Research

List of Forest Service Research Facilities to be Kept and Those to Be Closed

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Within hours of the previous post in which I quoted Chris French using Stoneville as an example and Alex Friend agreeing..and my pointing out that it had been on the block intermittently for probably 30 years..

“as much as I think everybody loves the Stoneville research site in Mississippi, there’s 14 buildings there and we staff it with four people. I have to manage our facilities somehow. And unfortunately, R&D has more examples like that than others. I’ve got a district ranger office that is leased in that Stoneville site right up the road. We’re looking at it right now. Is it better to move that district ranger office to Stoneville and use the facilities there or invest in a better office for essentially the district ranger’s office and move the four people in Stoneville there? That’s what we mean by evaluating. “

someone sent me the list, and Stoneville is retained. Here’s what the Chief said:

Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz emphasized the closures and consolidations will not result in any forced staff reductions and that work will continue without interruption.

“This announcement reflects our commitment to retain the staff our mission requires while responsibly reducing our facilities costs. Local facility consolidation will help us put more of our funding toward mission delivery and cutting-edge research, rather than brick and mortar we no longer need. This puts us on a sustainable path, retains our employees, and ensures we have the right geographic distribution of labs and duty stations across the agency. And importantly, this produces more than $8.8 million in annual lease savings and more than $8 million in deferred maintenance savings – ensuring American taxpayers receive the maximum value for every dollar entrusted to us,” added Chief Schultz.

Here’s a link to the lists.

My question is, for example, Placerville has an SO, a nursery, and the Institute of Forest Genetics.  The plan (I think) is for a State Office to be there as well. Do we know what groups will be in what buildings yet? Does this table mean that researchers will continue to be located at research facilities and no matter how few employees are there the facilities won’t close, or maybe other people will move in? Maybe there’s another layer to all of this that locals would be interested in.

I’m assuming that we could probably infer from these closures and where other FS facilities are located within the commuting area, where these folks are likely to go. But again, it might be nice for the FS to publish where people are going.

23 Research Buildings Closed Instead of 64- Possible End to “End of Science” Narrative

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I loved the headline..

US Forest Service closing 23 research facilities as part of reorganization under Trump

Dear AP, I think everything the Executive Branch does is “under the current President” so I don’t think you need to say it every time.

What I think is interesting about this is that if you track what Chris French has told us,  that they were looking at the issue, and would probably come down with fewer than the original , it seems like Chris has been telling us the straight scoop.

The U.S. Forest Service is closing 23 research and development stations in more than a dozen states as part of an organizational overhaul under President Donald Trump that is intended to trim costs and concentrate the agency’s resources in Western states, officials said Thursday.

This is always confusing as “stations” were the Research Stations which were an administrative layer.  But these could be more accurately be called “buildings”.

The work being done at the research stations will continue at other sites, Forest Service Associate Chief Chris French said in an interview. An additional 41 research facilities that faced possible closure will remain open after local officials and members of Congress raised concerns about the reorganization, which was announced in March.

“Our primary goal was to get our facilities costs under control,” French told The Associated Press. “We’re not closing any ongoing science activities. We’re not closing any of the experimental forests that are important to our researchers.”

Chris has been consistent on what he says about this, from the transcript of the Q&A session Chris French had with NAFSR.

We do not intend to move researchers out of the locality of where they’re at. We do not intend to close experimental forests. What we do intend to do is consolidate our facilities into something more sustainable. And this is hard.
I think the messaging got really messed up on this. We’re doing our best to try to align that, and that’s on us. But we’re going through and evaluating those facilities. Some of those we’ve looked at and said, no, this makes no sense. You don’t close this. Th example I would give is like up on the Okanagan Wenatchee.
There are other sites we need to be looking at hard. As much as I think everybody loves the Stoneville research site in Mississippi, there’s 14 buildings there and we staff it with four people.
I have to manage our facilities somehow. And unfortunately, R&D has more examples like that than others.
I’ve got a district ranger office that is leased in that Stoneville site right up the road. We’re looking at it right now. Is it better to move that district ranger office to Stoneville and use the facilities there or invest in a better office for essentially the district ranger’s office and move the four people in Stoneville there? That’s what we mean by evaluating.  We have multiple sites where we have multiple facilities, NFS, state and private, and R&D, all within the same locality area, and most of them are underutilized.
And we’re trying to have frank conversations with our partners. We have experimental forests where we have facilities that we don’t staff anybody at, and they are primarily used by universities and others. And we’re saying, you want to take these on?
Because right now they represent tens of millions of dollars of deferred maintenance and other maintenance and utility costs that I can’t afford to pay. That’s the conversation we’re trying to have.
We’re not trying to move scientists. We don’t want to lose the data that they have, but we also have to make sound facilities decisions

Alex Friend, member of the Board at NAFSR and former Deputy Chief for R&D:

I, you know, certainly agree with Stoneville and similar cases, so that’s long overdue, and that’s a great anecdote. I hope the other cases are similar.

