Sighted last March. They’re probably a good indicator of ecological integrity.
Building Trust
In Search of Common Ground II – It Takes Two: Forest Management and Social Management
Here are two current articles that get some things wrong but if we ignore those items and focus on the big picture that they present rather than on the details, I believe that we will find that we have more in common than we thought.
Between the two articles we see the full picture for PRIORITIZED actions to begin the long battle ahead to recover from national ashtrays, lost lives, lost homes and infrastructure, significantly decreased health of both humans and forests. It is a two pronged battle that includes both sound forest management and social management.
A) Using Forests to Fight Climate Change – California takes a small step in the right direction.
“The state’s proposed Forest Carbon Plan aims to double efforts to thin out young trees and clear brush in parts of the forest, including by controlled burning. This temporarily lowers carbon-carrying capacity. But the remaining trees draw a greater share of the available moisture, so they grow and thrive, restoring the forest’s capacity to pull carbon from the air. Healthy trees are also better able to fend off bark beetles. The landscape is rendered less combustible. Even in the event of a fire, fewer trees are consumed.
The need for such planning is increasingly urgent. Already, since 2010, drought and beetles have killed more than 100 million trees in California, most of them in 2016 alone, and wildfires have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres.
California’s plan envisions treating 35,000 acres of forest a year by 2020, and 60,000 by 2030 — financed from the proceeds of the state’s emissions-permit auctions. That’s only a small share of the total acreage that could benefit, an estimated half a million acres in all, so it will be important to prioritize areas at greatest risk of fire or drought.
The strategy also aims to ensure that carbon in woody material removed from the forests is locked away in the form of solid lumber, burned as biofuel in vehicles that would otherwise run on fossil fuels, or used in compost or animal feed.”
B) Why are California’s homes burning? It isn’t natural disaster it’s bad planning
This Op-ed by Richard Halsey (director of the California Chaparral Institute who sometimes posts on NCFP) is well written and, though I would disagree on some statements in his post, I present those that I do agree on in an attempt to show that there are specific components that are middle ground that we all should be able to agree on and focus on rather than focusing on what won’t work. Once we change our emphasis, hostility between opposing sides should decrease and progress should increase.
“Large, high-intensity wildfires are an inevitable and natural part of life in California. The destruction of our communities is not. But many of the political leaders we elect and planning agencies we depend upon to create safe communities have failed us. They have allowed developers to build in harm’s way, and left firefighters holding the bag. ”
“others blame firefighters for creating dense stands of chaparral in fire suppression efforts—when that’s the only way chaparral naturally grows, dense and impenetrable.”
“”we need to recognize that fire disasters aren’t natural, they’re social. And they require social solutions.”” (quote from University of Colorado geographer Gregory Simon)
–> Pay attention to the statement “fire disasters aren’t natural, they’re social”. My first reaction was “not true” but in the context of the Op Ed, I think that the author is making an appropriate distinction between the words “Catastrophic” and “Disaster” by reserving “Disaster” for those situations where the catastrophe falls mainly on humans.
“We also need to examine the best practices of other fire-prone regions. Communities in Australia often install external, under-eave/rooftop sprinklers, which have proven quite effective in protecting structures during wildfires. (Australians understand that wet homes do not ignite.) Such systems should be standard in all new developments in high fire hazard zones. It is likely they would have protected many of the homes consumed in Ventura’s Thomas fire this week.”
“As we do with earthquakes and floods, our goal should be to reduce the damage when wildfires arrive, not pretend we can prevent them from happening at all. That mindset starts at the planning department, not the fire station.”
C) Relevant Prior Posts with included references:
1) Finding Common Ground
IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND
Frustration: Will It Lead to Change?
2) Wildfire
Fuels management can be a big help in dealing with wildfires
Air Pollution from Wildfires compared to that from Prescribed burns
Inside the Firestorm
The Impact of Sound Forest Management Practices on Wildfire Smoke and Human Health
Humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires, increased fire season over two decades
More on Wildfire and Sound Forest Management
Scientific Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity
Articles of Interest on Fire
The Role of Sound Forest Management in Reducing Wildfire Risk
15 Minute TED Talk: “Forest Service ecologist proposes ways to help curb rising ‘Era of Megafires’”
We’re All In This Together
Court slams Forest Service wilderness decision
The federal district court in Idaho has ruled against the state’s use of helicopters to collar elk in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. In Wilderness Watch v. Vilsack it held that the Forest Service failed to consider the cumulative impacts of a one-year proposal when it knew the state intended this to be part of at least a ten-year program. It found that the decision to not prepare an EIS violated NEPA.
The court also found that the Forest Service violated the Wilderness Act. In 2010, the court had approved use of helicopters to collar wolves because its purpose of “understanding the wolf” furthered wilderness values. However, the judge warned that, because of cumulative impacts (and probably because of some skepticism about the state’s motives), “the next project will be extraordinary difficult to justify,” and that the Forest Service would need to give sufficient notice to allow opponents to “fully litigate” such projects.
