Diversity and species conservation

5 Groups Appeal Tongass Timber Sale: 6,000 acres of old-growth would be logged, 46 miles of new roads constructed

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The following was sent to me by the Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community (GSACC). If you have any questions about the release and the info contained within it, please contact the GSACC directly. Thanks. – mk

On August 16, GSACC and four other organizations filed an administrative appeal of the Tongass Forest Supervisor’s decision to proceed with the Big Thorne timber project. The appeal went to to the next highest level in the agency, Regional Forester Beth Pendleton. The appeal is known as Cascadia Wildlands et al. (2013), and other co-appellants are Greenpeace, Center for Biological Diversity and Tongass Conservation Society.

The project would log 148 million board feet of timber [enough to fill 29,600 log trucks], including over 6,000 acres of old-growth forest from heavily hammered Prince of Wales Island. 46 miles of new logging roads would be built and another 36 miles would be reconstructed. Our points of appeal encompass fundamental problems with the concept of the project, its economic problems, aquatic impacts from roading and logging, and severe impacts to wildlife including wolves, deer, bear, goshawks and flying squirrels. Our Request for Relief is that “the decision to approve the ROD and FEIS be reversed and that the project be cancelled in its entirety because of multiple failures to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), National Forest Management Act (NFMA), Clean Water Act (CWA), Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), Tongass Timber Reform Act (TTRA), Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and various regulations and policies implementing these statutes.”

Included with the appeal were three expert declarations. One is by Dr. David Person, who did 22 years wolf and other ecological research on Prince of Wales Island and recently retired from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. It says that the predator-prey system on the island (which includes wolves, bear, people and deer) is likely at the point of collapse, with the Big Thorne project being the tipping point. Another declaration is by Jon Rhodes, an expert on the sediment impacts of logging roads and their effect on fish. The third is by Joe Mehrkens, GSACC board member and former Alaska Regional Economist for the Forest Service, on the failings of the economic analysis in the Big Thorne EIS and economic nonsense this project embodies.

The appeal and the declarations are available for viewing and download at this link. Because the appeal is 127 pages, you will likely find the clickable table of contents useful. This series of e-mails illustrates the kind of biological knowledge that the State of Alaska has withheld from the NEPA process for the Big Thorne timber sale project on the Tongass National Forest.

Hanson: The Ecological Importance of California’s Rim Fire

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The following article, written by Dr. Chad Hanson, appeared yesterday at the Earth Island Journal. Once again, I’d like to respectfully request that if anyone has questions about the content of the article please contact Dr. Hanson directly. Thanks. – mk

The Ecological Importance of California’s Rim Fire: Large, intense fires have always been a natural part of fire regimes in Sierra Nevada forests
by Chad Hanson – August 28, 2013

Since the Rim fire began in the central Sierra Nevada on August 17, there has been a steady stream of fearful, hyperbolic, and misinformed reporting in much of the media. The fire, which is currently 188,000 acres in size and covers portions of the Stanislaus National Forest and the northwestern corner of Yosemite National Park, has been consistently described as “catastrophic”, “destructive”, and “devastating.” One story featured a quote from a local man who said he expected “nothing to be left”. However, if we can, for a moment, set aside the fear, the panic, and the decades of misunderstanding about wildland fires in our forests, it turns out that the facts differ dramatically from the popular misconceptions. The Rim fire is a good thing for the health of the forest ecosystem. It is not devastation, or loss. It is ecological restoration.

What relatively few people in the general public understand at present is that large, intense fires have always been a natural part of fire regimes in Sierra Nevada forests. Patches of high-intensity fire, wherein most or all trees are killed, creates “snag forest habitat,” which is the rarest, and one of the most ecologically important, forest habitat types in the entire Sierra Nevada. Contrary to common myths, even when forest fires burn hottest, only a tiny proportion of the aboveground biomass is actually consumed (typically less than 3 percent). Habitat is not lost. Far from it. Instead, mature forest is transformed into “snag forest”, which is abundant in standing fire-killed trees, or “snags,” patches of native fire-following shrubs, downed logs, colorful flowers, and dense pockets of natural conifer regeneration.

This forest rejuvenation begins in the first spring after the fire. Native wood-boring beetles rapidly colonize burn areas, detecting the fires from dozens of miles away through infrared receptors that these species have evolved over millennia, in a long relationship with fire. The beetles bore under the bark of standing snags and lay their eggs, and the larvae feed and develop there. Woodpecker species, such as the rare and imperiled black-backed woodpecker (currently proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act), depend upon snag forest habitat and wood-boring beetles for survival.

One black-backed woodpecker eats about 13,500 beetle larvae every year — and that generally requires at least 100 to 200 standing dead trees per acre. Black-backed woodpeckers, which are naturally camouflaged against the charred bark of a fire-killed tree, are a keystone species, and they excavate a new nest cavity every year, even when they stay in the same territory. This creates homes for numerous secondary cavity-nesting species, like the mountain bluebird (and, occasionally, squirrels and even martens), that cannot excavate their own nest cavities. The native flowering shrubs that germinate after fire attract many species of flying insects, which provide food for flycatchers and bats; and the shrubs, new conifer growth, and downed logs provide excellent habitat for small mammals. This, in turn, attracts raptors, like the California spotted owl and northern goshawk, which nest and roost mainly in the low/moderate-intensity fire areas, or in adjacent unburned forest, but actively forage in the snag forest habitat patches created by high-intensity fire — a sort of “bedroom and kitchen” effect. Deer thrive on the new growth, black bears forage happily on the rich source of berries, grubs, and small mammals in snag forest habitat, and even rare carnivores like the Pacific fisher actively hunt for small mammals in this post-fire habitat.

In fact, every scientific study that has been conducted in large, intense fires in the Sierra Nevada has found that the big patches of snag forest habitat support levels of native biodiversity and total wildlife abundance that are equal to or (in most cases) higher than old-growth forest. This has been found in the Donner fire of 1960, the Manter and Storrie fires of 2000, the McNally fire of 2002, and the Moonlight fire of 2007, to name a few. Wildlife abundance in snag forest increases up to about 25 or 30 years after fire, and then declines as snag forest is replaced by a new stand of forest (increasing again, several decades later, after the new stand becomes old forest). The woodpeckers, like the black-backed woodpecker, thrive for 7 to 10 years after fire generally, and then must move on to find a new fire, as their beetle larvae prey begins to dwindle. Flycatchers and other birds increase after 10 years post-fire, and continue to increase for another two decades. Thus, snag forest habitat is ephemeral, and native biodiversity in the Sierra Nevada depends upon a constantly replenished supply of new fires.

