Old Growth

Let’s Discuss: the Norm-and-Jerry MOG Op-ed in Politico

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Side note: whatever your thoughts, please comment on the MOG ANPR here. That is Mature and Old Growth Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.  Some people have had trouble finding the link, perhaps due to the bizarre title “Organization, Functions, and Procedures; Functions and Procedures; Forest Service Functions.”  Comments are due June 20th. We appear to be in the middle of a major media campaign on the MOG, so this seems like a good time to discuss some concepts.

Norm Christenson and Jerry Franklin had a an op-ed in Politico yesterday.  I’m a big Jerry Franklin fan, based on my personal interactions with him since the 80’s. I’ve told some of the stories before, so I won’t bore you with them again. Mostly our disagreements have been about west-side vs. east-side practices, ecology and experience.

I like how they tagged on the wildfires in Canada to “underscore the need to let our current mature forest grow old.”  You could also argue that the wildfires in Canada underscore the fact that wildfires are a danger when trying to use forests to mitigate climate change.  Because if you believe that climate change will cause forests not to grow back, you’ve just blown your last tree sequestration opportunity plus released much carbon (and PM2.5).

“It turns out the age and composition of forests makes a big difference in what role they play in preventing wildfires and storing carbon. Old growth forest is the best at both, but there is very little old growth left in either the western or eastern United States.”

I would argue that old growth forest in some species/places is not the best in “preventing” wildfires (what does “preventing” even mean in this context?).  Take a mixed ponderosa/true fir understory stand with large old pp.. how exactly does that “prevent” wildfires? I won’t go into carbon because the sequestering/storage burning up all depends on assumptions which may differ.

As part of the MOG effort, the FS counted the BLM and FS Old Growth acres and you can see them in the above table. It looks like 33 mill acres or thereabouts, or about 18% of the total. Note that this is just FS and BLM, there is probably OG on other state and country and private lands as well. So.. are 33 ish mill acres plus other unknown acres “very little” or not? How would we know what the “right” amount is?

But a large amount of the forests on public lands is what foresters call “mature” forest, which is nearly as good as old growth and in fact is on the brink of becoming old growth. It is these older forests that will help us prevent future forest fires and will do the most to reduce climate change, and its these forests that we need to protect at all costs.

I’m still interested in the mechanism of older forests helping us “prevent” fires.  I have to admit, the old forests in my neck of the wood seem to be slacking off on this.

Then there’s  the “p” word.. protect- the question is “protect from what?” This op-ed seems to mean “protect from removing any trees”.. but you can in the chart below (in the ANPR) see the timber harvest acres (including ecological restoration and fire risk reduction) are relatively tiny compared to fire and bugs and diseases.  I guess I can see the argument “we can’t affect wildfire, and insects and diseases, so let’s focus on timber”; except that we can affect acres impacted by wildfire by thinning.  Unless you believe that fuel treatments, PODs, etc. don’t help protect mature and older forests.  Which isn’t the view of the fire science community nor practitioners.  In fact, that isn’t addressed in this op-ed.

Within a few years, tree seedlings grow quickly, and their canopies expand to form a continuous green “solar panel.” The time it takes for this growth depends on the site’s fertility and the number of pioneer trees in the environment. The result is an immature forest composed of trees of small stature and similar age. These immature forests pose a high risk of wildfire due to the abundance of fine fuel, small branches and leaves, near the ground.

This reminds me of our 1980’s Central Oregon silviculture workshop with Bruce Larsen and Chad Oliver- when trees compete for water, they don’t grow the same way as the standard models and thinking based on competition for light.  The old mesic forest bias.  And when water is limiting, then thinning can increase vigor of trees and reduce beetle outbreaks in some cases. This isn’t scientifically controversial. There’s probably a literature review out there;  here’s one example from the Northern Rockies

Our results show treatments designed to increase resistance to high-severity fire in ponderosa pine-dominated forests in the Northern Rockies can also increase resistance to MPB, even during an outbreak.

So “protecting”  increases risks from pine beetles and wildfire, which doesn’t actually sound, in those cases, very protective.

As to the green “solar panel” well..that kind of implies an even-aged stand, which many stands that I observer are not. And then there are forests that never form continuous crowns due to competition for water.

I can understand if some don’t want to count pinyon-juniper as forests, but then maybe each kind of forest should be considered separately,  including mesic and dry forests.

