New to national forests – carbon sequestration

The world’s largest carbon direct air capture facility has started construction in Iceland

From the news release:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service today announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would allow the agency to consider proposals for potential carbon capture and sequestration projects on national forests and grasslands. This proposal would harmonize the framework between the federal government’s two largest land managers by aligning with regulatory structures already established for the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.

If this amendment is finalized, applications for carbon sequestration on national forests or grasslands would be considered for permanent use. The proposed regulation changes the initial screening criteria to allow the Forest Service to consider proposals for carbon capture and sequestration projects and does not allow for any other permanent uses on national forests and grasslands.

From the Federal Register:

The United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (Forest Service or Agency), is proposing to amend its special use regulations, which prohibit authorizing exclusive and perpetual use and occupancy of National Forest System lands, to provide an exemption for carbon capture and storage.

Carbon dioxide injected in pore spaces may remain for over 1,000 years after injection and would be tantamount to an exclusive and perpetual use and occupancy if authorized on NFS lands.

The proposed rule would not authorize carbon capture and storage on NFS lands. Rather, the proposed rule would exempt proposals for carbon capture and storage from the initial screening criterion prohibiting authorization of exclusive use and occupancy of NFS lands, thereby allowing the Forest Service to review proposals and applications for carbon capture and storage and to authorize proposed carbon capture and storage on NFS lands if, where, and as deemed appropriate by the Agency.

Proposals for underground storage of carbon dioxide would have to meet all other screening criteria, including but not limited to consistency with the applicable land management plan, potential risks to public health or safety, conflicts or interference with authorized uses of NFS lands or use of adjacent non-NFS lands.

Of course it would have to be consistent with forest plans, but would a forest plan that authorizes “exclusive and perpetual use and occupancy” of national forest lands be consistent with the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act?  (Is the BLM different in this regard?)  I assume that’s why the existing special use regulations are written to prohibit permanent uses.  Maybe this should be viewed as a question of divesting ownership rather than a permitted special use.

 

And Then There Is This – Globally Wildfires Decreasing Since 2001

Italics and bolding added by Gil

#1)  WSJ ByBjorn Lomborg,

Climate Change Hasn’t Set the World on Fire

a) It turns out the percentage of the globe that burns each year has been declining since 2001.

b) For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward.

c) In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a new record-low of 2.2% burned area. Yet you’ll struggle to find that reported anywhere.
d) Yet the latest report by the United Nations’ climate panel doesn’t attribute the area burned globally by wildfires to climate change. Instead, it vaguely suggests the weather conditions that promote wildfires are becoming more common in some places. Still, the report finds that the change in these weather conditions won’t be detectable above the natural noise even by the end of the century.
e)Take the Canadian wildfires this summer. While the complete data aren’t in for 2023, global tracking up to July 29 by the Global Wildfire Information System shows that more land has burned in the Americas than usual. But much of the rest of the world has seen lower burning—Africa and especially Europe. Globally, the GWIS shows that burned area is slightly below the average between 2012 and 2022, a period that already saw some of the lowest rates of burned area.
f) The thick smoke from the Canadian fires that blanketed New York City and elsewhere was serious but only part of the story. Across the world, fewer acres burning each year has led to overall lower levels of smoke, which today likely prevents almost 100,000 infant deaths annually, according to a recent study by researchers at Stanford and Stockholm University.
g)  Likewise, while Australia’s wildfires in 2019-20 earned media headlines such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Australia Burns,” the satellite data shows this was a selective narrative. The burning was extraordinary in two states but extraordinarily small in the rest of the country. Since the early 2000s, when 8% of Australia caught fire, the area of the country torched each year has declined. The 2019-20 fires scorched 4% of Australian land, and this year the burned area will likely be even less.
h) In the case of American fires, most of the problem is bad land management. A century of fire suppression has left more fuel for stronger fires. Even so, last year U.S. fires burned less than one-fifth of the average burn in the 1930s and likely only one-tenth of what caught fire in the early 20th century.

 

#2)  The Canadian Take by LIFESITE News,Thu Aug 31, 2023

New research shows wildfires have decreased globally while media coverage has spiked 400%

Climate change in the courts – a win for Montana youth plaintiffs

I mentioned this Montana lawsuit in an earlier litigation update since it was going to be the first case going to trial nationally involving youth plaintiffs demanding action on climate change in a state court.  Since then, we’ve been debating climate science a little here, so here’s an update.  The trial happened and the court ruled in favor of Plaintiffs on one claim (2023.08.14-Held-v.-Montana-victory-order):  a recent change in Montana’s environmental policy act (MEPA), which prohibited consideration of impacts on climate for proposed projects, “violates Plaintiffs’ right to a clean and healthful environment and is facially unconstitutional.”  The state also failed to show that “the MEPA limitation serves a compelling government interest.”