The Forest Service issued a special use permit in January 2016, and within two days the elk collaring was completed, along with four wolves not authorized by the permit. The court rejected state arguments that it didn’t need permission, and held that the Forest Service failed to make a proper determination that the helicopters and collaring were necessary for wilderness management because it considered only “a one-year portion of a much larger long-term plan.”
The relief granted by the court is noteworthy:
- Injunction preventing the Forest Service from considering any of the data gathered from the elk and wolves as a result of this project
- Injunction preventing the Forest Service from approving any future helicopter projects without delaying implementation for 90-days to allow affected groups to file challenges to the projects
- Inunction preventing the state from using any of this data in further proposals seeking approval from the Forest Service
- Mandatory injunction ordering the state to destroy the data received on the elk and wolves collared in this project
How do you suppose the Forest Service rewards this kind of decision-making?
Sleeping With the Enemy?
Timber industry people who don’t trust forest collaboration believe that those of us who participate in collaboratives are sleeping with the enemy. Environmentalists who would rather sue than participate in collaboratives think that environmentalists who collaborate with us are sleeping with the enemy. So it’s unanimous. We’re sleeping with our enemies. I don’t care what our critics think. Collaborative groups, ours included, are solving political problems that should never have become political problems, and those problems are the reason why our forests are dying and burning before our very eyes. So if you really want to know what collaboration is all about, it’s about protecting forests from the ravages of nature, not just for our benefit, but also for the benefit of future generations.
Duane Vaagen, Chief Executive Officer
Vaagen Brothers Lumber Company, Colville, Washington
http://www.evergreenmagazine.com/forest-collaboration-in-northeast-washington-part-1-duane-vaagen/
Larry’s note: Sent to me from a reader, this points out the, maybe, necessary mistrust at this part of the collaborative journey. We need all sides to embrace full transparency, so that the public at-large can more accurately form a better-educated opinion of the compromises that might work, for those site-specific conditions. I do think that the tables are turning, in favor of more active management and stewardship. I do think this summer’s fire season might convince a few more people, too.
Collaborating with the enemy
This story reminded me of that use of this term:
The County Commission passed a resolution officially requesting the forest service immediately cease actions it has been taking since 2013 pertaining to grazing on Dixie National Forest.
The forest service actions protested include the gathering of data, conducting studies and preparing reports without the county’s involvement. The resolution further protests a cooperative relationship the forest service has engaged in with Grand Canyon Trust Inc., which the commission and the Utah Association of Counties maintain constitutes an improper relationship with nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.
In its resolution, the County Commission “respectfully requests” the forest service discard any data, studies and reports prepared without notice and involvement of the county since 2013 and that the service coordinate with Washington County in any future action from the outset.
An undated letter from Mark Ward, senior policy analyst and general counsel for the Utah Association of Counties, (responding to an Aug. 18, 2014, forest action), supports and is made a part of Washington County’s resolution. In his closing, Ward wrote to the supervisors of Dixie National, Fishlake and Manti-LeSal forests, all affected by the Aug. 18 action: ‘Forest Service should scrap the FS Initial Review, start over and next time, integrate NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) into the process. After all, it is the stated policy of Forest Service to ‘fully integrate NEPA requirements into agency planning and decision-making,’ … and ‘apply (NEPA procedures) to the fullest extent practicable to analyses and documentation of Forest Service actions …’
NEPA doesn’t apply until you have an ‘action’ to propose, and the NEPA process is supposed to encourage review of the data used in evaluating the action (regardless of its source). The cash-starved government is always looking for help in collecting data. Is there a problem with this approach?
FOIA Improvement Act – coming next year
I saw FOIA from the government side when I was a regional FOIA coordinator as an unfunded mandate that made agency staff drop their priority work, but then sometimes get bogged down in attempts to deny requests under changing administration policies regarding the “presumption of openness.” But when I hosted a FOIA conference, I invited a newspaper reporter as a guest speaker to offer the rest of the world’s perspective. Which is a lot like the one in this editorial.
Rim Fire Update
Apparently, enough of the hazard trees within the Rim Fire on the Stanislaus NF have been cut so that the travel ban has finally been lifted, after more than a year. I heard one report that says that the litigation has failed at the District Court level, losing their pleas to stop the logging three times. The article below includes the Appeals Court but, I doubt that an appeal has been seen in court yet. It seems too soon after the District Court decision for the appeal to be decided.
http://www.calforests.org/rim-fire-update-final-motion-halt-restoration-forestry-rim-fire-denied/
Since the Rim Fire tore through the area and devoured over 250, 000 square miles of National, State and private forested land, the community has come together to put together a solution with positive environmental, economical and social sense. The whole effort to restore forests has been very successful due to cooperation of a diverse group of individuals, organizations and government agencies.
