Diversity and species conservation

The Discovery of the Ponderosa Pines and their Current Taxonomy

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There may only be a few of us interested in skimming the verbiage but Figure 1 on the report page 2 (.pdf page 6) is a wonderful picture of the complexity and adaptability of a single forest species and therefore a good example of why one size does not fit all. To me it also shows the inherent processes already at work to naturally deal with climate change through the process of evolution driven by survival of the fittest. See also Figure 2 on page 18 (.pdf page 22). The detailed discussion of the five currently accepted subspecies begins on page 25 (.pdf page 29).

“The first published allusion to Pinus ponderosa is in the journal of Lewis and Clark, who, in ascending the Missouri River in September, 1804, at the outset of their transcontinental journey, found the cones of this tree,brought down from the pineries of northwestern Nebraska, floating onWhite River, and heard of the pine forest on the Black Hills of Dakota.” The taxonomic history of Ponderosa Pine begins on page 1 (.pdf page 5).

I look forward to hearing from others as to any ramifications of these subspecies on silvicultural practices in regard to minimizing the impact of fire and insect damages and other policy related issues. I’m pretty sure that we have at least 2 regular blog posters who can shed more light on this very important keystone species in certain forest ecosystems.

Half Empty or Half Full: Science and Biodiversity

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Professor Thomas
Professor Thomas

I’m trying to catch up on New Scientists and serendipitously ran across this interview with ecologist Chris Thomas by Fred Pearce. I think it’s an interesting thought-piece because I think it tries to distinguish scientific facts from normative ideas that have crept in to “scientific” discourse, and even legislation. An ESA with these ideas might be designed differently, IMHO. Also it’s interesting he says that we know more about extinctions than new species..of course, what we know about is what we pay scientists to study. So when we say “science says” there are many social forces influencing that, within and without the science biz.
Also, it is interesting to think about these ideas and the spotted and barred owls.. interesting juxtaposition with what Bob just posted about the NW Forest Plan.


Here’s the link.

A decade ago, ecologist Chris Thomas warned that climate change would wipe out a quarter of all species. Now he tells Fred Pearce that we might actually end up with more species than before – and this isn’t a contradiction

Are you no longer concerned about extinctions?
We worry about extinction of species in the era of humans. But at the same time we are seeing an evolutionary surge. The seeds of recovery are already visible. New species are beginning to emerge. Of course many will fail, but others will become the lineages of the future.

This seems light years away from your forecast in 2004 that a global temperature rise of 2 °C would commit millions of species to extinction. Surely you cannot hold both views?

Actually, yes. I’m not arguing that extinctions won’t happen as humans mess up habitats, move species round the globe and change the climate. As I said 10 years ago, climate change will probably cause a mass extinction. I wish this wasn’t so. But I am saying that this is only one side of the coin. These processes also provide ecological opportunities – for species that already exist, and for new forms of life to evolve to exploit the changed environments.

How do we know that there will be opportunities for new life?
People say we are in the throes of the sixth great extinction – as big as when an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The jury is still out on that. It might take human numbers in the billions for a thousand years to do that much damage. But all past extinctions were followed by a burst of evolution. Disappearing dinosaurs created space for mammals to evolve. So why not this time? The flip side of a new great extinction would eventually be a new evolutionary explosion. A new genesis, if you like.

Is this increase in diversity happening already?
Yes. Genes are jumping around. Molecular genetics is finding that hybridisation between species is more common than previously suspected. Darwin talked about a tree of life, with species branching out and separating. But we are discovering it is more of a network, with genes moving between close branches as related species interbreed. This hybridisation quickly opens up evolutionary opportunities.

How do the alien species we introduce change different habitats?
Non-native species are a big part of this revolution. Most conservationists fear these invaders taken round the world by humans – sometimes with good reason. Kudzu vines, zebra mussels and cane toads, not to mention rats and rabbits, can displace native species and transform established ecosystems.

But often when alien species come into contact with related native species, hybrids result. And you get evolutionary divergence, too. After a species has been moved from one place to another, it may start to evolve into a novel species. Native species also evolve under the influence of aliens.

Are there examples of these types of changes?
In Britain, hybridisation involving introduced plant species seems to be happening at least as fast as native species are going extinct. For instance, European rhododendrons have hybridised with cousins from North America to generate a thriving wild population. As for changes in native species – insects change to live off new plants. For instance, a hybrid of two species of fruit fly in North America has evolved to colonise invasive honeysuckles.

What about fears that hybridisation changes and weakens native species genetically?
There are examples when native species can be genetically swamped by a more numerous invader. But new genes from alien species usually only invade the genome of an existing species if they confer some advantage. They often help them thrive.