The Montana state constitution includes this specific right, so the applicability of this outcome elsewhere is uncertain, but Plaintiffs’ attorneys (who are representing youth plaintiffs in other climate cases) are optimistic that it may provide some momentum.

The Washington Post had an interesting take on factual questions related to climate change:

In a pivot from its expected defense disputing the climate science behind the plaintiffs’ case, the state focused instead on arguing that the legislature should weigh in on the contested law, not the judiciary.

Michael Gerrard, the founder of Columbia’s Sabin Center, said the change in strategy came as a surprise: “Everyone expected them to put on a more vigorous defense,” he said. “And they may have concluded that the underlying science of climate change was so strong that they didn’t want to contest it.”

The state’s defense was unsuccessful. Judge Kathy Seeley determined that the state’s emissions could be fairly traced to the legal provision blocking Montana from reviewing the climate impacts of energy projects. She further wrote that the state’s emissions and climate change have caused harm to the environment and the youth plaintiffs.

If the WaPo article isn’t viewable, here’s another with more background on the case.

(It was interesting when I looked for a meme to include with this post – they seem to be dominated by not-very-clever climate change denialism.)

Sierra At Tahoe Ski Area Re-opens

After the Caldor Fire seriously impacted the ski area, Sierra At Tahoe is open again. As you can see, it was a high intensity portion of the fire, with the previous forest being highly flammable and loaded with decades of heavy dead fuels. After several droughts, the area did not have any salvage operations. The area is also known to have nesting pairs of goshawks around.

As you can see, snow sports people will be enjoying a new experience of skiing and boarding, without so many trees ‘hindering their personal snow freedoms’. *smirk*

Possible Salvage Strategy for Dixie and Caldor Fires

Since a battle for salvage projects is brewing, I think the Forest Service and the timber industry should consider my idea to get the work done, as soon as possible, under the rules, laws and policies, currently in force. It would be a good thing to ‘preempt’ the expected litigation before it goes to Appeals Court.

 

The Forest Service should quickly get their plans together, making sure that the project will survive the lower court battles. It is likely that such plans that were upheld by lower courts, in the past, would survive the inevitable lower court battles. Once the lower court allows the project(s), the timber industry should get all the fallers they can find, and get every snag designated for harvest on the ground. Don’t worry too much about skidding until the felling gets done. That way, when the case is appealed, most of Chad Hanson’s issues would now be rendered ‘moot’. It sure seems like the Hanson folks’ entire case is dependent on having standing snags. If this idea is successful, I’m sure that Hanson will try to block the skidding and transport of logs to the mill. The Appeals Court would have to decide if skidding operations and log hauling are harmful to spotted owls and black-backed woodpeckers.

 

It seems worth a try, to thin out snags over HUGE areas, while minimizing the legal wranglings.

Are Drones Like E-Bikes? Or, is the Forest Level the Right Place to Decide, and Is There/Should There Be Some Form of National Direction?

Drones.. are some uses OK and others not? Video of Sequoia NF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAfr_J6Z2uQ
Video of Sequoia

I’ve been reviewing some of the posts since I was gone, and thought the topic of drone decisions as brought up by Patrick McKay with regard to the GMUG plan revision.

You may remember when it came to e-bike policy, the Forest Service issued a generic policy and then suggested that each unit make site-specific decisions (as did BLM, see Steve’s post here).
Is this the current policy?

Questions:
1. is there a generic national drone policy to which the GMUG is responding?
2. Is a forest plan the right place to make the decision (and if so, does that mean no decisions until all revisions are complete (in 20-30 years))?
3. Should a generic policy be harmonized at least between the BLM and the FS due to interconnected lands/potential for confusion?
4. Since it seems that drones would be handy indeed for various forms of law enforcement that are otherwise difficult to afford in spread out spaces, e.g. this story from Hamilton, Ontario, would there be separate rules for law enforcement’s/ emergency rescue’s use of them? Researchers? Managers of wildlife/trees/recreation/fire?

This interesting article in Sierra Magazine (about drones in Parks) points out that 1. It’s hard to enforce. 2. Scientists use them all the time as well as search and rescue folks, and 3) they can also be used for management activities including PB.

