NW Forest Plan Advisory Committee Meeting, April 16-18, Weaverville, CA 

FYI, plan watchers….

Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee’s  Next MeetingApril 16-18 in Weaverville, California 

PORTLAND, Ore. (Mar. 26, 2024) – The Northwest Forest Plan Area Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) will meet April 16-18 at the Redding Rancheria Trinity Health Center, 81 Arbuckle Court, Weaverville, California. This will be the fourth meeting for the Federal Advisory Committee to provide the Forest Service with recommended updates for the Northwest Forest Plan Amendment.     

The Secretary of Agriculture established this committee to support ongoing efforts to amend the Northwest Forest Plan. The Federal Advisory Committee brings together representatives with diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise — including community, tribal, government and other interest groups from across the Northwest Forest Plan landscape to inform the plan amendment.  

This group is helping the agency identify ways to effectively conserve key resources while considering social, ecological, and economic conditions and needs.  

FAC meetings are open to the public with an opportunity to submit comments. Details on meetings, including how the public can provide information to the committee is posted on the regional website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/landmanagement/planning/?cid=fseprd1076013.

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.  

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 updated to accommodate changed ecological and social conditions.  

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

Federal Register Notice: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/

For more about USDA Forest Service, visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/r6.

Paper: Fire suppression makes wildfires more severe

Open-access paper in Nature Communications, “Fire suppression makes wildfires more severe and accentuates impacts of climate change and fuel accumulation.”

Abstract:

Fire suppression is the primary management response to wildfires in many areas globally. By removing less-extreme wildfires, this approach ensures that remaining wildfires burn under more extreme conditions. Here, we term this the “suppression bias” and use a simulation model to highlight how this bias fundamentally impacts wildfire activity, independent of fuel accumulation and climate change. We illustrate how attempting to suppress all wildfires necessarily means that fires will burn with more severe and less diverse ecological impacts, with burned area increasing at faster rates than expected from fuel accumulation or climate change. Over a human lifespan, the modeled impacts of the suppression bias exceed those from fuel accumulation or climate change alone, suggesting that suppression may exert a significant and underappreciated influence on patterns of fire globally. Managing wildfires to safely burn under low and moderate conditions is thus a critical tool to address the growing wildfire crisis.

Thanks, Nick Smith, for adding this to your Healthy Forests news roundup today….

Forest Management: The Words Matter- Guest Post by Sarah Hyden

Graphic: Jonathan Glass and Sarah Hyden

Until reasonably accurate and ecologically appropriate language is used by the Forest Service and their collaborators to describe their forest management strategies and activities, fundamental ecological issues will not be well understood, and the necessary paradigm shift to protect our forests and communities will not occur.

A range of misleading language and terms, picked up by many including the media, create confusion and miscommunication. For example, the term “forest restoration,” when used by the agency, often means aggressive cutting and too-frequent burning of large tracts of forest, sometimes removing as much as 90% of standing trees and most of the natural forest understory. Generally conservation organizations and members of the public do not consider such activities, with the resulting damage to soils and waterways, to be ecological restoration. Instead they consider restoration to be strategically improving the overall structure and function of forest ecosystems and processes while causing minimal impacts. Strategies to achieve this include replanting riparian areas, protecting soil microbiomes, promoting beaver habitation, fencing out cows, and decommissioning excessive forest roads. The goal is to create conditions that hold moisture in forest ecosystems, which makes landscapes naturally more fire resistant and bring them into a state of greater ecological integrity.

“Restoration” has become a euphemism the Forest Service uses, borrowed from the language of conservation, that makes what the agency actually does to our forests more palatable. Other misleading agency forest management terms are “thinning” (removing most of the vegetation from a forest is too heavy-handed to be considered thinning), “fuels treatments” (trees and understory are so much more than fuels), “forest health” (there are no clear parameters for forest health), and forest “resiliency.”

“Resiliency” means the capacity of an ecosystem to return to its previous condition after impacts, such as fire. Forests that have been impacted by having had large amounts of vegetation removed due to aggressive cutting and continued too-frequent prescribed fire do not tend to return to their previous condition, and perpetually remain in a degraded state. Untreated or very lightly-treated forests that are allowed to regenerate after a fire may return to their previous condition. So which is resiliency?

