Steve Wilent

Just a friendly reminder of TSW’s mission:

Went to the Zigzag Ranger District this morning for a firewood permit. The station has several “old-growth” rhododendrons that are putting on their annual show. Here are two of them. Click for a larger image. BTW, the community of Zigzag, OR, is just down the road from Rhododendron, OR.

From Nick Smith’s news roundup today….

BLM wilderness areas may be less accessible to the public soon (Washington Policy Center)
Balanced use of public lands has been a contentious issue in the western United States for many years. A rule proposed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) would limit recreation and grazing on land previously considered public by creating a framework for “conservation leases.” The BLM manages approximately 10 percent of the landmass in the United States with much of those holdings in the West. BLM’s new director, Tracy Stone-Manning, appears to be seeking a means to circumvent Congress by proposing the change to BLM land use policy through rulemaking despite a long-standing Congressional policy already being in place.

Why does BLM need a new rule to do its job? (New Mexican)
Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the BLM is charged with managing the 245 million acres of public lands under its jurisdiction. That management is subject to a mandate to manage those lands for multiple uses. Historically, “multiple use” has included activities such as recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish and natural scenic, scientific and historical values. A central feature of the BLM’s proposed Public Lands Rule is to transform “conservation” into a “use.” That is, under its proposed rule, the BLM will issue “conservation leases.” Conservation, however, is not a use. It is an objective. The BLM should already have been managing “uses” on our public lands in a way that promotes conservation. Has it? If not, why not? Why, as BLM claims, is a new rule going to make it more efficient or allow it to make better decisions? What’s going on? What’s the real agenda? Who’s behind it?

Jim Petersen’s Q&A with Chief Moore is worth reading….

A conversation with Forest Service Chief, Randy Moore

In this interview, Chief Moore discusses the challenges he faces, including some that will remain challenges long after he retires.

From E&E Daily — I think it’s open access. Steve Ellis, a Smokey Wire member, is quoted.

This Montana Public Radio article does more than look at one proposed project. “Those familiar with NEPA say categorical exclusions are an essential tool in any federal agency’s kit. But, some environmental advocates say they’re concerned that tool is being used too often and out of proportion with its original purpose.”

The story features comment from our own Sharon Friedman, plus mention of The Smokey Wire, and from TSW contributor Susan Jane Brown.

The SCIENCEx webinar series (register here) brings together scientists and land management experts from across U.S. Forest Service research stations and beyond to explore the latest science and best practices for addressing large natural resource challenges across the country.

Monday, May 15, SCIENCE x Planning for Forests of the Future: Resources Planning Act – Forest Resources and Disturbance (moderator: Sarah Hines)
•    RPA Overview, presented by Claire O’Dea (recorded session)
•    Forest Resources, Current and Future, presented by John Coulston
•    Recent and future trends in disturbances to forests and rangelands across the conterminous U.S., presented by Jennifer Costanza

Tuesday, May 16, SCIENCE x Planning for Forests of the Future: Resources Planning Act – Forest Products and Water Resources (moderator: Sarah Hines)
•    RPA Overview, presented by Claire O’Dea (recorded session)
•    Forest Products Markets, presented by Jeff Prestemon
•    Current and future projections of water use and supply in the United States, presented by Travis Warziniack

Wednesday, May 17 SCIENCE x Planning for Forests of the Future: Resources Planning Act – Rangeland Resources and Biodiversity (moderator: Sarah Hines)
•    RPA Overview, presented by Claire O’Dea (recorded session)
•    The 2020 Rangeland Assessment, presented by Matt Reeves
•    Patterns and threats to biological diversity across the United States: Focusing on land use and climate change, presented by Becky Flitcroft

Thursday, May 18 SCIENCE x Planning for Forests of the Future: Resources Planning Act – Land Resources and Outdoor Recreation (moderator: Andrea Brandon)
•    RPA Overview, presented by Claire O’Dea (recorded session)
•    The past and future of land resources: foundations for the 2020 RPA Assessment, presented by Kurt Riitters
•    Outdoor recreation participation in in the U.S. in 2040 and 2070, presented by Eric White

Friday, May 19 SCIENCE x Planning for Forests of the Future: National Report on Sustainable Forests (moderator: Margaret Gregory)
•    USDA Forest Service National Reporting on Forest Sustainability: Observations and Program Overview, presented by Guy Robertson
•    Key Findings from the 2020 National Report on Sustainable Forests, presented by Lara Murray
•    The Montréal Process: a voluntary international agreement to measure, monitor and make progress on forest conservation and sustainable management, presented by Kathleen McGinley

Steve Ellis sent this article he coauthored in 1993, noting that it’s still relevant today. A collaboration success story.

