992-2000 coverages for the most recent era). Comparison of timber data from 1978 and 1998 demonstrates a broad trend of increase in volume and volume per area of all major species in all areas of the Preserve, though relative rates of increase vary spatially and by species. We created a coarse map of potential old-growth areas that generally agrees with other data on unharvested stands. A stand-level inventory of the Preserve is necessary to evaluate current forest characteristics on a scale comparable to the scale of (1) the effects of logging and logging roads on vegetation and other ecosystem components and (2) future forest treatments. Future timber harvests is the form of small diameter thinning holds promise as an appropriate treatment for reducing fuel load and improving ecological and aesthetic value.