Is this really what it sounds like?. Hopefully someone can explain to me what is really meant. Here’s a link to the story. (Sharon realizes that the above photo is not of a lynx)
The Forest Service failed to mention the Nez Perce and Clearwater National Forests are being administratively combined, the complaint states. The Clearwater Forest is listed as “occupied” by the Canada Lynx, in the Northern Rockies Lynx Management Direction (NRLMD) under the ESA. If both forests are combined, the protection would extend to the Nez Perce Forest, the environmentalists say.
“If a forest is designated ‘occupied’ for NRLMD purposes, the entire forest holds this status and remains ‘occupied’ indefinitely,” the complaint states. “Thus, if the Clearwater National Forest and the Nez Perce National Forest are combined, the entire Nez Perce-Clearwater Forest will be considered ‘occupied’ under the NRLMD and subject to its management restrictions.”
We ran across this Giant Sequoia plantation, within our restoration project. I’m not sure of the age of this plantation but, it was probably back in the late 70’s or early 80’s. It is mostly south-facing, and not really like where they normally grow but, a “renegade” culturist did several experiments. I’m not sure what future management ideas are. This one needs some thinning, as their vitality seems quite variable.
The Western Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Oregon Wild, filed a motion today in federal district Court in Washington D.C. to fight a lawsuit that aims to drastically limit the use of science to help manage our national forests.
Led by the timber industry, a coalition of industry groups filed suit on August 31 to challenge the new planning rule for the national forest system, designed provide for sustainable management of 193 million acres of national forests across the country. The purpose of the industry group’s lawsuit is to prevent the Forest Service from using “best available science” and ecosystem management tools to guide decisions affecting national forests, and to prohibit the agency from maintaining “viable populations” of wildlife, among other legal claims.
Conservation groups are seeking to intervene in this lawsuit in order to ensure the use of sound science in decisions affecting the public’s air and water, and our children’s natural heritage.
“These industry groups have a scary vision for our national forest,” stated Joseph Vaile, Program Director for the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) an Oregon-based conservation organization. “Never before have we seen extraction industries so clearly state that they oppose the use of science on our National Forests. Through this suit these groups hope the keys to our national forests are handed over to private industry so they can be turned into private tree-farms for their own benefit.”
“It comes as no surprise that the timber industry would like to see our National Forests managed for logging but it becomes truly bizarre when the timber industry must argue against science and in favor of crony capitalism in order to achieve their desired result,” said Doug Heiken, Conservation and Restoration Coordinator for Oregon Wild, another organization intervening.
Pete Frost, attorney for the conservation groups, stated, “This lawsuit, if successful, could effectively ban conservation biology as a basis to help craft how we manage our national forests. It is a throw-back to when only logging, grazing, and mining mattered.”
I thought it was interesting that CBD, the Sierra Club, and the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council are suing the FS apparently for RCRA violations… yet it seems from this Courthouse News Service article that they are already suing the EPA. since it appears that EPA is in charge of RCRA, and if in fact lead is bad for all the mammal-eating birds, then why should one national forest become the target?
Here’s what they said:
“Lead ingestion and poisoning from ammunition sources has been documented in many avian predators and scavengers that inhabit Forest Service land in Arizona, such as California condors, bald and golden eagles, northern goshawks, ferruginous hawks, turkey vultures, and common ravens,” the complaint states. “Many bird species are exposed to spent lead ammunition when they consume mammals that have been shot with lead ammunition but not retrieved and later die in the wild. These ‘shot but not retrieved’ carcasses are a food source for wild, free-ranging California condors in Arizona.”
The groups add: “The ingestion of spent lead ammunition, even in minute amounts, by wildlife causes many adverse behavioral, physiological and biochemical health effects, including seizures, lethargy, progressive weakness, reluctance to fly or inability to sustain flight, weight loss leading to emaciation, and death. The existence of such adverse health effects makes the wildlife experiencing them more susceptible to other forms of mortality, such as predation.”
