Today’s Helena Independent Record included dueling guest columns concerning the Colt Summit timber sale lawsuit, which is the first lawsuit of a timber sale on the Lolo National Forest in over five years. One oped comes from Michael Garrity, a 5th generation Montanan, who’s the director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. The other oped is co-written by Keith Olson, director of the Montana Logging Association and Tom France, regional director of the National Wildlife Federation. The most recent Colt Summit posts from this blog are found here and here. Click here for the entire Colt Summit archive.
Matthew Koehler
Colt Summit Update: FS Confirms Restoration Work Under Contract
Much ado is being made about the Colt Summit logging and restoration project on the Lolo National Forest. In fact, last week The Wilderness Society, Montana Wilderness Association, National Wildlife Federation and Yaak Valley Forest Council joined with the Montana Logging Association, Montana Wood Products Association and others to actually file a “friend of the court” brief in support of this logging project.
Asking around, this appears to be the first time that conservation groups like The Wilderness Society, Montana Wilderness Association and National Wildlife Federation have filed a brief to support a logging project. Reading the rhetoric-filed, dooms-day press releases from these folks, you can’t help but get the impression that the Lolo National Forest must be under siege from timber sale lawsuits.
However, the facts tell a much different story.
Lolo National Forest officials confirm that the Lolo National Forest hasn’t faced a new timber sale lawsuit in over 5 years. In fact, between FY 2005 and FY 2010, the Lolo National Forest had at least 99 active timber sales.
Another impression one gets from reading press releases and statements from these groups is that the Colt Summit lawsuit has halted the positive road decommissioning and culvert upgrade work. In fact, the Montana Wilderness Association even has gone so far as to tell their members and supporters via Facebook that what’s “at stake” with the Colt Summit project is the road decommissioning/culvert work.
[Update: An hour after this article was posted, Montana Wilderness Association staffers removed these (here, here) substantive comments from their Facebook posts about the Colt Summit timber sale. Such tactics have been a very common practice by these groups as they attempt to stifle debate and prevent the open exchange of substantive information.]
Perhaps the people at Montana Wilderness Association should have more carefully read the plaintiffs summary judgment brief in this case:
“CONCLUSION
Wherefore, Plaintiffs respectfully request this Court grant their motion for summary judgment, declare the Forest Service violated the law, and enjoin the Forest Service from approving and/or authorizing work on the Colt Summit project (excluding the road decommissioning and culvert removal work) pending full compliance with the law.”
Perhaps the staffers at Montana Wilderness Association should have remembered that last September, the Lolo National Forest issued this press release, very clearly (and somewhat ironically) titled “Colt Summit Restoration Contracts Awarded.”
In fact, below I will re-print an update about the status of the Colt Summit road decommissioning and culvert upgrade work I obtained over the past few days from the Boyd Hartwig, the Lolo National Forest’s very own Public Affairs Officer. Boyd’s generally been pretty good about responding to pubic information requests and as anyone can clearly see, the Lolo National Forest confirms that the following restoration work has been under contract since last September, is moving forward and is not impacted by the lawsuit.
1. Colt Creek Road Decommissioning will decommission about 6 miles of Colt Creek Road #646.
2. Colt Creek Road Rehabilitation will reconstruct an existing road to BMP standards and add a short section of newly- constructed road. This route will replace access currently provided by road #646. It’s important to note that the short piece of new construction is not being funded through CFLR.
3. Colt Creek Culvert Replacement project will replace an undersized culvert with a new structure that provides for aquatic organism passage.
So there you have it folks. A pretty good, verified example of how much of the rhetoric and the “story-line” coming from these “collaborator” organizations and their timber industry “partners” isn’t really matching up too great with the reality of the situation on the ground, or in the courtroom. I believe there are a number of reasons for this, and perhaps in coming days I will get an opportunity to explore them further on this blog. However, suffice to say, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that what we’re seeing with the Colt Summit timber sale PR blitz from these “collaborators” is really just a continuation and/or extension of the campaign to support Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. The players, political campaign type tactics/rhetoric and the intentional spreading of false information about these public lands issues is virtually identical.