It would surprise most people to learn that snag forest habitat is far rarer in the Sierra Nevada than old-growth forest. There are about 1.2 million acres of old-growth forest in the Sierra, but less than 400,000 acres of snag forest habitat, even after including the Rim fire to date. This is due to fire suppression, which has, over decades, substantially reduced the average annual amount of high-intensity fire relative to historic levels, according to multiple studies. Because of this, and the combined impact of extensive post-fire commercial logging on national forest lands and private lands, we have far less snag forest habitat now than we had in the early twentieth century, and before. This has put numerous wildlife species at risk. These are species that have evolved to depend upon the many habitat features in snag forest — habitat that cannot be created by any other means. Further, high-intensity fire is not increasing currently, according to most studies (and contrary to widespread assumptions), and our forests are getting wetter, not drier (according to every study that has empirically investigated this question), so we cannot afford to be cavalier and assume that there will be more fire in the future, despite fire suppression efforts. We will need to purposefully allow more fires to burn, especially in the more remote forests.

The black-backed woodpecker, for example, has been reduced to a mere several hundred pairs in the Sierra Nevada due to fire suppression, post-fire logging, and commercial thinning of forests, creating a significant risk of future extinction unless forest management policies change, and unless forest plans on our national forests include protections (which they currently do not). This species is a “management indicator species”, or bellwether, for the entire group of species associated with snag forest habitat. As the black-backed woodpecker goes, so too do many other species, including some that we probably don’t yet know are in trouble. The Rim fire has created valuable snag forest habitat in the area in which it was needed most in the Sierra Nevada: the western slope of the central portion of the range. Even the Forest Service’s own scientists have acknowledged that the levels of high-intensity fire in this area are unnaturally low, and need to be increased. In fact, the last moderately significant fires in this area occurred about a decade ago, and there was a substantial risk that a 200-mile gap in black-backed woodpeckers populations was about to develop, which is not a good sign from a conservation biology standpoint. The Rim fire has helped this situation, but we still have far too little snag forest habitat in the Sierra Nevada, and no protections from the ecological devastation of post-fire logging.

Recent scientific studies have caused scientists to substantially revise previous assumptions about historic fire regimes and forest structure. We now know that Sierra Nevada forests, including ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests, were not homogenously “open and parklike” with only low-intensity fire. Instead, many lines of evidence, and many published studies, show that these areas were often very dense, and were dominated by mixed-intensity fire, with high-intensity fire proportions ranging generally from 15 percent to more than 50 percent, depending upon the fire and area. Numerous historic sources, and reconstructions, document that large high-intensity fire patches did in fact occur prior to fire suppression and logging. Often these patches were hundreds of acres in size, and occasionally they were thousands — even tens of thousands — of acres. So, there is no ecological reason to fear or lament fires like the Rim fire, especially in an era of ongoing fire deficit.

Most fires, of course, are much smaller, and less intense than the Rim fire, including the other fires occurring this year. Over the past quarter-century fires in the Sierra Nevada have been dominated on average by low/moderate-intensity effects, including in the areas that have not burned in several decades. But, after decades of fear-inducing, taxpayer-subsidized, anti-fire propaganda from the US Forest Service, it is relatively easier for many to accept smaller, less intense fires, and more challenging to appreciate big fires like the Rim fire. However, if we are to manage forests for ecological integrity, and maintain the full range of native wildlife species on the landscape, it is a challenge that we must embrace.

Encouragingly, the previous assumption about a tension between the restoration of more fire in our forests and home protection has proven to be false. Every study that has investigated this issue has found that the only way to effectively protect homes is to reduce combustible brush in “defensible space” within 100 to 200 feet of individual homes. Current forest management policy on national forest lands, unfortunately, remains heavily focused not only on suppressing fires in remote wildlands far from homes, but also on intensive mechanical “thinning” projects — which typically involve the commercial removal of upwards of 80 percent of the trees, including mature trees and often old-growth trees —that are mostly a long distance from homes. This not only diverts scarce resources away from home protection, but also gives homeowners a false sense of security because a federal agency has implied, incorrectly, that they are now protected from fire — a context that puts homes further at risk.

The new scientific data is telling us that we need not fear fire in our forests. Fire is doing important and beneficial ecological work, and we need more of it, including the occasional large, intense fires. Nor do we need to balance home protection with the restoration of fire’s role in our forests. The two are not in conflict. We do, however, need to muster the courage to transcend our fears and outdated assumptions about fire. Our forest ecosystems will be better for it.

Chad Hanson, the director of the John Muir Project (JMP) of Earth Island Institute, has a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California at Davis, and focuses his research on forest and fire ecology in the Sierra Nevada. He can be reached at [email protected], or visit JMP’s website at www.johnmuirproject.org for more information, and for citations to specific studies pertaining to the points made in this article.

Wolves in Europe and “The Landscape of Fear”

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The European gray wolf is steadily returning to much of its former range in western Europe. Photograph: Alamy
The European gray wolf is steadily returning to much of its former range in western Europe. Photograph: Alamy

I had been saving these two New Scientist articles and since we’ve been discussing wolves..Here’s the link to how gray wolves are faring in Europe..and one on how prey react based on Yellowstone.

GOODNESS, what big teeth you have, and what close ties to humans you have! And what negative attitudes you elicit from rural people all over the world!

Behind their cultural baggage, grey wolves are an evolutionary success story, giving rise to the domestic dog 10,000 years ago and, more recently, rebounding from centuries of persecution.

“There are wild wolves galore in Europe,” says Claudio Sillero, a conservation biologist at the University of Oxford. “They have recolonised vast areas of their former range and live almost unnoticed in populated areas.”

A wolf was recently spotted in the Netherlands, after an absence of over a century. There are ongoing calls from ecologists for them to be reintroduced to Scotland, where they’ve been extinct since the 1700s. In the US, arguments rage over whether their numbers are high enough to sustain hunting.

These wolves were photographed playing in the Black Mountain Wildlife Park, south of Hamburg in Germany, which has more than a thousand animals in an area of 50 hectares.

“While we think of wolves as masters of the wilderness in Europe, they thrive in human-dominated landscapes,” says Sillero. “Over 3000 wolves live in heavily populated areas of northern Spain and Portugal, and wolves from Italy have steadily colonised southern France.”

French farmers may not share Sillero’s enthusiasm, but with less persecution than in the past, wolf numbers are growing. For those of us in Europe, the howl of a wolf could one day become as familiar as the cries of foxes.

And “Scared to death: How intimidation changes ecosystems

IN JANUARY 1995, grey wolves returned to Yellowstone National Park, almost 70 years after they had been exterminated by an overenthusiastic predator-control programme. Over the next two winters, 31 animals captured in Canada were released into the park, fitted with radio collars so that rangers could track their whereabouts. But not all eyes were on the wolves; John Laundre was more interested in their main prey, elk. The large deer had run amok in the wolf-free decades, causing serious damage to the park’s trees. He wanted to know how they would fare now that their old nemesis was back.

By the second year, the answer was obvious. In the parts of Yellowstone that the wolves hadn’t yet reached, female elk grazed peacefully while their calves gambolled around them. “It was a scene out of a Disney film,” says Laundre, an ecologist at the State University of New York at Oswego. But in areas the wolves had colonised, things were very different. The calves were pinned to the sides of their ever-wary mothers. “It was like looking at two different countries, one at war and one at peace,” he says.