So what should conservation involve, then?
It could help species take advantage of new opportunities. In a time of climate change, it is silly to try to prevent species moving, for example. We should be making it easier for them. Some people want to create migration corridors, so that whole ecosystems can move. Here in York we have gone one step further. We have been experimenting with taking butterflies north and releasing them. It works.

What about the charge that you are messing with natural ecosystems?
Nothing is entirely natural any longer. And ecosystems don’t have some preordained cast list. We know that at the end of the last ice age, the last time we had big climate change, tree species migrated north as the ice retreated, reclaiming old territory. But they didn’t go back at the same speed, or to the same places. Different combinations of species emerged. It will be like that again. The world is already full of ecosystems that have never existed before. They work just fine.

Does all of this mean that we should learn to love alien species?
Alien species can alter local ecosystems and be very inconvenient for humans. But only a few dozen of the many thousands of species we have transported around the world have actually driven another species extinct. Most don’t. In most countries, they increase biodiversity.

Plant diversity has increased by about a fifth in the continental US states as a result of new arrivals. Britain has more than 1800 non-native species, but as far as I know they have caused no extinctions.

So should we just let nature take its course?
Not entirely. Personally, I think we should do everything we can to minimise habitat loss and climate change. But not every change can or should be resisted. We shouldn’t confuse change with damage, or think of alien species as bad and natives as good. Some aliens are definitely a nuisance from a human perspective, but so are some native species. We are a part of the global system.

Part of the problem is that things are happening so fast that we see big ecological transformations in our individual lifetimes. It is human nature to be worried about that. I sometimes pull up alien weeds that I see in the fields around where I live. But that is an emotional response. Intellectually, I see nothing wrong with most of them.

Won’t extinctions always outpace evolution?
For the time being, but not always. If nature can bounce back from an asteroid hit, it can probably bounce back from us.

Why aren’t scientists talking more about all this good news?
We are always quantifying extinction, but we still know very little about the reverse process. It is only recently we have come to realise quite how much evolutionary change is going on. It is starting to look very much like a global acceleration of evolutionary rates.

Some scientists worry that, if we start working on this, it suggests we don’t care about extinction. That doesn’t follow. I think we should see this evolutionary novelty as an exciting research priority.


So, ultimately, most of this change is good?
Good and bad is irrelevant. It is wrong to believe we have a duty to resist all change in nature. Nature is always changing. Species are going to have to move to survive. New species and ecosystems will be created along the way. Dynamic alien colonists, and the evolution they kick-start, will be a part of the mix.

A narrow preservationist agenda will reduce the capacity of nature to respond to the environmental changes that we are inflicting on the world. We need to think less about keeping things just the way they were – not least because it’s impossible and virtually nowhere is pristine any more – and more about promoting the new.

The bonfire of insanity: Woodland is shipped 3,800 miles and burned in Drax power

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This weekend an article ran in the UK titled “The bonfire of insanity: Woodland is shipped 3,800 miles and burned in Drax power.”  The article was written by David Rose and provides an additional look into the issue of cutting down forests in North Carolina, chipping those forests into pellets and then shipping those pellets nearly 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to be burned in the United Kingdom.  Some previous NCFP posts on the topic are here, here, here, here, here and here. 

Snip:

But North Carolina’s ‘bottomland’ forest is being cut down in swathes, and much of it pulped and turned into wood pellets – so Britain can keep its lights on.

The UK is committed by law to a radical shift to renewable energy. By 2020, the proportion of Britain’s electricity generated from ‘renewable’ sources is supposed to almost triple to 30 per cent, with more than a third of that from what is called ‘biomass’.

The only large-scale way to do this is by burning wood, man’s oldest fuel – because EU rules have determined it is ‘carbon-neutral’.

So our biggest power station, the leviathan Drax plant near Selby in North Yorkshire, is switching from dirty, non-renewable coal. Biomass is far more expensive, but the consumer helps the process by paying subsidies via levies on energy bills.

That’s where North Carolina’s forests come in. They are being reduced to pellets in a gargantuan pulping process at local factories, then shipped across the Atlantic from a purpose-built dock at Chesapeake Port, just across the state line in Virginia.

Those pellets are burnt by the billion at Drax. Each year, says Drax’s head of environment, Nigel Burdett, Drax buys more than a million metric tons of pellets from US firm Enviva, around two thirds of its total output. Most of them come not from fast-growing pine, but mixed, deciduous hardwood.

Drax and Enviva insist this practice is ‘sustainable’. But though it is entirely driven by the desire to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a broad alliance of US and international environmentalists argue it is increasing, not reducing them.

In fact, Burdett admits, Drax’s wood-fuelled furnaces actually produce three per cent more carbon dioxide (CO2) than coal – and well over twice as much as gas: 870g per megawatt hour (MW/hr) is belched out by wood, compared to just 400g for gas.

