Federal Forests

Region 1 – A Years Worth of Harvests Tied Up In Litigation

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How many times on this site have we heard that acreage and timber volume tied up in litigation is insignificant? This would seem to indicate otherwise:

“Covering Idaho, Montana and portions of the Dakotas, Region 1 of the U.S. Forest Service has reached a grim milestone.

Over 35,000 acres of forest projects on Region 1 National Forests are stymied by litigation. The amount of timber tied up in lawsuits (355 million board feet) is now more than region’s entire timber harvest of 321 million board feet”

Humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires, increased fire season over two decades

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How should we deal with the new math on forest fires?

If this article published in the February Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is not a fluke then it would seem to me that our expanding population dictates the need for more forest management not less. The less desireable alternative would be to severely restrict access to our federal forests. The main conclusion of the article is that humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires and caused nearly half of the acreage lost to wildfire. This number excludes intentionally set controlled burns.

From the above, I would deduce that human initiated fires caused proportionally less acreage loss because they were closer to civilization and to forest access points and therefore closer to and more easily accessed by suppression resources. The fact that nearly half of the wildfire acres lost occur in these areas suggests that we would get more bang for our tax dollars if we increased and focused federal sustainable forest management around high traffic areas easily accessible to humans.

Knowing that humans who cause wildfires are, by definition, either careless or malicious, we might deduce that they are generally not inclined to put great effort into getting to their ignition set points. This would lead us to consider that human caused fires might prove to be in less difficult terrain areas with high human traffic. Fires like the Rim fire being the exception. That, if true, would suggest that forest management for risk reduction on these sites could be done at lower costs per acre than other less accessible forest acreage. Focusing forest management efforts on these high benefit to cost areas would have the biggest bang per tax dollar expended in order to lower the total cost of federal wildfire control. If my thinking is correct, this should play a large part in setting the priorities as to where we should: 1) apply controlled burns to reduce ground and other low fuels, 2) utilize commercial thinnings to reduce ladder and proximity fuels or 3) use commercial regeneration harvests to create greater variation in tree heights between stands in order to provide fire breaks for crown fires when appropriate for the site and species. The net effect would be positive for all species including endangered and threatened species. There would still be plenty of lightning caused wildfire, controlled burn hotspots/breakouts and a significantly reduced acreage of human caused fires to satisfy those who don’t mind national ashtrays. Reducing the number and size of human caused fires would also free resources to attack lightning fires earlier and harder when allowing the fire to burn was not an option.

Pertinent Quotes:

  1. “After analyzing two decades’ worth of U.S. government agency wildfire records spanning 1992-2012, the researchers found that human-ignited wildfires accounted for 84 percent of all wildfires, tripling the length of the average fire season and accounting for nearly half of the total acreage burned.” Italics added
  2. “”These findings do not discount the ongoing role of climate change, but instead suggest we should be most concerned about where it overlaps with human impact,” said Balch. “Climate change is making our fields, forests and grasslands drier and hotter for longer periods, creating a greater window of opportunity for human-related ignitions to start wildfires.”” Italics added
  3. “”Not all fire is bad, but humans are intentionally and unintentionally adding ignitions to the landscape in areas and seasons when natural ignitions are sparse,” … “We can’t easily control how dry fuels get, or lightning, but we do have some control over human started ignitions.””

Federal lands and transitional economies

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Headwaters Economics has released this update to a report discussed at length here last year:

 “Rural counties in the West with more federal lands performed better on average than their peers with less federal lands in four key economic measures.”

“This update of research from last year finds that from the early 1970s to the early 2010s, population, employment, and personal income on average all grew significantly faster—two times faster or more—in western rural counties with the highest share of federal lands compared to counties with the lowest share of federal lands. Per capita income growth was slightly higher in counties with more federal land.”

An article on “transitional communities” adds:

“Rural decline is a large and complex issue that appears to be accelerating. According to the Pew Charitable Trust, during the period between 1994–2010, 38.4 percent of U.S. rural counties lost population; since 2010, over two-thirds of rural counties lost population.  This level of decline has far-reaching national and international implications for food and energy production, tourism, and national culture and identity.”

Putting them together, it looks like public lands can be an important asset for minimizing or avoiding rural decline, if communities can get their act together to embrace this potential and plan for it.

“Particularly in declining communities where long-established residents remember the charm of life in simpler times, residents can have considerable resistance to change. This connection and preservation of the past, while a rural virtue, can impede its adaptation into the future. Resistance to any proposed solution that “hasn’t been done before” simply impedes innovation or positive transition.”

Interior nominee Zinke talks about federal lands

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He had a lot of interesting things to say that generally put him within the normal range of political appointees to this position (a nice surprise, given some of Trump’s other nominees), including retaining federal ownership and understanding of climate issues, and this:

An admirer of President Theodore Roosevelt, Zinke said management of federal lands should be done under a “multiple-use” model set forth by Gifford Pinchot, a longtime Roosevelt associate and the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

Zinke also pledged to tackle an estimated $12 billion backlog in maintenance and repair at national parks, saying parks and other public lands should be a key part of Trump’s infrastructure improvement plan.

