Steve Wilent

In the NY Times today, “As Homeless Find Refuge in Forests, ‘Anger Is Palpable’ in Nearby Towns.” Take a look at the video linked in the article of trash left on the woods in Colorado. I’ve seen similar trash heaps around encampments on the Mt. Hood National Forest, near my home. Some locals tell me that there are trails they no longer use, because they don’t feel safe. I have some sympathy for the folks who are homeless, but this kind of thing is getting out of hand.

Note that funding is an issue: “The service is spending more and more of its budget fighting wildfires, and has pared back on filling some law enforcement posts, said Chris Boehm, the agency’s acting deputy director for law enforcement and investigations.”

The Oregonian, Oregon’s largest daily newspaper, published a 20-page special section on Sunday, “Burned: How a Wildfire Devastated Lives in Oregon.” The online version includes several videos of the fire area. To its credit, The Oregonian allowed the USFS to respond to the article (page 15 or here).

The paper also has a “Fixes” section that addresses funding, forest restoration, and other factors. Under each of the “solutions” are the key folks who can make or influence change or reforms. For example, under forest restoration, several US senators, USFS Chief Tom Tidwell, and Oregon’s Gov. Brown are listed. In the online version, there are “Tweet” and Contact” links under each name.

The comments online are worth reading — 51, so far. One of them said, “I would suggest that these reporters spend a fire season out there so they might have some inkling of what they are talking about. Otherwise they are worse than arm chair quarter backs. They are dangerously uninformed and misinformed.”

I agree, to a point.

In the Fixes section, The paper suggest that “Congress also would need to hold the agency accountable for results, continue funding of collaborative groups and support “landscape level” projects that analyze restoration on 1 million acres, instead of 30,000-acre chunks. ” Here, too, I agree to a point: The agency should be held accountable, but so should the collaboratives and the groups that oppose forest management (not that Congress has any power to do so, except via funding, in the case of collaboratives).

Bottom line: The Oregonian deserves much credit for devoting to much time and effort to the issues.

This National Park Service story map of the Fuller Fire, near the Grand Canyon, shows part of the fire in a previously burned area, possibly the 2012 Range fire (see this map of the area’s fire history. On Inciweb, other photos show that the fire burned in a variety of fuel types. See also the fuel break, a cleared area, but likely without commercial timber harvesting.

Kudos to the Park Service for providing a wealth of info, photos, maps, and GIS story maps.

This article in the Seattle Times, “Collateral Damage,” is subtitled, “Rushing to stop a fire that never came, Forest Service logged miles of big trees, critical habitat.” The story is about a “shaded fuel break” created as part of fighting the Wolverine Fire in 2015. As you scroll down, a series of maps appear — but keep scrolling, the story continues below that.

Lots to discuss here, including the fact that some trees larger than the 20-inch limit were cut. The article says “many” larger trees were cut. However, the photos of logs show that the vast majority of the logs are less than 20 inches.

I wish the article had included photos of the harvested area. I found these 2 images elsewhere, and the treated area looks like a shaded fuel break.

Residents protested a project designed to reduce fire threats, and then a fire hits the area, reports the Montana Standard. The “project that’s been in the works for nearly five years has gone up in smoke as a result of the Roaring Lion Fire.”

News of a study in a press release today from the U. of Wisconsin-Madison:

Giant forest fires exterminate spotted owls, long-term study finds

“We had this long-term demographic study, we knew all the owls in the 137 square mile study area,” says Peery. “The fire burned almost half the study area. On one side was the treatment, a large, high severity fire, and on the other side was the control, with little or no fire. Almost all the owl territories within the megafire went from occupied to unoccupied. We can now say that megafires have a significant impact on the spotted owl, and so we think that forest restoration through fuel reduction benefits both the forest ecosystem and the spotted owl.”

I hesitate to think that the researchers were surprised that the owls had left the burned area….

The study, “Megafires: an emerging threat to old-forest species,” is (behind a pay wall).

Exterminated? Well, maybe, but all they know is that the burned area is unoccupied — the owls likely flew off. Some chicks may have been killed — but I speculate.