For Laundre, it was a light-bulb moment. He realised that wolves don’t just kill elk, they also change the deer’s behaviour without even lifting a claw. Their mere presence – perhaps their scent on the wind and tracks in the dirt – creates a perpetual state of apprehension in their prey. Seen through the eyes of an elk, the physical terrain is overlaid with a mental map of risk, complete with “mountains” where the odds of being eaten are high and they must be constantly vigilant, and “valleys” of relative safety where they can lower their guard. To describe this psychological environment, Laundre coined the term “landscape of fear”.

The concept seems simple but it subverts the dominant view in ecology – that predators only affect their prey by killing them. It also challenges the belief that most animals feel fear only in short bursts, like the sharp panic of a chase, while long-term psychological stress is something that only humans and other primates experience. With such emotions pushed aside, traditional ecological models have reduced predators and prey to little more than rolling marbles. “If one bumped into another, the second ball was dead,” says Laundre. The idea of adding psychology to the mix, especially a seemingly anthropomorphic emotion like fear, was anathema.

But times are changing. Ecologists are studying landscapes of fear in animals as diverse as wolves and elk, sharks and dugongs, spiders and grasshoppers. Time and again it has emerged that the greatest effect predators have upon their prey is not through slaughter, but intimidation. They can influence how successfully their potential victims feed, breed and raise their young, all without a single kill. And it doesn’t end there: these effects trickle through entire ecosystems, shaping the make-up of the local flora and even influencing the flow of nutrients through the soil. The implications are huge. Through the landscape of fear, predators can unwittingly remodel the physical landscape – just by being scary.

Laundre wasn’t the first to recognise the role of fear in ecology. Since the 1970s, studies had shown that predators can force prey to mount costly defences, such as moving into poorer habitats and being so relentlessly vigilant that they do not have the time to eat enough. But most of these experiments were small in scale and duration, and few looked at the lasting consequences of the choices made by prey. It was the advent of big, long-term studies in natural settings that addressed these failings and brought the importance of fear into sharp relief.

“The Yellowstone example is the first one that really smacked us in the face,” says Laundre. Before the wolves were reintroduced, ecologists correctly predicted how big their populations would become and how many elk they would kill. However, they greatly underestimated the effect on elk numbers. “They really just assumed that wolves would impact the elk by eating them,” says Scott Creel from Montana State University in Bozeman, whose findings in another corner of Yellowstone showed how wrong that idea was.

While hunting for a photo, I found this by Garry Marvin on the return of wolves to the UK.

The solution is not imposition but dialogue. Conservation projects, however soundly based on science, can never succeed without taking account of the human dimension. Wildlife has to co-exist with humans. Put crudely, scientists often seem frustrated that local people do not understand what they tell them about the realities of wolves; shepherds and other livestock farmers feel resentful that outsiders do not want to listen to their traditional knowledge; and agricultural agencies seem to think that compensation for animals killed is payment enough for wolf predation.

Hmm.. sound familiar?

Should Wolves Stay Protected Under Endangered Species Act?

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Little Bird’s question about the black-backed woodpecker reminded me of this opinion piece in Yale 360 by Ted Williams that I had in my to-be-posted pile. I am still wondering how ESA got from protecting endangered species, to requiring that they be recovered everywhere in their historic range. For wide-ranging species it seems like a leap. And it seems like that idea is only applied intermittently; like not to grizzlies in central California.

Here’s the link.

By 2008 the recovery goal for the northern Rockies – 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs in each of the three states (Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho) – had been exceeded by at least 300 percent. But there are some environmental groups that want nothing delisted ever. Leading the pack is the Center for Biological Diversity which sues to list or keep listed everything that traversed Noah’s plank, studied or unstudied, then collects attorney fees from taxpayers. Amos Eno, who worked at the service’s Endangered Species Office crafting the amendments that strengthened the act, contends that the federal government could “recover and delist three dozen species” with the resources it spends responding to the center’s litigation.

and

Under ESA protection, Minnesota wolves colonized Wisconsin and Michigan until, in 2007, the recovery goal for the three-state population had not only been met but had nearly tripled, requiring delisting. But the Center for Biological Diversity and its allies got a court order blocking this needed, mandated action. So the service fought back, again turning up the politics; and in 2011 it succeeded with delisting. By doing so it preserved ESA integrity, credibility, and funding.

Today, thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and no thanks to the perennial plaintiffs, there are an estimated 1,674 wolves in the northern Rockies and 4,432 in the Lake States. That’s the greatest success story in the history of wildlife restoration.

Payson Roundup: 4FRI Contract Bombshell

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This blog has had numerous posts, debates and discussions about the Four Forest Restoration (4FRI) in Arizona, including this article, “Is the US Forest Service killing the last best chance to save the Southwest’s forests?”

Well, the latest development via the in-depth reporting of Pete Aleshire with the Payson Roundup in an article yesterday titled, “Forest Contract Bombshell.” Below are extensive snips from that article:  [Note: emphasis added – mk]

Amid fresh furor, the U.S. Forest Service is considering letting a troubled timber company transfer the biggest forest restoration project in history.

The Forest Service announced on Monday that it has received a request from Pioneer Forest Products to transfer the 10-year, Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) contract to thin 300,000 acres in Northern Arizona to another, unnamed company.

“We are in the process of reviewing the application,” said Cathie Schmidtlin, media officer for the Southwest Region of the U.S. Forest Service, “to determine whether the transfer of assets is in the best interest of the government. If we determine it is not, the contract would stay with Pioneer. If it is determined to be in the best interest of the government, then the contract liability would transfer to the new owner, who would be contractually obligated to carry out the terms and conditions of the 4FRI contract.”….

At least one of the key groups that helped develop the 4FRI plan immediately responded to the announcement by calling for an inspector general’s investigation of the “potential irregularities” in the award of the contract.

“Many of us saw this one coming right from the start. Pioneer’s business plan read like a fantasy novel,” said Todd Schulke, with the Center for Biological Diversity, which helped develop 4FRI in collaboration with representatives of the timber industry, forest health researchers and local officials like Gila County Supervisor Tommie Martin. “But the Forest Service chose Pioneer despite having more realistic options. Either Pioneer misled the agency about its financial viability or the Forest Service chose to look the other way when there were serious questions. Why?”

Gila County Supervisor Tommie Martin said, “this could be the best thing that has happened to 4FRI — or it could be abysmal business as usual. Anyone who has the financial backing to buy this contract, the willingness to ‘take on’ the whole social functioning/disfunctioning that has grown around it and the desire to fulfill it definitely has my attention … and my respect if they can actually pull it off.”….

The Forest Service awarded the contract to Pioneer more than a year ago. The contract originally required Pioneer to thin about 15,000 acres in 2013 and 30,000 acres annually after that. The plan called for feeding those small-diameter trees into new mills in Winslow to produce biodiesel fuel and a type of “finger-jointed” furniture.