The Forest Service concludes analysis of the vast majority of its vegetation cutting and burning projects with a “Finding of No Significant Impact.” Such findings are based on criteria of significance although the findings are often challenged, but the actual words imply that the impacts are relatively minor and not substantive enough to be particularly concerned about – even though we can often plainly see otherwise. A Finding of No Significant Impact is routinely applied to highly damaging projects that leave forests ecologically broken for decades to come. The impacts of such projects cannot be reasonably called “not significant.”

Interested parties trying to obtain information about Forest Service landscape management often must rely on FOIA, or the Freedom of Information Act. However, substantive FOIA requests can now literally take years. When the requests are finally fulfilled, it’s often too late to be useful. To call this “Freedom of Information” from the Forest Service is yet another misnomer. It might be more accurately called the “Nearly Impossible to Obtain Information Act” at this point.

In 2022, three wildfires were ignited by the Forest Service in the Santa Fe National Forest during implementation of prescribed burns, which escaped and burned a total of 387,000 acres. There have been many articles and op-eds written locally and nationally about these fires that point to them as examples of why we need even more thinning and burning of our forests to moderate the effects of wildfire, without mentioning the fact that the fires were actually caused by escaped prescribed burns — or that fact was included, but as more or less a footnote. The Cerro Grande Fire, which was ignited in 2000 due to an escaped prescribed burn (by the US Park Service that time) has also been used as such an example. To do so, without acknowledging the importance of agency prescribed burns having precipitated these same wildfires, amounts to a kind of circular reasoning that suggests we need even more of what caused much of the wildfire we are trying to prevent  – albeit with some procedural changes and further safety measures. It’s a misuse of both language and logic, and clouds the underlying issues.

Articles and op-eds concerning the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire often make statements such as “the Forest Service accidentally triggered New Mexico’s largest wildfire.” This is not entirely false, as the fire was not started on purpose. But what is much more accurate to write is that the Forest Service recklessly or negligently ignited New Mexico’s largest wildfire. The agency had to know it was a substantial risk to ignite the Las Dispensas prescribed burn, which precipitated the Hermits Peak Fire, during a particularly intense high wind pattern, with red flag warnings nearby. The agency had to be clear that if the fire did escape, it would likely spread fast and be very difficult to extinguish until the monsoons came months later. Locals were warning those responsible for the burn not to light up a burn at that time, because it was obvious to them that it would be very dangerous. The Forest Service did not heed their warnings. The Chief’s review of the Hermits Peak Fire indicates that the Forest Service was feeling pressured to catch up on implementing prescribed burns, because they have committed to greatly increasing cutting and burning treatments in our forests, even though safer burn windows are decreasing due to the warming and drying climate.

Additionally, Forest Service personnel knew fire was spreading from the Calf Canyon burn piles 10 days before the Calf Canyon Fire officially broke out during a high wind event. They made efforts to contain the spreading pile burns. They also carried out aerial surveillance over the pile burn area during those days. It was predictable that in early April, the winds could rapidly spread any escaping fire. That the agency did not make a full out effort to address every pile, considering that they knew some of them had been smoldering and that high winds were coming, has at least the appearance of recklessness and/or negligence. Almost two years later, no analysis of this fire has been released by the Forest Service. To use the word “accidentally” in regards to the ignition of this destructive wildfire, which burned entire communities, does not provide any realistic understanding of what likely occurred. A realistic understanding could be a basis for making sure such a catastrophe never happens again.

During the weeks after the Calf Canyon Fire began, the Forest Service identified the cause of the fire as “under investigation,” even though they had been surveilling and attempting to contain the escaping pile burns from the beginning of the incident. Given this, “under investigation” cannot be construed as a reasonably accurate description of what the Forest Service knew about the cause of the Calf Canyon Fire. They surely knew the cause from the very beginning with an extremely high degree of probability. It took several weeks for the Forest Service to finally announce that the Calf Canyon Fire was also precipitated by their own actions. This lack of transparency created even more distrust and anger in an already traumatized community.

In a recent article about the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, the Forest Service was quoted as stating “Record-setting blazes have become common in the West, where risks have reached crisis proportions.” This statement is somewhat true, and yet highly misleading at the same time. It would be substantially more accurate to at least mention that much of the total “wildfire” burning in our forests is intentionally ignited by the agency.