Some folks will point out that the fire area studied, the King Fire in Calif., burned in 2014, so it’s too soon to say that those owls won’t come back at some point. They will come back, eventually. But that doesn’t mean that “mega fires” are desirable. The researchers got one thing right: “…forest restoration through fuel reduction benefits both the forest ecosystem and the spotted owl.” We have plenty of snag forest habitat.

More grist for trhwe discussion mill: A new Science Findings report from the PNW Research Station, “What people value: an ecosystem services approach to managing public lands.”

Description: Since 1960, the Forest Service has been guided by the multiple-use concept, which recognizes five major uses for public lands—timber, water, range, recreation, and fish and wildlife habitat—and mandates that all five should be equally considered in management plans. In recent decades, however, it has become evident that people also value many other benefits offered by the natural world, such as support for indigenous cultures and sustainable communities, protection for endangered species, and carbon sequestration. The “ecosystem services” concept has emerged as a way to describe a much broader suite of goods and services, including those that are more difficult to quantify than the traditionally recognized major uses.

The 2012 Forest Service planning rule requires that ecosystem services be addressed in assessment and planning. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest Research Station are working nationally and with individual forests to apply ecosystem services approaches to operations and management decisions. They are working to characterize commonly overlooked values, provide incentives for sustainable practices, and encourage inclusive, collaborative policymaking methods to ensure that input from stakeholder groups and individuals is considered prior to implementing management actions. In a recent general technical report produced by station scientists, the Deschutes National Forest is used as a case study to explore the application of the ecosystem services concept as described here.

Here’s a July 26, 2016, AP article about an Oregon town that has survived the federal timber bust: Prineville, which is home to several Facebook and Apple server farms, as well as the venerable Les Schwab Tire distribution center. There are lots of construction jobs now, but will server farms provide a level of employment comparable to the former timber industry? I doubt it.

Former Oregon lumber town rides digital wave to a comeback

For perspective, you might read these articles about other towns where things aren’t as rosy. Sweet Home, where “The patchwork that resulted — some people with money, many people without and few ways to earn a wage — now defines much of rural Oregon.”:

Town That Thrived on Logging Is Looking for a Second Growth

And Oakridge, where “About 1,600 people — nearly half the town’s population — come to the Oakridge food bank each month to pick up free supplies.”:

Former Oregon Lumber Town Tries To Reinvent Itself

Homework assignment: Read “Is There a Place for Legislating Place-Based Collaborative Forestry Proposals?: Examining the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery Act Pilot Project,” Journal of Forestry, July 2016.

Focuses on the Quincy Library Group. Was anyone on this blog involved with the group? I’d like to hear your comments on the paper.

Here’s the abstract:

In 1993, a group of national forest stakeholders, the Quincy Library Group, crafted a proposal that intended to reduce wildfire risk, protect the California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis), restore watersheds, and enhance community stability by ensuring a predictable supply of timber for area sawmills and biomass for energy plants. The Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery Act of 1998 codified this proposal, directing the USDA Forest Service to conduct forest treatments on 40,000 – 60,000 acres per year by creating defensible fuel profile zones and logging by group- and individual tree-selection methods. The law also designated an Independent Science Panel to review monitoring studies, administrative studies, and research to assess efficacy of the implementation and achievement of goals. Although several goals were achieved, implementation fell short of treatment and volume goals, and evidence was lacking to make conclusive judgments about environmental impacts. Shortcomings were due to differing interpretations of the Act’s prescriptive intent, changes in management direction, compounding economic factors, appeals and litigation, variation in site-specific forest conditions, and variation in approaches among national forests and districts. Most notable was a lack of monitoring of the treatment effects on California spotted owl populations and other environmental concerns. These findings suggest that attempts to legislate prescriptive, collaboratively developed proposals may not account for the complex biophysical, management, social, and economic contexts within which national forest management occurs. These findings also suggest that current national forest policies and directives promoting collaboration should also be accompanied by a commitment to monitoring and adaptive management.

From FSC:

FSC US invites your participation in the second public consultation of the supplemental requirements for FSC certification of lands managed by the US Forest Service. Your review and input in this process is essential for a successful outcome, and we hope you will take some time to share your perspectives with us.

The 30-day consultation period closes on July 3, 2016.