The effort to keep parks drone-free is complicated by the fact that the machines have become indispensable to scientific research. “We have folks using them for various mapping purposes [and] surveys,” says Kristin Swoboda, a fixed-wing fleet and UAS specialist at the National Park Service. Her department receives weekly requests to record caves and archaeological sites, light prescribed burns, and monitor geologic events like landslides and glacial retreat.

Small aircraft are perfect for these tasks, especially fire management. “A helicopter is a whole lot more expensive and risky,” Buehler says. With prescribed burns, “you basically have someone leaning out the door trying to ignite fires with [something like] a paintball gun.” In the past five years, at least three people have died in helicopter crashes connected to prescribed burns in national forests. Drones can drop fire-starting agents remotely. “We by all means do not want to crash drones, but if we do, it’s not killing anybody.”

UAS are also increasingly considered essential to search-and-rescue operations. In 2017, Arizona’s Tonto Rim SAR team used drones to map safer rappels while recovering the body of a fall victim, and Colorado’s Douglas County SAR rescued two lost hikers in Pike National Forest after spotting them with a drone. “It’s really hard to find people, and drones are yet another tool,” says Morris Hansen, the lead drone pilot and vice president of Douglas County SAR. Some models carry enough weight that they can be used to drop supplies to victims or safely get a rope to them.

Other questions or thoughts?

Planning for protection from recreation

This blog has discussed the effects of recreational activities on wildlife (here’s one), and whether federal land managers should be doing something different (than basically reacting to overuse).  It might be worth looking at how planning for use of newly acquired land is being done by local governments and land trusts that are interested in wildlife, and there happen to be a couple of current examples from Colorado.

Fishers Peak is a new state park near Trinidad, Colorado.  It was formerly a private ranch with very little recreational use and no trails or other developments.

“This is a property that has not been loved to death,” Dreiling says. “It’s been pretty well protected, and it’s important to us that we put recreation on this property in a wise way, in a thoughtful way. It’s an important ball that we’re not going to drop, that balance of conservation and recreation.”

In practice, that means a trail won’t be built just because it accesses the prettiest views; instead, the project partners are, for example, assessing where wildlife corridors are located and what sorts of impacts motorized vehicles could have so the public can enjoy the land inside Colorado’s second-largest state park without worrying too much about the environmental consequences. The park’s full playbook is still being drawn up, so not all of these questions have been answered, but efforts to bridge the sometimes conflicting ambitions of recreation and preservation could set a new standard for future projects—here and across the country.

Pitkin County has purchased land and granted a conservation easement to the Aspen Valley Land Trust to protect wildlife habitat.

The easement language includes a nod to a 2016 policy adopted by the Pitkin County Open Space and Trails Board, which states that the county shall “rely on the best available science for property-specific study of natural habitat conditions, including the role of the property in the context of larger habitat and wildlife patterns in the Roaring Fork watershed.” That policy also states that “human uses, if any, will be planned and managed to minimize intrusion into breeding/nesting areas and migration corridors … (and) minimize intrusion into the time periods and/or places of special habitat concern.”

Allowances for human use on the property are not guaranteed and would be made only after detailed studies are completed on site-specific conditions, identifying wildlife and habitat needs.

“You answer those questions first and then say what niches are left where you can integrate humans,” Will said in an interview. That could take the form of enacting seasonal closures or making specific areas of the property off-limits year-round. The management plan could take years to come together.

Of course federal lands are already developed to facilitate recreation.  This doesn’t mean they couldn’t be redeveloped (or undeveloped) where effects on wildlife have been identified.

Woodman spare that forest (the climate needs it)

Source: Biodiversity Sri Lanka

I’ve been wondering if there is a straightforward answer to the question of how to best manage forest lands to sequester carbon for the foreseeable future to reduce potential climate change impacts.  We’ve beaten around that bush a few times, such as here.

I thought such an answer might be found in the kind of forest management activities carbon offset programs are willing to pay for.  I recently ran across this example, which describes two new programs for small forest landowners.

“Forest carbon projects have historically faced skepticism around their additionality and potential for leakage — that is, the shifting of tree removals to nearby acreage. The concern is that despite paying a landowner to keep trees on one parcel, the same number will simply be removed elsewhere, resulting in a null offset with no net change in carbon storage. Yet SilviaTerra believes this problem can be addressed by creating a market in which all landowners are eligible to receive carbon payments as an alternative to timber revenues…  Payments are scaled to target the timeframe when forests have matured to a point of likely timber harvest… SilviaTerra believes that timber harvest deferrals hold the potential for removing over a billion tons of atmospheric carbon within the United States in the coming decade, or 4.3 billion tons globally.”