Then there’s the extra CO2 produced by manufacturing the pellets and transporting them 3,800 miles. According to Burdett [Drax’s Head of Environment], when all that is taken into account, using biomass for generating power produces 20 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

And meanwhile, say the environmentalists, the forest’s precious wildlife habitat is being placed in jeopardy.

Drax concedes that ‘when biomass is burned, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere’. Its defence is that trees – unlike coal or gas – are renewable because they can grow again, and that when they do, they will neutralise the carbon in the atmosphere by ‘breathing’ it in – or in technical parlance, ‘sequestering’ it.

So Drax claims that burning wood ‘significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared with coal-fired generation’ – by as much, Burdett says, as 80 per cent.

These claims are questionable. For one thing, some trees in the ‘bottomland’ woods can take more than 100 years to regrow. But for Drax, this argument has proven beneficial and lucrative.

Power Fire 2014

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We’ve seen pictures of the Power Fire, on the Eldorado National Forest, before. I worked on salvage sales until Chad Hanson won in the Ninth Circuit Court, with issues about the black-backed woodpecker. The court decided that the issue needed more analysis, as well as deciding that the Forest Service’s brand new mortality guidelines were “confusing”. From these pictures, it is very clear to see that those mortality guidelines were way more conservative than they maybe should have been.

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As you can see, in this finished unit(s), there were ample snags available for birds to use, despite multiple cuttings, due to the increased bark beetle activity, during the logging. No one can say that they didn’t leave enough snags, (other than the Appeals Court). These pictures are very recent, shot last month.

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This picture amused me, as I put this sign up back in 2005. Plastic signs last much longer than the old cardboard ones.

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Here is another view of the area, chock full of snags, well beyond what the salvage plans asked for, to devote to woodpeckers and other organisms that use snags. People like Chad Hanson want more high-intensity wildfires, and more dead old growth. It is no wonder that the Sierra Club decided he was too radical, even for them.

Edit: Here is the link to a previous posting from almost 2 years ago, with pictures. https://forestpolicypub.com/2012/05/28/the-power-fire-six-years-later/

“Wild Buck” Timber Sale Undercuts Forest Restoration

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By Jay Lininger
http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/articles/20140202old-growth-logging-undercuts-forest-restoration.html

The old “yellow-belly” ponderosa pines anchoring the majestic forests of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim grew up long before European settlement. Precious few remain.

More than 1,000 of them will be lost forever in the “Wild Buck” timber sale later this year, undercutting U.S. Forest Service claims that it is restoring this fire-adapted forest ecosystem.

Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that 38 percent of timber volume in the Wild Buck sale will come from logging 1,174 trees larger than 24-inches diameter. Field surveys by the Center for Biological Diversity revealed that many of those giant trees stood tall when the United States declared independence well over 200 years ago.

Old-growth pines are rare as a result of past logging. Their towering canopies and thick bark make them naturally fire resistant.

Hundreds of thousands of smaller trees that would have burned off as saplings during natural fire events have encroached on the forest during a century of fire suppression. Small trees now blanket Arizona’s forests like kindling.

Wild Buck is part of a larger project spanning 20,000 acres on the north rim with a stated purpose to reduce fire hazard and restore historic forest conditions.

The Forest Service assured the public last year that “little more than 1 percent” of trees to be removed from the North Rim are larger than 16 inches diameter.

However, nearly 30 percent of trees to be cut in the Wild Buck sale — 78 percent of total volume — are larger than 16 inches diameter. In other words, the Forest Service’s first move out of the gate in a “forest restoration” project is to sell thousands of large and old trees for commercial purposes rather than meeting its own mandate to clear small trees for fire safety.

Ponderosa pine forests need small-tree thinning to safely reintroduce natural low-intensity fires without causing undue harm to wildlife and the amenities that people cherish.

Recognizing this, the Center for Biological Diversity collaborated with partners of all political stripes to develop an old-growth protection and large-tree-retention strategy for the historic Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) that will expedite thinning across millions of acres.

Unfortunately the Forest Service dismissed the collaborative 4FRI strategy and routinely rejects good-faith restoration proposals from the public, opting instead to log big, old trees, as evidenced by the Wild Buck timber sale.

Wild Buck is separate from the 4FRI, but it is on the same national forest (Kaibab) dressed with the same restoration purpose. It demonstrates the Forest Service’s willingness to exploit a lack of accountability and mine large, fire-resistant trees from the landscape.

At a time when the Forest Service claims to be working with stakeholders to do the right thing, the Wild Buck timber sale is a vivid example of what’s wrong with the agency. Its addiction to logging big, old trees and its refusal to collaborate in management of public forests demonstrate a need for better leadership and reform.

Reform should start with permanent protection of the irreplaceable old-growth pillars of our region’s unique natural history.

Jay Lininger is a senior scientist with the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. Read him via email at [email protected].