From: Matthew Koehler
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 12:47 PMHello Boyd:
Can you please tell if this work [Lolo NF Press Release, September 30, 2011] is on-going or finished? Also, can you let me know details of all the work currently being done, or under contract, in the Colt Summit project area? Thank you. – Matthew
—————–
From: Boyd Hartwig
Matthew, all three projects are awarded. No ground disturbing activity has occurred to date. Ground-based activity could begin as early as July 1, 2012. Instream work associated with the culvert replacement project must occur between July 15 and Sept. 1. The decommissioning work cannot be done until alternative access is provided through the Colt Creek Road Rehab project.
Boyd Hartwig
Public Affairs Officer
Lolo National Forest——————
From: Matthew Koehler
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 12:38Hello Boyd:
Thanks so much for the info. Just so I have it correctly can you please confirm the following:
1) The name of these three projects awarded, or at least what work is included in this
2) That the lawsuit filed on Colt Summit hasn’t stopped these three projects from moving forward.
Thanks so much,
Matthew Koehler———————-
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2012
From: Hartwig, Boyd C -FS
To: Matthew Koehler <[email protected]>Matthew, here are the listed projects:
1. Colt Creek Road Decommissioning will decommission about 6 miles of Colt Creek Road #646.
2. Colt Creek Road Rehabilitation will reconstruct an existing road to BMP standards and add a short section of newly- constructed road. This route will replace access currently provided by road #646. It’s important to note that the short piece of new construction is not being funded through CFLR.
3. Colt Creek Culvert Replacement project will replace an undersized culvert with a new structure that provides for aquatic organism passage.
All three projects are awarded but no ground disturbing activity has occurred to date. Instream work associated with the culvert replacement project must occur between July 15 and Sept. 1. The decommissioning work cannot be done until alternative access is provided through the Colt Creek Road Rehab project.
Regarding start dates, they are hoping to begin work this spring, that’s correct. They are aware of the lawsuit but as you know there is no injunction on the planned work.
Boyd Hartwig
Public Affairs Officer
Lolo National Forest
More Details on Colt Summit and ‘Collaboration’
Thanks to Sharon for her most-recent post (below) on the Colt Summit timber sale project on the Lolo National Forest. Here is a link to the AP article, which takes a more balanced look at the project, the lawsuit and the “friend of the court” briefs filed this week.
As the AP article indicates, my organization, the WildWest Institute, filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs (Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Wild Swan, Montana Ecosystem Defense Council and Native Ecosystems Council, all represented by the Western Environmental Law Center).
Our brief questions some of the claims made by the collaborators regarding the relationship of this Colt Summit logging project to the Southwestern Crown of the Continent (SWCC) ‘collaborative’ group. We also question key aspects of the very nature of the SWCC ‘collaborative’ since the Forest Service and The Wilderness Society currently make up 43% of the voting block of the “collaborative.”
Yes, that’s right, unlike any other national forest ‘collaborative’ group that we know about in the country, the SWCC ‘collaborative’ allows Forest Service officials to be voting members. Currently 7 of the 28 voting members of the SWCC ‘collaborative’ are Forest Service employees.
Also, the co-chair of the entire SWCC ‘collaborative’ for the past two years has been the Forest Service Supervisor of the Lolo National Forest. Again, to our knowledge, this is something that isn’t done in any other national forest ‘collaborative’ around the country. Ironically, a few weeks ago, the SWCC Charter was amended to remove the Forest Service from being able to co-chair the ‘collaborative;’ however, the SWCC ‘collaborative’ still allows Forest Service employees to be members and to vote as part of the ‘collaborative.’
