Clearcutting and Fuel Treatment in California: Do the CFA and the Sierra Club Agree?

In reading the press about wildfires in California, I took notice of whom was quoted about what. Of all of the stories, I found this one particularly interesting and different in terms of the people interviewed. Jeff Daniels, a CNBC reporter, interviewed the head of the California Forestry Association and a representative from the Sierra Club. Now, you would expect them to have different views on mechanical fuel treatments- but perhaps not so much.

“The industry is certainly prepared to assist and encourage and support the thinning of our forests,” said Gordon. “We can actually have more resilient, fire resistant forests if we thin them a little bit.”
Wood agrees that the selective removal of trees to reduce fuels and a more robust timber strategy in the state “can be a piece of the puzzle” to reduce the fire risk.

Note that Gordon does not say that we can “log our way out of having fires”- he says it’s a “piece of the puzzle to reduce fire risk.” Here’s what he has to say about clearcutting:

Gordon, the trade group’s CEO, insists the industry isn’t pushing for more clear-cutting of forested lands — a practice the Sierra Club opposes. Rather, he said, the industry advocates “selectively removing smaller trees on a landscape so that the bigger trees (which are more resilient to fire and store more carbon) can survive and do better.”

So it sounds like CFA is in agreement with the Sierra Club. Here’s what a representative of the Sierra Club said:

Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club California, said the environmental group is not opposed to what she calls “selective logging and those sort of things. We’re opposed to going in and unnecessarily disrupting the environment and doing forest management practices that will lead to worse fires, and some forest practices do.”

She said the practice of clear-cutting and planting trees all at the same time creates added risk for the forest because “you don’t have diversity. That makes them more susceptible to fires. Older trees tend to burn less and slower. So you want to have a lot of diversity.”

So CFA and the Sierra Club are in agreement? Of course, Phillips might be talking about private lands. And I don’t think that the FS has been doing clearcuts for some time.. so..

One thing that I wondered about is whether the Sierra Club has changed its mind about “logging in the National Forests”. Some of us remember about 25 years ago, when that one of their positions (here’s one story about it). Did they change their minds about selling trees from federal forests sometime in the last 25 years? Was there an announcement?

If the Sierra Club and CFA have the same point of view, then, where is the conflict? Does someone know of a specific recent fuel reduction project in the National Forests of California that the Sierra Club was opposed to and why?

15 thoughts on “Clearcutting and Fuel Treatment in California: Do the CFA and the Sierra Club Agree?”

  1. The following comment is posted with permission:

    “In that quote, Kathryn Phillips from Sierra Club California is talking about private timberlands. The Sierra Club is not saying that it’s good to do selective logging on private lands, but that it’s not as destructive as clearcuts. The Sierra Club’s position on National Forests and other federal public lands is that we advocate for an end to the commercial logging program – that has not changed.” – Dr. Chad Hanson, 2018-2019 Sierra Club Director

    Reply
    • Thanks Matthew this is fascinating…

      So (according to the Sierra Club) fuel treatment/thinning projects in the Sierra would be OK if they are on private or state land and sold for lumber,
      and they would be OK with fuel treatment/thinning projects if the trees were cut, but not sold commercially on federal lands.

      But if they’re not removed via logging, then they must be .. what.. cut up and broadcast burned? In some of the areas I’ve been in in the Sierra there would be too much fuel on the ground if none were removed. Perhaps it could be removed and not sold commercially? And if it were burned instead of used in products wouldn’t that be bad for climate?

      At the end of the day, does that mean that the Sierra Club does not support any fuel treatment projects, no matter how close to communities, on federal land, if someone wants to use the trees?

      That seems really difficult to understand, not particularly good for climate, wildlife, or people and unfair to folks who live near federal forests which happen to have large trees and active timber industry.

      I did notice that when I looked at the Board of Directors, no one seemed to live close to dry federal forests with large trees and an active timber industry. Coincidence?
      https://www.sierraclub.org/board/meet

      Reply
      • I know that some Quincy Library Group projects were litigated and stopped but, I don’t really recall any commercial thinning projects, under the Sierra Nevada Framework policy, being halted. Generally, trees between 10 and 18 inches are the sizes of trees thinned. Canopy coverage is conserved, and spacing is done to separate the crowns.