Lackey’s Salmon Policy Paper II: A Science Excerpt

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Considering that blog readers might not want to read all of Lackey’s paper, that I posted in the previous post here, I am posting another couple of excerpts.

The billions spent on salmon recovery might be considered “guilt money” — modern-day indulgences — a tax society and individuals willingly bear to alleviate their collective and individual remorse. It is money spent on activities not likely to achieve recovery of wild salmon, but it helps people feel better as they continue the behaviors and choices that preclude the recovery of wild salmon.

and

Salmon Policy Lesson 2 — Fisheries scientists, managers, and analysts are systemically encouraged to avoid explicitly conveying unpleasant facts or trade-offs to the public, senior bureaucrats, or elected officials.

…Such a message to “lighten up” is also reflected in the comments of some colleagues in reviewing salmon recovery manuscripts. For example, a common sentiment is captured by one reviewer’s comment on a manuscript: “You have to give those of us trying to restore wild salmon some hope of success.”
In contrast, some colleagues, especially veterans of the unending political conflict over salmon policy, confessed their regret over the “optimistic” approach that they had taken during their careers in fisheries, and they now endorse the “tell it like it is” tactic. They felt that they had given false hope about the effectiveness of fishways, hatcheries, and the ability of their agencies to manage mixed stock fishing. Many professional fisheries scientists have been pressured by employers, funding organizations, and colleagues to “spin” fisheries science and policy realism to accentuate optimism. Sometimes the pressure on scientists to cheerlead is blunt; other times it is subtle. For example, consider the coercion of scientists by other scientists (often through nongovernmental professional societies) to avoid highlighting the importance of U.S. population policy on sustaining natural resources (Hurlbert 2013). The existence of such institutional and organizational pressure is rarely discussed except among trusted colleagues; nevertheless it is real.

Other colleagues took professional refuge in the reality that senior managers or policy bureaucrats select and define the policy or science question to be addressed, thus constraining research. Consequently, the resulting scientific information and assessments are often scientifically rigorous, but so narrowly focused that the information is only marginally relevant to decision makers. Rarely are fisheries scientists encouraged to provide “big picture” assessments of the future of salmon. Whether inadvertent or not, such constrained
information often misleads the public into endorsing false expectations of the likelihood of the recovery of wild salmon (Lackey 2001a, Hurlbert 2011).

If there are 50 things you could do, and not-logging is one of them (like not-farming, not-developing, not-fishing, not-damming, etc.), wouldn’t we want to know 1) how effective each intervention would be and 2) and who specifically would win and lose under each scenario, so that appropriate policy remedies for their pain might be considered? (Of course, scientists wouldn’t agree…) Otherwise we might target the most politically easy (say logging on public lands…), cause difficulties to communities that we don’t openly examine,
and never really fix the problem.

Another invite-only “collaborative” leads to unprofessional Forest Service conduct

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Yet another invite-only, exclusive “collaboration” involving public U.S. Forest Service land management has sprung up in Montana. This time the collaborative group is called the Whitefish Range Partnership (WRP), and they are focused on roughly 350,000 acres of the Flathead National Forest’s portion of the Whitefish Range above the cities of Columbia Falls and Whitefish.
As you will see below, the leaders of the Whitefish Range Partnership completely admit that they made a conscious decision to exclude certain members of the public. Notably, the WRP admits to purposely excluding any conservation organization that had worked within the established public participation processes outlined within the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in order to comment, appeal and, if necessary, file a lawsuit against a timber sale on the Flathead National Forest. It also appears that the WRP purposely excluded some of the “multiple-use” folks.  Also of note is the fact that Flathead National Forest officials were invited to attend all the meetings of the WRP in an advisory capacity.
The WRP leaders conducted a media blitz last week, announcing an agreed upon deal that, among other things:

• Increases the “Suitable Timber Base” by 45% in order to supposedly achieve “commercial certainty for the timber industry” (in an era where lumber consumption and home construction are down more than 50% and not expected to rebound anytime soon).
• Decreases recommendations for areas protected as Wilderness.
• Increases motorcycle recreation in the southeast portion of the Whitefish Range.
• Provides a large increase in recreation opportunities for snowmobilers.

Q: Has there even been a public lands “collaborative” group that didn’t decide to increase logging, decrease Wilderness and increase motorized recreation?

At the time the WRP deal was made public there were no plan details or maps available to the public.  In fact, board members of at least one organization that did participate in the invite-only, exclusive collaboration also didn’t know any details, except what they read in the newspaper.  A few days after framing the debate and controlling the media messaging, the leaders of the WRP did make this copy of the agreement available to some of people, although I’m pretty sure it’s not available to the general public.

Keep in mind that starting tonight the Flathead National Forest is hosting “Stakeholder Collaboration Orientation Meeting” from 4 to 8:30 pm Kalispell to kick off their Forest Plan revision process.  The weather forecast calls for a low tonight in Kalispell of 8 below zero, with wind chill values dropped to 32 below zero.  Many roads in the area are snow-covered and icy.

