The Wonderful Wizards of OG: Looking Beyond the Abstraction Curtain

Before I get into the weird and wonderful world of new wildfire technologies,  I thought that this Anonymous comment was worthy of more discussion, because of the links to different scientific papers.  It’s not unrelated to our previous discussion of the “large diameter trees” aka the East Side amendment, especially if you have spent much time working in pine/true fir country.

After reading through the links, I found some general differences in framing, approach, and language that I think may help us clarify our agreements and disagreements.

1. What specific words are used (old-growth forests vs. old trees)? As we know OG forests have all kinds of spiritual and ecological dimensions. Old trees occur in all kinds of settings, like our backyards or fence rows. And old is relative. Plus small trees can be relatively old, and large trees relatively young. Then there’s “mostly” and “generally” and other words like that- the caveats that we find in many papers.  Is it generally around the planet? Generally in the Ashland, Oregon watershed?

2. What’s the goal? In some cases, it’s to maximize the area in old growth. In other cases, it’s to replicate what was in the past. Or it may be to protect some old trees from fire. Or just general forest (including conceivably, trees’) resilience to future changes. Logically, HRV can’t, by definition, be more resilient to future stressors, if climate change is unprecedented.  So the goals (states or implicit) in scientific papers may not actually line up with each other, nor do they with current statutes and regulations.

3. What disciplines and data are used to make a claim? It seems like stand prescriptions are a function of silviculture, pathology and entomology, fuels, wildlife and so on. If a statement argues some generality like “don’t cut any old trees, it’s bad for (something),”  what are the other disciplines that might be saying “it’s good for (something else). I think much of the current disagreement amounts to metascale pronouncements/abstractions versus site-specific prescriptions. Which brings us to ..

4. Where was the research done? Did they encounter forests directly and measure them, or use existing datasets?  How much can we generalize those conclusions to other part of the country? Is the ecological term “dry forests” meaningful in the same way from Montana to New Mexico and from the Eldorado to the Black Hills? Do we lose key information when we generalize?

It’s almost as if, with some of these arguments (it’s never good to cut any old trees), some folks are saying:

We (certain forest ecologists and members of certain ENGOs) actually know more about what is a good prescription (for a site we’ve never seen) than the ID team who has been there, measured things, and contributed their disciplinary input.
a) because they are bad at their work and/or
b) they have bad motivations- even where there is no timber industry to speak of, or they are not in the timber shop,
c) not yet articulated..?

The problem I see, though, with that thinking, is that there is often much more relevant and direct knowledge, and often intense interdisciplinary dialogue and challenge on an ID team (and with the public) than with a few academics in a discipline analyzing data and exchanging emails.  And if local practitioners are bad at their work, aren’t many of these researchers teaching at the same universities that award degrees in those fields? So is there some kind of technological or motivational canyon they fall into after graduation? Or possibly, no matter their continuing education and experience, they will always know less than the profs? This is a great gig for the profs, but somewhat demoralizing for everyone else.

To which my solution is “fewer abstractions, more field trips.” Anyway, back to Anonymous’s comment.

‘Removing old-growth trees is necessary for resilience’ may be your opinion, but is not where the vast majority of empirical research and expert consensus is on this issue. Some examples of forest ecologists that have emphasized this in relation to western dry forest mgmt, and there are many more —

What is an “old-growth tree” is it an “old tree”? What makes a person an expert? Certainly there are experts who are not in this “consensus.”

1.“Old-growth trees, especially large old-growth trees of all species, definitely qualify as ‘ecological keystones’ given their central roles in ecosystem function, wildlife habitat, resilience as live trees and as large persistent snags and logs after death. In general, we recommend retaining trees of all species older than 150 years of age as part of dry forest restoration projects – even if they are within the crown of an old ponderosa pine tree.” ~Franklin et al. 2013

This makes me feel like “deja vu all over again.”  In the 80’s, I remember a field trip on the Ochoco with Jerry Franklin (maybe Jim Z was there?) during which we asked him how much dead and downed (fuels) he thought was a good amount.  It was really a fuels practitioner question, or even maybe a fire ecology question, not a vegetation ecology question.  To some extent, values are imbedded in the choice of which discipline to listen to.  Meanwhile, it’s hard to argue that fuels practitioners have a secret agenda of wanting to cut big trees.

