The Smokey Wire : National Forest News and Views
Community Sourced, Shared and Supported
Or at least they’ve set aside the money to pay for it (the lawsuit, not the land). So what are they waiting for? Maybe they are hoping a Trump administration would make it unnecessary?
(Some of you would probably also like Heartland’s take on forest fires. “But now, the Department of the Interior misinforms us, ‘climate change is making it worse. Wildfire seasons are now hotter, drier and longer than in the past.’ Sure they are. Wanna buy a bridge?”)
The question of how much responsibility should fall on the homeowner who choses to live with fire risk came up recently. Here’s Secretary Jewell’s opinion on that:
“We should be holding these people accountable, and we’re not.”
“We each have to take personal responsibility.”
Some more fuel for the fire on the merits of backcountry fuel reduction.
“The idea that you can preclude large wildfires through forest-wide thinning is snake oil, very expensive snake oil. And not only does the taxpayer pay for ineffective fire protection, but we degrade our forest ecosystems in the process.”
This article describes the draft revised plans for the Inyo, Sierra and Sequoia national forests (from an ag industry perspective). The way it characterizes the plans’ approach to fire, maybe this approach would make Robin Stanley happy:
The preferred alternative, known as Alternative B, would replace wildland-urban defense and threat zones with a “risk-based wildfire restoration zone and wildfire maintenance zone” to allow for “strategically located fuel reduction treatments along roads, ridgelines and connecting areas with lower fuels to support larger landscape-scale prescribed burning.”
Under the heading “Ecological Integrity,” the preferred alternative calls for improved habitat for endangered and protected species and old-growth forest areas. It also calls for removal of some large and old trees in areas designated as wildfire-protection zones.
This will hopefully lead to some scrutiny of the “best available scientific information” behind the strategy. I find it hard to believe that the local residents could be convinced to give up their “wildland-urban defense and threat zones.” And then there’s the question of whether this science has any relevance to the forests of Idaho or elsewhere.
And then there’s the question of whether this approach is consistent with the natural range of variation for ecological conditions for at-risk species so that it really does improve their habitat. If so, it would be a win for everybody. Except the timber industry doesn’t like it.
But – I commend the Forest Service for treating fire planning as a core element of these plan revisions, and putting this out in public for discussion.
I thought this article provided a succinct overview of the state of salvage logging in California. I was curious about what kind of a logging project the Center for Biological Diversity and local environmental groups were supporting.
Table 11 in the ROD shows that the tribal alternative they supported would harvest about 2000 acres. The selected alternative would log three times that. Why did the Forest Service pick the latter over the former?
“As shown in Table 12 (sic), there is considerable overlap between the Karuk Alternative and the Selected Alternative;”
Did the FS miss the obvious point here? That the magnitude of the project is the problem because it would affect water quality and salmon runs? (Or is this what “pound sand” means?)
It was also interesting to read the earlier letter from the Karuk Tribe chairman that describes the tribal interest in prescribed fires. I wonder if the Forest Service has considered managing the historic tribal lands for “production of acorns, wild game, medicinal plants and basketry materials,” among its multiple uses.
I’m just going to drop this here. A side by side comparison of the land that some serial litigators insist is clear evidence of Forest Service salvage clearcutting in the Rim Fire. The caption reads, “Post-fire clearcutting on the Stanislaus National Forest in the Rim fire area, eliminated the wildlife-rich snag habitat and left only stump fields.” Where is the “wildlife-rich snag habitat” in that burned-over plantation on private land? The picture on the right is before logging started, from Google Maps.
Yes, the story is still up on their website, in all its slanderous glory.
Have a nice day!
Yesterday, the Center for Biological Diversity shared its displeasure with pending timber sales on the Klamath National Forest. It also cited a previous letter from the FWS making recommendations regarding the same project. Together they point out the importance of forest planning to recovery of listed species.
Under the Endangered Species Act, each proposed project must only be reviewed against a criterion that prohibits actions that are likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the species. However, ESA also requires all federal agencies to carry out programs for the conservation of listed species. “Conservation” under ESA means to use all methods and procedures that are necessary to recovery of listed species. Under the 2012 Planning Rule, forest plans must contribute to recovery of listed species.
In its earlier letter, the FWS recommends conservation measures that would contribute to spotted owl recovery. While directed towards this particular project, such measures need to be given serious consideration as means to meet the recovery obligations of forest plans. Some key messages in the letter:
“Given the spotted owl’s current population trend, the 2011 Revised Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl (link omitted) calls for retaining existing spotted owls on the landscape to the greatest possible extent throughout the species’ range.”