Ask yourself this question:  If you are a member of the public who cares about the management of the Whitefish Range and the Flathead National Forest, and you were excluded from the Whitefish Range Partnership “collaboration” and plan, would you venture outside in the cold and dark to attend the Flathead National Forest’s “Stakeholder Collaboration Orientation Meeting?”

Before you decide, read the information below, where you will see that Chip Weber, the Supervisor of the Flathead National Forest, has already publicly claimed that the plan developed by the invite-only, exclusive Whitefish Range Partnership “may be very close to, if not exactly what we end up doing.”

What follows below are some reactions and more information to the Whitefish Range Partnership plan, and the Flathead National Forest’s “advisory” role in this invite-0nly, self-selected, exclusive “collaboration.” The views expressed below (which are shared with permission) come from long-time conservationists who live in the immediate area, but were not invited to participate in the WRP’s “collaboration” on account of supposedly being too radical or extreme.

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[Founded in 2006, James Conner’s Flathead Memo is an independent journal of observation and analysis that serves the Flathead Valley and Montana. Below are some of Mr. Conner’s thoughts, including a number of recent posts about the Whitefish Range Partnership plan made at the Flathead Memo. – mk]

Matt Koehler asked my permission to repost some of my essays on www.flatheadmemo.com. Permission granted, and granted with pleasure.

Collaboration is not an intrinsic evil. In fact, when conducted in an ethical manner, it can do good. There’s never any point to fighting over common ground. But, as with the Frenchwomen who “collaborated” with the Wehrmacht’s soldiers, it also can be an act of desperation and betrayal, a lesser of evils in an effort to survive, or simply an outcome of weak character. It can can and does turn colleagues against each other in the pursuit of ephemeral gains, poisoning relationships and weakening communities.

One collaborative effort I encountered involved citizens, who, frustrated with a county commission’s heads-in-the-sand approach to planning in a rapidly growing northwestern valley, decided to take matters into their own hands. They wrote their own master plan which, wrapped in bells and bows, they presented to the commissioners, expecting swift approval. “Here, we’ve done your job for you,” they said in effect. The rump master plan never was adopted, and the collaborationists never realized they were practicing vigilante politics. When government is broken, it must be fixed, for it cannot be sidestepped.

We’re now beginning another round of national forest planning. The U.S. Forest Service, desperate to adopt new plans that enjoy widespread public support, hopes a collaborative process will rally the public around the plans. It won’t, certainly not to the extent the agency desires. The public is too diverse for that. Moreover, not all uses and practices are compatible, not all collaborative efforts will produce wise, or even legal, agreements, and no amount of collaboration can relieve the agency of its legal and moral duties to decide what the plan includes and does.

As these collaborative efforts move forward, those involved must remember that the objective is not compromise, for compromise is not an intrinsic good, but support for that which best protects the land in ways consistent with the needs and aspirations of humanity and the world of living things. – James Conner

Unprofessional conduct at the Flathead National Forest

By James Conner, © James Conner, www.flatheadmemo.com

The man in charge of revising the forest plan at the Flathead National Forest, Joe Krueger, and his boss, forest supervisor Chip Weber, exercised questionable professional judgment in their remarks on the forest plan alternative developed by the Whitefish Range Partnership.

Here’s what the InterLake’s Jim Mann reported:

Joe Krueger, the forest plan revision team leader, said forest officials are impressed with the work done by the Whitefish Range Partnership.

“That’s a very big group,” Krueger said, referring to a membership roster that included representatives for raft companies, timber interests, conservation groups, business owners, hunting and angling, mountain biking and much more. “Anytime you can get a group of diverse folks together and problem solve like that … we’re going to give that a lot of weight.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

“Now it will be easy for people who weren’t part of the process to take pot shots at it,” Krueger said. “The hard part was working through this.”

At the Flathead Beacon, Tristan Scott reported:

“This may be very close to, if not exactly what we end up doing,” [Flathead National Forest Supervisor] Weber told the group at its Nov. 18 meeting, after the members presented him with a lengthy draft plan, the product of more than a year of bi-weekly meetings. “You were first out of the gate, you’ve put in an incredible amount of work and you’ve given us a lot to think about.”

“What the people did here was some yeomen’s work,” he added later. “This group helped set a good example and a model for others to look at.”

One can defend Weber and Krueger by arguing they were trying to be positive and diplomatic, but expressed praise for the WRP’s work in a way that inadvertently endorses the WRP’s proposal. I’m sure someone will make that argument. I won’t. This is more than a case of not being artful — it’s a case of playing favorites, and not in a subtle way.