In August of last year, I wrote an article titled “Forest Service Wildfire Management Policy Run Amok.” In it, I described three New Mexico wildfires in just over a year that were greatly expanded due to intentional ignitions by the US Forest Service. I provided evidence, based on thermal hot spot maps, that during the over 325,000 acre Black Fire, New Mexico’s second largest wildfire, up to half of the fire was likely intentionally ignited by the Forest Service.

Since that time, I met with some local Forest Service leadership along with other conservation organization representatives, and a Forest Service fire specialist confirmed that the agency did intentionally ignite much of the Black Fire, from approximately 10 miles to the south and 6 miles to the northwest of the main fire.

Of course, I asked why the Forest Service expanded and ignited the fire to this extent, burning most of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness, and with substantial collateral damage. We were told it was done for “resource management objectives.” That means the fire expansion was essentially a huge Forest Service intentional burn, similar to a prescribed burn, but with no prescription or advanced planning and/or NEPA  (National Environmental Policy Act) analysis. Yet the Forest Service has continued to call this a “wildfire.” with no mention of the role they played in the expansion of the fire. That is a misleading use of the word “wildfire,” since much of the fire was deliberately ignited by the agency. This perpetuates a cycle of even more cutting and burning, since the Forest Service is trying to moderate the effects of the seemingly increased amounts of wildfire.

So what actually is the wildfire “crisis” that the Forest Service is talking about? I believe it’s possible that overall, the Forest Service ignites or expands wildfires to an extent approaching a third to a half of what is counted as wildfire acres burned. No one should simply accept the Forest Service’s use of the term “wildfire crisis” when the agency is expanding and igniting such a major proportion of the fire on our landscapes. Such wildfire expansions have become policy — it’s referred to as applied wildfire. If we are experiencing a wildfire crisis, then it’s a crisis that can be quickly mitigated by the Forest Service simply refraining from igniting so much unplanned wildfire in our forests.

Fires of all intensities are natural and beneficial to fire-adapted forested landscapes. An open and honest process that defines clear parameters for managing wildfire is required in order to safely and effectively allow moderate amounts of naturally-ignited wildfire to burn in our forests. A revised wildfire management policy must be created through a transparent NEPA process. This means using language that is not loaded with unproven and controversial assumptions or agendas. Otherwise, what has happened to the residents so severely impacted by the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, and to our forests, many of which have become over-cut and over-burned, will happen again and again. We should not accept the agency’s statements about a wildfire crisis uncritically.

As long as the media, conservation organizations, and the public continue to accept euphemisms and double-speak to describe forest management strategies and activities, we will not collectively have the understanding to resolve the underlying issues. The issues must be publicly acknowledged with clear and direct language, even though there will always be substantial differences of opinion. The Forest Service and their collaborators should be thoroughly questioned on their use of misleading language. Somehow, the Forest Service and their collaborators, along with conservation organizations, conservation scientists, and the public, will have to come together with a mutual ecological language and understanding. Then, we can design ecologically beneficial projects that allow our forests to reset in a warming climate.

 

Graphic composite photos:
Top left – Santa Fe watershed, thinned in the early 1990’s and burned twice. Photo: Fred King.
Top right – Prescribed burn smoke over the Santa Fe ski basin. Photo: Satya Kirsch.
Bottom left – A USFWS firefighter watches a prescribed fire. Retweeted by Santa Fe National Forest. Photo by USFWS.
Bottom right – La Cueva Fuel Break, thinned in 2017 and burned once. Photo: Lyra Barron.

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Sarah Hyden is the co-founder and director of The Forest Advocate. The Forest Advocate is a not-for-profit organization that advocates for forests and publishes news and resources for forest protection, with a focus on the Santa Fe National Forest.

Is it A Time for Peace Yet? Chief Thomas Quotes our Old Friend Kohelet

 

PERC’s photo

Awhile back I attended a Western Governors conference, and Lesli Allison of Western Landowners Alliance asked the question “what if we think of ranchers as partners, rather than antagonists”? Could we actually make more progress toward conservation?”

I thought of her question when I recently read about PERC ‘s Brucellosis Compensation Fund.

PERC’s collaboration with—and listening to—area ranchers produced an innovative means to help them bear the burden of brucellosis risk. If successful, the fund will help lay the groundwork to address similar challenges throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and beyond.