“Our overarching recommendation is for land managers to use the full suite of management tools (e.g., mechanical treatments, prescribed burning, let-bum policies, etc.) to ‘move’ forest landscapes to fire regimes that are more characteristic and natural consistent with the ecological setting.”
“Low, moderate and, in some cases, high-severity fires maintain habitat conditions conducive for spotted owls, and we recommend minimizing salvage or harvest activities in areas where spotted owls remain post-fire.”
“In general, most scientists agree that salvage logging does not contribute positively to the ecological recovery of naturally disturbed forests (citation omitted). In our experience many post-fire salvage projects tend to be more opportunistic than part of a larger-scale, proactive strategic planning effort to reduce fire spread and severity. Such a larger scale effort could include landscape level considerations for both fuel reduction and strategic fire breaks while incorporating considerations for spotted owls and other land management priorities. Recovery Action 12 in the Revised Recovery Plan recommends retaining post-disturbance legacy structures (such as large, dead tees, whether standing or down) in areas that are managed for spotted owl habitat because these features greatly improve the quality of the habitat as it recovers over time. It is important for action agencies to seek ways to implement important fuel reduction work without overutilizing salvage togging that can adversely affect the restoration of natural conditions.”
This is the kind of best available scientific information that the Forest Service must take into account when it revises forest plans for national forests with spotted owl habitat. It demonstrates that there is a need to change existing plans so that future projects are based on a broad-scale conservation strategy that reflects current scientific understanding of post-fire logging in spotted owl habitat. These recommendations could readily be translated into plan components that are needed in the forest plan to contribute to recovery of spotted owls.
One of the hottest topics on this site recently has involved the effects of salvage logging on California spotted owls. Sometime soon, the three southern Sierra national forests will release their draft revised plans and EIS, which will describe how they intend to resolve this management question, and what the effects of their proposed management would be. I thought it would be worth a quick look at how they have approached the question so far in the planning process.
Here is pretty much the extent of the information in the Sierra NF Assessment (January 2014):
While lightening caused fires are part of the natural ecosystem, suppression of them has led to conditions that can result in large areas of high severity effects that may be detrimental to old forest species such as the fisher or California spotted owl. There is some uncertainty about the effects of fire severity on these species (Keane 2013 and Zielinski 2013)… In addition, California spotted owls may occupy burned forest landscapes for breeding but primarily following low to moderate severity fires (p. 26)
It is unknown how fisher, marten, California spotted owl and goshawk respond to restoration treatments. (p. 38)
The updated “need for change” document (June 2014) states:
Consider new information (e.g., PSW GTR 220/237, California Spotted Owl Conservation Assessment, and the Science Synthesis) in developing or updating forest plan components to improve ecological conditions for the California spotted owl.
This document is supposed to explain what changes are needed in the existing plan based on the assessment. GTR-PSW-237 is a 2012 document updating GTR-PSW-220 from 2009; the assessment does not cite these existing documents in its discussion of spotted owls. The ongoing Conservation Assessment was intended to be complete for use in developing the draft revised plan, but is now not scheduled for completion until fall 2016 (well after the draft plan and EIS). This doesn’t give me a good feeling about a decision informed by the best available scientific information with full public participation. It doesn’t seem like they have made much of a case yet for compatibility of spotted owls and salvage logging.
(The current status of the new conservation assessment can be followed here. There was a webinar on December 8.)
Oregon Wild has proposed a massive half million acre Wilderness Area, partly to “protect” Crater Lake. The Klamath County Commissioners are saying no, with fears that summer fires would affect public health, and that those unhealthy forests need active management.
Here is a map of what Oregon Wild wants done.
As Larry mentioned a month ago, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service has made a positive 90-day finding on a petition to list the California spotted owl under ESA. This means that listing may be warranted, and the agency is soliciting additional comments by November 17.
The action was taken in response to a petition last December by the Wild Nature Institute and the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute. A second petition was submitted by Sierra Forest Legacy and Defenders of Wildlife in August. The SFL website lists the new scientific information that supports listing, which among other things downplays the idea that fires are bad for owls. The FWS response to the earlier petition states: “Recent research has focused on use of burned forests by CSO and has concluded that unlogged burned areas may be important to reproductive success and continued occupancy.”
The petition response also implicates national forest plans as another detrimental change that has occurred that must be considered in determining the adequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms for protecting the species:
- 2004a USDA. This amendment to the 2001 US Forest Service Forest Plans
(USDA 2001) allowed increased or new timber harvest, thinning. fuels
reduction. post fire logging. etc. in areas previously managed for CSO.- USDA 2013b. Management in the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit
allows clear cut timber harvest and removal of larger diameter trees (>30″
dbh) in CSO habitat and previously occupied nest areas.
It is currently Forest Service policy to not contribute to listing under ESA.