Steve Wilent

Dovetail partners has a new report, “Old growth forests: How much is enough?”

Many of us have an emotional or even spiritual connection to old growth forests. This is not just because we like to see big old trees, but because of the multitude of ecosystem services and diverse values they provide. The Forest Stewards Guild lists those services as including wildlife habitat, carbon storage, stabilization of watersheds, nutrient recycling, and biodiversity, amongst others. Old growth forests have also historically had economic and social value by providing timber products and supporting forest based businesses and communities. These forests have cultural and social value to Indigenous peoples, First Nations, and Tribes.  

In this report, we explore the different definitions of “old growth” applied globally and in regions of North America and Europe, including their scientific basis. From these definitions, we examine where old growth forests exist in the world, with a focus on the United States (US) and the European Union (EU).  The report considers why we need old growth forests, and conversely, why we do not, and includes a discussion of old growth forest protection and management. We conclude with a discussion of how much old growth is ‘enough’, how we can create more, and how our understanding of the relationship between people and forests is evolving.

Cut to the conclusion:

The Bottom line

The question of “What is old growth?” holds many definitions depending upon the scientific, cultural, and policy lenses that are applied. The variety in these definitions is a recognition that tree species, climate, soil productivity, human interaction, and disturbance history all influence the development of forests. The question of “How much old growth forest is enough?” can seem almost unanswerable because it is contextual and there are many possible and often competing answers. There are forests that previous generations chose to protect, which current generations will also say deserve protection, and that future generations will wrestle with in their own debates.

Old growth forests have historically had economic and social value by providing timber products and supporting forest based businesses and communities. These forests have cultural and social value to Indigenous peoples, First Nations, and Tribes. Intact old growth forests provide multiple benefits, but the type of wood provided from these forests is no longer essential to meeting our raw material needs. Today’s engineered wood products can produce dimensionally stable beams that are structurally superior to equally large beams from large-diameter trees. Consequently, the value of old growth timber has fundamentally changed, and new approaches for management need to be considered. A new relationship with old growth forests that respects and honors the role of people as part of nature and elevates our capacity to care for forests and engage in these practices is needed. With proper management, creation of secondary old growth forests is possible, and can eventually provide the attributes and benefits of old growth forests. The emerging practice of managing maturing forests to provide old growth characteristics is a strategy deserving of increased attention.

Open access paper in PNAS Nexus:

Near-term investments in forest management support long-term carbon sequestration capacity in forests of the United States

Abstract

We use data from >130,000 national forest inventory (NFI) plots to clarify the potential effects of planting and increased fuel management on carbon trajectories in the conterminous United States (Fig. 1). We constructed 30-year projections of the NFI based on Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 2 [13] and five general circulation models under Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 to assess forest carbon stocks and fluxes associated with two fuel treatment levels and one planting scenario (Fig. 1, SI Appendix).

Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 2 is a “middle of the road” narrative, while RCP8.5 is considered an extreme scenario that essentially assumes no future efforts to reduce atmospheric CO2. Some call it implausible.

Why not include a more optimistic scenario to balance the extreme RCP8.5? Or just go with the middle of the road model?

The Northwest Forest Plan Area Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) will meet on Nov. 14 – 16, 2023, at the Edgewater Hotel, 2411 Alaskan Way in Seattle, Washington.

For those who wish to attend the meeting virtually, please click the link below to join the live stream: https://encoreglobal.zoom.us/j/95745343302?pwd=OVAyWTlUUlpZeEZEWkp3UW1kcXJKUT09

​Along with presentations from forest managers, the FAC will discuss how experience with forest management can inform the agency in considering updates to the Northwest Forest Plan. The NWFP FAC Agenda details can be found on the NWFP FAC website at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/r6/nwfpfac

All FAC meetings are open to the public and include opportunity for public comments. Note that registrations for in-person oral comments or written public comments for this meeting has closed. Comments received after the deadline will be provided to the Forest Service.  The Committee will not have adequate time to consider them prior to the November meeting, however, they will be considered for the January 30-February 1, 2024, meeting.

Details about future Committee meetings and opportunities to provide comments for them will be posted on the Forest Service’s regional website at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/r6/nwfpfac.

The FAC was established by the Secretary of Agriculture as part of ongoing efforts to amend the Northwest Forest Plan. The purpose of the FAC is to bring together diverse perspectives representing the experiences of communities, experts, Tribes, and other interested parties across the Northwest Forest Plan landscape to inform ways that forest management can effectively conserve key resources while considering social, ecological, and economic conditions and needs.

The Federal Advisory Committee does not replace the public involvement process or the public’s opportunity to engage directly with the Forest Service regarding Northwest Forest Plan amendment efforts during the planning process and future engagement and comment opportunities will be provided.