I think the “within crowns” is an interesting comment because to me that’s a tree physiology or a fuels question, not a forest ecology question at all.  Although practicing applied forest ecologists (i.e. silviculturists) have years of observational experience of how this works out in the woods in their area, e.g. big old firs under pines.

From the tree physiological perspective, does the old fir tree compete with the old pine for water?  Answer – of course. Look at growth rings after thinning, if the trees are young or healthy enough to release.  Does that impact the health of the more fire-resistant old ponderosa? Extremely likely.  From the fuels perspective, does the true fir provide a potential hot spot next to the ponderosa that could make the fire more intense or be a ladder fuel?  What happens to old true firs? They tend to die and dry out.

As in “firmageddon:”

Heavily affected areas include the Fremont, Winema, Ochoco and Malheur National Forests.

The most southerly of the forests, the Fremont National Forest, was the hardest hit, according to survey data.

“We’re calling it ‘Firmageddon,’” Daniel DePinte, who led the survey for the USFS Pacific Northwest Region Aerial Survey, told a gathering of colleagues in October. “It is unprecedented, the number of acres we have seen impacted. It’s definitely significant and it’s disturbing.”

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2.“In the context of forest restoration, we recommend that managers take the divisive issue of old tree harvest off the table, and instead focus on thinning young in-growth trees (i.e., those trees that established after Euro-American settlement) that have established around and among old trees and tree clumps. Focusing harvest on young trees will reduce competition, continuity of crown fuels, and contagion of host-specific tree enemies such as bark beetles, without causing conflict over proposed harvest of any remaining large trees. Such an approach is consistent with current guidelines for restoration and climate change adaptation in dry ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests.” ~Clyatt et al. 2016

If it’s this study, it was done by quantifying the historic range of variability for the Northern Rockies and specifically asked the question “how much is mortality density-dependent.” It also seems to argue that you can do more restoration if you don’t have conflicts, and some people (we know) don’t like cutting any old trees .

 Yet many old trees are found in clumps, often in medium (5–9 trees) and even large (10 or more trees) clumps, and some managers and stakeholders express concerns over the potential for competition-induced mortality in these situations, even to the point of proposing to harvest some large, old trees occurring in clumps. Conflicts over proposals to thin out groups of large, old trees can often hinder restoration efforts (e.g., DellaSala et al., 2003, DellaSala et al., 2013).

I couldn’t find out more because the study seems to be paywalled, but I’m not on board with that argument.

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3. “Enhancing forest resilience does not necessitate widespread cutting of any large-diameter tree species. Favoring early-seral species can be achieved with a focus on smaller trees and restoring surface fire, while retaining the existing large tree population.” ~Mildrexler et al. 2023

What is “widespread”..? It seem to me that a stand prescription is precisely that.. many stands won’t need any large/old trees cut, and others will.  If this is the study I think it is, it’s a science op-ed in Conservation Science and Practice, whose coauthors include Law and Moomaw.

We therefore examined how often large trees (≥53 cm DBH) of these species co-mingle on USFS FIA plots (~1 acre) across the same six eastside national forests where we previously examined carbon storage by large trees (Mildrexler et al., 2020). Drawing on the same USFS FIA measurements as our prior study, we found that large ponderosa pine, grand fir, and western larch were present on 56%, 18%, and 7% of all plots (n = 3335). Large ponderosa pine co-mingle with large grand fir about 14% of the time (259 plots), leaving 86% of plots with large ponderosa pine without large grand fir (1616 plots). Similarly, large western larch co-mingle with large grand fir about 56% of the time. Large ponderosa pine and grand fir are found together on only 8% of all plots in the region, while large larch and grand fir are found together on only 4% of all plots in the region. In other words, large ponderosa pine are by far the most common tree species found in these six National Forests and infrequently co-mingle with large grand fir at the FIA plot scale, whereas large western larch are far less

So the argument is “we looked at some FIA plots and there’s not that many where they are growing together”.  That could be true, but it’s not an argument for not cutting them when they are there, and provide ladder fuels/competition to old pondos.  Again, see the tension between the site-specific and the larger scale data.