Several months ago, the Forest Service modified the terms the contract so that Pioneer only had to thin 1,000 acres in the next 18 months, amid reports that the company was having trouble getting financing for its proposed mills in Winslow.

The Forest Service statement released on Monday said “we cannot disclose the names of the potential new owner as this information is confidential while the proposed agreement is under review. The first task order of the contract, the Ranch task order located on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests is progressing satisfactorily and expected to be completed ahead of schedule.”…..

The stakeholders generally expected Berlioux Arizona Forest Restoration Products (AZFRP) to win the bid for the contract, since he had helped develop the approach behind 4FRI.

Instead, the Forest Service’s contract review office in Albuquerque awarded the contract to Pioneer Forest Products. One of the principals in the company was Marlin Johnston, who was a longtime Forest Service official who formerly ran the agency’s regional timber harvest office. In that post, he battled demands of environmentalists that the Forest Service quit cutting the remaining old-growth, fire-resistant trees.

Supporters of the 4FRI approach, like Supervisor Martin, questioned the award of the contract to Pioneer. She noted that Berlioux had not only offered to pay more money to the Forest Service for the contract, but had also agreed to monitor whether the thinning projects had the intended effects on tree growth, fire patterns and wildlife.

Moreover, Martin and others questioned Pioneer’s plan to compete with overseas markets in making finger-jointed furniture and use branches and slash to make diesel fuel, although previous efforts had failed.

By contrast, Berlioux proposed using the trees to make Oriented Strand Board — a sort of high-tech plywood that currently represents a $2 billion industry. Berlioux ran Europe’s first OSB factory.

Moreover, Pioneer principal owner Herman Hauck, 84, hasn’t operated a timber company or mill since Hauck Mill Work Company went bankrupt in 1969, according to an investigation by freelance writer and radio reporter Claudine LoMonaco, published in The Santa Fe Reporter, an alternative weekly. She had prepared a story on Pioneer’s dubious background for the public radio station in Flagstaff, but station officials killed the story.

The Forest Service contracting office declined to release many key details of Pioneer’s proposal and has never explained why it awarded the contract to the company that offered to pay the least.

Forest Service officials on Monday remained tight-lipped. In an e-mail to the Roundup accompanying the release Schmidlin said “this is all the information I’m able to provide at this time. The Forest Service will gladly share additional information in the near future, when the review process is completed. I don’t know how long the process will take.”

The swirl of questions about the contracts have forced the very people who developed the 4FRI approach to become increasingly vocal critics of the Forest Service’s implementation.

Martin, in an e-mail exchange on Monday, said she hopes the Forest Service will now seek expert, outside help. “The FS track record on the business side of this contract conversation has been so poor that unless they get ‘outside’ help evaluating the situation, the proposal and bringing business science to bear  — I’m skeptical of the outcome … even knowing that a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while!”

Moreover, she said “for me there is still the whole social agreement concerning big tree/old tree retention that was agreed upon by the counties, enviros, industry and others that the FS have completely thrown out the window and claim that us wanting to leave them all ‘is not good science.’ Nonsense!”

She said old-growth trees constitute just 3 percent of the trees in the ponderosa pine forest of Northern Arizona, even though the Forest Service management plan calls for increasing that tally to 20 percent. “For instance, the 33,000-acre Rim Lakes thinning portion of the 4FRI proposal by Heber has only an average less than one old tree per acre to start with!”

She said she hopes the Forest Service will now agree to leave virtually all of the trees larger than 16 inches in diameter. “We’re asking that they leave ALL the big/old trees (with few exceptions) — get rid of all the dog hair thickets and get ahead of the fire danger curve — and then go back to the drawing board and see if there needs to be more mosaic, more age/structure classifications, etc. within the treated area. They claim their science shows restoration occurs faster/better with some of the old growth gone — again I say nonsense! First let them show me where they have restored a forest — ANYWHERE — and then we’ll talk about it.”

Schulke made the same point. The Center for Biological Diversity has battled the Forest Service for years attempting to prevent the harvest of old-growth trees in an effort to save endangered, old-growth dependent species like the Mexican spotted owl and the Northern goshawk. But the group promised to go to court to support 4FRI if the Forest Service agreed to leave the remaining old-growth trees.

“Ignoring the collaborative agreement was an outright breach of the social license that enabled 4FRI in the first place,” said Schulke. “Large trees are not only critically important to the survival of an array of endangered and threatened species, they’re also more fire resistant — they help to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires. We fully support 4FRI. But the Forest Service bungling has put communities at risk from the fire unnecessarily. It’s time to demand action.”

Potpourri of Recent Wildfire & Fuel Reduction Studies

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(The following information was written and provided to me by George Wuerthner, author of Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy. – mk)

This study, Wildfire and Fuel Treatment Effects on Forest Carbon Dynamics in the Western United States, while focused on carbon losses and storage in forests, makes the point about probability – i.e. what is the likelihood of any fire actually interacting with fuel reductions? We can’t treat entire forests or even a significant portion of them due to cost and the undesirable impacts associated with logging, so it’s reasonable to ask the question as to whether there is a good chance as to whether a fire will actually burn through fuel reduction treated areas.

In other words since we can’t predict where a fire will occur, we can’t effectively treat forests with fuel reductions – even if they worked well – which they often don’t for a host of reasons including the fact that fuel reductions lose effectiveness over time.

We are spending a lot of federal dollars trying to treat forests to reduce fire spread and severity when the chances or probability that a high severity fire will actually interact with a treated forest is low. This, of course, again makes the case that treatments, if they are done at all, should be strategic and focused on lands near communities and other targeted areas of importance.

Abstract
Sequestration of carbon (C) in forests has the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change by offsetting future emissions of greenhouse gases. However, in dry temperate forests, wildfire is a natural disturbance agent with the potential to release large fluxes of C into the atmosphere. Climate-driven increases in wildfire extent and severity are expected to increase the risks of reversal to C stores and affect the potential of dry forests to sequester C. In the western United States, fuel treatments that successfully reduce surface fuels in dry forests can mitigate the spread and severity of wildfire, while reducing both tree mortality and emissions from wildfire. However, heterogeneous burn environments, site-specific variability in post-fire ecosystem response, and uncertainty in future fire frequency and extent complicate assessments of long-term (decades to centuries) C dynamics across large landscapes. Results of studies on the effects of fuel treatments and wildfires on long-term C retention across large landscapes are limited and equivocal. Stand-scale studies, empirical and modeled, describe a wide range of total treatment costs (12–116 Mg C ha−1) and reductions in wildfire emissions between treated and untreated stands (1–40 Mg C ha−1). Conclusions suggest the direction (source, sink) and magnitude of net C effects from fuel treatments are similarly variable (−33 Mg C ha−1 to +3 Mg C ha−1). Studies at large spatial and temporal scales suggest that there is a low likelihood of high-severity wildfire events interacting with treated forests, negating any expected C benefit from fuels reduction. The frequency, extent, and severity of wildfire are expected to increase as a result of changing climate, and additional information on C response to management and disturbance scenarios is needed improve the accuracy and usefulness of assessments of fuel treatment and wildfire effects on C dynamics.