But the former Navy SEAL said his most important task at Interior will be to “restore trust” between the agency and the states and Indian tribes it serves.

“One of the reasons why people want to sell or transfer public land is there’s no trust, because they feel like they don’t have a voice,” Zinke said, referring to elected officials and residents of many Western states. “They feel like they don’t matter. Well, they should matter.”

The question of how much local interests and which local interests should matter to decisions for federal lands has always been a matter of degree and circumstances.  For example he might be talking about the “bi-partisan solutions” mentioned by Trout Unlimited.  But note the “nuanced” comment from Senator Tester, because “Zinke had last June endorsed a bill handing management of federal lands to state or local governments, while leaving ownership of those lands to the feds.”  (We should expect that USDA Forest Service policy under whomever is selected as Secretary would line up with USDI.)

Lawsuit to stop federal highway on national forest lands

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The Sierra Club filed the lawsuit to stop construction of the U.S. 70 Havelock bypass in North Carolina.  According to their attorneys, “The important thing here is that this part of the forest is one of the prime examples still of what used to be a very common landscape in the coastal plain, which is the longleaf pine savannas, so there are parts of the forest that would be destroyed with the proposed bypass and that have intact, 100-year-old longleaf pine savannas that have good ground cover and are in good condition and that provide habitat for species like the red-cockaded woodpecker.”  They argue that there were feasible alternatives that weren’t considered.

The defendant is apparently the Federal Highway Administration, and the Forest Service isn’t mentioned at all.  There is a different set of laws governing federal highway projects, but they don’t exempt the FHA from NFMA’s requirement that “instruments for use and occupancy of National Forest System lands shall be consistent with the land management plans.”  The Croatan forest plan (2002) actually mentions this bypass proposal as an example of “requests for permits that serve a public benefit.”

There was no reference to this project on the Croatan website, but the FHA ROD discusses six issues raised by plaintiffs regarding consistency with the forest plan, finding them all to be without merit.  It talks about Forest Service participation in the project planning process and off-site mitigation elements, neither of which directly address the question of what the forest plan requirements for this area are.  It did mention that “some portions of the easement that would be transferred to NCDOT for the bypass are designated black bear sanctuary.”  How would a four-lane expressway be consistent with that?  There is something wrong with this process if it does not require the Forest Service to directly address the NFMA consistency requirement for highway permits.

IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND

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It seems like an exercise in futility for the “New Century of Forest Planning” group to be discussing and cussing forest planning &/ policy when we haven’t even agreed to the scientific fundamentals that serve as the cornerstone and foundation for any such discussions.

Below, I have developed a tentative outline of the high level fundamentals which any Forest Plan or Policy must incorporate in order to have a reasonable chance of meeting the desired goals. Until we can come up with a version of these “Forestry Fundamentals” that we generally agree to, we are pushing on a rope and wasting each other’s time unless our objective here is simply to snap our suspenders and vent on each other.

In your comments, please note the outline Item that you are responding to. Maybe we can revise my initial effort and come to some common ground. In doing so we would perform a service and make a step forward that would be useful outside of this circle instead of just chasing our tails. Coming to such an agreement would be a step towards developing a priority hierarchy and eliminating the internal conflicts which make current federal forest policy and law ambiguous and self-contradictory. Until we reach common ground, the current obviously unworkable policies will continue to doom our forests to poor health and consequentially increase the risk of catastrophic loss of those forests and the species that depend on them for survival.

– FORESTRY FUNDAMENTALS – 1st Draft 12/15/16

ESTABLISHED SCIENCE WHICH MUST BE INCORPORATED IN PLANNING FOR

THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FOREST DEPENDENT SPECIES

I) The Fundamental Laws of Forest Science which have been repeatedly validated over time, location, and species. They include:
— A) plant physiology dictating the impact of competition on plant health,
— B) fire science dictating the physics of ignition and spread of fire and
— C) insects and pathogens and their propensity to target based on proximity and their probability of success being inversely proportional to the health of the target.

— D) Species suitability for a specific site is based on the interaction between the following items, those listed above and others not mentioned:

— — 1) hydrology, the underlying geology and availability of nutrients in the soil.

— — 2) latitude, longitude, elevation, aspect and adjacent geography.

— — 3) weather including local &/ global pattern changes.

 

II) The Fundamental Laws controlling the success of endangered, threatened and other species dependent on niche forest types (ecosystems):

— A) Nesting habitat availability.

— B) Foraging habitat availability.

— C) Competition management.

— D) Sustainability depends on maintaining a fairly uniform continuum of the necessary niches which, in turn, requires a balanced mix of age classes within each forest type to avoid species extinguishing gaps.

— E) Risk of catastrophic loss must be reduced where possible in order to minimize the chance of creating species extinguishing gaps in the stages of succession.

 

III) The role of Economics:

— A) Growing existing markets and developing new markets in order to provide revenue to more efficiently maintain healthy forests and thence their dependent species.

