The roughly 50 trees hauled daily from the forest to the mill at Intermountain Resources in Montrose helps the struggling local timber industry.

It also moves the forest one step closer to its original natural setting.

In an example of history repeating, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management are relying on past forest management to deliver healthy forests and a restored logging industry. They're doing it through a partnership of unlikely allies in the wood-production, forest-management, alternative-energy and economic-development industries.

Locally, the Ponderosa Pine Forest Partnership covers 8,000 acres under contract in the Mancos-Dolores district of the San Juan National Forest.

"In order to create a more healthy forest today, the agency felt that we needed to design stands that better reflected the stand structure that existed in the pre-settlement period," said Phil Kemp, forester for the Dolores Public Lands Center.

The nod to the past stems from a 1992 meeting between district rangers, county commissioners and timber workers, where the groups discussed the loss of logging business. Kemp said county commissioners complained of the potential of losing high-paying jobs and tax receipts. Loggers complained they were not getting enough wood, or high-quality wood, from public lands.

The restoration partnership addressed a number of problems with overgrown forests. Loggers were cutting down the larger trees, which had not yet reached full growth potential, and leaving the smaller trees, which had very little use in the timber industry. Firefighters automatically suppressed wildfire outbreaks, which led to overgrowth of trees and eventually more intense fires. Additionally, insect infestation spread more quickly in dense forests.

"We had a much different stand structure in age class and size class historically than what we have today," Kemp said.

In pre-settlement times, ponderosa pine forests grew 20 to 50 trees per acre. Tree diameters measured about 25 inches, and trees lived on average just more than 200 years.

Today, ponderosa pines grow for about 100 years to diameters of 10 to 12 inches, packed into a density of anywhere from 85 to 400 trees per acre.

"It's kind of like your lawn," said Bob Johnson, a logger with J & J Logging. "If you don't thatch it, it don't grow."

As a result, the Ponderosa Pine Forest Partnership hired Bill Romme, a fire ecology professor at Colorado State University and formerly of Fort Lewis College, to conduct an ecological study and fire history analysis, and Denny Lynch, professor emeritus of forestry at Colorado State University, to conduct an economic study.

Romme's 1992 ecological study found that the relatively open stands of ponderosa pines led to frequent low-intensity fires.

"By having frequent light fires, it greatly reduced the risk of having the big catastrophic fires," Romme said. "It's an effective and inexpensive way of doing fire mitigation."

Now, a cycle of diligent firefighting has ironically led to potentially more intense fires. Fire suppression efforts since the late 1800s, combined with the emergence of the logging industry, result in a more unnatural forest stand, though dense growth of smaller-diameter trees is now falsely accepted as "natural," Kemp said.

The solution to ecological harmony, Romme has found, is variation. A variety of age, class and size of trees would protect a forest, on the whole, from insects, drought and wildfire more effectively.

Kemp's goal is to apply the pre-settlement thinning prescription for an undetermined time to about one-third of the forest acreage.

If his goal is reached, that's 60,000 acres of pre-settlement ponderosa pine forest that will be guaranteed timber for the local logging industry, varied habitat for wildlife and a potential emerging local biomass economy for small-diameter trees.

That's particularly good news for the struggling timber industry. The Johnsons and Teare, who still run their operation with chain saws, said business has been tough during the last five or six years, but the Ponderosa Pine Forest Partnership may help.

"God put (the trees) here to use and not abuse," said Bob Johnson.