 

Here are some interesting and relevant Q&As from the ANPR.

Q. What restoration options are available to restore old-growth forest structure in frequent fire forests?
Mechanical thinning and prescribed fire represent the primary approaches to active restoration of frequent-fire mature and old-growth forest areas to reduce their vulnerability to wildfire. Reduction in tree density often increases resilience to the climate-driven impacts of droughts, insects and wildfire.
Restoration prescriptions generally aim to increase the diversity of trees – age, size, and species – and retain the largest trees of the most fire-resistant species in the area. Diverse forests are more resilient because threats are less likely to impact trees species, ages and sizes at once.

Q. Are old-growth forests climate resilient?
Many old-growth forests have resilient characteristics like thick bark, high canopies, and deep roots. Some, like coastal redwoods, require moderate year-round temperatures and abundant moisture to thrive. As such, they are highly vulnerable to shifting conditions. As climate continues to deviate from historical
norms, even otherwise resilient forests are expected to be at increasing risk from acute and chronic disturbances such as drought, wildfires, disease, and insect outbreaks. These threats heighten the vulnerability of mature and old-growth forests resulting in higher chance of forest loss.

Your thoughts?

 

Are large, eastside grand firs friend or foe?

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Large-diameter grand fir (Abies grandis) in a mesic, mixed-conifer forest of northeast Oregon. Credit: Conservation Science and Practice (2023).

A new release from a some of our favorite authors about the proposed amendment to the Oregon and Washington Eastside Screens forest plan requirements – the “21-inch rule.”  The primary focus is summarized here (and there is a link to the research paper):

“Interest is growing in policy opportunities that align biodiversity conservation and recovery with climate change mitigation and adaptation priorities. The authors conclude that “21-inch rule” provides an excellent example of such a policy initiated for wildlife and habitat protection that has also provided significant climate mitigation values across extensive forests of the PNW Region.”

Until I saw this photo, I had imagined an army of evil grand fir trees sneaking up under pines and larch, and stealing their water and threatening to burn them up.  They seem to be the Forest Service’s Enemy #1 these days in eastern Oregon and Washington.  So dangerous, in fact, that the agency undertook another dreaded forest plan amendment process to give the agency more weapons to fight off this scourge.

This paper portrays them in a much different light, as providing benefits to both carbon storage and resilience to fire (along with their original wildlife protection benefits targeted by the original Eastside Screens amendment) – and NOT posing a substantial barrier to fuel treatment.

“The key rationale for amending the 21-inch rule is that increased cutting of large-diameter fir trees (≥53 cm DBH and <150 years) is needed to facilitate the conservation and recruitment of early-seral, shade-intolerant old ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and western larch (Larix occidentalis) by reducing competition from shade-tolerant large grand fir (Abies grandis) (USDA, 2021).

This represents a major shift in management of large trees across the region, highlighting escalating tradeoffs between goals for carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change, and efforts to increase the pace, scale, and intensity of cutting across national forest lands. The potential impacts of removal of large grand fir on wildfire are unclear, although a trait-based approach to assess fire resistance found that the grand fir forest type had the second highest fire resistance score, and one of the lowest fire severity values among forest types of the Inland Northwest USA (Moris et al., 2022).

Large ponderosa pine co-mingle with large grand fir about 14% of the time (259 plots), leaving 86% of plots with large ponderosa pine without large grand fir (1616 plots). Similarly, large western larch co-mingle with large grand fir about 56% of the time. Large ponderosa pine and grand fir are found together on only 8% of all plots in the region, while large larch and grand fir are found together on only 4% of all plots in the region.  (I added the emphasis for clarity.)

Enhancing forest resilience does not necessitate widespread cutting of any large-diameter tree species. Favoring early-seral species can be achieved with a focus on smaller trees and restoring surface fire, while retaining the existing large tree population.”

If nothing else, these conclusions clearly refute the Forest Service argument that reducing fire risk is “impossible” without logging the few (but important) large grand fir trees.

A First Look at MOGgie ANPR. II. Let’s Ground Truth the New FS Climate Risk Viewer!

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The Secretary’s Memo directs the Forest Service to spatially identify wildfire and climate change-driven threats and risks to key resources and values in the National Forest System, including water and watersheds, biodiversity and species at risk, forest carbon, and reforestation. Further, section 2 of E.O. 14072 specifically directs Federal agencies to identify mature and old forests on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands.