        Salvage logging is their big ‘moneymaker’ but, it seems that their loopholes have mostly been closed, lately. Litigation as a ‘cottage industry’ seems to have gone ‘corporate’, now. We’ll have to see if their tactics will change. It does seem that donations have become more important to them, to keep the lights on, and the wealthy lawyers working.

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      • It’s not fascinating because that is not at all what the quote actually says or implies.
        And whether Board members live “close” to federal forests is meaningless to the issues at hand.

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        • Anonymous- if you believe I am interpreting it incorrectly, would you please be more specific as to why you disagree.
          And while you can say that where Board members live is meaningless, I don’t think I would agree with that. If where people live is “meaningless” in determining public policy, then why do we have local, state and federal governments with (almost all) representatives voted on geographically?

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          • You state the following: “So (according to the Sierra Club) fuel treatment/thinning projects in the Sierra would be OK if they are on private or state land and sold for lumber….”

            But the SC quote doesn’t say that. It says, “The Sierra Club is not saying that it’s good to do selective logging on private lands, but that it’s not as destructive as clearcuts.” That means they are not OK with thinning projects on private lands, just that they are better than the widespread clear-cutting that is currently the primary modus operandi on California private lands.

            Also, it seems that you conflate thinning projects with fuel treatment projects. Not all aspects of thinning are fuel treatment. Many large trees (16-30 inches dbh) are logged via thinning projects even on public lands.

            You state the following: “and they would be OK with fuel treatment/thinning projects if the trees were cut, but not sold commercially on federal lands.”

            Again, the SC quote does not say that. The reason so many thinning projects are so awful is because they are commercial and therefore log trees that would otherwise not be logged if the project was purely for fuel treatment. An end to commercial logging does not mean that the same projects would go forward but not sold. In short, ending commercial logging would change how projects go forward.

            You state: “But if they’re not removed via logging, then they must be .. what.. cut up and broadcast burned?”

            No, there are a multitude of options such as (1) the project does not occur in the first place, or (2) the project occurs, but via a different set of facts, such as proceeding via prescribed fire or via logging that does not go over a particular diameter limit (e.g., 12 inches dbh).

            You state: “In some of the areas I’ve been in in the Sierra there would be too much fuel on the ground if none were removed. Perhaps it could be removed and not sold commercially?”

            Correct. It could be removed with a diameter limit or via a different mechanism (e.g., fire).

            You state: “And if it were burned instead of used in products wouldn’t that be bad for climate?”

            No.

            You state: “At the end of the day, does that mean that the Sierra Club does not support any fuel treatment projects, no matter how close to communities, on federal land, if someone wants to use the trees?”

            Most thinning projects are not fuel treatment projects because they take large trees.

            You state: “If where people live is “meaningless” in determining public policy, then why do we have local, state and federal governments with (almost all) representatives voted on geographically?”

            That is non-sensical with respect to public lands. Where someone lives does not give them greater say with respect to public lands. This is why, thank god, local and state governments cannot control outright what happens on the public lands near them.

            Reply
            • The idea that 16-30 inch diameter trees are “large” is quite a reach. The only time such trees are cut is when they are crowding a larger or ‘better’ tree. In some areas, trees in those size classes can, indeed, be crowded.

              Here is a recent example of thinning.
              https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6117167,-120.3317163,268a,35y,270h/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

              This southeast-facing slope had too many trees, and, specifically, too many white firs. It wasn’t just a thinning project, timber sale or fuels project. It was more of a silviculture project, restoring tree densities and adjusting the species composition for that site. GTR-220 (I think that’s the number) was used in creating the silvicultural prescriptions.

              Finally, we can NEVER have a pre-human landscape again. It is simply impossible, and ridiculous to push for, when current conditions are what they are. We must include inevitable human effects.

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            • Anonymous- at the risk of sounding like a snowflake, calling my ideas “non-sensical” (actually I don’t think it has a dash) is not the sort of discussion that we try to promote around here.

              Also “it seems that you conflate thinning projects with fuel treatment projects. Not all aspects of thinning are fuel treatment. Many large trees (16-30 inches dbh) are logged via thinning projects even on public lands.”

              I think I know a thing or two about thinning, and am not confused. I wrote my first thinning prescription in 1977 (OMG, over 40 years ago) for a tulip poplar stand in the New Haven watershed, so it wasn’t a fuel treatment for sure.

