From The New York Times today.
Bigger, Hotter Fires Are Slowly Erasing America’s Great Forests
Towering woodlands in the West are being permanently replaced by tracts of spiky shrubs. Conditions “just aren’t normal anymore,” one researcher said.
Excerpt:
On a gentle slope on the western side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where a towering green canopy of ponderosa pines had stood for centuries, wildfires have transformed roughly 1,700 acres into brown, bare shrubland.
That forest is gone for good, scientists say. Spiky shrubs and poison oak have replaced the majestic trees. All that is left of the pines are burned logs and dead branches.
It’s part of a wider transformation that’s taking place across the Western United States, from Oregon to New Mexico, as bigger and hotter wildfires sweep through forests that have not evolved to survive such high-intensity blazes and a warmer climate. Recent studies estimate that as much as 40 percent of Western conifer forests will turn into shrubland by 2100 as a result.
“This is a permanent shift from one ecosystem type to a fundamentally different one,” said Winslow Hansen, a forest ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, an independent research center in Millbrook, N.Y.
The consequences of the shift, for both people and wildlife, are expected to be profound.
Wilen’s observations also apply to the N. CAL COASTAL RANGE.
For a few years after retirement from federal service, I coordinated the writings of many very skilled participants in what was being titled as “A Call to Action.” A key statement included:
“America is faced with a National Emergency – the destruction of lives and property from
wildfires. The lack of forest maintenance is the primary culprit. Congress is
willing to spend a million dollars+ an hour for firefighting [reacting], but is hesitant to
address the root cause of the destruction [clogged up forested (forests are more than trees)
landscapes]. Thus, over the last three decades especially, NOTHING CHANGES. At the
current pace, the great western forests will become brush fields by 2045.
I think the year quoted in Wilent’s piece of 2100 is generous. Regardless, the piece by Steve Wilent is exactly right. What is amazing to me is that we know exactly what to do to address this National Emergency. So, what do our national leaders do? They create a national wildland fire service that will destroy the concept of forest stewardship, and they dismantle an iconic agency that understands forest protection, management and utilization; stewardship. What a mess.
I always enjoy reading Mr. Rains thoughtful comments on forest management matters, he is a strategic thinker that most leadership organizations appreciate. Anyway, I’m always more tactical in thinking in trying to figure out how to put those strategies on the ground; too many years farming and ranching, I reckon. I can recall RLT meetings when we are getting ready to head back to our Units, some of us would look at each other and ask “what did we just do for three days?”
One thing I see missing from the above concern is the mechanics to do more/better/faster fuels and timber management. We can’t do squat with the current infrastructure, and until we change that, and the thinking of “protecting” everything, all we will do is throw truckloads of $ at a problem that’s accelerating out of reach!
I’ve mentioned my disdain over fuels treatments in the High Country, not because of the methods but for how they are being carried out. You don’t put massive clearcuts along THE major access to a highly developed, crystal clear lake. You don’t leave three-story piles of logs and slash for multiple years – ya just don’t! Back in the day, I actually saw sale administrators reprimanded over less! These weren’t designed by foresters, these are fuels driven and show a total disregard for how things were done when we cared more!
So what that leaves us with is the sermon taught to the choir, over the vast amount of experience that is, and has, left our land management Agencies. I’m afraid without the continuity of operations to actually serve the American people, the “Fire Service” will be the least of our concerns.
Michael, I’ve been following this for some time, and I am not sure how the USFWS is going to work, what the hinge is between it and the land management agencies.
So far, I don’t think they have “dismantled” the Forest Service, they are reorganizing to focus on the field. I also think the issue we have to keep working on is to keep Wildland Fire with the Forest Service and the Forest Service in USDA.
More logging won’t save the subset of climate-vulnerable forests. We must drmatcially reduce GHG emissions including those from logging.
is that related to the story we’re discussing?