Even when I worked in R&D we had facilities maintenance and empty space issues, and some of the same sites cropped up-  and Alex agrees that there are issues.

Chris: Alex, in our working with the department, the initial messaging that went out on this was confusing and bad and it’s created this. Now, the silver lining is I think the outrage mixed with the president’s budget; we suddenly have leaders like the Secretary talking about the importance of science.

It could be that OMB was pushing on one of its bizarre green eyeshades crusades.. and the FS came out with this to create external pushback from legislators to the bad idea of getting rid of R&D. It should be noted that USDA also has NIFA and ARS, and they are apparently not the targets of equivalent OMB hatchet jobs.

As I pointed out at the time, the many times R&D has tried to close buildings, legislators and local officials predictably came out in force.  In this case, the FS made their announcement before they talked to these folks so.. the number was sure to shrink. This strategy is better as the research isn’t being closed out, and the scientists aren’t moving from the local area.  Win-win.  Meanwhile the legislators are now on their toes about FS R&D and (even more) likely to blow off any efforts to defund FS R&D, win win win! It’s actually pretty brilliant if that was the plan.

Bill Avey of the National Associated of Forest Service Retirees, an advocacy group, said the forest service has long struggled to pay for all its facilities and some opportunities for consolidation exist. But Avey, who worked at the service for four decades, said its current leaders including Chief Tom Schultz need to defend the importance of forest research more vocally.

“He should be doing a much better job of pushing back and justifying and explaining some of the research work,” Avey said. He added that the 41 facilities being retained likely would have closed as well if not for pushback from his group and others.

Honestly, as another retiree, and former NAFSR Board Member, I don’t think Bill knows what the Chief and Chris have actually done and said to those who matter in the Admin.  They might have run a complex operation as I described above.  So how does Bill know that the Chief “should have done” more? And what is this with retiree organizations criticizing current Chief’s  imputed actions or lack thereof, rather than policies? Whatever happened to “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar” and “affirm in public, counsel in private?”

The 95 employees at the research stations slated for closure will be shifted to other sites within their commuting areas, Forest Service Communications Director Chad Douglas said. The closures — along with previously announced plans to shut regional offices in Atlanta, Milwaukee and Portland — will save about $16 million, officials said.

 

 

Facilities are Not Researchers Are Not Research Programs

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The R&D reorganization story is, at least for me, less easy to imagine- I wasn’t even following R&D Transformation efforts back in 2007. While I’ve worked in FS R&D in DC, on a project briefly, and in various positions as Research-adjacent, I’ve never worked at a Station. I know among the folks reading, there are many with a great deal more time in all these chairs than I have, so I’m hoping you will share your experience and thoughts.

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Background: FS R&D Shares Facilities Budget with NFS

First of all, I think it’s important to compare FS R&D with other in-house (or intramural) research entities. USGS covers much of the same disciplines and topics, and ARS is in the same department as the FS. Both ARS and USGS have their own budgets. Why is this important? You’ll note that Forest Service Operations and Capital Improvement and Maintenance are shared among NFS, SPTF and R&D. If you want to know more about what goes where, there is this internal link. I know people out there know more about this, and work with it every day. My point is that R&D must share this funding with NFS. Which would tend to make the FS want to decrease facilities costs by combining people from Districts, Forests, other NFS entities, and R&D into the same buildings where possible.

Facilities are not people and not research programs. Some people (and many media reports) seem to think that that closing a facility automatically means that the scientists at a location will be RIFed (or moved to Fort Collins) and the research, therefore, not done. The number I mentioned yesterday, which I think to be accurate, is less than 500 people will need to be relocated out of the commuting area and they received their letters. Even when the Reorganization at USDA came up, I think many conflated buildings (facilities) with people and programs.

When I saw the list, I saw some of the units that have been proposed in the past..maybe 20 or 30 years or so?