Another long term study – this one in the Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon – demonstrates that fires are episodic and tightly bound with climate. It also points out that sediment loads increased dramatically after logging began–that has no previous analogue in history.

This paper documents how changing climatic conditions impact fire regimes and frequency. There were long periods without fires as reported in other recent studies and then periodic fire decades as well. In general this paper would support the notion that juniper and pinyon woodlands were not characterized by  “frequent fire/low intensity” fire regimes.

The Balance Of Nature or Not- Shooting Owls Version

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Some folks posted this last night under comments but I thought it deserved its own post.

Henson said the Northwest Forest Plan, which cut logging by 90 percent on national forests in the 1990s, has done a good job of providing habitat for the spotted owl. But the owls’ numbers have continued to slide.

Henson said unless barred owls are brought under control, the spotted owl in coming decades might disappear from Washington’s northern Cascade Range and Oregon’s Coast Range, where the barred owl incursion has been greatest.

It has taken the federal government a long time to get to this point. The California Academy of Sciences killed some barred owls in spotted owl territory on the Klamath National Forest in Northern California in 2005, and the owner of some redwood timberlands in Northern California regularly kills barred owls to protect spotted owls.

The idea of killing one type of owl to protect another underscores a fragile balance of nature that biologists have struggled with for years.

Between 2000 and 2006, wildlife officials captured and removed more than 40 golden eagles from the Channel Islands off Southern California to protect the island fox. They also hired a company to kill 5,000 feral pigs on Santa Cruz in a controversial program to restore the island’s ecosystem.

In Oregon, officials have used lethal injections to kill selected California sea lions that feast on protected salmon in the Columbia River. And in Yosemite National Park, saving bighorn sheep has meant hunting protected mountain lions.

The northern spotted owl is an icon of bitter disputes between the timber industry and environmentalists over the use of Northwest forests. Because of its dwindling numbers, the little bird was listed as a threatened species in 1990, which resulted in logging cutbacks and lawsuits.

Barred owls are bigger, more aggressive and less picky about food. They started working their way across the Great Plains in the early 1900s, and by 1959 were in British Columbia. Barred owls now cover the spotted owl’s range, in some places outnumbering them as much as 5-to-1.

Oh.. the “fragile balance of nature”.. it turns out it’s really the nonexistent balance of nature, as per Botkin. It’s OK to say “we like animal x more than y, so we are going to kill y to get more x.” Just don’t say it’s anything about what Nature wants. P.S. evolution and hybridization are also “natural” processes, albeit perhaps not “ecological” processes? I can’t keep up with what’s in and out of “ecology.”

Alaska’s chief forester hoodwinks Congress about the Tongass

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(The following note and op-ed is from Larry Edwards, a Greenpeace forest campaigner and 36-year Sitka, Alaska resident. – mk)

I published the op-ed below today in the Juneau Empire, concerning fundamentally false testimony given at  Senator Wyden’s Senate E&NR Committee hearing on public forests (USFS and BLM) on June 25.  The particular testimony was given by the director of Alaska DNR’s Division of Forestry, Chris Maisch.

Although the topic may seem regional, concerning particulars about the Tongass National Forest, the piece should be of interest more broadly because Maisch’s testimony and the hearing in general were used to justify Senator Wyden’s approach to getting logging levels “UP” (his emphasis, repeatedly) by “streamlining” NEPA and ESA.

— Larry Edwards

——————–

Chris Maisch hoodwinks Congress about the Tongass
By Larry Edwards, Greenpeace
July 10, 2013

Alaska’s chief forester, Chris Maisch, should be fired and be held in contempt of Congress. Falsehoods were plentiful in his June 25 testimony to the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, representing the state on Tongass National Forest issues.

He called these falsehoods “grim realities.” They mislead Congress, and their negativity harms the morale and economic reputation of Southeast Alaska.

Maisch introduced the Tongass as “the largest national forest …17 million acres of land.” Correct. But in noting merely that “not all of this” can be logged, he avoided informing senators that this land area is two-thirds glaciers, ice caps, rocky peaks, muskegs and scrubby trees. That’s nothing anyone would try to log, and not the prized forest habitats embroiled in controversy.

Had he disclosed that, his main point would have been silly: “the suitable timber base available for management has declined to only 672 thousand acres — or 4 percent of the Tongass acreage.” The comparison is absurd because the overwhelming portion of other 96 percent of the Tongass is the non-forest and unloggable landforms just described. Alaska’ chief forester must know better than the vision this created for senators.

More deceptively, he said, “Despite more than 50 years of timber harvest in the Tongass, a mere 2.5 percent of the old growth forest has been harvested.” That cons the Senate into believing the Tongass timber industry has had minuscule impact on forest habitat. If the existing 440,000 acres of Tongass clearcuts are really just “2.5 percent of the old growth,” doing the math, all the 17 million acres had to be old growth. Effectively, Maisch’s vision for senators is that there are no glaciers or unloggable terrains at all on the Tongass — just uninterrupted old-growth everywhere, of comparable quality to what has been logged.

Also deceptive: “The Tongass … is bigger than West Virginia, yet [that state has] 181 sawmills and 30,000 people employed.” West Virginia has far more commercial quality forest than the Tongass, and its climate grows trees faster. West Virginia’s industry is close to markets; Alaska’s is remote. Maisch’s incomplete comparison hoodwinked senators.

Maisch did a jobs shell-game. His testimony focused entirely on the Tongass, not mentioning other forest ownerships. Yet he claimed, “logging and wood products employment remains a mere shadow of its past, falling from 4,600 jobs in 1990 to approximately 307 logging jobs and 150 wood products manufacturing jobs in 2011.” In 1990 only 4,000 such jobs existed statewide. It was the peak year of Southeast Alaska’s logging boom, employing 3450. (Alaska Department of Labor). Over half the timber came from Native corporations rapidly liquidating their forests, not the Tongass. Maisch’s inaccuracy and comparison to an unsustainable high-water mark misdirected senators.

The current 457 jobs, too, are statewide. Under 100 jobs depend on Tongass timber, making this a good time for quickly transitioning out of Tongass old-growth logging. Magnifying the Tongass industry as four-plus times its actual size, Maisch avoided being confronted with that option. He asks the opposite — the ceding of 2 million acres of old-growth from the Tongass for logging — with contrived facts.

Maisch pointed to supposed steady decline in Southeast Alaska’s population and school enrollment. Population did decline 5 percent between the 2000 and 2010 Censuses, but senators also need to know the State estimates the population has rebounded 3.8 percent since 2010.