Through this ANPRM, USDA is sharing the beta version of a new Forest Service Climate Risk Viewer ( https://storymaps.arcgis.com/​collections/​87744e6b06c74e82916b9b11da218d28) for public feedback (see Section 1 below). This beta version was developed with 38 high-quality datasets and begins to illustrate the overlap of multiple resource values with climate exposure and vulnerability. The viewer also includes current management direction on National Forest System lands. The viewer allows for a place-based analysis of the need for climate adaptation to maintain, restore, and expand valued forest ecosystem and watershed characteristics. Additionally, the viewer supports identification of gaps between current management and potential conservation and adaptation practices. The beta version of the mature and old-growth (MOG) inventory that is being developed pursuant to E.O. 14072 and the RFI for MOG is also being released to help inform policy and decision-making on how best to conserve, foster, and expand the values of mature and old-growth forests on our Federal lands. Core information from the MOG inventory has been integrated into the viewer.

I took a brief look and it was very complex.  With a lot of RCP 8.5. So I will take some time and dig in for my own area, and hope others will do the same.

Synchronistically, Roger Pielke Jr. just posted a piece on his Substack this AM on another topic, but I think his thoughts are relevant to these maps.

Question 1: What scenarios are used to produce the estimates?

As frequent readers here will well know, the choice of scenario used in a climate projection can make the difference between an apocalyptic-looking future and one that appears much more manageable. You won’t be surprised to learn that many, if not most, studies that project future public health impacts of climate change rely on extreme, implausible or even impossible scenarios.

Question 2: How your analysis factor in adaptation?

One of the most incredible success stories of science, technology and policy over the past century has been the incredible progress around the world in improving adaptative capacity to weather and climate. This success story rarely gets reported on but that makes it no less real. There is of course more to do and continuing efforts are needed to maintain the progress made to date.

One dirty little secret in most studies of the future impacts of climate change (and not just on the effects of changes in extreme temperatures) in that future adaptation to climate variability and change is simply left out of projections. Assumptions are made that the climate will change, but people’s behavior will not. This is not how the real world works.

Adaptation- that’s the world of the natural resource professional.  Wildland fire technologies and people, and so on.  That’s us. We’re not included.

Note:  I am absolutely not criticizing the FS nor the USDA for doing it this way. They have to do what they are told, and use existing stuff. They have to go with the flow.

At the same time, in our quest to understand whether that information has any value, we need to take Roger’s points into consideration. And as I’ve said before, no one understands how populations of organisms will respond to any changes. So there’s that.

A First Look at the MOGgie ANPR – I. Up to Timber and Reforestation

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Thanks to a TSW reader for this working link to the MOG ANPR!  Mature and Old Growth, Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, that is. It has the funniest and possibly least helpful title of any ANPR I’ve seen.. at least what the Federal Register has posted.

Organization, Functions, and Procedures; Functions and Procedures; Forest Service Functions

Ok, then.

Climate Resilience is a Thing Worthy of Note

My favorite part is

Uses the Planning Rule’s definitions of ecological integrity and social and economic sustainability to structure the concept of climate resilience. Climate resilience is essential for ecological integrity and social and economic sustainability.

Aside from the future Land Management Agency abstraction Smackdown with BLM on “intactness”, one wonders what it to use a “definition” to “structure” a “concept”.    As everyone knows, I have not been a fan of “ecological integrity” as a concept.  But I definitely like the idea of the essentialness (apparently not a word) of climate resilience.  Underlying these are ideas that “leaving alone is always best” (intactness) versus “to get things people, wildlife and fish like,  management can be necessary.”

Note that these ideas are not at their base scientific at all- they are philosophical differences.  And the importance of Native American tools and uses runs into philosophical problems with the Garden of Eden-y school of intactitude.

And so, what will be the role of HRV or NRV?  Will we be able to give the historic vegetation ecologists a well-deserved break (for whom, as I commented at the time, the 2001 and later rules were a full employment program) from their tedious (to me)  infighting about what used to be, the roles of Native Americans and so on.

I live in hope that the ideas of dynamic systems will root out the old forms of “return to equilibrium” “balance of nature” or a return to the past.. at least for the Forest Service. But maybe that’s too much to expect from this peculiarly named ANPR.

Timber Harvesting

“To put this evolution of National Forest System management into context, currently the Forest Service commercially harvests one tenth of one percent of acres within the National Forest System each year. Harvests designed to improve stand health and resilience by reducing forest density or removing trees damaged by insect or disease make up 86 percent of those acres. The remainder are final or regeneration harvests that are designed to be followed by reforestation.”