Had Weber said only “…you’ve put in an incredible amount of work and you’ve given us a lot to think about,” and followed with “your proposal will accorded the same fair consideration as all proposals,” he would have been on solid — and neutral — ground. But he couldn’t curb his enthusiasm.

But Weber’s statements are weak tea compared to Krueger’s “ …we’re going to give that a lot of weight,”and “…it will be easy for people who weren’t part of the process to take pot shots at it.” He’s both endorsed the WRP’s proposal and denigrated as cheap shot artists those who may criticize the proposal. Quite clearly, Krueger is invested in the WRP’s proposal. That’s old school Forest Service favoritism and bully boy behavior, and highly toxic to a successful forest planning effort.

The FNF’s unprofessional conduct imperils the forest planning process from the gitgo, and sullies the hard work of the Whitefish Range Partnership.

[Addition: Here’s an example, captured on video tape, of the Flathead National Forest’s Joe Krueger (at left with yellow hard-hat) mocking a very sincere question from a concerned citizen about the role of science in timber sale management targeting old-growth forests and grizzly bear habitat during a Forest Service public tour of the Beta Timber Sale on the Flathead National Forest in 2005. – mk]

Whitefish Range rump agreement far from a done deal

By James Conner © James Conner, www.flatheadmemo.com

Another rump caucus, the Whitefish Range Partnership, has reached agreement on how a tract of National Forest land, this time in the Whitefish Range, west of Glacier National Park, should be managed. Rob Chaney of the Missoulian has the story.

The agreement has no force of law, but it does have political weight that will be recognized by Congress, which has the power to designate wilderness, and the U.S. Forest Service, which is starting another round of forest planning. Many of the WRP’s proposals are intended to be incorporated in the next forest plan, which will have the force of law.

Here, from Chaney’s report, is what we know so far:

In the final agreement, the [mountain] bikers gained recognition for their trail-building efforts around Whitefish, as well as their interest in using mountain roads and trails elsewhere. Loggers saw their suitable timber base go from about 55,000 acres to 90,000 acres. Wilderness advocates outlined 85,000 acres they want federally protected. Forest homeowners concerned about having federal wilderness bordering their property borrowed an idea from the Flathead Indian Reservation and proposed a buffer zone that would allow reduced logging or hazardous fuels management around their land before the nonmotorized territory began.

All of this remains tentative, as the Forest Service adds it to the public process for its forest plan. The radical fringe of all camps will likely object. But few will have put in the 13 months of Monday nights to present a case as convincing as the Whitefish Range Partnership.

According to the North Fork Preservation Association, maps will be released in early December. They could, of course, have been released now, but the absence of maps makes it easier for the WRP to shape the public discussion, and I’m concerned that part of the shaping will include an attempt to characterize those who disagree with the agreement as radicals or ignoramuses. That was the tactic employed by the rump caucus that engineered the agreement leading to Sen. Jon Tester’s ill-fated wilderness-forest management bill, so I won’t be surprised it’s employed here. (My 2010 comments on Tester’s bill and the rumpery leading to it.)

The agreement was reached not just because the WRP’s members worked hard. It also was reached because the “radical fringe” was excluded. Rump caucuses can do that, but the U.S. Forest Service and Congress cannot. Those excluded from the WRP’s rump caucus have the same right as the rumpers to petition their government. Furthermore, the excluded are not by definition radical or fringe. Some may endorse the agreement. Others, I suspect, will object to parts of it.

Speaking for myself, based on what I know about the Flathead National Forest’s history of logging in the Whitefish Range, I’m skeptical that a 64 percent increase in the suitable for timber management acreage can be justified. There was a lot of old growth mining in the North Fork 40–50 years ago, and the lands not permanently damaged are still recovering. Some never should have been logged or defiled with roads. In the rump agreement leading to the Tester bill, conservationists got rolled by the timber beasts. I hope that didn’t happen here.

I’m keeping an eye on the situation, and from time-to-time will offer my analysis, comments, and recommendations.

See also The WRP agreement – grand bargain or deal with the Devil? by James Conner. © James Conner, www.flatheadmemo.com.

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Keith Hammer, a former logger who is the Chair of the Swan View Coalition, brings up some additional concerns about the Flathead National Forest’s “advisory” role in the WRP invite-only, exclusive “collaboration” process in this recent letter to the editor:

Dear Editor;

It is truly disappointing to watch the Flathead National Forest make a mockery out of the Whitefish Range Partnership collaborative and its Forest Plan revision public involvement process. In local newspapers the past week, the Forest Service demonstrated its utter lack of objectivity and fairness when it comes to public input.

The Flathead Forest Supervisor told the WRP “This may be very close to, if not exactly what we end up doing,” praising them also for being “first out of the chute.” (Flathead Beacon 11/27/13). This even though he has not yet had his staff or the general public assess the environmental impacts and merits of the proposal.