Note:Be very careful of AI- I remember, and you all remember, many R&D facilities that were closed in the past. The Macon Fire Lab, the Bend Silviculture Lab, Carbondale (moved to the university), Olustee and so on. I couldn’t get a complete list from AI and had to prompt it with each name I remembered (I used Google AI) it would be interesting to see what others come up with. I asked “What Forest Service research facilities were closed between 1980 and 2024?” and at first it told me about today’s proposed closures and basically told me my question was irrelevant. It seemed to get huffy after I asked about Macon, Bend, etc.

In some cases, scientists move from FS owned facilities because universities offer better laboratories or a more intellectually or family- desirable location. But it can also work the other way, the FS shuts down a facility and the scientists move to a nearby campus. So programs (lines of research), people, and facilities are three different things. Scientists and other scientific staff are the producers of work, not facilities.

One example, when I spent time at the Bend Silviculture Lab, the Area Ecologist (for four Forests) and his staff were all located there as well as research scientists. The interaction was terrific, and one-stop shopping for many of us. So the closure was definitely sad for those of us working in Central Oregon. Many of us fought it in one way or another. Nevertheless, work at Pringle Falls Experimental Forest appears to be ongoing. Which reminds me of…

Experimental Forests and Ranges

The existence of experimental forests and ranges IMHO is one of the strengths of the Forest Service. The H.J. Andrews for example, is funded by NSF because it is also an LTER (which has mega-science-bucks). It’s also funded by Oregon State University, charitable support and other sources.

Some of these have buildings for researchers to stay; not sure that these facilities are on the block.

Role of Congressional Delegations

In the past, Congressional delegations have pushed back against any facility closures (NFS or R&D). Sometimes that leaves the FS between the proverbial rock and hard place, Congress won’t fund enough to keep them open, but won’t let the FS shut them either. Wending their way through these challenges is a difficult task. I don’t know if this list is pre-Congress or post-discussions with Congress, or an opening gambit in what could be years of discussions.

Structure of Other In-House R&D

ARS has regions…

And so does USGS (unified across DOI apparently, what a concept!)

If I showed you a study, you probably couldn’t guess whether it was the FS or USGS who produced it.. unless it was more minerals, energy and geology (USGS) or timber and wood, tree physiology, genetics, insects and disease. (FS). Birds, animals, watersheds, fish, fire, plants, ecology could be either and likely both.

If I were in charge of creating a better whole USG research portfolio, I’d work to ensure that there are no gaps or overlaps (including NSF, DOE, NIFA (and probably NIH when it comes to wildfire smoke) in addressing questions important to Interior and USDA agencies, States, Tribes, and other landowners. But that’s just me.

What Do Stations Do, and How Would State Offices Be Involved?

Most of us can probably imagine (especially if we followed the Transformation effort) what it would look like to have no regions, but service teams for much of the technical support work instead. For me at least, it’s much harder to think of what work currently at Stations would go to national service teams. Some are easier to think of than others, say communications and statistical services.

Part of what the Stations do is foster relationships with other research entities, management folks, the public, Congressionals and so on. Some forms of accountability are also done at the Station level.

Accountability in R&D has taken different forms even in my time.. at one time we had WO reviews of Stations with recommendations, but then (I think it was the Deputy Chief) decided that “suggestions” was strong enough. Then there was the period when folks were supposed to write up the real-world results of applying their research- that seemed to be a useful exercise, although some Stations tried harder than others. I don’t know what current accountability efforts include.

Sometimes it was hard to work collaboratively as R&D (I remember a Communications Team..) because different Station Directors were trying to maximize their own budgets and helpful relationships. At one time, the WO staff (in my case, Timber Management Research) held budget strings and did reviews, but that changed so that some units saw (some of the WO folks) as irrelevant without the budget responsibility. The point of all this history is that if you look at this effort at reorganization with a wider time lens, parts seem familiar (facility issues) and other parts are truly novel (no Stations).

What Do Scientists Actually Need?

If you take a look at your favorite scientist and look at their publications, many of them involve measuring studies in the field and various kinds of computer modeling and statistics. Some need laboratories for their work. Depending on the nature and costs of the equipment, does it make sense for the FS to buy it themselves (and deal with hazardous waste, etc.) or work with university or other partners? The answer is… it depends. I won’t be second-guessing anyone’s choices,

How Did the Team or Teams Look at the Organization and Why Did They Choose This Approach?

We don’t know if the teams working on this did benchmarking with the other research agencies, or what exactly they looked at and what they came up with. I’m hoping to find out via FOIA.

More Invisible People

We tend to use a shorthand of “scientists” as producers of research and there are many folks out there who do not have the “scientist” title but without whose work scientists wouldn’t be able to conduct their research. So let’s give a shout-out to the often unsung and underappreciated whatever their title and grade!