Another issue to keep in mind is how the SWCC’s scheduling of meetings favors ‘collaborators’ who get paid to be part of the SWCC. Normal citizens, or organizations with limited resources, often cannot afford to attend mid-day, mid-week meetings at various locations around western Montana. This is from our brief:
“SWCC’s scheduled meetings are always held on the third Tuesday of the month, currently from 1 pm to 4 pm. However, during the period [WildWest Institute] was a member of the SWCC, the meetings ran from 9 am to 4pm. Additionally, according the SWCC website, [SWCC’s] Prioritization Committee meets from 10 am to 2pm on various weekdays at the Seeley Lake Ranger District, north of Seeley Lake and [SWCC’s] Monitoring Committee meets from 1pm to 4pm on various weekdays, also at the Seeley Lake Ranger District office.
The fact that these meetings are held during the middle of the day, on a weekday makes it difficult for members and the general public to attend these meetings. Those individuals who have full time jobs not directly tied to national forest management must take time off work. Those who don’t live in the Seeley Swan area must also travel to and from the meetings, sometimes at great distance and cost. Forest Service employees, however, attend these meetings as a part of their position. Wilderness Society employees also attend these meetings as part of their full time jobs. Taking days off work and traveling is not an issue for them because their attendance is a part of their job.
Furthermore, inability to make the meetings is penalized. Missing three consecutive meetings can result in an individual being stripped of their voting rights. See Id at R-5:68131. Therefore, the meeting schedule itself seems to give unfair favoritism towards those members who attend these meetings as a part of their full time job.”
No matter what the “feel-good” rhetoric is, the fact of the matter is that the Forest Service didn’t do a great job on their NEPA analysis for this project and there are some real concerns with this project and the process used to put it together. For example, the Forest Service contracted the Finding Of No Signification Impact (FONSI) prior to completing the Environmental Assessment. Here’s a snip about that from our brief [emphasis added]:
“…in a discussion of the upcoming EA, IDT meeting notes, dated April 27, 2010, state “The forest [service] has designed the project to have no significant issues so that a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) can be written after the environmental analysis (EA).” Colt Summit Restoration and Fuel Reduction EA, IDT Meeting Notes, I-8:926. Document I-9 of the administrative record contains the above quotation, then furthers that idea by stating, “EA should already have reached conclusions on significance. Write from that point and perspective, providing support and evidence for no significance.” I-9:939. The following three pages basically provide a mini-seminar on how to persuasively say that the actions of the Forest Service have so significant impact on the environment. See I-9:940-942.”
Here are some other issues to ponder. While the ‘collaborators’ (lead by The Wilderness Society) sent out a media advisory worthy of a blockbuster Hollywood movie trailer (using words such as “targeted” “attacked” “bury it forever” “blowback” and “Ideological rift”), the simple fact of the matter is that the Lolo National Forest hasn’t faced a timber sale lawsuit in over 5 years and there have been 99 active timber sales on the Lolo National Forest between 2005 and 2010.
The ‘collaborators’ are claiming that the plaintiffs didn’t participate in the up-front planning for this project, which is a lie and completely untrue. In fact, the actual public record for this timber sale actually reflects a higher level of involvement from the plaintiffs (Alliance for Wild Rockies/Friends of Wild Swan) than from some of the ‘collaborators.’ Indeed, plaintiffs attended all meetings, all field trips and submitted extensive, detailed and substantive comments during the entire NEPA process.
Finally, from the plaintiffs briefs, here are some details about the Colt Summit Timber Sale:
• 2,038 acre logging project in lynx critical habitat and MS1 habitat for grizzlies
• logging will occur in old growth and mature forest stands;
• logging will remove the dense horizontal cover in forest stands that is so important for lynx foraging and denning
• “vista” cuts to open views of the swan mountains for motorized users are part of the project
• technically, project is in WUI (as per the Seeley fire plan) but it’s 10+ miles from the nearest community
• project is in the important Summit Divide wildlife corridor – the best place for lynx and griz to cross H83 as they travel between the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Mission Mountain Wilderness
• logging is proposed in a number of wetland areas
• Forest Service shrunk the INFISH buffers (designed to protect native trout species, including bull trout) to accommodate project.