Maisch said school enrollment has declined 15 percent, “sustained over nearly two decades” in 87 percent of communities. Broad decline lasted only from 2000 to 2006. Stability or growth have become commonplace since then. Analyzing State records, enrollment has been stable in nearly 60 percent of Southeast’s school districts for the last 3-10 years, and is increasing in nearly one-quarter.

He also claimed that since 1990 six schools closed and the Southeast Island School District’s (SISD) enrollment declined from 381 to 160 students. (Enrollment of under 10 causes closure; correspondence school is a fallback option.) Of those six, permanent closures in two tiny fishing villages (1997 and 1999) and in Hyder (2009) are irrelevant to logging issues. A fourth school closed only during 1996. The remaining two, in timber country, have cycled on/off for two decades. Maisch ignored SISD’s steady enrollment recovery since 2010, reaching 190 (not 160) this year.

Chris Maisch’s testimony was fundamentally false. If he believes what he said, he is not a competent public resources steward. If otherwise, he committed perjury. Either way he must go, and the State needs to retract his testimony!

• Larry Edwards is a Greenpeace forest campaigner and 36-year Sitka
resident.

Judge Halts Fleecer Mtn Logging Project: USFS shortcut lynx, griz analysis, must also supplement EA with “full and fair discussion of the impact that temporary roads will have on elk”

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According to this news article [emphasis added]:

A judge on Friday blocked [the Fleecer Mountain] logging project in Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and ordered two federal agencies to take another look at the effects on lynx, grizzly bears and elk that may be in the area….

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen wrote in his ruling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Service used a procedural shortcut to conclude lynx habitat would not be harmed by the project.

The federal Endangered Species Act requires the government to ensure no action will harm the existence of any endangered or threatened species, or destroy or harm their habitat. But the procedure was bypassed when the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote that threatened lynx did not “occupy” the southwestern Montana forest, even though there is some evidence lynx may be present, Christensen wrote.

As a result, the Forest Service did not conduct a biological assessment on the effects of the logging project on habitat that lynx may pass through.

Christensen ordered the agencies to conduct a new analysis using the proper standard under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The Forest Service also must conduct a new biological assessment on the project’s effect on threatened grizzly bears after Christensen ruled the original assessment was “arbitrary and capricious.”

The agency also must study the effects on elk of building temporary roads for the project, Christensen said.

Here are some highlights from U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen’s order:

Summary judgment is also granted in favor of Plaintiffs on their claims under the ESA. The Court concludes that the case must be remanded to the Wildlife Service to consider whether lynx “may be present” in the Forest because the Wildlife Service improperly applied a stricter standard to that inquiry. Until the Wildlife Service conducts its analysis under the proper standard and the parties complete any consultation that might become necessary, the Project must be enjoined.

The Forest Service’s biological assessment of whether the Project “may affect” grizzly bears was also arbitrary and capricious, and a new biological assessment must be prepared.

Summary judgment is granted in favor of Plaintiffs on their claim that the Forest Plan’s and Project’s discussions of elk violate NEPA. Although the Forest Service did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in setting road density levels for the Forest, analyzing road density at the landscape and hunting unit scales, or defining secure areas for elk, the Court nevertheless finds that the Forest Service must supplement its EIS for the Forest Plan to explain or support, if possible, its decision to exclude temporary roads from the road density objectives and to correct the record to show that permitted and administrative roads are included in the objectives.

The Project EA must also be supplemented with a full and fair discussion of the impact that temporary roads will have on elk during the Project’s lifetime, an important aspect of the problem given the already high road density levels in the Project area.

I want to delve more into the specifics of Judge Christensen’s order, especially the part about impacts of temporary roads on elk, but first, careful readers of this blog may remember that we’ve had some discussion and debate about this Fleecer Mountain logging project in the past.

For example, who could forgot the almost joy-like, childish mocking of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystem Council from the editorial board of the Montana Standard newspaper in their March 4, 2012 editorial ironically titled, Abuse of enviro laws may doom them?

Last year the Montana Standard editorial board wrote:

Who knew that Fleecer Mountain had such a thriving population of grizzly bears? And who would have thought that taking out some dead and dying trees, working on stream restoration and improving sagebrush range lands might lead to the extinction of lynx?

Environmental groups do….What a surprise….

Listening to their rhetoric, one might get the impression that government employees are bent on wiping out native species and butchering forests into moonscapes. The Fleecer project is a prime example. Forest Service scientists carefully planned the project to deal with numerous dead and dying trees in the area and supply some logs to the timber industry. They looked at conifer encroachment into native grasslands and the decline of aspen groves. And they considered the health of the streams and ways to improve the movement of fish.

But Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, saw the Forest Service’s real, sinister motives…and said the lawsuit was necessary “for the sake of the elk, grizzly bears, lynx and a myriad of other old growth dependent species.”

There have never been grizzlies spotted there. And Forest Service personnel say their analysis found the lodge pole pine areas where the logging is proposed is not prime lynx habitat.

Well, how silly, petty and just plain wrong does the Montana Standard’s editorial board look now, after reading U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen’s order enjoining the Fleecer Mountain timber sale because of violations of NEPA and the ESA?  Turns out the Forest Service didn’t “carefully plan” the Fleecer Mountain logging project like the Montana Standard editors would like us all to believe.  Besides, on March 7, 2012 AWR director Michael Garrity, already set the Montana Standard editorial board straight in an oped titled, ironically and correctly enough, Fleecer timber cut illegal, says group.  Garrity wrote:
The Montana Standard editorial on March 4 criticized the Alliance for the Wild Rockies for filing lawsuits to stop the Fleecer timber sale….While claiming the Alliance is “abusing environmental laws,” what the editorial didn’t mention is that we win about 87 percent of those suits.Simply put, unless the Forest Service is found to be breaking the law, we don’t win….When the Alliance was informed of the new [Fleecer Mountain logging] project, we toured the site with the forest supervisor and two district rangers, told them our concerns, and submitted detailed comments in writing.  The previous two forest supervisors worked with us on the Grasshopper, Anaconda Job Corps, Beaverhead-Deerlodge roadside salvage and the Georgetown Lake timber sales, for which they should be commended. But this time around, the agency decided to try and make giant, illegal clearcuts in prime elk habitat instead of following their own rules and laws.

Contrary to media representations, our country’s environmental laws aren’t that strict. They don’t prohibit logging on our National Forests, but do require that the Forest Service must ensure that there will be viable populations of native species after logging — and clearcuts simply do not make good wildlife habitat for elk, grizzly bears and other old-growth dependent species.

We are a nation of laws and that means federal agencies, just like citizens, must follow the law. As before, the Forest Service will either pull this proposal or, if it loses in court, blame environmentalists for once again stopping clearcutting of elk winter range.