The Northwest Forest Plan covers 24.5 million acres of federally managed lands in northwestern California, western Oregon, and Washington. It was established in 1994 to address threats to threatened and endangered species while also contributing to social and economic sustainability in the region. After nearly 30 years, the Northwest Forest Plan needs to be updated to accommodate changed ecological and social conditions.

Additional information about the Northwest Forest Plan is available at https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/landmanagement/planning/?cid=fsbdev2_026990 .

For future Northwest Forest Plan Amendment updates please sign up using USDA Forest Service (govdelivery.com)

This graphic tells a fascinating story. It’s from a press release about a new paper, “What the extreme fire seasons of 1910 and 2020 – and 2,500 years of forest history – tell us about the future of wildfires in the West,” by Philip Higuera, Professor of Fire Ecology, University of Montana and Kyra Clark-Wolf, Postdoctoral Associate in Ecology, University of Colorado Boulder
Tue, October 17, 2023.

Text from a press release. The open-access paper is here.

UC Irvine scientists reveal what fuels wildfires in Sierra Nevada Mountains

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 25, 2023 — Wildfires in California, exacerbated by human-driven climate change, are getting more severe. To better manage them, there’s a growing need to know exactly what fuels the blazes after they ignite. In a study published in Environmental Research Letters, Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine report that one of the chief fuels of wildfires in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains is the decades-old remains of large trees.

“Our findings support the idea that large-diameter fuel build-up is a strong contributor to fire severity,” said Audrey Odwuor, a Ph.D. candidate in the UCI Department of Earth System Science and the lead author of the new study.

Researchers have known for decades that an increasing number of trees and an increasing abundance of dead plant matter on forest floors are the things making California wildfires more severe – but until now it was unclear what kinds of plant debris contribute most to a fire.

To tackle the question, Odwuor and two of the study’s co-authors – James Randerson, professor of Earth system science at UCI, and Alondra Moreno from the California Air Resources Board – drove a mobile lab owned and operated by the lab of study co-author and UCI alumna Francesca Hopkins at UC Riverside, to the southern Sierra Nevada mountains during 2021’s KNP Complex Fire.

The KNP Complex Fire burned almost 90,000 acres in California’s Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. In the fire’s smoke, the team took samples of particulate matter-laden air and analyzed the samples for their radiocarbon content at UCI’s W.M. Keck Accelerator Mass Spectrometer facility with co-author and UCI Earth system science professor Claudia Czimczik.

Different fuel types, explained Czimczik, have different radiocarbon signatures, such that when they analyzed the smoke they discovered radiocarbon values associated with large fuel sources like fallen tree logs.

“What we did was pretty distinctive, as we were able to identify fuel sources by measuring the wildfire smoke,” said Czimczik. “Our approach provides what we think of as an integrated picture of the fire because we’re sampling smoke produced over the course of the fire that has been transported downwind.”

The team also saw elevated levels of particulate matter that is 2.5 microns in diameter or less, which includes particles that, if inhaled, are small enough to absorb into the bloodstream.

The preponderance of large-diameter fuels is new in western forests. “We’re really in a situation that’s a consequence of both management strategies and climate warming since European-American settlement began in California,” Odwuor said. “These fuels are building up on the forest floor over periods of decades, which is not typically how these forests were maintained.”

It’s information that, according to Odwuor, could help California better manage its wildfires.

“The knowledge that large-diameter fuels drive fires and fire emissions – at least in the KNP Complex Fire – can be useful for knowing which fuels to target with fuel treatments and what might end up in the smoke from both wildfires and prescribed fire,” said Odwuor. “The idea is that because we can’t control the climate, we can only do our best to manage the fuels, which will theoretically have an impact on fire severity and the composition of the smoke.”

But the solution isn’t as straightforward as removing trees from forest floors, because, among other things, they provide habitat for wildlife. That, and “once you get them out, where do you send them? There are only so many mills in California that can handle all the wood,” Odwuor said.

Where the new knowledge could be helpful is with prescribed burns, wherein teams burn tracks of forest in a planned fashion with the aim of reducing the amount of fuel available for future wildfires.

“We’re hoping to build some urgency for these management strategies,” said Odwuor.

This essay from The Conversation is interesting.  The author’s study is public access.

“The US is spending billions to reduce forest fire risks – we mapped the hot spots where treatment offers the biggest payoff for people and climate”

Excerpt:

To find the locations with greatest potential payoff for forest treatments, we started by identifying areas where forest carbon is more likely to be lost to wildfires compared to other locations.

In each area, we considered the likelihood of wildfire and calculated how much forest carbon might be lost through smoke emissions and decomposition. Additionally, we evaluated whether the conditions in burned areas would be too stressful for trees to regenerate over time. When forests regrow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it away in their wood, eventually making up for the carbon lost in the fire.