This is kind of a duh for most TSW readers.  So I can see the philosophical argument already. “Even though it’s only a little bit, it’s something we can control.” I’ve heard this argument about PM 2.5.. “we can’t control wildfires so we need to ratchet down fossil fuel use.” And of course, the idea that wildfires can’t be managed runs against folks’ lived experience, the Wildfire Commission, various Congressional large chunks of money, and so on.  It seems like no matter what the problem is .. diseases, wildfire, climate change.. the answer is always to reduce uses some key constituencies don’t prefer.

“At the same time, over the past 15 years data shows that disturbance driven primarily by wildfire and insect and disease has adversely impacted more than 25 percent of the 193 million acres across the National Forest System (see Figure 2). This rapidly changing environment is now the primary driver of forest loss and type conversion. Wildfire alone causes approximately 80 percent of reforestation needs on National Forest System lands, and we expect those needs to continue to grow: More than half of the 4 million acres of potential reforestation needs on National Forest System lands stems from wildfires in 2020 and 2021 (see Figure 3).

E&E News Story on OG Forests and NASA

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The Coconino National Forest in Arizona contains forests of pinyon pine and juniper. | Deborah Lee Soltesz/Coconino National Forest/Flickr
This one is now not paywalled.  I didn’t see the ANPR… can someone send a link?

“The Forest Service’s most recent science shows that fire, insects and other factors are leading to large-scale losses in mature forests, not timber harvest. Reforestation needs similarly are being driven by large fires,” said Bill Imbergamo, executive director of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition (FFRC), which represents companies that harvest timber on federal land.

In it advanced notice of proposed rulemaking and request for comment to be published in the Federal Register, the Forest Service said the changed environment from wildfire, disease and insect pests is the “primary driver” of forest loss in the past 15 years, with wildfire accounting for more than 80 percent of reforestation needs. Most timber harvesting in national forests, which has declined sharply over the years, isn’t designed for commercial purposes, the agency said.

“To put this evolution of National Forest System management into context, currently the Forest Service commercially harvests one tenth of one percent of acres within the National Forest System each year. Harvests designed to improve stand health and resilience by reducing forest density or removing trees damaged by insect or disease make up 86 percent of those acres. The remainder are final or regeneration harvests that are designed to be followed by reforestation,” the Forest Service said.

Also this from NASA:

The nation’s old-growth forests encompass different tree species in different regions, from towering redwoods and 5,000-year-old bristlecone pines to diminutive pinyon junipers whose age and grandeur are less immediately obvious. For decades the U.S. Forest Service has studied such trees in hundreds of thousands of plots across the country, but the agency has never issued a formal accounting until now. To identify and define such forests, the team analyzed decades of field-gathered data from a wide variety of forest types and ecological zones, while also collecting public input in the process.

 

America’s forests help absorb more than 10% of our annual greenhouse gas emissions. While younger vegetation accumulates carbon more rapidly, old-growth forests contain more biomass overall and store more carbon. Not only are these ecosystems essential to the country’s clean air and water, they hold special significance to Tribal Nations, they sustain local economies, and they conserve biodiversity.

 

Complementing the Forest Service’s boots-on-the-ground research, some NASA-funded scientists are using a space-based instrument called GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation) to provide a detailed picture of these forests. From its perch on the International Space Station, GEDI’s laser imager (lidar) is able to peer through dense canopies to observe nearly all of Earth’s temperate and tropical forests. By recording the way the laser pulses are reflected by the ground and by plant material (stems, branches, and leaves) at different heights, GEDI makes detailed measurements of the three-dimensional structure of the planet’s forests and fields. It can even estimate the weight, height, and vertical structure of trees.

 

“The partnership with NASA will help us do analyses we have not been able to do in the past,” said Jamie Barbour, who leads the old-growth initiative for the U.S. Forest Service. “From space, we’ll be able to drill down and learn about so many more places.”

……….

GEDI collected four years of forest observations around the world, before recently entering hibernation on the International Space Station.  Extension of the GEDI mission is currently under discussion, and if the extension is approved, it is expected that monitoring of mature and old-growth forests will resume when it returns to service within two years.

