Planting Aspen Trees in Ski Country: Tiny Effort Provokes Maximal Skepticism

Part of video from Vail Daily News story

In the Sunday Denver Post was a reprint of a story from the Vail Daily. The headline was “should aspen replace lodgepole in local forests?”.

This is about a partnership to plant aspen in Summit County, described by TNC this way:

The partners are testing the potential for increases in aspen trees to act as natural fuel breaks for wildfire at the 46-acre Barney Ford open space site, just outside of downtown Breckenridge. Since aspens are less flammable and have a higher moisture content than conifers, they may act to reduce fire severity. Adding more aspen in forests also has wildlife benefits, as it increases insect and plant biodiversity and creates valuable habitat for elk, moose and deer.

Seems like a small, innocuous project, right?

Back to the news story:

“We were very intrigued with the idea of how can we help establish aspens in Summit County,” Lorch said. “One of the issues we see is that as we do the buffers around our communities for wildfire purposes, most of what’s growing back is the same lodgepole thicket that we had before. So in a short period of time, 20 years or so, we’ll have the same issues with fire concerns as we had prior to the cutting. We’ve done some places where we’ve thinned things in order to try to avoid having such a fuels load, but really aspens, and having a more diverse forest, is a much better plan in the long run.”

One interesting thing was this take (drive-by?) on The Nature Conservancy by Tom Veblen, a professor at the University of Colorado.

It’s true that aspens are less flammable than pine trees. And trying to populate former lodgepole zones with aspens can be a worthwhile cause, says forest ecologist Thomas Veblen with the University of Colorado.

“If the financial resources are available to spend a lot of money on forest management, that’s a worthy goal, to increase the area of aspen, and that’s likely to decrease the spread of fires in the future,” Veblen said.

But The Nature Conservancy’s studies on fire fuels reduction, which includes examining aspen repopulation in areas clear cut of lodgepole pine, may end up helping, most of all, The Nature Conservancy, Veblen says.

“They have a structure of people and resources that can do fire mitigation, they’ve got to keep it funded, so there’s a self interest there,” Veblen said. “They have contracts with the Forest Service to do a lot of forest management, so The Nature Conservancy, from that perspective, has a self interest in promoting fuels reduction.”

I called the folks at TNC about this, and while they were interviewed by Mr. LaConte about the project, they were not asked to comment on Veblen’s assertion, and say that it is incorrect.

University of Montana fire ecologist Richard L. Hutto is skeptical of The Nature Conservancy’s efforts.

“I don’t see wholesale conversion of something to something else in the name of fire safety,” he said. “The thing that determines fire behavior and whether it’s going to get crazy is temperature, humidity and wind, not fuels.”

We’ve gotten from diversifying the forest to “wholesale conversion”. I guess that’s building a straw person. We fans of the robust and resilient Pinus contorta know how unlikely that result would be under any scenario. It’s a fairly strong statement to say that fuels don’t “determine fire behavior”.. maybe that’s Hutto’s careful use of language but certainly fuels impact fire behavior.

Another fire ecologist (Baker) says that they should spend money instead on adapting the community and should work with Fire Adapted Colorado (I think it’s likely that they are already doing this). But are fire ecologists good sources of info on what communities “should” spend money on?
Baker also uses the “it doesn’t always work” argument – “in aspen stands many, but not all fires hit the ground.” I’d take “many but not all” over “none” myself.

If Fire Adapted Colorado sounds familiar, it works closely (according to its webpage) with FAC Net, which is of course, a partnership with … The Nature Conservancy.

Fire Adapted Colorado is an independent non-profit organization closely associated and born out of the Fire Adapted Community Learning Network (FAC Net). FAC Net is a national network of people working to build wildfire resilience capacity in wildfire-prone communities. It is supported through a partnership among The Nature Conservancy, the Watershed Research and Training Center and the USDA Forest Service. FAC Net’s purpose is to connect and support people and communities who are striving to live more safely with wildfire. A fire adapted community is a knowledgeable, engaged community that is taking actions that will enable them to safely accept fire as part of the surrounding landscape. For more information about FAC Net, visit www.fireadaptednetwork.org.

I’ve always thought that it is interesting when people get together and do something they think is good, and how these stories are reported. For example, how many inches are devoted to description of the actions compared to critics (in the Denver Post reprint, it was almost 50/50). And why people from elsewhere (Steamboat, Boulder, Wyoming, Montana), academics and not, are thought to be experts on managing areas around Breckinridge. And when the doers get a chance to respond to critics.