People might wonder about juxtaposing Firmageddon and  this statement in the paper:

It is not uncommon for grand fir to reach 250 to 300 years of age (Howard & Aleksoff, 2000). Thus, large grand fir ≥53 cm DBH and <150 years of age can continue growing and play an important role in storing and accumulating carbon from the atmosphere to help abate the climate crisis.

If you remember Forplan in the 80s, the idea was to cut the ponderosa pine and promote true fir because it grows faster and produces more volume- if you assume away disease, bugs and fire.  The end goal was different (timber vs. carbon) but hoping for grand fir to grow well forever is likely to run into the same, or more problems, now as 50 years ago. Because there’s increasing drought and fire, and bugs and diseases, according to some, due to climate change. Seems like it would make it less likely that true firs would thrive.

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4. “Because old trees are rare in most frequent-fire forests of western North America, it is imperative to conserve them where they exist.” ~Fiedler et al. 2007

I wonder if that’s this paper,

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing frequent-fire, old-growth forests. However, there are general guidelines to follow: 1) set objectives for both structure (tree density, diameter distribution, tree species composition, spatial arrangement, amount of coarse woody debris) and function (nutrient cycling, desired tree species regeneration); 2) prioritize treatments according to ecological, economic, and social needs and risks; 3) identify the potential treatments (natural fire, prescribed fire, silvicultural cutting) that best meet the objectives and scale of the project; and 4) implement the treatment (s). We discuss each of these guidelines in this article.

I would also argue that people who might want to cut old fir next to old pines want to conserve old trees by helping make them more fire-resistant.

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5. “[Do] not thin mature and old groups of trees except to remove young trees within these groups to reduce ladder fuel.” ~Reynolds et al. 2013

I think that that is probably this GTR which talks about restoration work on the Cibola. One thing that the site did not have is true fir. I can only go by my own experience, but that is that Doug-fir isn’t likely to grow as well in the understory of a ponderosa as a true fir would, so I’m not sure that comparison is relevant.

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“Cutting larger trees in a stand is likely to create future problems and should not be done if long-term landscape health is the primary objective.” ~Perry et al. 2004

I don’t know what “long-term landscape health” is, but if involves maintaining living trees, in some cases it might involve cutting some large trees in the interests of promoting more resilient larger old trees. Also a reminder that different papers suggest different “primary objectives”.
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5. “Silvicultural activities that focus on removing dominant trees will not reduce potential fire intensities and stand mortality, nor will they contribute to creation of forest structure and composition characteristic of older forest.” ~Franklin et al. 2008

Again, “focus on removing dominants”; no one is proposing focusing on “removing dominants” they are focusing on making life easier for dominants by removing codominants.

If we go to the definition

Dominant – trees much taller than the general level of the canopy, receiving direct sunlight on all sides of their crown. Codominant – trees that form the general level of the canopy, but below the dominants, receiving sunlight from above their crown and some from the side.

It seems to me that if the fir was “getting sunlight on all sides of the crown” it would not be likely to be considered for thinning. And would not be “within the dripline” as per the earlier Franklin paper.  I’m not disagreeing with Jerry’s statement, but I would argue that’s not what we’re discussing here.

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“In management aimed at accelerating the recovery of old-growth structures, protection of all pre-Euro-American trees is needed to ensure that this restoration truly leads to old forests.” ~Baker et al. 2007

Is the point of management to “accelerate the recovery of old-growth structures” or to be “resilient to current and future stressors” and “maintain living trees on the landscape?”  Even “ecological integrity” and NRV are not uniquely focused on “old growth structures.”

And how would we decide what was “pre-Euroamerican” for a given area? Was it when the first fur trapper reached the area – 1830? Or in the Southwest, the founding of Santa Fe in 1610? A couple hundred years can make a difference. Again, sometimes you may have to sacrifice one old tree to protect another.

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I think everyone likes old trees, and old forests (except maybe dead ones, fallen and lying jack-strawed with dry fuels). The question are: how best to maintain them in different places?  That’s for the “should we cut any old trees, ever, anywhere” question. Then there’s the broader question of “what percentage of different age classes should we manage forests for?” which is more complex.