              Nevertheless, I think this is important stuff.. how can a serious national environmental group really believe that commercial logging should not be allowed on National Forests? And you have come closer than anyone to explaining it. So we’ll take up the different pieces of your comments in separate posts. Thanks for your contribution!

              Reply
        • What is more important is whether their opinions are actually based on all the facts, or based on rhetoric, cherry-picking, lies and fake pictures. I would welcome facts that say current commercial thinning projects are, overall, bad for our unhealthy and overstocked National Forests, here in California, as well as bad for mountain residents.

          Reply
  2. I attended UC Berkeley during the days that H. Biswell, EC Stone and Herb Sampert were teaching and researching methods of vegetation management. In their lessons is wisdom that applies to a new generation of forest land managers and politicians alike. The forest is complex living mosaic across the landscape created and maintained by acts of nature and human society. In much of California, the human factor sometimes appears as dominant but is always at risk when it ignores or is blind to the natural interrelationships underpinning the forest complex. The forest dweller and the public land manager’s chief problem is learning to live with the forest, not in spite of it!

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    • The native peoples of the Sierra Nevada had profound impacts upon those mountain forests. With the highly-flammable bearclover able to carry fire very well, their burns favored the fire adapted species. There were far fewer cedars and white fir in the forests of 200 years ago. Some people think that kind of forest is ‘natural’, and that would be what we would get, ‘if we just left it alone’. There is no way to go back to the pre-human forests. Human effects are a constant in today’s forests. We MUST include them in any plan, going forward.

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  3. I attended UC Berkeley with the same folks (and Bob Lee and Starker Leopold) and worked for Ed Stone root counting. Not sure what you’re getting at re: this conversation.

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  4. Today, in California, some people simply want to preserve the controversy, which drives donations. That sure seems to dovetail in with Hanson (re)-joining the Sierra Club *smirk*. Two untrustworthy sources joining forces to steal their donor’s money.

    We’ve seen the Sierra Club push the idea that Trump would clearcut the Giant Sequoias. We’ve also seen Hanson posting fake pictures of Forest Service logging, claiming that the Forest Service clearcuts in the Sierra Nevada. Both claims, designed to produce donations, have been proven wrong, of course. If it is not in the Forest Service project plans, it did… not… happen.

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  5. Here’s the full section from the article. Check it out, with emphasis added…then check out the photos below.

    Push for regulatory relief

    Meantime, the [California Forestry Association] wants to change rules and regulations to make it easier for private industry to thin forested land. The group also suggests increased logging could benefit rural areas in Northern California where poverty and job losses have been problems.

    [Rich] Gordon, the [California Forestry Association president and] CEO, insists the industry isn’t pushing for more clear-cutting of forested lands — a practice the Sierra Club opposes. Rather, he said, the industry advocates “selectively removing smaller trees on a landscape so that the bigger trees (which are more resilient to fire and store more carbon) can survive and do better.”

    Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club California, said the environmental group is not opposed to what she calls “selective logging and those sort of things. We’re opposed to going in and unnecessarily disrupting the environment and doing forest management practices that will lead to worse fires, and some forest practices do.”

    She said the practice of clear-cutting and planting trees all at the same time creates added risk for the forest because “you don’t have diversity. That makes them more susceptible to fires. Older trees tend to burn less and slower. So you want to have a lot of diversity.”

    Some conservative lawmakers believe environmental groups share blame for the state’s current fire risk.

    Extreme environmental groups have for years stated that we shouldn’t thin our forests because of the benefits of carbon that is stored,” said Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach. “However, the carbon that is currently being released with these out-of-control wildfires is dramatically greater than we would have if our forests were responsibly managed.”

    Here are some visual examples of “responsibly managed” (?!?) Sierra Pacific Industries lands that are located within 10 to 25 miles, just north of Paradise, California. Will Rich Gordon, president and CEO of the California Forestry Association demand that Sierra Pacific Industries immediately halt all clearcutting and focus only on “selectively removing small trees?” Also, what type of “regulatory relief” is really needed to “selectively remove small trees?”

    P.S. Here’s a map of Sierra Pacific Industries’ land holdings, taken directly from the SPI website. Pretty sure you will find that everything in blue on the map looks pretty much like all the clearcuts and habitat fragmentation you see above. But hey, somehow SPI is a Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) corporation, so it’s all “sustainable” and cool, right?

    Reply

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