Yes, I realize that PERC advocates free-market solutions, but if they work, at no cost to the taxpayer, what’s not to like?  They listened and respected the ranchers.  They found a way to resolve a conflict and improve conservation.

I think free-range “enemyism” can keep us from solutions, and needlessly subject groups to a position of “forever enemy-hood.”  And we all know who the bad guys are… the forest products industry, ranchers, miners,  oil and gas folks.. and OHV people.  “Enemyism” is particularly annoying (in my view), when it co-occurs with moralizing.   For forest products, oil and gas, and mining, it seems to me that there is a certain element of hypocrisy- some people use these things, and rich people use a lot of them.  For me, as a person with a Judaeo-Christian background, it’s bit like God saying in Deuteronomy  “it’s OK to eat camels but only if the Canaanites prepare them.”

Awhile back I posted this about an interview with Michael Webber, Prof at UT, who thinks we need an “all hands on deck” approach to decarbonization.

Is there a way to work with them, rather than against them, to promote a low-carbon future?

Unquestionably, many oil and gas companies have been bad actors. At best, the petroleum industry has ignored the problem while making a profit off the products that worsened the situation. At worst, it actively worked to delay action by funding misinformation campaigns or lobbying to delay policy action.

But blaming the industry leaves out our own culpability for our consumptive, impactful lifestyles. Oil consumption is as much about demand as supply.

Rather than finding someone to blame, let’s look for who can help.

Meanwhile, around the National Forests, collaborative groups are working together across different interests. But is there anyone whose job it is to find common ground at the national or regional level?  Bless their hearts, it seems that politicians are generally more interested in rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies than seeking long-term peace and expediting things everyone agrees on.  In fact, it could be in their parochial interests to prolong and intensify divisions.  At least some think that it is in their interests. So yes, that’s a difficulty under our current system.  What would it take to change this dynamic?

I’d like to go back to this 2001 interview of Chief Jack Ward Thomas (128 pages, lots of interesting history, recommended).

HKS: You’ve introduced a subject that I’d like you to talk a little bit about. I hadn’t heard the term “conflict industry”—eco-warriors and other things. You’ve been critical of the environmentalists. You have said that they have won the war and now they’re wandering the battlefield bayoneting the wounded.  They’re not helping anything. They’re only opposing. Do you think it’s because these guys are making three hundred thousand dollars a year, that that’s part of why they are not doing something?

JWT: Let’s not go too far with that. For everybody in the environmental industry that’s making several hundred thousand dollars a year there are probably some number of hundreds working for minimum wage, if that, working for what they think is right. But it matters not what the reason is, people are dedicated to the fight for the environment. There is a time to fight. There is a time for all things under the sun. There is a time to make peace. I think the general environmental war related to the Forest Service is over. In reality, industry needs to abandon sponsoring “ghost dances” to bring back the buffalo—i.e., the good old days. Those days aren’t coming back. It is time for the environmentalists to ease up. They are not going to finish off those who extract natural resources. Now we’ve come to where we stand today. And it is time to ask, “What are some of the things that we could agree upon?” Certainly
an appropriate, well-maintained road system should be one, and there may be others. If one performed an analysis of public opinion related to the management of the national forests considering protection and extraction of resources, you would be looking at a standard U-shaped curve. You might surmise that there was no room for agreement there, but I suspect if you conducted a public opinion poll you would find that the results yield a curve that resembles a bell. This leads me to the conclusion that in a democracy decisions are made by the majority of the minority that cares about the issue. Those that care enough about national forests to participate in planning efforts seem to be split in their opinions. I don’t know how we get them to middle ground, but the general public is much more inclined to accept some middle ground.

HKS: Did you ever discuss this directly, one to one, informally over a cup of coffee with the head of one of these organizations? Why don’t you guys help us?

JWT: Yes I tried that, and most of those from the “industry” believed me to be prone to accept the environmentalists’ view, and most of the environmentalists believed me to favor the industry position. So I guess I did not do so well as a moderator and a broker for the “middle ground.” I think the American people are wearing out with this unrelenting battle, and sooner or later they will insist on some middle ground approach to management. There are management actions by the Forest Service upon which both sides ought to be able to agree. Things such as dealing with issues of forest health. Extreme environmentalists might say, “That’s just another Forest Service excuse to whack down trees.” I’ve even been told that if the trees removed were decked and burned, support for restoration activities might be forthcoming. In other words, there should be no commercial use of trees removed. Well, I think that is a bit goofy.