The Center For Biological Diversity filed a similar lawsuit in the District of Columbia. There, it seeks judicial review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s refusal to regulate the use of lead ammunition on public lands.
It seems to me like it should be clear where the authority to regulate lead ammunition rests, and the US taxpayer should only have to pay for one agency’s attorneys to defend it. Hopefully, I’m missing something here.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service contracted with a group called Industrial Economics out of Cambridge Massachusetts, to do the socioeconomic analysis of the designation of critical habitat for the northern spotted owl.
Here is a link to the page that has the Sierra Institute report, the Executive Summary, and conclusions, and an excerpt from the Executive Summary.
The purpose of this report is to review and provide comments on the May 29, 2012 draft report by Industrial Economics, “Critical Habitat Designation for the Northern Spotted Owl,” prepared for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Industrial Economics’ assessment is insufficient in its documentation of cumulative socioeconomic impacts and current socioeconomic conditions. Their interpretation of the charge of “determining whether the benefits of excluding particular areas from the designation outweigh the benefits of including those areas in the designation” is overly
narrow. As an assessment, the report does not comport with sound socioeconomic assessment science and lacks a sufficiently comprehensive evaluation of potential impacts.
While acknowledging a loss of over 30,000 jobs in the timber industry from 1990 to 2010, Industrial Economics argues that these loses were offset by regional population gains of 15% and an 18% employment increase in the decade of the 1990s. Industrial Economics errs by assuming: 1) job gains in the 1990s offset job losses in the 2000s, 2) regional population and job increases directly offset timber industry job declines, and 3) employment gains (and
losses) are equally distributed across the region. They report regional job increases of only 3% in the 2000s, and do so without analyzing impacts associated with the Great Recession, which hit hard many of counties where critical habitat areas are designated.
In discussing timber harvest impacts, Industrial Economics bases its incremental change analysis on a period in which there is a severe downturn in the economy and wood products industry. This results in an undercount of likely impacts. Estimates of harvest totals are generalized and not linked to subunit timber harvest totals, resulting in estimates that, as they acknowledge, “could vary materially from future actual timber harvest…”
Because of the shortcomings of Industrial Economics’ report as a socioeconomic assessment, the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment provides additional analysis and review of socioeconomic conditions. This is done also to improve the understanding of socioeconomic changes that have taken place since 1990 and the potential impacts of
northern spotted owl critical habitat area designation of almost 14 million acres across the California-Oregon-Washington northern spotted owl region. Designation of this amount of land as critical habitat area requires deeper and more comprehensive analysis.
and
Case studies, two in California and three each in Oregon and Washington, were conducted to better understand socioeconomic changes and current socioeconomic conditions “on the ground.” Some key findings from these cases include in California:
• Siskiyou County lost all its saw mills, has seen its population age, and has lost eight schools, challenging the county to provide for the remaining students and reverse the loss of young families.
• In Humboldt County there are powerfully suggestive relationships between mill closures and student impoverishment as reflected in Free and Reduced Price Meal (FRPM) enrollment rates. This county has suffered dramatic declines in its goodsproducing sector, with the manufacturing subsector losing 65% of its 1990 jobs by 2011.
In Oregon:
• Tillamook County has 24% of its children living in poverty, and 39% living in singleparent households, almost double the national average.
• Douglas County has 31% of its children living in poverty – twice the national average and 34% in single-parent households.
• In both of these counties, but especially in Douglas County, there are significant declines in manufacturing jobs, particularly since 2008. Free and Reduced Priced Meal participation rates increased over the last four years as well, some schools by almost 20 percent.
• Josephine County, over the last several decades saw forestry and logging jobs decline by 80%. Wages have stagnated and are two-thirds of the Oregon average. The county now ranks near the bottom of Oregon counties in health indicators and FRPM participation rate for the county is 70%.