The Supervisor’s right-hand man made things even worse when he said that those folks that weren’t invited to be a part of the WRP could later “take pot shots at it.” (Daily Inter Lake 11/30/13). What better way to disenfranchise an American public only recently invited by the Flathead to participate in revising its Forest Plan through both a collaborative and a broader public review and comment process?

Ethics, common sense and the law require that the Forest Service not play favorites. The Forest Supervisor and his staff should have thanked the WRP for its proposal and said it would be considered right alongside the many other proposals it will be receiving during the Forest Plan revision process.

The Flathead National Forest belongs to all Americans, not just those that live locally or able to participate in a lengthy collaborative process. That is why the law requires that all proposals be submitted to the entire public for comment – and that those comments be regarded as something more than just “pot shots.”

Sincerely,

Keith J. Hammer
Chair, Swan View Coalition

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Brian Peck, a sportsman and wildlife advocate from Columbia Falls, MT recently shared some good background information about the history of Wildereness advocacy in the Whitefish Range:

I just ran across a Montana Wilderness Association proposal for the Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness in the Northern Whitefish Range from 2005. It noted that in 1925, Weydemeyer proposed a 485,000 acre Wilderness in the Whitefish Range, back when that was still possible.

However, by 2005, just 171,000 (or 35%) of potential acres remained after decades of trashing by the Kootenai and Flathead National Forests. About 100,000 of those acres are on the Flathead NF, but the Whitefish Range Partnership would only recommend 83,000 as Wilderness – a further loss of 17,000 acres of Wilderness.

That means that when the conservation members of the Whitefish Range Partnership agreed to sit down at the table with long-time adversaries, 65% of the Whitefish Range had already been lost to logging, roading, motorized Wreckreation summer & winter, and more recently to “combat mountain biking.”

Clearly, the only responsible environmental position to take was that not so much as 1 additional acre of the remaining 35% would be given up. Yet, by agreeing to a format where all 30 groups had to agree or there was no deal, conservationists guaranteed that that they’d have to compromise away thousands of additional acres – unless they were willing to say no and walk away from the table – something that Dave Hadden said he would do “if things started to go sideways,” but clearly didn’t follow through on.

Fires Bad for “Biodiversity”?

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When I returned to Book Club, I noticed this review of Botkin’s book, referred to by Guy. If you are interested, you can read Botkin’s thoughts on some of the points made in the review here.

What intrigued me was this statement by Nekola, the author of the review:

Botkin spends almost two chapters talking about how essential disturbance, particularly fire, is to the maintenance of diversity in many USA grassland and conifer forest communities. However, he then chooses to ignore the accumulating empirical evidence documenting catastrophic biodiversity losses across many taxa groups following the reintroduction of fire into reserves (e.g., [8,9]). Such works suggest that the widespread improper use of fire management represent [sic] one of the single most harmful immediate threats to biodiversity within the USA today.”

My first thought was that “he can’t be talking about forests… wouldn’t we have heard about “catastrophic biodiversity losses across many taxa groups?””. And one could assume (perhaps) that wildfires would have similar impacts to prescribed fires? The “single most harmful immediate threat to biodiversity within the USA today.” Whew! On this blog you might think it’s the few surviving lumber mills, or perhaps breaking up habitat with houses, or some people think oil and gas development may make things difficult for the sage grouse.

So my finely tuned feelers went up and I looked at the cites (8 and 9).
Swengel, A.B. (1996) Effects of fire and hay management on the abundance of prairie butterflies. Biological Conservation 76, 73–85.

Nekola, J.C. (2002) Effects of fire management on the richness and
abundance of central North American grassland land snail faunas.
Anim. Biodivers. Conserv. 25, 53–66

I was intrigued by 9 so went to look it up. Here’s the paper and below is the abstract.

Effects of fire management on the richness and abundance of central North American grassland land snail faunas.— The land snail faunas from 72 upland and lowland grassland sites from central North America were analyzed. Sixteen of these had been exposed to fire management within the last 15 years, while the remainder had not. A total of 91,074 individuals in 72 different species were observed. Richness was reduced by approximately 30% on burned sites, while abundance was reduced by 50–90%.
One–way ANOVA of all sites (using management type as the independent variable), a full 2–way ANOVA (using management and grassland type) of all sites, and a 2–way ANOVA limited to 26 sites paired according to their habitat type and geographic location, demonstrated in all cases a highly significant (up to p < 0.0005) reduction in richness and abundance on fire managed sites.Contingency table analysis of individual species demonstrated that 44% experienced a significant reduction in abundance on firemanaged sites. Only six species positively responded to fire. Comparisons of fire response to the general ecological preferences of these species demonstrated that fully 72% of turf–specialists were negatively impacted by fire, while 67% of duff–specialists demonstrated no significant response. These differences were highly significant (p = 0.0006). Thus, frequent use of fire management represents a significant threat to the health and diversity of North American grassland land snail communities.Protecting this fauna will require the preservation of site organic litter layers, which will require the increase of fire return intervals to 15+ years in conjunction with use of more diversified methods to remove woody and invasive plants.