In particular, we found that forests in California, New Mexico and Arizona were more likely to lose a large portion of their carbon in a wildfire and also have a tough time regenerating because of stressful conditions.

When we compared those areas to previously published maps detailing high wildfire risk to communities, we found several hot spots for simultaneously reducing wildfire risk to communities and stabilizing stored carbon.

Forests surrounding Flagstaff, Arizona; Placerville, California; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Hamilton, Montana; Taos, New Mexico; Medford, Oregon, and Wenatchee, Washington, are among locations with good opportunities for likely achieving both goals.

This is from AFRC’s August 2023 newsletter. It reminds me of shaded fuel breaks I helped maintain many years ago on the El Dorado NF, using Rx fire and/or mechanical brush removal (AKA grunt work projects — fire crews with chainsaws). Here’s a good video about these fuel breaks and the 2021 Caldor Fire.

Fuel Reduction Supports Firefighters, Protects Communities During Oregon’s Flat Fire

Fuel reduction projects are often maligned by those who oppose active forest management. Critics point to the fact that, during certain conditions, no amount of fuels reduction will stop large fires from burning out of control. Although evidence suggests that fuels-reduction projects and timber sales can have a moderating effect on fire behavior during even the largest conflagrations; it is true that when conditions become extreme, a 200-foot fuel break will have little ability to “stop” a fire.

Where anti-forestry groups miss the mark on fuel reduction projects is in judging their effectiveness where it counts – during active firing operations. Such is the case on the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest, where years of fuel reduction work and strategic timber sales have given firefighting personnel a leg-up in their effort to control the 2023 Flat Fire.

The Flat Fire started on July 15 in the Oak Flat Campground near the town of Agness, Oregon. Strong winds, hot and dry conditions, and an abundance of snags and brush leftover from the 2002 Biscuit Fire, enabled early growth on the Flat Fire. Within a week over 20,000 acres had burned and there was a real threat that the fire could push into Agness or Gold Beach if left un-checked. Snags not only provided easily combustible fuel for the fire, but they also complicate firefighting efforts as crews cannot mobilize where the risk of overhead hazards are too high. Simply-put: due to the fuel loads, the forecasted weather, proximity to communities, and the occurrence of the fire so early in the season, the Flat Fire threatened to become an historic conflagration.

Fortunately, the Flat Fire started near a ridgeline that the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest had long identified as a critical control point within their boundary. Wildhorse Ridge begins above the confluence of the Rogue and Illinois Rivers near Agness and extends south for about 19 miles, before terminating near the confluence of the Pistol and North Fork Pistol Rivers. As a strategic control point, Wildhorse Ridge is the first line of defense between fires coming out of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and the town of Gold Beach.

The importance of Wildhorse Ridge played out in 2002 during the Biscuit Fire, where crews were able to contain the fire’s westward advance along Wildhorse Ridge, thus preventing continued destruction of public and private resources during what was (at the time) the largest wildfire in state history. Although much of the forested area between the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and Wildhorse Ridge had burned completely during the Biscuit Fire, many green islands of lightly burned timber remained.

Following the Biscuit Fire, the strategic importance of Wildhorse Ridge was increased as it now not only protected Gold Beach, but also an immense swath of unburned timberland of mixed public and private ownership. To bolster the ridgeline’s defense, and to impart greater resilience within the moderately-burned green islands, the Forest began a series of timber sales and fuels reduction projects along this ridgeline starting in 2006. The aim of these projects varied from non-commercial fuels reduction to conventional timber sales via commercial thinning. These projects were also designed to ensure that that roads across the ridge remained in drivable condition in the event of necessary emergency response.

The effectiveness of these projects was tested this summer during the early days of the Flat Fire, and it didn’t take long before the value of these treatments became clear. As the fire broke out, firefighting personnel were able to utilize the roadway to quickly gain access to the fire’s origin and establish an anchor point, preventing spread towards Agness. As the fire progressed south, Wildhorse Ridge became an invaluable resource to move personnel in and out safely. Treatments along the ridge made it possible for firefighters to safely backfire into the main fire and eliminate flashier fuels between the main fire and the ridge without the risk of putting fire into overgrown fuels.

The Forest was also able to take advantage of some breaks along the way. The 2018 Klondike fire afforded the Forest the opportunity to reopen containment lines along the fire’s eastern front, and weather moderated at pivotal points to allow firefighters to gain ground on the fire. But while good fortune can be a saving grace during fire season, nothing compares to hard work and preparation. The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest was well-prepared to utilize Wildhorse Ridge during the Flat Fire because of their own hard work.