In Washington:
• Grays Harbor County Natural Resources and Mining jobs declined by over 50% and
Forestry and logging jobs by just under 70% from 1990 to 2010. The county is near the bottom of the health rankings for counties in the state. FRPM participation rates for the county exceed 60%, with one school district at 92% in 2011 and another at 88%; the lowest rate is 41%, reflecting the considerable differences across the county.
• Skamania County has 90% of its land in federal ownership, and 59% of the land in the county is designated as critical habitat area. Natural resource and manufacturing jobs have declined by over 50% over the last 20 years, though service industry jobs have increased dramatically during this period.
* * *
Timber receipts and, more recently, the Secure Rural School and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS) payments to replace lost timber receipts to counties and schools have been historically important. In California, on average, Humboldt County Schools received just under 5% of their funding through SRS; Siskiyou received on average just
under 7%; and Trinity County received 15%. In Oregon, U.S. Forest Service SRS funding has provided on average 23% of county road budgets, with six counties receiving over 40% Response to the Economic Analysis of Critical Habitat Designation for The Northern Spotted Owl of their total road budget. Though dramatically lower in 2011, SRS payments comprised 40% or more of Skamania County general fund throughout the 2000s. In Oregon O&C counties, the Bureau of Land Management contribution to county budgets has been significant. In Douglas County in 2009 it comprised 17% of total county revenues and in Jackson County, it makes up 7% of total county revenues.
Eighteen counties received SRS O&C funding that goes directly to county general funds.
SRS is scheduled to expire in 2013. Loss of these funds will challenge already financially cash-strapped counties and school districts.
The time has long since past that we “reconcile” what Industrial Economics’ terms in its report as “competing economic and conservation goals.” Newer approaches address forestry as a “triple-bottom-line” endeavor—one in which economy, environmental, and community (or equity) benefits are all a part and integrated. This approach is not about trading off
harvests at the expense of the environment, or environmental outcomes with community and economic interests, but integrating them in ways that advance them collectively. The tenets of what Industrial Economics calls “ecological forestry” discussed in the report are suggestive, but remain too narrow as presented.
Note from Sharon: So the topic of job losses in the PNW has been discussed heatedly since I left there in the 80s. In the interest of understanding the impacts of the proposed action, it seems like this is of enough importance that I would yard up the economists in the PNW area who have worked on it to review it, and have the discussion in a public forum. The stakes are too high for any lesser form of information.
I also have to wonder why this group was chosen to do the analysis. Did more local economics groups not compete? Did they ask for too much money?
My main experience with large EIS’s (and longest!) was Colorado Roadless. I can’t imagine contracting something that size and complexity (spotted owl, across states) nto an outfit that is potentially starting from scratch. But maybe I’m missing something. I also hope the economists at the state universities were involved in reviewing.. it would be good to see the reviews and how the comments were responded to in a public venue.
Tree asked about the paper behind the news story on goshawks in our previous discussion here. So I went hunting in the Journal of Applied Ecology. I searched on goshawk, and found this in .. but it was from 2007. Which may explain why Hamis had heard about it. Here is a link to the article, fortunately it is public.
So this raises two questions.. is there a new one? A casual browsing of the NAU website did not yield this info..so I put in an email to an author.
And what happened on the basis of this “latest science” in 2007? Was this considered the “best available” at the time? Why or why not? This could shed some light on the concerns of folks litigating the planning rule worried about interpretations of “best available.”
PS My understanding/memory (and I could easily be corrected) is that when the 2005-8 rule got cast out by the courts, the FS went back to the provisions of the 82 and projects had to follow the “best available science” and document it. So conceivably, if my logic and memory is correct, projects exist whose documentation discusses the pros and cons of this paper compared to other papers on the subject. Maybe one of our readers could point us to a discussion in such a document.