Other topics, stories, ideas, concerns?

Undermining science to undermine renewable energy

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We’ve talked a little about energy transmission, especially in conjunction with renewable energy production, and the need to improve the electrical grid.  One thought seems to be that conservation interests are a barrier to that.  It turns out that the coal industry may be an even bigger barrier.  At least, here’s an example from the Trump Administration.

The Seams study demonstrated that stronger connections between the U.S. power system’s massive eastern and western power grids would accelerate the growth of wind and solar energy—hugely reducing American reliance on coal, the fuel contributing the most to climate change, and saving consumers billions.

But a study like Seams was politically dangerous territory for a federally funded lab while coal-industry advocates—and climate-change deniers—reign in the White House.

According to interviews with five current and former DOE and NREL sources, supported by more than 900 pages of documents and emails obtained by InvestigateWest through Freedom of Information Act requests and by additional documentation from industry sources, Trump officials would ultimately block Seams from seeing the light of day. And in doing so, they would set back America’s efforts to slow climate change.

The fallout was swift: The lab grounded Bloom and Novacheck (the lead researchers), prohibiting them from presenting the Seams results or even discussing the study outside NREL.  And the $1.6 million study itself disappeared. NREL yanked the completed findings from its website and deleted power-flow visualizations from its YouTube channel.

If NREL researchers are able to work unencumbered by political concerns and release Seams in its entirety, it could help point the U.S. toward a greener future, in which a robust economy runs on renewable energy. But for now, Seams is demonstrating an unintended finding—that when administrations stick their hands into scientific research, politically inconvenient truths are in peril.

The author indicated later that Congress had demanded that the study be released (and here it is).

This story is another example of political interference in science production and distribution.  I remain a strong skeptic that the pro-environment side can match this kind of interference by the coal lobby and “climate-change deniers” (as some have suggested here, including self-proclaimed climate-change “skeptics”).  It also seems obvious that this direct intervention is a lot more influential than any bias that exists in research funding.

And Then There Is This – Globally Wildfires Decreasing Since 2001

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Italics and bolding added by Gil

#1)  WSJ ByBjorn Lomborg,

Climate Change Hasn’t Set the World on Fire

a) It turns out the percentage of the globe that burns each year has been declining since 2001.

b) For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward.

c) In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a new record-low of 2.2% burned area. Yet you’ll struggle to find that reported anywhere.
d) Yet the latest report by the United Nations’ climate panel doesn’t attribute the area burned globally by wildfires to climate change. Instead, it vaguely suggests the weather conditions that promote wildfires are becoming more common in some places. Still, the report finds that the change in these weather conditions won’t be detectable above the natural noise even by the end of the century.
e)Take the Canadian wildfires this summer. While the complete data aren’t in for 2023, global tracking up to July 29 by the Global Wildfire Information System shows that more land has burned in the Americas than usual. But much of the rest of the world has seen lower burning—Africa and especially Europe. Globally, the GWIS shows that burned area is slightly below the average between 2012 and 2022, a period that already saw some of the lowest rates of burned area.
f) The thick smoke from the Canadian fires that blanketed New York City and elsewhere was serious but only part of the story. Across the world, fewer acres burning each year has led to overall lower levels of smoke, which today likely prevents almost 100,000 infant deaths annually, according to a recent study by researchers at Stanford and Stockholm University.
g)  Likewise, while Australia’s wildfires in 2019-20 earned media headlines such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Australia Burns,” the satellite data shows this was a selective narrative. The burning was extraordinary in two states but extraordinarily small in the rest of the country. Since the early 2000s, when 8% of Australia caught fire, the area of the country torched each year has declined. The 2019-20 fires scorched 4% of Australian land, and this year the burned area will likely be even less.
h) In the case of American fires, most of the problem is bad land management. A century of fire suppression has left more fuel for stronger fires. Even so, last year U.S. fires burned less than one-fifth of the average burn in the 1930s and likely only one-tenth of what caught fire in the early 20th century.

 

#2)  The Canadian Take by LIFESITE News,Thu Aug 31, 2023

New research shows wildfires have decreased globally while media coverage has spiked 400%

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 Framework for Federal Scientific Integrity Policy and Practice

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The 2021 Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking charges the Office of Science and Technology Policy to (1) review agency scientific integrity policy effectiveness and (2) to develop a framework for regular assessment and iterative improvement of agency scientific integrity policies and practices (Framework). In January, the Biden Administration released the Framework. It includes a “first-ever Government-wide definition of scientific integrity,” a roadmap of activities and outcomes to achieve an ideal state of scientific integrity, a Model Scientific Integrity Policy, as well as critical policy features and metrics that OSTP will use to iteratively assess agency progress.  Here is that definition:

Scientific integrity is the adherence to professional practices, ethical behavior, and the principles of honesty and objectivity when conducting, managing, using the results of, and communicating about science and scientific activities. Inclusivity, transparency, and protection from inappropriate influence are hallmarks of scientific integrity.