UPDATE Feb 29, 4:15 pm: Thanks to Larry H for finding the google map link of the Colt Summit project area (see comments section). I just added a photo to this post, which is a view of the Colt Summit project area (roughly upper center by the 83 and bend in road), which also includes an expanded view about 8 miles in any direction from the project area. As anyone can see, the majority of the area around Colt Summit has been very heavily logged and roaded.
National Park Foundation spend more on itself than on Parks
(This press release was sent out today by PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. – mk)
One in Three Dollars Reaches Parks; Rest Goes to Overhead and Corporate Support
Washington, DC — Most individual gifts to the official fundraising arm for the National Park Service never reach the parks themselves, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Personal contributions to the National Park Foundation are far more likely to be absorbed by overhead, fundraising expenses or the care and feeding of corporate donors.
The National Park Foundation (NPF) is a congressionally-chartered tax-exempt corporation designated to accept and administer gifts for the benefit of the National Park Service so as “to further the conservation or natural, scenic, historic, scientific, educational, inspirational, or recreational resources for future generations of Americans,” in the words of its enabling statute (16 U.S.C. § 19e). That status also excuses it from detailed reporting requirements imposed on other charities.
In Fiscal Year 2011, the latest reported year, less than one-third of NPF expenditures are grants to parks ($4.5 million). A greater amount ($4.7 million) went for fundraising and administrative expenses. Another $.5 million was spent on “program support” – a nebulous category that ranges from promotional materials for corporate donors to the hotel bar bill following the National Christmas Tree Lighting.
The FY 11 numbers were a sharp drop-off from FY 10 park grants but resemble the lopsided overhead pattern in FY 09. Even these figures are inflated, however, as many of the grant dollars listed in its Annual Report come from “accept and administer” projects where NPF only acts as the fiscal agent. It also counts the sizeable Flight 93 Memorial Campaign, which has its own governing board and does its own fundraising.
“Giving to the National Park Foundation is like trying to support a university by endowing its fraternity,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the rule-of-thumb for responsible charities is that 75% of every dollar raised should go directly to the program, not overhead. “People who want to support national parks should look first to local park-specific ‘friends’ groups.”
NPF raises the bulk of its funds by concentrating on a handful of large corporate donors, many of whose gifts are restricted to activities tied to corporate marketing and campaigns. NPF works to assure that corporate donors get a return on their investments by delivering marketing support and promotional perks such as “special visitation opportunities” for executives and key customers or “in-park activities including tours, events and interpretation” (quoting from Coca Cola “Proud Partner Sponsorship Agreement” with NPF and the Park Service).
A major plank of the National Park Service strategic plan for its 2016 centennial calls for creation of a billion dollar corporate-financed endowment through NPF to be administered outside the federal appropriation process. The plan makes no provision for guarding against corporate contributors using big donations to leverage access or influence over park policy, such as the recent role of Coca Cola in blocking bans on sales of plastic water bottles inside national parks.
“There is no real accountability or transparency in the National Park Foundation,” Ruch added, pointing out that NPF does not believe it is subject to the Freedom of Information Act but surrendered documents PEER requested to settle a FOIA lawsuit PEER filed against it. “Part of the problem is that the National Park Foundation sees itself as a private corporation without obligation to the public.”
###
Look at the FY 2011 NPF Annual Report (budget on last page)
See “Program Support” status for Christmas Tree Lighting expenses
Examine the Coca Cola “Proud Partner” agreement
Examine Call for Billion Dollar NPF Corporate Fund (Step # 29)
Revisit Coke role in suspending Grand Canyon plastic bottle ban
A McKenzie Bridge logging plan takes neighbors by surprise
(The following article appeared in today’s Eugene Register-Guard. – mk)
McKENZIE BRIDGE — Jerry Gilmour is able to escape from Bend most weekends and drive over the Santiam Pass to his wooded retreat, a cabin he built on a 4-acre swath of pristine land bordering the Willamette National Forest.