“Our forest plans require it,” he said. “But that would be a pain” if the existing guidelines don’t actually help the goshawks successfully rear more chicks. “We do have different prescriptions for the goshawk areas. In those breeding areas we know they typically have a higher (tree) density. So we have prescriptions for that. We’re trying to manage the future forest. One of the big concerns is whether we’re going to have adequate canopy cover — so we’re really managing groups of trees and also providing for those interspaces and managing for their prey.”
#But the NAU study raises questions about whether biologists yet know enough to micro-manage the forest for the benefit of any individual species.
#The goshawk and the Mexican Spotted Owl for years have fluttered about at the center of the legal and political fight about the future of the forest. The agile, crazy-orange-eyed goshawk is nearly as large as a red tailed hawk, but can maneuver deftly through the thick forest. In open areas, they tend to lose out to the red tails — which circle overhead looking for prey rather than perching on tree branches for a quick swoop to the ground.
#The now nearly defunct timber industry in Arizona made most of its money on cutting the big, old growth trees associated with those species and others like the Kaibab squirrel and the Allen’s lappet-browed bat. With most of those trees reduced to two-by-fours, the timber industry had a hard time making money on the smaller trees that remained in dangerous profusion.
#The Centers for Biological Diversity has repeatedly sued to prevent timber sales that included a large number of old growth pines greater than 16 inches in diameter at about chest height. For instance, earlier this year the Centers for Biological Diversity successfully blocked a timber sale on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on the grounds that the 25,000-acre sale would include about 8,000 old-growth trees — even though such trees account for only about 3 percent of the trees.
#The NAU study demonstrated that biologists still don’t really understand what species like goshawks need.
#None of the sites studied very closely matched the guidelines, which call for clusters of giant, old-growth trees and nearby areas with underbrush likely to result in high populations of 14 different prey species.
#Although little true old-growth ponderosa pine forest remains in Arizona, the researchers expected to find that the more closely the conditions around the nest area resembled that prescription — the more chicks the goshawks would produce. In fact, the more closely the forest matched the prescription the fewer chicks the hawks reared.
#That doesn’t mean the goshawks don’t prefer nesting in big, old growth trees. But it does mean that they’re not as sensitive to the prey populations in the area or the nearby forest conditions as biologists had expected.
But my favorite quotes are:
The NAU research now throws into question many key assumptions built in ponderous legal strictures of existing forest plans.
#“The results raise questions about the decision to implement the goshawk guidelines on most Forest Service lands in Arizona and New Mexico,” the researchers concluded.
#However, the Forest Service remains legally bound to the detailed guidelines now cast in the legal concrete of adopted forest plans.
“Ponderous legal strictures” and “legal concrete of adopted forest plans”, indeed. The old conundrum – while some people look for certainty of protection in plans, others look for flexibility to respond to changing conditions. Can both sides ever be happy?
The topic of lynx and forest management has been covered recently at this blog. Yesterday, a new twist emerged as the lynx news coming out of Montana was related to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks recently announced wolf-trapping season, which will run from December 15 to February 28 across much of the state – including on millions of acres of national forest lands.
Four Conservation groups – WildEarth Guardians, The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Wild Swan, and Native Ecosystems Council – have filed a notice of intent to sue Montana FWP, allegding that their new wolf-trapping regulations violate the Endangered Species Act, as related to the recovering of Canada lynx. Below is the press release and you can read their notice of intent to sue here.
Helena, MT – Four conservation organizations today served a notice of intent to sue upon the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission for permitting trapping that kills and injures Canada lynx, a species protected as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The state permits trapping and snaring in lynx habitat, but the Act prohibits harm to protected species. At least nine Montana lynx have been captured in traps in Montana since the species was listed in March 2000, and four are known to have died from trapping.
“Montana has failed to safeguard lynx from the cruel vicissitudes of traps and snares,” stated Wendy Keefover, Carnivore Protection Program Director for WildEarth Guardians, “and that has resulted in the death and impairment of several animals, which impedes lynx recovery.”