17 thoughts on “Planting Aspen Trees in Ski Country: Tiny Effort Provokes Maximal Skepticism”

  1. Here’s the bio from Dr. Tom Veblen, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Colorado.

    Tom Veblen
    Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography • Biogeography; Conservation • Distinguished Research Lecturer • Arts and Sciences College Professor of Distinction • Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1975

    My main research interests are in forest ecology and vegetation dynamics in relation to natural and anthropogenic disturbances, especially as related to climate variability. I use tree rings to date past disturbance events such as fire and insect outbreaks. For more than 25 years I have been investigating how disturbances such as fire, blow down and bark beetle outbreaks interact in the forested landscapes of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Since the mid-1970s in the southern Andes of Chile and Argentina I have been investigating the effects of disturbances such as mass movements, blow down, fires, and introduced animals on forest dynamics, and increasingly under the effects of climate warming. Both my Colorado and southern Andean work are supported mainly by the National Science Foundation.

    Honors and Awards
    Distinguished Professor University of Colorado, 2017
    Distinguished Research Lectureship, University of Colorado Boulder, 2016
    Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2008
    Faculty Fellowship, University of Colorado Boulder, 2007
    Appointed Professor of Distinction by the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 2006
    Henry C. Cowles Award for the Best Publication in Biogeography, Association of American Geographers, 2005
    James J. Parsons Distinguished Career Award, Association of American Geographers, 2005
    Henry C. Cowles Award for the Best Publication in Biogeography, Association of American Geographers, 2000
    Edward J. Taafe Distinguished Lectureship, Ohio State University, 2000
    Carl O. Sauer Distinguished Scholarship Award, Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, 2000
    Visiting Distinguished Ecologist, Colorado State University. 1998
    Award for Excellence in Research, Boulder Faculty Assembly, University of Colorado Boulder, 1997
    Faculty Fellowship, University of Colorado Boulder, 1993
    Honors in Research Awarded by the Association of American Geographers, 1992
    Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Western Michigan University, 1991
    Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1991
    Wallace W. Atwood Lecturer, Clark University, 1990
    Faculty Fellowship, University of Colorado Boulder, 1985
    John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 1985
    New Zealand National Research Advisory Council Post‑Doctoral Fellowship, 1979

    Reply
    • I don’t get your point, Matthew. I agree with Veblen on getting more aspen is a “worthy goal.” I was just questioning his statement about TNC having a “self interest in promoting fuels reduction.” I don’t see anything in his bio about reviewing TNC programs. If we believe him on this because he knows about other stuff… well.. that’s not a compelling argument to me.

      Reply
      • One interesting thing was this take (drive-by?) on The Nature Conservancy by Tom Veblen, a professor at the University of Colorado.

        And I don’t get your point about a “drive-by,” Sharon….Assuming you didn’t mean a “drive-by shooting” but instead meant “drive-by” as in “done or made in a quick or cursory manner,” I personally don’t believe someone as disgusted or respected as Dr. Tom Veblen (hence posting his bio) would engage in a “drive-by” take on The Nature Conservancy.

        Reply
  2. Seems like an idea worth pursuing. That said, there are questions. Has anyone tried to establish stands of aspen (not just a few trees) like this, and been successful? What is the source of the seedlings (and cost)? Aspen stands tend to be genetic clones. How will seedlings respond when planted with a large diversity of other, slightly different competitors? Presumably, there will be competition from an abundance of lodgepole pine seedlings. Will these have to be reduced? Is there evidence that this is a good site for productive, competitive aspen? Soil moisture? Questions could be discussed for a few years – or – at least some of the area could be “treated” with aspen seedlings to see what happens. We might learn as we go.

    Reply
    • Dr. Wayne Sheppard was our Colorado aspen expert, but he may have retired. Here’s a link to a paper from a symposium in 2001
      https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=J1ccY76kUkIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA355&dq=regenerating+aspen+forests&ots=ipfbAf5TbE&sig=XNPTK4OtITO1_IYaoKalWWGTac8#v=onepage&q=regenerating%20aspen%20forests&f=false
      Here’s some info from Utah. https://forestry.usu.edu/news/utah-forest-facts/the-regeneration-of-aspen-stands-in-southern-utah

      According to TNC here
      ” At Barney Ford, the partners will plant aspen seedlings, grown from locally collected seed, within a protective enclosure to reduce browsing by ungulates while the seedlings establish. Inside the enclosure, partners are using snow fences to create the moist conditions aspen need to thrive. Over the coming years, the partners will collect regular data on seedling growth and survival.