The Standard claims it was surprised to find there are grizzly bears around Butte. But in 2010, the Standard reported that a grizzly bear was killed near Elk Park and in 2005 a hunter killed a grizzly bear within the Mount Haggin Wildlife Management Area which adjoins the Fleecer timber sale and is within the wildlife security analysis area for the project.  If grizzlies are to be recovered and removed from the Endangered Species protections, it means their habitat must be taken into account in Forest Service timber sales….

Instead of attacking citizens for participating in the management of our public lands and “abusing” environmental laws, the Standard should ask the Forest Service and its allies, like the Montana Wilderness Association, why the agency has such a hard time following the laws that ensure Butte continues to be surrounded by beautiful national forests full of native wildlife for generations yet to come.

Let’s circle back to this issue of ‘temporary’ logging roads and Judge Christensen’s Order that:
The [Fleecer Mountain Logging] Project EA must also be supplemented with a full and fair discussion of the impact that temporary roads will have on elk during the Project’s lifetime, an important aspect of the problem given the already high road density levels in the Project area.

As a backcountry elk hunter, I’m certainly keenly aware that great elk habitat and logging roads mix about as well as oil and water.  And as an elk hunter, I’m also vigilant about protecting great elk habitat and ensuring that existing elk habitat (and habitat for all wildlife species) on public land isn’t compromised by misguided “management” schemes.

As a forest activist I’ve monitored many logging projects, post-logging, and have documented evidence that even these supposedly “temporary” logging roads have impacts that last long after the logging is finished and the temporary road is supposedly “restored.”

For example, we’ve noticed that just like regular logging roads, these temporary logging roads become vectors for the spread of noxious and invasive weed species, such as knapweed and cheatgrass.  So too, these “temporary” logging roads are often quickly found by people who have less than ideal environmental ethics who use these temporary logging roads for illegal dumping and illegal ATV and motorcycle joy-riding.  It’s also worth pointing out that we’ve witnessed all of the same weed-spreading and illegal dumping and ATV use as we’ve seen with temporary logging roads on some logging “skid trails” as well.

Unfortunately, too many of these so-called “Sportsmen’s” groups have fallen hook, line and sinker for the timber industry’s rhetoric that “temporary” logging roads are a great thing and that there are no negative consequences what-so-ever to building a bunch of “temporary” logging roads in many of our already over-roaded public National Forests.

For example, “Sportsmen’s” groups such as Montana Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Federation, Montana Trout Unlimited (as well as conservation groups like the Montana Wilderness Association) are supporting Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.  One key selling point these well-funded groups use is that the bill would largely prohibit new, permanent logging road construction, instead relying on the construction of an unlimited number of “temporary” logging roads, which these groups seem to think have zero impact on the environment.

Just like Judge Christensen ordered the Forest Service to have a “full and fair discussion of the impact that temporary roads will have on elk” I’d like to request that these “Sportsmen’s” groups be more honest about the documented negative impacts of even “temporary” logging roads have on elk, other wildlife and the over-all health of our forests and watersheds. Sportsmen’s groups should encourage, not discourage, a “full and fair discussion of the impact that temporary roads will have on elk” and other wildlife species, not simply pick and choose when they will stand up based on what appears to be game of political paddy-cake, in which politicians with a “D” after their name are lionized, while any politician with an “R” after their name is demonized.

Finally, back in March 2009 ecologist and author George Wuerthner had this piece, Permanent Damage from Temporary Logging Roads, over at Counterpunch.  Since Wuerthner’s article contains some excellent additional information and thoughts about the very real ecological impacts of “temporary” logging roads I’ll post it here in its entirety.  Wuerthner’s piece ends with some very good, and very reasonable, questions anyone supporting the construction of “temporary” logging roads should ask themselves before getting the rest of us to jump on the “temporary” road bandwagon.

The latest attempt by the Forest Service to make logging palatable is “temporary” roads.  A lot of research has found that logging roads are among the biggest impacts to forest ecosystems. (For a good review of road impacts see Trombulak and Frissell.) The Forest Service has at least 400,000 miles of roads on the lands it administers and these roads are a major environmental collateral impact associated with logging and other resource exploitation.Even the Forest Service has had to admit that logging roads have many unacceptable impacts to the forest ecosystem, so they have to come up with a new term and idea to make logging acceptable—temporary roads.  Temporary roads only have temporary impacts—or so we are led to believe.  And some conservationists have jumped on the “temporary” road band wagon just as some readers of the National Inquirer are quick to accept the hype of the latest fad promoting say the low fat ice cream diet.

Temporary roads are like low fat ice cream, they seem to taste good, but as any nutritionist can tell you, you’re are infinitely better off if you don’t consume a lot of ice cream at all—low fat or otherwise. The same is true for roads. Temporary roads are only slightly better than a regular road, and no one should be fooled into thinking they somehow eliminate the negative impacts associated with roads just because they are “temporary.

The problem is that temporary roads have most of the same environmental impacts as regular roads.  Roads compact soil.  Even three trips by logging equipment over soil can result in a significant reduction in water infiltration.  Roads, by slicing across slopes, alter downward flow of subsurface and surface water, often concentrating it on the compacted road surface, thus increasing erosive power.  Roads are a chronic source of sedimentation, and a major impact on aquatic ecosystems.Roads fragment wildlife habitat.  Roads are avoided by some sensitive wildlife species or used as a convenient travel corridor by other species. Often roads provide access for “weedy” ones that negatively impact other species—such as creating access for edge birds to invade and attack interior forest species.Roads change air flow which can affect fire spread and even the distribution of plants responding to micro-climate changes. Roads are the major vector for weeds and disease. Weeds and disease are one of the most pernicious and problematic impacts associated with roads. In the long term, the introduction of weeds and disease may do more damage to forests than the logging. For instance, a root fungus that is introduced by logging equipment along logging roads is decimating Port Orford Cedar stands in Oregon and California where the tree grows.Road beds provide access for hikers and hunters—giving more potential disturbance to wildlife. And ORVers typically find ways to get around gates and other obstacles to use the roads as roads. In short, a temporary road is mostly a mirage. It is essentially a new logging road.

Now some will argue that temporary roads are better than regular roads, especially if they are “reclaimed.” If a road is fully reclaimed, there is something to this argument. The problem is that there is no legal definition of what constitutes “reclaimed” and most roads are not fully reclaimed, in part, because it is very difficult and expensive to do reclamation.To fully reclaim a road is more than putting up a gate to block vehicle travel.  It requires ripping up the road bed to remove the compacted soil layers.  The side slope soil has to be put back on the site, and reshaped so sub surface and surface water flow is restored.  Culverts need to be removed, and stream channels fully restructured and reconstituted.  Vegetation needs to be planted—and grass seed is not enough—especially if the area once supported forest.  And logs, rocks, and other natural structures need to be put back on the slope.  And even if all these things are done, an old road does not magically disappear overnight.  It continues to have impacts for years until the vegetation has grown sufficiently to more or less emulate the pre-road condition.

I’ve seen fully reclaimed roads in Redwood National Park and a few other places, but it’s is extremely rare. And the expense often numbers in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per mile.