This reminds me of the public forum I attended on MOG with the Forest Service, where many people wondered how useful an inventory is, and for what purposes, if not updated frequently.. like after wildfires take out old growth and mature trees.  But maybe the point is to do “monitoring” over longer periods of time, perhaps with scientific but not direct policy relevance to local/regional forest management? It does seem to be a feature of our age.. collecting info and using it are not necessarily connected.

 

Lotsa New Stuff from Admin: MOG Inventory, Reforestation, ANPR for Resilience, Climate Risk Viewer and Field Guidance

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These are all of interest. Please take a look and let us know what you think! Here’s the press release. My first few thoughts are in italics.

“WASHINGTON, April 20, 2023 – Today, in anticipation of the upcoming Earth Day celebrations, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced actions to foster forest conservation, enhance forest resilience to climate change, and inform policymaking on ensuring healthy forests on federally managed lands administered by the USDA Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

To support these actions, USDA and DOI worked together to develop several reports, as directed by President Biden’s Executive Order on Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies (E.O. 14072), which he signed on Earth Day 2022. The Executive Order calls for inventorying mature and old-growth forests, setting reforestation targets on federally managed lands, and analyzing reforestation opportunities on state, Tribal and private lands. In addition, the Forest Service is releasing a new tool that illustrates the risks and vulnerabilities of climate change across the landscape along with a call for public input on how national forests and grasslands should be managed for climate resilience.

These actions represent concrete progress on the goals and priorities outlined one year ago in President Biden’s Executive Order, Secretary Vilsack’s Memorandum on Climate Resilience and Carbon Stewardship, as well as in the USDA Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy, Climate Adaptation Plan (PDF, 26.1 MB), and Reforestation Strategy (PDF, 7 MB).

“Our forest ecosystems and communities are struggling to keep up with the stresses of climate change, whether it’s fire, drought, or insect infestations, it is clear that we must adapt quickly,” said USDA Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment Homer Wilkes. “The USDA and our federal, tribal, state, local and community partners are working together to meet these challenges, pooling knowledge, sharing resources and discovering new ways to conserve resources, protect communities and ensure future generations can enjoy the countless benefits our forests provide.”

“Healthy, resilient forests are critical to helping us respond to the climate impacts being felt by communities across the country, because they store carbon, provide clean air and water, and sustain biodiversity,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. “The reports released today will help enhance our work to protect and grow forests by creating a scientific framework for further study and public engagement for effective forest management and protection.”

Newly Released Joint Reports on Forest Conservation

The Mature and Old-Growth Forest report defines what mature and old growth forests are, establishes the first-ever initial inventory of those forests, and shows their distribution across lands managed by the USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management. The initial inventory identified more than 32 million acres of old-growth and around 80 million acres of mature forest across 200 types of forests. The initial inventory found that old-growth forest represents 18% and mature forest another 45% of all forested land managed by the two agencies. Recognizing the many values of mature and old-growth forests, both agencies conducted significant outreach to gather public input from communities, tribes, scientists, and agency professionals in the report’s development.

Like all the nation’s forests, mature and old-growth forests are threatened by climate change and associated stressors. The initial inventory and definitions for mature and old-growth forests are part of an overarching climate-informed strategy to help retain carbon, reduce wildfire risk, and address climate-related impacts, including increased insects and disease.

As directed in President Biden’s Executive Order and laid out in the report, the USDA Forest Service and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management will use these definitions and initial inventory to continue to refine results, assess threats to old growth and mature forest stands, and conduct public engagement. In the near future, the USDA and BLM also plan to incorporate information gathered from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation mission, which will provide forest inventory and analysis plots using space-based laser measurements. These efforts will help the agencies meet the science-based approach required in the executive order as well as develop management policy and strategies to recruit, sustain, and restore mature and old-growth forests.

Pinyon and juniper woodlands are the most abundant forest type in the federally managed inventory of mature and old-growth forests, with nine million acres of old-growth pinyon-juniper across BLM and Forest Service lands and an additional 14 million acres of mature pinyon-juniper. This summer, the Forest Service and the BLM will be co-hosting public workshops focused on sustaining resilient pinyon-juniper ecosystems. The workshops are intended to ensure robust public engagement and scientific expertise and knowledge are underpinning the approaches taken to fulfill the Executive Order and other management strategies for ensuring healthy, resilient pinyon and juniper woodlands.