Canada lynx captured in body-gripping traps endure physiological and psychological trauma, dehydration, and exposure as well as injuries to bone and tissue that reduces their fitness and chances for persistence. Trapping is also a likely source of indirect mortality to lynx kits since adults harmed or killed by traps and snares cannot adequately feed and nurture their young.
“Crippled or dead lynx can’t take care of their young,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of The Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “If we want to get lynx off the Endangered Species list, we need species’ resuscitation, not more mortalities and mutilations.”
Montana allows regulated trapping of a number of species throughout the year. The conservation groups allege that trapping and snaring in occupied lynx habitat is illegal because Montana has not exercised “due care” to prevent harm to lynx as required by the Endangered Species Act.
“Lynx are particularly vulnerable to traps,” said Arlene Montgomery, Program Director of Friends of the Wild Swan, “and Federal law requires Montana to contribute to lynx survival and recovery, but continued trapping does the exact opposite.”
Note: This is the 1,000th post on A New Century of Forest Planning. Thank you to those who contribute, comment and read!
You can listen to the National Public Radio segment from All Things Considered here. The opening snip is below:
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: When it comes to renewable energy, wind and solar get a lot of attention. But wood actually creates more power in the U.S., and Massachusetts state officials are scaling back their efforts to encourage wood power. It may be a renewable resource, they say, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for the environment. NPR’s Elizabeth Shogren has that story.
ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: Power plants that turn wood into electricity aren’t anything new. They’re called biomass plants. They’ve become more popular as states have tried to reduce the use of fossil fuels. The idea is wood is a renewable resource. You can always grow more, but the state of Massachusetts decided it wasn’t enough to be renewable. It wants climate-friendly fuel, so it kicked most power plants that burned wood out of a program that helps renewable electricity plants earn more revenue. Mark Sylvia is commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources.
MARK SYLVIA: I think what it says is that Massachusetts is very curious about focusing on our climate goals.
SHOGREN: Massachusetts wants to cut its greenhouse gases 25 percent by 2020 and power plants are a huge source of greenhouse gases, so the state asked some scientists to take a hard look at the greenhouse gas footprint of power plants that burn wood. John Gunn of the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences was one of the researchers who did the study. He says the results challenged conventional wisdom.
JOHN GUNN: Basically, we found that if you’re going to switch from using fossil fuels for energy to using more wood for energy that, for a period of time, the atmosphere would see an increase in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
We’ve obviously had a number of in-depth discussions and debates about the Lolo National Forests’s Colt Summit timber sale in the Seeley-Swan Valley of western Montana. However, something just arrived in my in-box this morning, which I thought would be good to highlight here for further discussion.
It’s a 2009 letter from John R. Squires , Research Wildlife Biologist at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula in response to specific questions from a rural landscape scientist with Missoula County’s Rural Initiatives program. The subject of the letter is lynx, and specifically lynx in the Seeley Lake area of western Montana. As frequent readers of this blog will recall, Missoula County joined with The Wilderness Society, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, National Wildlife Federal, Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Wood Products Association, Montana Logging Association and others to file an amici brief in full and unequivocal support of the Forest Service’s Colt Summit timber sale.
However, despite the enthusiastic support of these collaborators, a federal district court judge issued the following ruling:
Summary judgment is granted in favor of the plaintiffs on their claim that the defendants violated NEPA by failing to adequately analyze the Colt Summit Project’s cumulative effects on lynx….
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this matter is REMANDED to the Forest Service so that it may prepare a supplemental environmental assessment consistent with this order and the law.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the defendants are enjoined from implementing the Colt Summit Project while the proceedings required on remand are pending.
Squires 2009 letter provides some more information regarding lynx in general, but also specifically about lynx in the Seeley Lake area and how these lynx – and their habitat – are impacted by forest management practices such as logging and “thinning.” Of particular interest is that Squires states that “The Seeley Lake area represents some of the most important lynx habitat in Montana.” And also, “[L]ynx are very sensitive to forest management, especially forest thinning. Thinning reduces habitat quality for lynx with effects lasting up to several decades.”