SilviaTerra is paying landowners to not harvest mature trees now, and presumably they would continue to do that indefinitely for a parcel because, (according to this article on the carbon value of old forests), “We now know that the concept of overmature forest stands, used by the timber industry in reference to forest products, does not apply to carbon.”   The Family Forest Carbon Program pays for “improved forest management practices,” “such as removal of invasive species or limiting thinning.”  Both seem to treat the answer to my question as obvious – the best management for carbon is “don’t cut down trees.”

Here is what the Forest Service has had to say about the best available science.  This 2017 General Technical Report covers a lot of the pros and cons and questions and considerations and reservations that we have previously discussed, such as wood products, wood energy and fire risk, but if the goal is to “maintain and increase carbon stocks,” the best answer appears to be “decrease carbon loss:”

“Decreasing the intensity of forest harvest is one way to decrease carbon losses to the atmosphere (McKinley et al. 2011, Ryan et al. 2010). Across diverse forest systems, the “no harvest” option commonly produces the highest forest carbon stocks (Creutzburg et al. 2015, Nunery and Keeton 2010, Perez-Garcia et al. 2007).”

The Report was written for a broad audience of landowners and managers, so it also discusses options for managed stands:

“Managed stands typically have lower levels of forest biomass than unmanaged stands, even though the annual rate of sequestration may be higher in a younger forest. In managed forests, reducing harvest intensity, lengthening harvest rotations, and increasing stocking or retention levels will generally increase the amount of carbon stored within forest ecosystem carbon pools in the absence of severe disturbance (D’Amato et al. 2011, Harmon 2001, Harmon and Marks 2002, McKinley et al. 2011, Taylor et al. 2008b).”

However, they also provide caveats and qualifiers associated with obtaining overall carbon benefits from any strategy that removes trees, which make it clear this would likely be a second-best strategy for carbon sequestration.

With regard to national forests, the Report recognizes the role of NFMA and forest plan revisions:

“Assuming carbon is one of these key ecosystem services, the plan should describe the desired conditions for carbon in the plan area that may vary by management or geographic area. In developing plan objectives, the interdisciplinary team should consider the linkage between carbon and how plan objectives would contribute to carbon storage or sequestration. Standards and guidelines may also be needed to achieve desired outcomes for carbon.”

We shouldn’t have to just assume the importance of carbon sequestration, since that is a decision a forest plan could make.  With an incoming administration that has said it would integrate climate change into everything it does, a good question to ask them would be why should the Forest Service not establish in its forest plans the desired outcome to “maintain and increase carbon stocks.”  This should create a presumption or default that trees should not be removed unless the Forest Service can demonstrate scientifically that it would improve carbon sequestration (apparently difficult to do), or if it would meet some other goal that the planning process has determined is a higher priority than climate change (such as public safety).  Climate change mitigation has typically been diverted to a side-channel during forest planning, but there doesn’t seem to be any excuse now for why at least managing for carbon sequestration isn’t mainstream.

Winter motorized recreation planning – behind the curve again?

credit

The trend continues – technology makes it easier for more people to get farther into the less trammeled  parts of public lands.  Good planning would project future changes in technology over the life of a plan and – plan for it.  I haven’t researched this question directly, but my impression is that winter travel planning (required by Forest Service regulations) mostly responds to the current state of technology.  I’ve even seen statements like, “we don’t need to worry about closing these areas,” or at least “we don’t need to worry about people complaining if we close these areas,” because people can’t get to them.  What happens when that is no longer true?  NEPA requires consideration of new information relevant to environmental impacts, which may lead to changing a decision.

“Snowbikes” – I imagine there are some national forests that ought to be thinking about going back to the drawing board on their winter travel management plans (and maybe forest plans).  Especially where there are snow-dependent species like lynx and wolverine that are listed under ESA (where new information must be consulted on) or at risk of being listed (and regulatory mechanisms are a consideration).

“After Polaris bought Timbersled in 2015, that’s when things took off,”

“The snowbike market is in its infancy right now, but it’s exploding,”

“It’s a riot,”  “You can make your own line wherever you want to go.”

 

“They’re so agile,”  “You’re able to get into places you never would get into with a snowmobile.”