By contrast, I’ve seen a lot more minimally reclaimed roads.  I’ve been on forest service lands where a “temporary” road is just a road that the FS didn’t put on its travel maps as a legal road.  It was still there on the ground, but since it was not included in the official travel plan as a road, as far as the FS was concerned, the road did not exist any longer.

The FS usually does go a step further, however, to close temporary roads.  Typically the agency will put up a gate. Nevertheless, most gates, unless built extremely well, do not keep ORVers from using the road on the other side and sometimes even the agency continues to use the road for “administrative purposes.”

While such “temporary” roads may reduce road impacts somewhat, they are nowhere as good as no road at all.  And this is the rub.  I’ve had environmentalists telling me that I don’t have to worry about “new” logging roads because they are all going to be “temporary”.  For example, that is one of the claims of the Beaverhead Deerlodge Partnership proponents.  Don’t’ worry, all logging will be from existing roads and any new roads will be “temporary” and must be “removed” in five years.

For one thing, such temporary roads will effectively be a road for five years at the least, and may exist far longer as a marginally reclaimed road, especially in the arid environment found in much of Southwest Montana.  Such “temporary” roads will exhibit nearly all the problems of a regular road except that they may not be used for public vehicle travel.

So when you hear someone supporting logging because it won’t have the impacts of roads since all new roads will be “temporary” ask some hard questions about the proposal.  How long will the “temporary” road be in use?  Will it be closed to all vehicle traffic forever or will it be used again for logging in 10 or 20 years?  Will it be reclaimed?  What does reclamation mean?  Will the road bed be ripped up, slopes restored, stream channels reconstructed, and original vegetation restored?  If not, than you will have a road—and a road is still a road whether it is called “temporary” or otherwise.  Temporary roads may be better than a permanent addition to the road network, but it should never be thought of as a zero impact. Low fat ice cream is still ice cream—and you’re not likely to lose weight eating a lot of it.  Temporary roads are still roads, and typically have all of the major impacts associated with any road.

“Our Forests Aren’t Fuel” campaign launched

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The following blog post is from the Dogwood Alliance’s Dana Smith and appeared on their blog:

Today, Dogwood Alliance and our long-time partner, Natural Resources Defense Council, launched Our Forests Aren’t Fuel, a campaign to stop the large-scale burning of trees for electricity. It’s no coincidence that the launch of this new effort coincides with today’s Wall Street Journal front-page story exposing how Southern wetland forests are being clearcut, turned into pellets and shipped overseas to be burned in European power stations.

For over a year now, we’ve been doing our homework, researching the market trends, identifying the major corporate players and investigating the impacts on the ground. We’ve been cultivating partnerships and allies (check out the 75 groups signed on to our campaign platform) and informing the media, including, of course, the Wall Street Journal, who we extensively briefed on the issues leading up to today’s article. We’ve been preparing for just the right moment to expose the inconvenient truths about burning wood for electricity: it not only threatens wildlife and water resources in the world’s most biologically diverse temperate forest, but it also threatens to accelerate climate change, endangering life as we know it on planet Earth. Today, the smoking gun is revealed, with evidence that trees from clearcut 100-year old wetland forests in the Southern US were burned as fuel to generate electricity.

Misdirected renewable energy policies both here in the US and in Europe treat biomass, including the burning of trees, as renewable energy just like solar and wind. With billions of dollars of government subsidies available, over the past several years, major utility companies have been converting coal burning power plants to wood, even though there is a mounting body of scientific evidence that burning trees for electricity releases more carbon into the atmosphere than burning coal. In a rush to find much-needed alternatives to fossil fuels, this inconvenient truth, along with evidence that it’s destroying forests, has been largely ignored.

The Economist recently hit the nail on the head in depicting the practice of burning trees for electricity with an illustration of a caveman lighting a fire with sticks in hand. With the emerging technologies of solar and wind power, burning trees as fuel for electricity is indeed quite primitive and clumsy by comparison. The use of forests as a primary fuel source is taking us backward, not forward, on the path to clean energy.

Europe is currently at the forefront of this rush to burn, which has led to an explosion of new facilities here in the South that are chopping down our forests, turning them into wood pellets and exporting them across the Atlantic. Currently, the Southern US is the world’s largest exporter of wood pellets. Wood pellet exports to Europe from the South doubled from 1.5 million tons to over 3 million tons over the past year and are projected to double again to 6 million tons by 2015.

Trees from clearcut wetland forests like this one are being turned into wood pellets and shipped overseas to burn for electricity.

At the head of the pack in Europe is Drax, who is investing billions of dollars to convert dirty old coal plants to wood burning. Much of the wood comes in the form of pellets from the Southern US. Drax is not alone, with many of Europe’s largest utilities including Electrabel, GDF Suez, Dong, and Forth burning wood pellets imported from the US South to generate electricity as well.

Domestic utilities here in the South are not far behind the Europeans. All of the top utilities in the South already have some capacity to burn wood for electricity with plans for further expansion in the future. Currently, Dominion Power in Virginia leads the pack. Other companies are not far behind like Southern Company, Duke Power, TVA, and Florida Power & Lights, who all have plans of their own.

The largest company pelletizing forests in the South is Maryland-based Enviva. Though they claim that the trees they use come from “sustainable forestry”, Enviva ‘s sourcing of wood from clearcut cypress tupelo wetland forests along the North Carolina Virginia coast was revealed today by not only the Wall Street Journal but also the BBC.

What an embarrassment this must be to Virginia’s Dominion Power and Drax in the UK, both of whom rely on Enviva for wood to burn. Drax purchases wood pellets exported to Europe by Enviva and Dominion Power buys the leftover tops and limbs from Enviva’s operations. Both Drax and Dominion claim that they hold their wood suppliers to high standards of forestry. The fact that Enviva has been caught sourcing from clearcut wetlands is yet another inconvenient truth I am sure these companies don’t want to hear. I suspect the other huge wood pellet companies, including Georgia Biomass, Green Circle, and more have some inconvenient truths of their own that will come out in due time.

Before that happens, however, these companies can make the right choice. The leaders in this fiasco, Dominion Power, Drax and Enviva, can set a better example by choosing not to burn trees for electricity and announcing their leadership in developing non-destructive, clean energy sources that will actually reduce carbon emissions. As leading developers of forests as a fuel source, these companies now have an opportunity to take swift and decisive action before additional investments are made and the problem reaches a scale that is irreversible for our forests and climate.

Our wetland forests provide critical habitat to countless species of plants and animals, and they protect coastal communities from flooding and serve as vital carbon sinks. Our wetland forests are many things, but they are NOT fuel.

Now, more than ever, we should fast-track investment in clean energy such as solar and wind while simultaneously accelerating efforts to protect forests. Our forests are vital for clean air, clean drinking water, flood control, wildlife habitat, and protect us from climate change. They should not be burnt for electricity – our forests aren’t fuel.