      In addition to the work at Barney Ford, the partners are collaborating with local universities to identify favorable areas for future aspen planting. The first step has been to create a map predicting current aspen cover across the Southern Rocky Mountains. The second step will be to create a map predicting locations where aspen could thrive based on local topography and predictive models of future climate change. ”

      It’s a bit odd that you would need to “predict” current aspen cover (seems like you could just “observe “it) maybe that’s a typo. The question to me is threefold:

      Situation a. If they have grown there and died back, can we get them to regenerate vegetatively?
      Situation b. If they appear to have not grown there, can we regenerate them (via seed or cuttings) with or without interventions such as snow fences and browse protection.
      If we start them with snow fences, can they continue to grow to maturity (differences between enough water for a seedling versus a big tree).

      I agree with you that there are likely to be sites that are better than other sites, and I think these might be distinguished by field observations of the local site more than “predictive models of future climate change” which, as far as I know, are not very good at the regional level.

      Reply
      • I worked at the USFS Placerville Nursery for the ‘lift and pack’, one winter. We did have a run of aspen seedlings and it was a novelty to be processing them for delivery to who knows where. They appeared to be collections of twigs, without their leaves, of course. The Giant Sequoias were 2 years old when they were ‘harvested’. It’s funny when someone claims that such trees can never be propagated in a nursery. (You often see those claims on Facebook)

        Reply
  3. Compared to these experts, I do not have much credibility as a forester.
    I would have thought aspen would regenerate in these cutover, burned over, or however the soil got exposed. The Blue River area appeared to once have had lot of aspen so it cold still be there. We know lodgepole pine will be back in abundance but even with aspen, planted or natural, it will come back.

    Reply
  4. Looks like a very small, very expensive effort. But there may also be a very small local climate benefit: Aspen stands have a higher albedo than conifer stands, esp. in winter, when snow cover is exposed, with little vegetative cover. Thus, colder local temps. Years ago heard some folks speculating that replanting beetle-killed lodgepole sites in BC (an area the size of Kentucky, from what I recall) and jack pine in other boreal forests with aspen would have a significant, albeit regional, climate impact. Colder temps might help knock down the bark beetles.

    Excerpt from a brief paper:

    “Notable surface albedo differences have also been observed within forests, owed to differences in tree species composition and structure [7-9]. During months with snow, the surface albedo of deciduous broadleaved forests is often higher than in evergreen needleleaved forests due to differences in canopy masking of snow by foliage. During the growing season, the surface albedo of deciduous broadleaved forests can also be higher than that of evergreen needleleaved forests owed to higher reflectance properties of foliage (and often, too, of stems and branches). This year-round albedo increase makes it an attractive mitigation option for the forestry sector in many boreal regions [10]. Surface albedo of a forest is also sensitive to its structure: surface albedo often decreases with increasing canopy heights [8, 11], increasing leaf area index [12, 13], increasing biomass [7], increasing volume [8], and increasing age [14-16]. Forest management activities largely shape these structural attributes and thus the surface albedo of the forested landscape [17].”

    https://ecosystemmoose.com/on-the-link-between-trees-and-surface-albedo/

    During months with snow, the surface albedo of deciduous broadleaved forests is often higher than in evergreen needleleaved forests due to differences in canopy masking of snow by foliage. During the growing season, the surface albedo of deciduous broadleaved forests can also be higher than that of evergreen needleleaved forests owed to higher reflectance properties of foliage (and often, too, of stems and branches). This year-round albedo increase makes it an attractive mitigation option for the forestry sector in many boreal region

    Reply
  5. Compared to these experts, I do not have much credibility as a forester.
    I would have thought aspen would regenerate in these cutover, burned over, or however the soil got exposed. The Blue River area appeared to once have had lot of aspen so it cold still be there. We know lodgepole pine will be back in abundance but even with aspen, planted or natural, it will come back.

    Reply
    • 2nd.. I don’t understand what you mean.. how do you think that works exactly? Congress provides a budget that they need to spend..??

      I think Veblen’s assertion was not that funders don’t affect TNC’s agenda, like any other interest group, but that specifically TNC supports fuel treatment projects because TNC makes money from doing them. That’s the part where I would have liked some supporting detail.

      Reply
  6. this might work in certain situations, and I’m an unabashed fan of aspen. They are biologically productive and not particularly flammable….

    But…. why are lodgepole there and aspen are not? Will it support a stand of adult aspen? And fire ecologists regularly say that the topography and weather are stronger determinants of large fires than the fuels, so is this really a solution? Will the fire just move thru houses?

    Reply

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