Here in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana you would think from reading the newspaper reports that the Forest Service is moving ahead with salvage and that dealing with forest health issues in burned areas is overwhelmingly opposed by local people. Yet public opinion polls indicate the vast majority want to move ahead with such activities. They might argue about what “something” is but the vast majority of those polled, at least at this point, are adamant that active management is required. But that is not what you would think after attending public hearings or reading the newspaper.

(my bold)

What do you think? Could we have gotten further down the “national or regional” peace path since 2001?  What opportunities have we had that may have been missed?  Do you think the NWFP revision/amendment has the ability to lead to a lasting peace? What would you recommend to lead to peace?  Do you think real collaboration is only possible at the local level?  Why?

Some Timber-y Followups to Last Week

We had some interesting discussions last week. I am going to do more research on some topics, so I will list the ones I’m working on here.  Please see if I missed any that would be worthy of more discussion or digging for more info, and please add in the comments.

1. Why did BLM volume numbers go down in Oregon?

2. Diameter limit on East Side

a. what does the EA say about alternatives?

b. the mechanics of the “dripline” idea

3. What diameter and length of logs can mills use nowadays?

4. Paper submitted  by TSW commenter on no-bid timber sales.

5.  More background on Amicus briefs; what are they generally used for and why.

(for this one it would be helpful if someone could find what they think is a good explanation and send me some links).

Others?

Question About Forest Service Budget and R&D

A reader asked:

I had a question about the FY 2024 budget (which is recently approved) and the impacts on USFS Research Stations and R&D. It seems like there is a hiring freeze in at least some (if not all) research stations, and it seems like the discussion is that this is a result of some combination of budget shortfalls in the budget (a small cut) as well as some allocation issues within the Budget Modernization efforts. Does anyone know what is happening here, and if hiring will be starting again anytime soon?

I was also wondering, in a possibly related question, because the Trout Unlimited Keystone Agreement included that TU could be paid to:

• Developing the science and tools to address high priority concerns such as climate change, impacts of energy development, restoration of degraded habitats and populations, and control of aquatic invasive species,

It used to be that R&D dollars were said to be necessary for “the science” but I’ve been assured that NFS funds are fine to use for this nowadays.

People with information can post here or contact me directly. I will respect your anonymity.

New Wild Turkey Federation Agreement with USFS

Apologies if someone posted about this already…. Link is here.

Amidst the increasing threat of wildfires, the USDA Forest Service has taken a proactive stance by implementing the comprehensive 10-year Wildfire Crisis Strategy designed to confront the crisis in areas posing the most immediate threats to communities. The NWTF, with a longstanding history of partnering with the Forest Service on stewardship projects nationwide, recognizes the urgency of addressing western landscape issues and fully supports the Wildfire Crisis Strategy.

The Participating Agreement enables the NWTF to enhance its support for this critical initiative by providing funding for new positions dedicated to supporting the implementation of the Master Stewardship Agreement. Funding for this agreement comes entirely from federal dollars authorized in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. This includes covering expenses such as personnel costs, including travel, and supporting essential meetings like Partner Coordination Meetings and Industry Coordination Meetings to foster effective communication and collaboration among stakeholders.

Currently, the NWTF has two key staff positions dedicated to implementing the Master Stewardship Agreement under the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, a Wildfire Crisis Manager and a Regional Wildfire Crisis Coordinator.

 

Homes Lost to Wildfire: It’s the Grass

CNN story:

Over the last three decades, the number of US homes destroyed by wildfire has more than doubled as fires burn bigger and badder, a recent study found. Most of those homes were burned not by forest fires, but by fires racing through grass and shrubs.

The West is most at risk, the study found, where more than two-thirds of the homes burned over the last 30 years were located. Of those, nearly 80% were burned in grass and shrub fires.

Old Growth: How Much is Enough? — 4 Responses

Back in November,  I posted “Old Growth: How Much is Enough?” with a link to the Dovetail Partners report of the same title. (Only 2 comments on TSW.)

Now Dovetail has posted 4 “guest responses” to the report. The group explains:

In November 2023, Dovetail Partners released a report titled, “Old growth forests: How much is enough?”. In the report, we explored the different definitions of “old growth” applied globally and in regions of North America and Europe, including their scientific basis. The report considered why we need old growth forests, and conversely, why we do not, and included a discussion of old growth forest protection and management. We concluded with a discussion how much old growth is ‘enough’, how we can create more, and how our understanding of the relationship between people and forests is evolving.