Interesting because as I’ve pointed out, previous forest policy issues and debates have always had a mesic/timber framing.  “Robust public engagement” might mean with those inhabiting those ecoystems- perhaps a different set of folks than the usual suspects.

USDA and DOI are also releasing a joint reforestation report (PDF, 471 KB) which includes reforestation targets, assessments and recommendations for increased capacity for seeds and nurseries.

In response to feedback from stakeholder engagement, the report offers recommendations to conduct seed and nursery operations, improve coordination with non-federal partners, leverage opportunities for innovation with the private sector, and build a reforestation workforce with partners like the Conservation Corps.

To develop targets for reforestation on public lands by 2030, USDA and DOI evaluated recent peer-reviewed assessments and datasets conducted on public lands and identified more than 2.3 million acres in need of reforestation. This report also includes an assessment of more than 70 million acres of possible reforestation opportunities with state, tribal and private landowners, providing valuable insight on how existing partnerships and programs could be focused where they are needed most.

Advanced Notice of Public Rulemaking to Build Climate Resilience

With climate change and related stressors causing rapid, variable change on national forests and grasslands, the Forest Service is asking for public input on how the agency should adapt current policies to protect, conserve, and manage national forests and grasslands for climate resilience. This Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for National Forest and Grassland Climate Resilience will be published in the Federal Register and publication will begin a 60-day public comment period. The Forest Service is also consulting with tribes and requesting feedback on current issues and considerations related to relying on the best available science including indigenous knowledge, as well as climate adaptation, mature and old-growth forests, and considerations for social and economic resilience.

I wonder why the BLM isn’t doing this also?  They don’t need a comment period, as they already know how to build climate resilience?  One could argue the FS also has a pretty good idea.  So, what is this really about?

Climate Risk Viewer

As part of today’s announcement, the USDA Forest Service is sharing the beta version of a new tool to assess climate risks and vulnerabilities called the Forest Service Climate Risk Viewer. Developed with 28 high-quality datasets, it shows how resources overlap with climate exposure and vulnerability. This allows for more localized analysis of how climate adaptation can maintain, restore and expand forest ecosystems and watersheds. The viewer includes the new mature and old-growth forest inventory data for the Forest Service as well as datasets to identify gaps between current management and potential conservation and adaptation practices.

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Field Guidance

In keeping with the spirit of President Biden’s Executive Order, earlier this week Forest Service Deputy Chief Chris French sent a letter to Forest Service Regional Foresters outlining leadership direction related to implementation of section 40803(g) of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law regarding, which requires the consideration of how to manage for among other things, large trees and old growth stands in forest health projects.”

I’m not sure how this last one might fit with legislative intent, but if it’s not, I’m sure that Congressional folks will point it out.

 

Nantahala-Pisgah forest plan revision – done

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The Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest has completed revising its forest plan.  The final plan was released on February 16 and implementation began last week.  The revision website is here, and the response to the objections is here.

Said Sam Evans, leader of the National Forests and Parks Program for the Southern Environmental Law Center (and Smokey Wire contributor) “A big disappointment for me here at the end of the process is that it is more of the same. It’s going to drive a wedge between stakeholders that had found consensus.” “We can sue over the plan,” Evans said. “We can oppose projects as they come up under the new plan. I would say the only thing that’s not an option for us is letting this plan roll out and be implemented in a way that continues to degrade those same resources — unroaded areas, healthy, intact forests like the state Natural Heritage Areas and existing old growth.”  The ”stakeholders” would be the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership of 20 interested organizations.  This article continues to discuss these disappointments in more detail (though apparently not all of the stakeholders are unhappy).

The Partnership wanted to see various tier objectives tied together so that, for instance, the Forest Service couldn’t move on to Tier 2 timber harvest goals without first meeting Tier 1 goals in other areas, such as invasive species management and watershed protection. Additionally, the Partnership said, the plan should require ecological restoration treatments to be paired with any commercial timber harvest occurring on the forest landscape.

The group was also concerned that 54,000 acres of state Natural Heritage Natural Areas were placed in management areas open to commercial logging and road building, and that the plan didn’t allow for protection of old growth patches found during timber projects. The group wanted to see a “cap and trade” approach to the 265,000-acre Old Growth Network identified in the plan, so that lower-quality patches in the network could be swapped out for higher-quality patches encountered during projects.