“It’s just like riding a dirt bike in the woods,”

“For those who have never ridden a snow bike, the best analogy I can think of is this; it is like riding a Jet Ski on sand dunes. There is a freedom unlike anything else I have ever done.”

 

Forest planning for “sustainable” recreation

A former Forest Service backcountry specialist talks about ecological integrity and increasing human recreation activities, and tries to answer the question of “what is sustainable recreation?”  The 2012 Planning Rule requires plan components “to provide for: (i) Sustainable recreation; including recreation settings, opportunities, and access; and scenic character.”

What is “Sustainable Recreation”? The Forest Service defines it as “the set of recreation settings and opportunities in the National Forest System that is ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable for present and future generations.”

Here’s how it’s done:

The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum can be used in forest planning to define a desired condition for management within each zone. Indicators and standards are meant to define the tipping point beyond which management action must be taken.
 If the standard for a backcountry area (called “semi-primitive non-motorized” in ROS jargon) is that no more than six other parties are encountered on a typical day, when the encounter rate exceeds that number some action is supposed to take place to return to the desired condition.
It’s a neat framework, but doesn’t always play out as intended on the ground. ROS doesn’t differentiate between a semi-primitive area in the back yard of a town like Jackson or Bozeman and one that’s two hours away.
That seems like a major shortcoming, especially if all areas with a SPNM designation must have the same desired level of semi-primitive non-motorized use.  However, the Planning Handbook encourages “new approaches,” including creating “desired recreation opportunity spectrum subclasses” §(23.23a).
The usual sequence of remedial actions begins with non-intrusive measures like visitor education. If the problem isn’t solved, additional actions are considered.
The Bridger-Teton forest plan is typical in its prescribed sequence of actions, this excerpt taken from its direction on wilderness. The following recreational strategies should be used, listed in descending order of preference:
First Action – Efforts are directed towards information and education programs and correction of visible resource damage.
Second Action – If the first action is unsuccessful, restrict activities by regulation (for example, set a minimum distance between a lakeshore and where people can camp).
Third Action – If the first and second actions fail, restrict numbers of visitors.
Fourth Action – If first, second, and third actions are not successful, a zone can be closed to all recreation use until the area is rehabilitated and restored to natural conditions.
In my experience, outside of designated wilderness and other special areas where specific laws apply, the Forest Service keeps circling around the first action, which isn’t a bad strategy given the continuing need for it in communities where resident turnover is high.  It’s an ongoing need regardless of the often unmet requirement to step up restrictions. But restrictions trigger blowback, as when the Shasta-Trinity National Forest tried to set encounter limits for the wilderness that includes Mt. Shasta.
People basically said they don’t care if it’s crowded—they just want to reach the summit, and a judge agreed with them. On the other hand, those who float the Selway River are happy to wait until they get a launch day shared by no one else. Since everyone is going the same direction at about the same speed, everyone can experience a bit of peace and quiet. So the application of sustainable recreation standards depends on who is using the forest and what they will accept.
And those are the questions that forest planning should be designed to answer.  (Note:  the Bridger-Teton plan has not been revised, so may not be the current state-of-the-art.  Also, I couldn’t find the court case referred to.)  And this must be done against the backdrop of a requirement for ecological integrity.
User-built trails and roads are often the opposite of sustainable. They develop incrementally and aren’t designed with soil type, grades and curve radii in mind, or the needs of resident wildlife. The trail system after adoption by the Forest Service usually gets reworked so it doesn’t turn into deep ruts or wash into the creek, but where is the analysis that determines that the trail location is right in the first place?  The trail itself becomes more sustainable, but where do the grouse and elk and owls go?
The adoption of forest plan of components for desired recreational use has effects that must be evaluated during the NEPA process, but rarely does the Forest Service devote much attention to this.
The author describes a common fallacious argument that the Forest Service likes to make about sustainability to avoid controversy:
While the planning rule makes clear that ecological integrity underlies compatible uses in a national forest, the ecological, economical, and social sustainability have since been referred to as a three-legged stool, with all three legs of equal importance.
But if you parse the actual language of the Planning Rule, it is apparent that the ecological leg needs to support more weight (driven by the substantive diversity requirement of NFMA) (my emphasis).
“Plans will guide management of NFS lands so that they ARE ecologically sustainable and CONTRIBUTE TO social and economic sustainability; CONSIST OF ecosystems and watersheds with ecological integrity and diverse plant and animal communities; and HAVE THE CAPACITY TO PROVIDE people and communities with ecosystem services and multiple uses that provide a range of social, economic, and ecological benefits for the present and into the future.