Remember, Nekola said “single most harmful immediate threat to biodiversity within the USA today.” Not to be disrespectful, but did anyone at the journal actually review/edit/read this?

So now to the constancy thing.. if we read “catastrophic biodiversity losses across many taxa groups following the reintroduction of fire into reserves” we have to wonder what the point you are measuring the “loss” from and why. This may be a switch as Botkin points out from the idea of “climatic climax” to “what was there before Europeans was the right condition” to “what is there now is the right condition.”

For non-scientists, just remember scientists make all kinds of claims in their summaries and abstracts (and university press offices add their own spin). You often need to look for yourself for the connection between facts found and conclusions drawn (as we say in the more humble world of administrative appeals). My impression is that when I was growing up in science we were very careful about that link and that our major professors would get on our case if we were not. And I’d say that what’s in the research articles themselves tends to be more careful. It’s when the article is cited that writers claims’ become exaggerated. If claims seem too broad to be true, they are probably leaps of hype. Nowadays it is easy to check in most cases thanks to the internet.

Molloy: “Injunction more likely than project to harm grizzly bear”

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Thank you to an alert reader who found this following up on our recent AWR theme…here’s the link.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — An on-again, off-again logging project in the Kootenai National Forest may be going ahead after a federal judge refused to delay it during the appeal of a lawsuit that claims threatened grizzly bear habitat would be harmed.

The project, which calls for logging more than 900 acres and burning 2,140 acres, is based on sound science and should not harm the bears’ habitat, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy wrote in his order Thursday.

“In fact, given the evidence, studies and analysis marshaled by the agencies, it could be postulated that enjoining the project is more likely to irreparably harm the grizzly bear than allowing the project to proceed,” Molloy wrote.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had issued a two-week block on the Grizzly Project while Molloy was considering the Alliance for the Wild Rockies’ request for an injunction during the appeal of its lawsuit.

The conservation organization’s appeal challenges a previous ruling by Molloy allowing the project to proceed. The group originally sought an injunction from the 9th Circuit, saying the project would likely be completed before the appellate court had a chance to weigh in.

But the 9th Circuit judges ruled the group first had to make the injunction request to Molloy.

Molloy denied the request in his Thursday order. If the project goes ahead, the conservation group will again ask the 9th Circuit to block it, Alliance for the Wild Rockies executive director Mike Garrity said Friday.

The 9th Circuit’s temporary two-week block expires Monday. Quinn Carver, natural resources and planning staff officer for the Kootenai National Forest, said the contractor should not have any impediments to starting the logging project after that date.

Garrity disputed that, saying the Forest Service must first receive the appellate court’s permission to proceed with the project.

The differing accounts could not immediately be reconciled.

I couldn’t find who is the author of this piece, but I feel great empathy for journalists who attempt to delve in to these complexities. And that line is great and honest “differing accounts could not immediately be reconciled.”

Presidential Proclamation: September is National Wilderness Month

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Wilderness pic

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

In September 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law, recognizing places “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Throughout our history, countless people have passed through America’s most treasured landscapes, leaving their beauty unmarred. This month, we uphold that proud tradition and resolve that future generations will trek forest paths, navigate winding rivers, and scale rocky peaks as visitors to the majesty of our great outdoors.

My Administration is dedicated to preserving our Nation’s wild and scenic places. During my first year as President, I designated more than 2 million acres of wilderness and protected over 1,000 miles of rivers. Earlier this year, I established five new national monuments, and I signed legislation to redesignate California’s Pinnacles National Monument as Pinnacles National Park. To engage more Americans in conservation, I also launched the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative. Through this innovative effort, my Administration is working with communities from coast to coast to preserve our outdoor heritage, including our vast rural lands and remaining wild spaces.

As natural habitats for diverse wildlife; as destinations for family camping trips; and as venues for hiking, hunting, and fishing, America’s wilderness landscapes hold boundless opportunities to discover and explore. They provide immense value to our Nation — in shared experiences and as an integral part of our economy. Our iconic wilderness areas draw tourists from across the country and around the world, bolstering local businesses and supporting American jobs.

During National Wilderness Month, we reflect on the profound influence of the great outdoors on our lives and our national character, and we recommit to preserving them for generations to come.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 2013 as National Wilderness Month. I invite all Americans to visit and enjoy our wilderness areas, to learn about their vast history, and to aid in the protection of our precious national treasures.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

BARACK OBAMA

Readers may also be interested in viewing this short video, American Wilderness, featuring National Park Service Wilderness areas.