According to Evans, only 30,000 acres of the 265,000 acres is at the minimum age level to qualify as old growth, and the remainder is middle-aged forest of 60-100 years. Meanwhile, known old growth stands were not included in the network. The Forest Service does not have a figure for the number of acres in the network that currently qualify as old growth. “We’re trading young forest that maybe will become older one day for existing old growth now,” Evans said, “and that isn’t a good trade for the species that live in old growth forests and don’t move around.”

The forest supervisor had an interesting response to this old growth issue:  “Because of the complexity of the forest, there’s always going to be places that we might find a particular stand that is in that older forest type, and we can say, ‘You know what, that’s an area that’s special, and that we want to favor for those types, and that’s part of a larger project that’s holistic in a given area,’” he said.  They CAN say that project-by-project, but by allowing that flexibility, does the PLAN comply with the requirements for it to affirmatively provide habitat for at-risk species?

There is also disagreement about whether it does what it should to address climate change.  It apparently pits carbon storage (mitigation) vs “resilience” (adaptation).  Shouldn’t carbon storage projections include any additional risk of having less “resilient” forests?  There was a recent question on this blog about how forest plans are dealing with climate change.  This article (which also highlights the criticisms of the plan) lists the Forest Service’s seven main goals for “dealing with the impacts of climate change” (which are about adaptation rather than mitigation)

  • “Where there are species at risk that are susceptible to the effects of climate change, promote activities that support suitable habitat enhancement.
  • “Consider and address future climate and potential species range shifts when planning restoration projects, facilitating species migration and adaptation when possible.
  • “Monitor for new invasive species moving into areas where they were traditionally not found, especially in high-elevation communities. Utilize the monitoring information to assess threats and prioritize treating highly invasive infestations.
  • “Restore native vegetation in streamside zones to help moderate changes in water temperature and stream flow and enhance habitat.
  • “Anticipate and plan for changes in natural disturbance patterns.
  • “Prepare for intense storms and fluctuations in base flow using methods that maintain forest health and diversity, including controlling soil erosion, relocating high risk roads and trails, and constructing appropriately sized culverts and stream crossings while retaining stream connectivity.
  • “To maintain genetic resiliency, consider locally adapted genotypes for use in restoration projects.”

What’s next?  Will Harlan, a scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity said (here) communities still  not satisfied with the decision will “use every tool possible” including “public engagement, community involvement (and) litigation” to push back against what the plan could do to forests.

However, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was “pleased.”

“Using our nation’s forest inventory to open carbon markets to family forest owners”

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Here’s an announcement from the Forest Service about a program designed to promote use of small, private forests for carbon offsets.  In particular, it’s about the the use of Forest Service FIA data in this program, but I’m always interested in what management practices are considered to be worth getting paid for, and I don’t think I’ve seen them this clearly specified.  The program website says, “When you enroll, you’ll receive payments for implementing forest management practices that increase the carbon sequestered and stored on your land.”  This program seems to be only available in the eastern U. S., but if you track through the links you can find the specific “management requirements” for several states under the “Practice Overview” documents here.   The three groups of states are each a little different.

Michigan/Minnesota/Wisconsin (Payments are higher for “growing mature forests” than for “promoting diverse forests;” these are requirements for the former, while the latter allows more intensive logging, but has requirements for reserve areas.)

  • Harvests may not remove more than 25% of the basal area at the time of the harvest.
  • Harvests may not reduce the average stand diameter by more than 10%.

Maryland/Pennsylvania/West Virginia (Payment is for “growing mature forests” only)

  • If you choose to conduct a timber harvest, it must not remove more than 25% of the basal area per acre
  • High-grading is prohibited during the contract period. High-grading is defined as a reduction in quadratic mean tree diameter of more than 10% from the pre-harvest condition.

Vermont/eastern New York (Payments are higher for “grow older forests” than for “enhance your woodland.”  The former generally requires deferment of commercial logging for 20 years.  The latter restricts timber harvest based on basal area, diameter, trees per acre, snags and opening size.)

Would something like this make sense in the west?  For federal lands (as a best management practice, since they couldn’t be paid for it)?  (I know we’ve had some discussions about thinning requirements based on basal area vs other metrics.)

 

 

“Proforestation” It Aint What It Claims To Be

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‘Proforestation’ separates people from forests

AKA: Ignorance and Arrogance Still Reign Supreme at the Sierra Club.