A few weeks back, Gilmour drove up the narrow road off Highway 126 that leads to his property in the small community of McKenzie Bridge, fired up the 100-year-old wood stove that once burned trash in a locomotive and took his yellow Labrador retriever, Kona, for a walk. It’s a routine.
But on this trip, as Gilmour trudged past his favorite old maple tree and through the woods on the edge of his property, something was different. Stapled to the trees were bright blue signs, bright orange markers, and flags dangling from the branches.
“Boundary cutting unit,” the signs read. The author: the U.S. Forest Service. The telltale markers of a soon-to-commence logging operation.
Gilmour was surprised, but as a part-time resident, he figured maybe he’d just been out of the loop. He did some investigating on the Internet and found the description and documents relating to the Goose Project, a 2,134-acre timber sale that will produce 38 million board feet of lumber, enough to fill 7,000 log trucks.
Then Gilmour drove to Edgar Exum and Claudette Aras’ house, which rises from a meadow in the shadow of Lookout Ridge on 20 acres that also border the national forest. Had they heard about the Goose Project? They hadn’t. Nor had any of the neighbors they wound up asking. Not even the publisher of the local newspaper, the McKenzie River Reflections, had heard about it.
Eventually, Gilmour and the Exums learned that a couple of conservation groups, Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands, knew about the project, which the Forest Service had approved in 2010. The groups had appealed the sale, arguing that the agency failed to adequately describe how it would protect the 956 acres of spotted owl habitat in the area. The appeal was denied, the project approved, the 45-day window for public comment closed.
Which means Gilmour and his neighbors have no recourse for weighing in on a substantial logging operation that is literally in their backyards. No recourse to file an appeal or a lawsuit, because they didn’t comment on it in the first place. They can only watch and wait, for the buzz of chainsaw and the whir of helicopters to arrive and start plucking trees out of the forest, one by one.
Except, watching and waiting is not in these neighbors’ DNA. They’ve embarked on what may be a quixotic quest to persuade the Forest Service to stop the Goose Project, gather public input, answer questions from people in McKenzie Bridge and consider changes to the operation.
“They just didn’t tell us,” Edgar Exum said. “That’s my major objection.”
Added Aras: “Burying it in the legal notices is not notification. It just isn’t.”
The Forest Service has no obligation to listen. The agency published a notice of the proposed timber sale in the small print of The Register-Guard’s classified ad section in 2010, and the 45-day public comment period that followed has expired. But Terry Baker, the McKenzie River District ranger, who was not in that post in 2010, said he’s come to a conclusion that may surprise Gilmour and his neighbors:
“As a district, we dropped the ball on contacting some of the adjacent landowners and community members about the project,” he said.
In addition to the legal notice, the district did contact a few community leaders and held a field trip before finishing the project design, Baker said. That resulted in some changes, among them an agreement that no trees greater than 36 inches in diameter will be cut within 350 feet of a private residence. But the Forest Service could have done better, Baker said. What he would have done is study a map of the property and contact all property owners within a quarter-mile of the project, mailing out notices to all involved and inviting them to participate in the discussion, he said.
While he can’t turn back time, Baker said he’s looking at holding a public meeting in the next few weeks and talking with landowners between now and then to discuss their concerns. He also intends to set up a “community monitoring group” that will keep tabs on the project as it develops and provide feedback that could be used to make changes as it progresses or be taken into consideration on future jobs.
Whether any of that will address the residents’ specific concerns depends on how talks with the Forest Service play out in the coming weeks. The first of five sales of timber closed on Thursday, and it’s unlikely that even a renewed effort to gather input would result in major changes to the project.
Still, “If there are site-specific concerns landowners have, I’m willing to work with them,” Baker said. “There’s going to be a threshold. I’m not sure what it is yet.”
Some of the neighbors’ concerns have already been addressed by the Forest Service in its response to the two conservation groups’ appeal of the project.