We asked the following individuals to respond to the report, “Old growth forests: How much is enough?”, and compiled their feedback into one document.

Marcella Windmuller-Campione
Marcella is an Associate Professor with the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Alexander Evans, Forest Stewards Guild
As an Executive Director, Zander focuses on building partnerships, promoting sound policy, and supporting on-the-ground implementation of ecological forestry. He has a PhD from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and worked as a cartographer and spatial analyst with the US Geological Survey.

Dave Atkins
Dave is a Family Forest Owner and President of the Montana Forest Owners Association; he is one of the authors of the Mass Timber Report.

Joseph Vaughn, CF
Joseph is a Key Account Manager at NCX and has a deep rooted passion for sustainable forest management.

Further Information on Oregon Mills and Region 6 Timber Production

Digging deeper on the topics of yesterday, I reached out to AFRC, who generously supplied further information, plus some FS contacts.

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The primary source for Forest Service timber accomplishments are the PTSAR reports.  You can find those here: Periodic Timber Sale Accomplishment Reports (PTSAR) (usda.gov)

 

The chart below for Region 6 is based on this PTSAR data.  You’ll see that the Region saw an uptick from 2022 to 2023; however, our assertions of flat/declining outputs are based on comparisons of 2023 to 2019/2020.  The raw data that populated this chart is also copied below.  We saw a decline by over a third from 2020 to 2022.  The program remains about 18% below its 2020 levels.

 

Region 6201520162017201820192020202120222023
Timber Sold585595581635607724545460589
          

You’re correct in that timber trends are not the same across every National Forest in Region 6.  In fact, local trends are more relevant to the recent mill closures that we cite in our letter than total Region 6 trends.  The mills that closed over the past few months are all located in northwest Oregon.  So, the trends in western (specifically northwestern) Oregon are important to highlight.  The Regional uptick in 2023 shown in the graph above has mainly been a function of growth on eastside Forests, which don’t support westside mills, which are the ones that have closed over the past few months. The graph below shows timber trends for the Mt Hood, Willamette, and Siuslaw National Forests (and totals), which were all within the purchasing circle of the closed mills.  We saw nearly a 100 Million board foot drop from 2019 to 2022.  Even with a slight bump in 2023, these programs are still down by over a third from 2019 levels.

Finally, the BLM program in western Oregon cannot be ignored.  The three Districts below are in the purchasing circle of the closed mills.  Collectively, we’re seeing a 43% reduction from 2021 to 2024.  Note that the 2024 numbers reflect the assigned targets, not actual sold volume.

BLM timber data is not as formally organized as the Forest Service.  This site summarizes sold volume: Oregon Timber Sales Oregon/Washington BLM.  However, the BLM has additional volume every year not accounted for in these reports.  AFRC  acquires that “add-on” volume directly from the Oregon State office every year.

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So, we might ask, what explains these patterns?  Here is what I heard from my FS sources, currently checking with BLM ones.  The Siuslaw is “steady Eddy.”

The Mt. Hood and Williamette notably suffered from the 2020 wildfires. In the second chart, it looks like the Mt. Hood worked its way back to 2019 levels but the Williamette not.  You might think “all those hazard trees” but that was held up by litigation, covered here at TSW, to the extent that the logs deteriorated and now the hazard trees that industry would have paid to remove, are being removed at taxpayer expense via service contracts.

There are two other issues I heard.. that timber attention ($, targets, people (not clear)) has been focused on the East Side in terms of moving things along in the Ten-Year Strategy.  And a generalized inability to fill positions.  I’d appreciate hearing from anyone, either via email or in the comments, who has additional ideas or experiences to add.

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What to make of all this?  I was thinking about Seral on the Stanislaus and how they proactively did NEPA for future hazard trees.  I also vaguely remember potential zones of agreement about hazard trees, even in Oregon.  Perhaps the Region is doing a hazard tree NEPA decision for all forests that they could use when wildfire come along? If we believe that climate change will lead to more wildfires then wouldn’t this be proactive? Maybe the group assembled for the NWFP revision could work out the bare bones of an NWFP area hazard tree agreement in a couple of days?