New from Oregon State University Press: “The Making of the Northwest Forest Plan: The Wild Science of Saving Old Growth Ecosystems,” by K. Norman Johnson, Jerry F. Franklin, and Gordon H. Reeves.

Looking forward to comments from anyone who reads it.

Description:

Tree sitters. Logger protests. Dying timber towns. An iconic species on the brink. The Timber Wars consumed the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s and early 1990s and led political leaders to ask scientists for a solution. The Northwest Forest Plan was the result.

For most of the twentieth century, the central theme of federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest had been logging old-growth forests to provide a sustained yield of timber. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, studies by young scientists highlighted the destructive impact of that logging on northern spotted owls, salmon, and the old-growth ecosystem itself. Combining this new science with environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act, environmental activists obtained court injunctions to stop old-growth logging on federal land, setting off a titanic struggle to meet conservation imperatives while also enabling the timber harvests that provided employment for tens of thousands of people. That effort led to the creation of the Northwest Forest Plan, which sharply and abruptly shifted the goal of federal forest management toward conserving the species and ecosystems of old-growth forests and the streams that run through them.

In this book, three of the scientists who helped craft that change tell the story as they know it: the causes, development, adoption, and effects of the Northwest Forest Plan. The book also incorporates short commentaries and histories from key figures—including spotted owl expert Eric Forsman—and experiences from managers who implemented the plan as best they could. Legal expert Susan Jane M. Brown helped interpret court cases and Debora Johnson turned spatial data into maps. The final chapters cover the plan’s ongoing significance and recommendations for conserving forest and aquatic ecosystems in an era of megafires and climate change.

Summary of a new “Science You Can Use” bulletin from the Rocky Mountain Research Station: “Can Fuel Treatments Change How a Wildfire Burns Across a Landscape?” Summary below. One interesting observation:

Theresa “Terrie” Jain, an RMRS research forester (now scientist emeritus) with the Forest and Woodland Ecosystems Program and the project lead, says the lack of a clear understanding and agreement of what is meant by the term “landscape” underscores the need for the synthesis.

“We found that in the science papers, researchers used the term landscape, but they never defined their landscape. We found that the term was used in the title or as a keyword, but often the paper did not really address the landscape,” Jain says. “Even though fire is a landscape process, few researchers are really doing landscape-level analysis.”

Summary:

By all measures, wildfires in the western United States are becoming more extreme. Fires are growing larger and burning more intensely, and suppression costs are spiraling upward. Maximizing the effectiveness of fuel treatments at the landscape scale is key given limited resources and the inability to treat all areas likely to burn in a wildfire.

Research forester Theresa Jain with the Rocky Mountain Research Station collaborated with fellow Station scientists along with colleagues from research institutions across the country to synthesize existing scientific literature on landscape-scale fuel treatment effectiveness in North American ecosystems through a systematic literature review.

The team identified 127 studies that addressed the fuels treatment effectiveness using simulation modeling, empirical analysis, and case studies. The studies show that fuel treatments reduced negative outcomes of wildfire and often promoted beneficial wildfire outcomes. Weather conditions influenced the effectiveness of treatments, and effectiveness lessened over time following treatment, pointing to the need for maintenance treatments. The studies also emphasized the importance of treating multiple fuel layers (canopy, ladder, and surface) to reduce fire spread and severity. Fuel treatments also contributed to fire suppression efforts by reducing costs and facilitating suppression activities, such as fireline construction.

The science team has developed a fuel treatment effectiveness framework with measurable criteria to better understand how stand-level fuel treatments collectively contribute to broader landscape-level fuels management goals.