Doug Heiken, conservation and restoration coordinator for Oregon Wild, said the Forest Service should have chosen an alternative that avoids logging in mature forests and in riparian areas and that cuts back on the 7.7 miles of temporary roads that will be built to support the project. Beyond that, he said, the 965 acres of spotted owl habitat should have prompted the agency to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement, a more detailed analysis than what the Forest Service did, which was an Environmental Assessment.
“We shouldn’t be logging mature forests in riparian reserves,” Heiken said.
Most of the project involves thinning young planted stands, which is good for fire suppression and wildlife foraging, Heiken said. In fact, Baker says those are among the key reasons the project is happening in the first place: to improve the forest and reduce hazard fuel levels, along with supplying local communities with sustainably harvested timber.
But some residents in McKenzie Bridge question the Goose Project’s 322 acres of “gap” cutting, which they say is a euphemism for clear-cuts, which could result in scars to an otherwise lush forest.
“That ridge is going to resemble a checkerboard in 20 years,” Edgar Exum said.
Baker said the gap cutting on the project is designed to help species from butterfly to elk to ground squirrels who do better in the brushes and shrubs that comprise “early seral habitat,” areas that exist before conifer trees begin to block out the light. As for riparian reserves, that part of the effort is aimed at improving riparian reserves by doing thinning that could allow larger trees to flourish, he said. And the decision to go with an Environmental Assessment was based on consultations with other agencies that resulted in a conclusion that no endangered species would be harmed by the project.
What bothers Gilmour, Exum, Aras and others is that they never got a chance to ask their questions, raise their concerns and have them answered directly. They see good things about the Goose Project, too, but they want more input, information and involvement.
“People around here ought to have known the answers to these questions,” Gilmour said.
Appeal Challenges Old-growth Logging Near Grand Canyon
(Below is the press release from the Center for Biological Diversity. Click here to download a copy of the appeal. Photos of the Jacob Ryan project area, including old-growth trees aged by the Center and previously marked for logging by the Forest Service, can be seen and downloaded here. – mk)
Photo: Center for Biological Diversity ecologist Jay Lininger displays the core of 180-year-old ponderosa pine marked for logging at the Jacob Ryan timber sale. Center photo.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.— For the third time in a decade, the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club today administratively appealed a 25,000-acre timber sale that is slated to log old-growth trees and forests on the Kaibab National Forest near Grand Canyon’s north rim.
Approved in January, this is the Forest Service’s fifth iteration of the Jacob Ryan timber sale since 2003, each plan seeking to log old-growth trees and forests. The Center and Sierra Club blocked two earlier iterations of the sale; the Forest Service voluntarily withdrew two others.
“This forest needs a limited amount of small-tree thinning to safely reintroduce natural fires, but for a decade the Forest Service has rejected common sense and opted instead to cut down old trees,” said Jay Lininger, an ecologist with the Center. “The Jacob Ryan timber sale makes a mockery of forest restoration and exposes the need for leadership and reform within the Forest Service.
” Today’s appeal challenges logging of old-growth trees and argues that logging will not retain sufficient forest canopy to support the rare northern goshawk — a woodland raptor. A source population of goshawks lives on the Kaibab Plateau, where Jacob Ryan is located. According to a Forest Service report, goshawks are “vulnerable to extirpation or extinction in Arizona.”
“It is just outrageous that the Forest Service is proposing for the fifth time to log these old growth and large trees, when we have so little remaining,” said Sandy Bahr, chapter director for the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter. “The old growth and large trees make up less than 3 percent of our forests and are a critical component of healthy forests and essential for wildlife species such as the northern goshawk. In a real restoration project, they would be the centerpiece, not slated for logging.”
In its last failed attempt to implement the timber sale, the Forest Service in 2009 admitted violating its own management plan in response to a Center appeal. Center staff documented old-growth trees marked for cutting, despite bogus claimsby the Forest Service that it would protect old growth.