(Edit: Thanks to Matt for pointing out the acres/square miles error. That should be 250,000 acres.)
With a monster storm approaching California, we should be seeing some catastrophic erosion coming from the Rim and King Fire areas. Of course, very little can be done to prevent erosion on the steep slopes of the canyons with high burn intensity. Standing snags tend to channel water, while branches and twigs on the ground can hold back a surprising amount of soil. This flood event would have been great to document through repeat photography but, it appears that opportunity will be lost, too.
Bark beetle activity has also spiked where I live, northwest of the Rim Fire.
Logging to Conserve a Conservation Easement
Logic and an open mind shows a conservationist with a strict conservation easement and the land trust Montana Land Reliance the need for modifying their agreement to save a forest through sound forest management. This is an example of tailoring sound forest management to accommodate strong conservationist viewpoints while recognizing the shortsightedness of their original “blinders on” “no harvest and no logging” agreement in order to reduce the risk of loss and improve aesthetics. Where there is a common goal and a true love for the forest, blinders come off and the environment wins. See the Bitterroot Star.
Some quotes include:
– “The sixty-acre tract of land, located up the Tin Cup Creek drainage west of Darby, is owned by Stewart Brandborg, a longtime conservationist. A conservation easement was placed on the land to preserve it in its forested state. “It was a pretty strict easement,” said Brandborg, “to the extent of no harvest and no logging.” So why are they in there logging now, you might ask. To preserve the forest would be the short answer.”
– “The Brandborgs went to the Montana Land Reliance, the company that holds the easement on the property, and worked out a solution that was satisfactory to all concerned. It would allow some light-on-the-land forest thinning to take out the bug killed trees. A prescription was designed by John Wells, a professional forester, that would make for a healthier stand of trees and lessen the fire hazard while preserving the values which the conservation easement was designed to maintain. It was not designed for profit.” –> Note: Profit here is “Landowner Profit”
– “Two small landing areas were cleared where the down trees were hauled to be de-limbed, cut to length and sorted. There was a pile that would go to a small sawmill in Corvallis, a couple of other piles of #1 and #2 house logs, a pile to go to Porterbilt for posts and rails, a pile for Pyramid Lumber, a pile of firewood, and a pile of slash that could be chipped or burned on the spot when the job was done. Stoker said that keeping the destination of the product as close to the logging site as possible was the key to making the small operation profitable.” –> Note: Profit here is “Logger Profit” to keep his business going.
– ““The big thing we try to do is to see what we want it to look like in the long term,” said Stoker. “Then, like Michelangelo and the rock, we take out everything that doesn’t look like that picture.”
All the big yellow pines and the big fir trees were left. In fact, almost all the larger living trees on the place were left untouched. Lots of dead snags were also left for the benefit of wildlife. Big patches of thick growth were also left scattered through the area as refuge and bedding spots for big game and other animals.
“What I like is that you can see a lot of individual trees now,” said Stoker. He pointed to one large 400-year-old pine and said that close to 50 small Douglas fir trees from 15 to 30 feet tall were removed from around the base of the big pine. It not only gets more air and light, it might even survive a fire now that the “fire ladder” surrounding it has been removed.
Stoker said that the woods were so thick on this piece of land that it was hard to see anything.
“We also opened up some views,” said Stoker. “Now you can see some of those big yellow pines on the cliff and see the cliffs themselves. Before, the canopy was so thick that you couldn’t see anything from down here. I think it’s cool seeing the ice coming off the cliff like that. It’s beautiful.”
Stewart Brandborg remains an ardent conservationist. But he also believes that local loggers can still be put to work doing sound management for the health and well-being of the forest, and, with the right machinery, at the right time, and with the right amount of care, they can do it without destroying the landscape.”
When a Preservationist Joins a Collaborative Group
Without making any value judgements here, I find this collection of meeting summaries to be fascinating. Chad Hanson is a full member of the Dinkey Collaborative Group, working to create a better future for the Sierra National Forest. It will be very interesting to see how this process will evolve, with Hanson’s input solidly in view. The level of transparency seems acceptable to me. At the same time, The Sierra is using the new Planning Rule to update their Forest Plan.
Mr. Hanson noted that there was no option for opposing the proposal, and also stated his concern for his opposition going undocumented. Mr. Hanson expressed two main concerns with the proposal. He stated that the proposal assumed high intensity fire results in fisher habitat loss, and commented that the proposal states an inaccurate assumption that trees experience almost complete mortality when a fire burns. Mr. Hanson expressed that the mortality rate was not supported by current data. Mr. Dorian Fougères assured Mr. Hanson that his position would be documented.
Click to access stelprdb5364086.pdf
There are other meeting notes available by searching for “Dinkey Collaborative Hanson”.