I picked this up from Nick Smith’s Newsletter (sign up here)
Emphasis added by myself as follows:
1)  Brown Text for items NOT SUPPORTED by science with long term and geographically extensive validation.                                                                                                                                                        2) Bold Green Text for items SUPPORTED by science with long term and geographically extensive validation.
3) >>>Bracketed Italics for my added thoughts based on 59 years of experience and review of a vast range of literature going back to way before the internet.<<<

“Proforestation” is a relatively new term in the environmental community. The Sierra Club defines it as: “extending protections so as to allow areas of previously-logged forest to mature, removing vast amounts of atmospheric carbon and recovering their ecological and carbon storage potential.”          >>>Apparently, after 130 years of existence, the Sierra Club still doesn’t know much about plant physiology, the carbon cycle or the increased risk of calamitous wild fire spread caused by the close proximity of stems and competition driven mortality in unmanged stands (i.e. the science of plant physiology regarding competition, limited resources and fire spread physics). Nor have they thought out the real risk of permanent destruction of the desired ecosystems nor the resulting impact on climate change.<<<

Not only must we preserve untouched forests, proponents argue, but we must also walk away from previously-managed forests too. People should be entirely separate from forest ecology and succession. >>>More abject ignorance and arrogant woke policy based only on vacuous wishful thinking.<<<

Except humans have managed forests for millennia. In North America, Indigenous communities managed forests and sustained its resources for at least 8,000 years prior to European settlement. It is true people have not always managed forests sustainably. Forest practices of the late 19th century are a good example.                                                                                                                                                 >>>Yes, and the political solution pushed on us by the Sierra Club and other faux conservationists beginning with false assumptions about the Northern Spotted Owl was to throw out the continuously improving science (i.e. Continuous Process Improvement [CPI]).  The concept of using the science to create sustainable practices and laws that regulated the bad practices driven by greed and arrogance wasn’t even considered seriously.  As always, the politicians listened to the well heeled squeaky voters.  Now, their arrogant ignorance has given us National Ashtrays, destruction of soils, and an ever increasing probability that great acreages of forest ecosystems will be lost to the generations that follow who will also have to cope with the exacerbated climate change.  So here we are, in 30+/- years the Faux Conservationists have made things worse than the greedy timber barons ever could have.  And the willfully blind can’t seem to see what they have done. Talk about arrogance.<<<

Forest management provides tools to correct past mistakes and restore ecosystems. But Proforestation even seems to reject forest restoration that helps return a forest to a healthy state, including controlling invasive species, maintaining tree diversity, returning forest composition and structure to a more natural state.

Proforestation is not just a philosophical exercise. The goal is to ban active forest management on public lands. It has real policy implications for the future management (or non-management) of forests and how we deal with wildfires, climate change and other disturbances.

We’ve written before about how this concept applies to so-called “carbon reserves.” Now, powerful and well-funded anti-forestry groups are pressuring the Biden Administration to set-aside national forests and other federally-owned lands under the guise of “protecting mature and old-growth” trees.

In its recent white paper on Proforestation (read more here), the Society of American Foresters writes that “preservation can be appropriate for unique protected areas, but it has not been demonstrated as a solution for carbon storage or climate change across all forested landscapes.”

Proforestation doesn’t work when forests convert from carbon sinks into carbon sources. A United Nations report pointed out that at least 10 World Heritage sites – the places with the highest formal environmental protections on the planet – are net sources of carbon pollution. This includes the iconic Yosemite National Park.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes active forest management will yield the highest carbon benefits over the long term because of its ability to mitigate carbon emitting disturbance events and store carbon in harvested wood products. Beyond carbon, forest management ensures forests continue to provide assets like clean water, wildlife habitat, recreation, and economic activity.
>>>(i.e. TRUE SUSTAINABILITY)<<<

Forest management offers strategies to manage forests for carbon sequestration and long-term storage.Proforestation rejects active stewardship that can not only help cool the planet, but help meet the needs of people, wildlife and ecosystems. You can expect to see this debate intensify in 2023.

Sierra At Tahoe Ski Area Re-opens

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After the Caldor Fire seriously impacted the ski area, Sierra At Tahoe is open again. As you can see, it was a high intensity portion of the fire, with the previous forest being highly flammable and loaded with decades of heavy dead fuels. After several droughts, the area did not have any salvage operations. The area is also known to have nesting pairs of goshawks around.

As you can see, snow sports people will be enjoying a new experience of skiing and boarding, without so many trees ‘hindering their personal snow freedoms’. *smirk*