— B) Wise investment in the resources necessary to accomplish the goals.

— C) Efficient allocation of existing resources.

 

IV) The role of Forest Management:

— A) Convert the desires/goals of the controlling parties into objectives and thence into the actionable plans necessary to achieve the desired objectives.

— B) Properly execute the plans in accordance with the intent of: governing laws/regulations and best management practices considering any economies.

— C) Acquire independent third party audits and make adjustments in management practices where dictated in order to provide continuous improvement in the means used to achieve goals.

— D) Adjust plans as required by changes: in the goals, as required by the forces of nature and as indicated by on the ground results.

— E) Use GIS software to maintain the spatial and associated temporal data necessary for Scheduling software to find and project feasible alternatives and recommend the “best” alternative to meet the goals set by the controlling parties.

What did I miss, what is wrong, what is right, what would improve this list of Forest Fundamentals?

History of logging in Montana

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The Missoulian is running a series of articles on this subject.  The one in Sunday’s paper asks these questions about the future:

“Banishment from the national forests would doom many Montana timber towns to welfare status, according to advocates in the wood-products industry. But if they’re dependent on access to public timber, isn’t that another form of welfare? Does my family’s tradition of working in the woods entitle it to public subsidy, especially if the commercial market finds Montana’s wood products uncompetitive? Does rescuing Montana’s timber industry justify rewriting some of the nation’s bedrock environmental protections, changing access to its court system, and spending millions of its tax dollars?”

Post-Election Thoughts About Our Forests?

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With a new Republican President and a Republican-controlled Congress, how will this affect the Forest Service and the BLM?

crown-fire-panorama-web

Regarding the picture: I did some processing with a High Dynamic Range (HDR) program to get this artsy view. It is interesting that it enhanced the flames better than in the original scan, from a Kodachrome slide. I shot this while filling in on an engine, on the Lassen NF, back in 1988.

What’s Up with the Lack of a Link Between CO2 and Global Temperatures

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How does all of this affect current forest policy?

Here are two worthwhile reads regarding the role of forests in global warming / carbon sequestration. In addition, item “C)” raises and supports the question: ‘if there is no long term correlation between temperatures and CO2 then how can CO2 be the largest factor contributing to Global Warming?’. Everything we do is predicated on that one big “IF” yet, most refuse to acknowledge the lack of a direct correlation.

A) Pacific Northwest forests: Carbon sink or carbon source?

“Active forest management in dry forest ecosystems plays a critical role in reducing fuel loads, conserving functionality and biodiversity, and returning forests to a natural, resilient condition that is capable of responding to wildfire in a more socially desirable and ecologically beneficial way”

IMHO regardless of whatever role CO2 plays, healthy forests require, at a minimum, forest management as needed for the safety of society. The above quote simply illustrates that a “hands off” policy does not fit the needs of all forest ecosystems nor does it fit at all times within the need to maintain a specific forest ecosystem in order to support species dependent on the sustainability of a particular forest ecosystem niche. This in turn leads to the need for landscape level forest planning for all federal forest holdings.

B) Carbon storage in WA state forests is too small and too risky to play a serious role as a climate change mitigation tool

– 1) “the single biggest contributor to climate change is CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Indeed, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel emissions in recent years have been roughly ten times higher than emissions from the next largest global source, land use change, including deforestation”
—> See “C” below about the “inconvenient truth” that there is no proven long term relationship between CO2 levels and global temperatures. This does not rule out the possibility that, as yet, undetermined interactions with other variables could have an impact on the role of CO2 in global warming.

– 2) “there are many excellent reasons to support planting trees in WA state … However, mitigating the threat of climate change is not among those reasons, based on the available science.”

– 3) “Thus, the management of forests to accumulate carbon must not delay or dilute the phasing-out fossil fuel use.”

—> agree – but not because of CO2 emissions:

—- a) Health – pollution dictates a reduction in the use of hydrocarbons and an increase in the use of alternative fuels to replace the extraction of below ground hydrocarbons and an increase in the use of sound, sustainable forest management to reduce the risk of Catastrophic fires.

—- b) Geologic ramifications of hydrocarbon extraction and hydraulic pumping include surface subsidence and earthquakes.

C) The Question as to the pertinence of CO2 to Global Warming

We must consider the inconvenient truth that ice cores from Greenland and Vostok, Russia show that over the last ~ 100,000 years, temps have been significantly higher than today by more than 2 degrees centigrade when CO2 was 2/3rds of what it is now. So is CO2 really the cause of global warming?

Greenland Data – Mankind has lived in significantly warmer climates than current temps over the last 11,000 years with CO2 levels at 2/3rds of the present levels (current CO2 levels corroborates their extrapolation of CO2 levels to the present).

Global Mean Temperature Anomaly – 1880 – Present – Note 2000 – 2016 only shows a 0.3 degree centigrade increase versus the Greenland and Vostok Data and corroborates their extrapolations to 2000.

Vostok Data – Mankind has lived in significantly warmer climates than current temps over the last 140,000 years.

 

So the question is: how does all of this affect current forest policy?