It’s still too early to predict the final impacts of the 2023 Flat Fire. The fire continues to burn, and there is no end in sight for the year’s fire season. But as of August 28, the Flat Fire is 34,242 acres, 58% contained and has grown very little in the past few weeks. This comes as a welcome relief as the Forest must divert resources to their Wild Rivers Ranger District, where the Six Rivers Complex along the OR/CA border continues to advance into Oregon.

If the Rogue River-Siskiyou can hold the fire in place through the season, the Forest should be a model for federal land managers who have been tasked with preparing their forests to withstand the effects of unprecedented global climate change. Fortune favors those who are willing to work for it. /Corey Bingamen

From the NPS:

Coming Full Circle: How Parks Are Using Conventional Tools in New Ways to Restore Imperiled Forests

Depriving western old-growth forests of fire brought them to the brink. Now the fire they need also threatens them. To fix this, parks are returning to mechanical forestry methods.

“As shown by our pilot study, in these situations, mechanical thinning can mimic some effects of prescribed fire. This is increasingly supported by science, which has demonstrated that thinning can reduce air quality impacts, increase water yield, reduce tree stress, and improve tree health. The goals of these thinning treatments are to retain and recruit old-growth and large, vigorous, mature trees and allow the subsequent use of low-intensity prescribed fire to maintain the stand in perpetuity.”

This is interesting (thanks again for Nick Smith at HFHC for the link).  EPA press release:

EPA approves Washington’s Smoke Management Plan to allow strategic use of prescribed fires to manage forest health and protect air quality

Updated plan provides more flexibility for managing prescribed burning while continuing to minimize air quality impacts from smoke.

August 10, 2023

SEATTLE (August 10, 2023) – The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved Washington State’s updated Smoke Management Plan under the Clean Air Act. The Smoke Management Plan regulates prescribed burning on forest land aimed at reducing fuel loading, restoring forest ecosystems, and potentially reducing the risk to communities from catastrophic wildfires, while minimizing air quality impacts from smoke.

“As wildfires become more frequent and severe, particularly here in the Northwest, we are working closely with our local, state, tribal and federal partners to help prevent, prepare for, and mitigate those risks and impacts,” said Casey Sixkiller, Regional Administrator of EPA’s Region 10 office in Seattle. “By increasing the flexibility in the tools and timing for prescribed burning, we can better prevent and reduce the health impacts of smoke from wildfires on our communities.”

Key revisions to Washington’s Smoke Management Plan are expected to modernize the approval process so that prescribed fire can be a more effective tool to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires while also preventing and managing air quality impacts.

“Prescribed burning is a critical component of DNR’s continued forest health work,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz. “Using ‘good fire’ to remove potential fuels safely and efficiently makes our forests and grasslands healthier and less susceptible to the explosive wildfires that have filled Washington’s summer skies with smoke the last decade. With this plan, we’ll be able to do the work we need to keep our skies and lungs clear.”

“In recent years, wildfire smoke has repeatedly blanketed Washington, taking an enormous toll on the health of our state’s communities,” said Heather Bartlett, Ecology’s deputy director. “This updated plan provides an important tool for preventing wildfire, and we’re pleased we were able to work with our partners to protect air quality and public health.”

Wildfire has had a serious impact on communities across Washington during the past decade with many large-scale wildfires impacting air quality. Prescribed fires are increasingly used as a land management tool to help reduce the likelihood of potentially catastrophic wildfires by reducing the buildup of unwanted fuels and strengthening ecosystems. Prescribed burning —the controlled application of fire to wildland fuels— is done under specific environmental conditions and protocols, confined to a predetermined area and on a limited intensity and scale required to attain forest land management objectives. The State anticipates increasing the application of prescribed fire in response to the increasing threat of wildfires in Washington.

The Department of Natural Resources has jurisdiction for prescribed burning on forest lands in Washington State, while the Department of Ecology is responsible for updating and implementing the Clean Air Act State Implementation Plan. EPA last approved the Washington Smoke Management Plan in 2003. Following significant wildfires, the Washington State Legislature directed the Department of Natural Resources to study prescribed burning practices and improvements needed to the Smoke Management Plan and to increase the pace and scale of prescribed burning to reduce fuel loads and help prevent catastrophic wildfire. Ecology submitted the updated Smoke Management Plan for review, approval, and inclusion in the State Implementation Plan in August 2022.

For more information on prescribed burns, restrictions and permits in Washington state, visit the Department of Natural Resources Burn Portal at: https://burnportal.dnr.wa.gov/

For wildfire smoke information in Washington state, including health risks, air monitoring and forecast smoke levels, visit Ecology’s Smoke and Fire Management page at: https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Air-quality/Smoke-fire

The interagency Washington Smoke Blog provides also real-time information on current wildfire smoke conditions and wildfire updates at: https://wasmoke.blogspot.com/

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