Finally, there’s this tidbit of information from Squires, “[T]here is likely a threshold of thinning below which lynx will not be able to persist. The extent of forest thinning and forest fragmentation around Seeley in the last 5 years is of concern for lynx in western Montana. Preliminary analysis of population viability suggest that lynx in the Seeley area may be declining, so concerns for maintaining available habitat does have a scientific basis.”
Below are some excerpts from Squires letter (please note that the added emphasis is mine):
We have studied lynx in western Montana for a decade and my answers are based on our understanding gained during this research. I will focus my comments on our scientific understanding realizing that results from this research may have policy implications. You asked the following questions:
1) What information can you provide about the importance of the Seeley Lake area to lynx, especially in regards to the Northern Rockies?
Since the federal listing of Canada lynx in 2000, it has become clear that Canada lynx have a very limited distribution in the contiguous United States. Other than Montana, native populations are only found in Washington, Maine, and small populations in Minnesota and Wyoming that may consist of only a few individuals. Lynx in western Montana represents possibly the most viable native population in the contiguous United States and it is a primary focus of conservation planning for the species….The Seeley Lake area represents some of the most important lynx habitat in Montana. The areas surrounding Seeley Lake are not only central to the conservation and management of Canada lynx in western Montana, but also to the management of the species in the contiguous United States.
Lynx avoid low elevation, dry forest types and the open high elevation tundra habitats. Lynx are restricted to high elevation, spruce-fir forests, like those found around Seeley Lake. We compared habitat characteristics found in 59 lynx home ranges to 500 random areas of similar size. We found that lynx preferentially select home ranges with low topographic roughness; they generally avoid the very steep topographies like the central portions of Glacier National Park and parts of the Bob Marshall Complex. Instead, lynx preferentially select spruce-fir forests found in more rolling topographies, like those found in Seeley Lake and in the Purcell Mountains north of Libby, MT. These boreal landscapes are rare in western Montana and they are the landscapes most impacted by forest management. The spruce-fir forests that surround Seeley Lake are readily used by lynx (Figure 1). The future management of these forests will be important to the species’ recovery.
Figure 1. GPS locations of Canada lynx using lands surrounding Seeley Lake, Montana.
2) How have lynx persisted in Seeley Lake despite extensive timber harvesting and recreation?
Based on 10 years of research in western Montana, we recognize that lynx occupy a very narrow habitat niche due to their highly-specialized, morphological adaptations for hunting snowshoe hares in deep-snow. During winter, lynx hunt preferentially in mature, multi-layer, spruce-fir forests. In summer, lynx remain in their same home ranges, but they broaden their niche to also include young regenerating forests that contain dense horizontal cover. Lynx are almost completely dependent on snowshoe hares (96% winter food biomass) for food, and the abundance of hares is directly rated to the amount of horizontal cover provided by forests vegetation. Therefore, lynx are very sensitive to forest management, especially forest thinning. Thinning reduces habitat quality for lynx with effects lasting up to several decades.
Although lynx are sensitive to forest management, they do persist in the Seeley Lake area and other managed landscapes, provided that a mosaic of suitable habitat is available, including a high abundance of un-thinning forests. Landscapes that offer a mosaic of forest age and structure classes provide habitat for denning and foraging. Although substantial forest thinning has occurred in the Seeley Lake area, lynx have been able to use un-thinned habitats. However, there is likely a threshold of thinning below which lynx will not be able to persist. The extent of forest thinning and forest fragmentation around Seeley in the last 5 years is of concern for lynx in western Montana. Preliminary analysis of population viability suggest that lynx in the Seeley area may be declining, so concerns for maintaining available habitat does have a scientific basis.
“Gee, it says “Get thee to the Nez Perce..””