New study challenges forest restoration and fire management in western dry forests
(Below is a press release from the researchers. A copy of the study is available here. – mk)
New research shows that western dry forests were not uniform, open forests, as commonly thought, before widespread logging and grazing, but included both dense and open forests, as well as large high-intensity fires previously considered rare in these forests. The study used detailed analysis of records from land surveys, conducted in the late-1800s, to reconstruct forest structure over very large dry-forest landscapes, often dominated by ponderosa pine forests. The area analyzed included about 4.1 million acres on the Mogollon Plateau and Black Mesa in northern Arizona, in the Blue Mountains in northeastern Oregon, and in the Colorado Front Range.
The reconstructions, which are based on about 13,000 first-hand descriptions of forests from early land surveyors along section-lines, supplemented by data for about 28,000 trees, do not support the common idea that dry forests historically consisted of uniform park-like stands of large, old trees. Previous studies that found this were hampered by the limitations inherent in tree-ring reconstructions from small, isolated field plots that may be unrepresentative of larger landscapes.
“The land surveys provide us with an unprecedented spatially extensive and detailed view of these dry-forest landscapes before widespread alteration” said Dr. William Baker, a co-author of the study and a professor in the Program in Ecology at the University of Wyoming. “And, what we see from this is that these forests were highly variable, with dense areas, open areas, recently burned areas, young forests, and areas of old-growth forests, often in a complex mosaic.”
The study also does not support the idea that frequent low-intensity fires historically prevented high-intensity fires in dry forests.
“Moderate- and high-severity fires were much more common in ponderosa pine and other dry forests than previously believed ” said Mark Williams, senior author of the study and recent PhD graduate of the University of Wyoming’s Program in Ecology.
“While higher-severity fires have been documented in at least parts of the Front Range of Colorado, they were not believed to play a major role in the historical dynamics of southwestern dry forests .”
Some large modern wildfires, such as Arizona’s Rodeo-Chediski fire of 2002 and the Wallow fire of 2011 that have been commonly perceived as unnatural or catastrophic fires actually were similar to fires that occurred historically in these dry forests.
The findings suggest that national programs that seek to uniformly reduce the density of these forests and lower the intensity of fires will not restore these forests, but instead alter them further, with negative consequences for wildlife. Special-concern species whose habitat includes dense forest patches, such as spotted owls, or whose habitat includes recently burned forests, such as black-backed woodpeckers, are likely to be adversely affected by current fuel-reduction programs.
The findings of the study suggest that if the goal is to perpetuate native fish and wildlife in western dry forests, it is appropriate to restore and manage for variability in forest density and fire intensity, including areas of dense forests and high-intensity fire.
Key findings:
• Only 23-40% of the study areas fit the common idea that dry forests were open, park-like and composed of large trees.
• Frequent low-intensity fires did not prevent high-intensity fires, as 38-97% of the study landscapes had evidence of intense fires that killed trees over large areas of dry forests.
• The rate of higher-severity fires in dry forests over the past few decades is lower than that which occurred historically, regardless of fire suppression impacts.
The study was published online last week in the international scientific journal, Global Ecology and Biogeography. The published article can be accessed online here. The title is: Spatially extensive reconstructions show variable-severity fire and heterogeneous structure in historical western United States dry forests.
The authors are Dr. Mark A. Williams and Dr. William L. Baker, who are scientists in the Program in Ecology and Department of Geography at the University of Wyoming. Dr. Mark A. Williams is a 2010 PhD graduate, and Dr. William L. Baker is a professor, both in the Program in Ecology and Department of Geography. In Dr. Williams’s PhD, he developed and applied new scientific methods for reconstructing historical structure and fire across large land areas in dry western forests. Dr. Baker teaches and researches fire ecology and landscape ecology at the University of Wyoming and is author of a 2009 book on “Fire Ecology in Rocky Mountain Landscapes.”
Contact Information:
Dr. Mark A. Williams, Program in Ecology and Department of Geography, Dept. 3371, 1000 E. University Ave., University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071. Email: [email protected].
Dr. William L. Baker, Program in Ecology and Department of Geography, Dept. 3371, 1000 E. University Ave., University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071. Phone: 307-766- 2925, Email: [email protected].