The 2021 Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking also charges OSTP and NSTC to “review agency scientific integrity policies and consider whether they prevent political interference in the conduct, management, communication, and use of science …”  The “Model Scientific Integrity Policy for United States Federal Agencies” says this:

It is the policy of this agency to: 1. Prohibit political interference or inappropriate influence in the funding, design, proposal, conduct, review, management, evaluation, or reporting of scientific activities and the use of scientific information.

Ensure that agency scientists may communicate their scientific activities objectively without political interference or inappropriate influence, while at the same time complying with agency policies and procedures for planning and conducting scientific activities, reporting scientific findings, and reviewing and releasing scientific products. Scientific products (e.g., manuscripts for scientific journals, presentations for workshops, conferences, and symposia) shall adhere to agency review procedures.

It defines these terms:

Political interference refers to interference conducted by political officials and/or motivated by political considerations.

Inappropriate influence refers to the attempt to shape or interfere in scientific activities or the communication about or use of scientific activities or findings against well-accepted scientific methods and theories or without scientific justification.

I found it rather interesting, given the way the these terms are used, that the 2021 Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking actually says this:

Improper political interference in the work of Federal scientists or other scientists who support the work of the Federal Government and in the communication of scientific facts undermines the welfare of the Nation, contributes to systemic inequities and injustices, and violates the trust that the public places in government to best serve its collective interests.

Executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall establish and enforce scientific-integrity policies that ban improper political interference in the conduct of scientific research and in the collection of scientific or technological data, and that prevent the suppression or distortion of scientific or technological findings, data, information, conclusions, or technical results.

Deliberate or careless?  Could there be “proper” political interference, especially given the distinction made about “inappropriate” influence (which is defined in terms of “interference”)?

Any way, it’s good to know someone is working on this aspect of scientific integrity.  And it seems to be helping – compare these results of the Union of Concerned Scientists 2023 surveys of scientists at federal agencies with those from 2018.  (Unfortunately, while the 2023 survey includes USDA, it did not include the Forest Service.)

“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.

USDA Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities Grants Announced Today- Here Are the Forest Related Ones

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A while back, many of us participated in the Climate Smart Ag and Forestry comment period.  Based on the responses, the USDA is funding some pilot programs. I started with the western forest ones then moved to eastern, there might also be a western ranching one in there. Here’s the link if you want to check out the others.

Building the Climate-Smart Wood Economy

This project brings together Tribal, small family forest, and nonprofit wood producers with data scientists and the design and construction industry to manage and restore tens of thousands of acres in Oregon. The project will quantify the positive impacts of climate-smart management on carbon sequestration, wildfire intensity, and cultural values, and will also build resources for project teams to navigate climate-smart markets for wood procurement through pre-design, design, and construction phases and support sale.

Lead Partner: Sustainable Northwest
Other Major Partners: Sustainable Northwest, EcoTrust, Northwest Natural Resources Group, Trout Mountain Forestry, Vibrant Planet, Intertribal Timber Council, Coquille Indian Tribe, Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, Kalispel Tribe of Indians, Yakama Nation, Puyallup Tribe, Nisqually Tribe
Primary States Expected: OR, WA, Tribal
Major Commodities: Forest Products

Approximate Funding Ceiling: $25,000,000

 

Forest to Home

This project seeks to convert industrial timber and traditional forest product manufacturing to a BIPOC-owned supply chain for residential/commercial construction. The project will educate early adopters in forestry, tribes, black, and rural communities on benefits of climate-smart forest practices to maximize carbon sequestration. Timber harvested will be used to build housing units for underserved communities.

Lead Partner: Forterra NW
Other Major Partners: Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, Yakama Nation, Abu Bakr Islamic Center, RJ Group, Aspect Structural Engineers, Gordian Knot Strategies, Sustainable Northwest, Zaugg and Whitehorse Timber, Snohomish County, Town of Darrington, Port of Portland, Roslyn Downtown Assoc, Town of Hamilton, City of Tacoma, X-Caliber Rural Capital
Primary States Expected: WA
Major Commodities: Timber, Forest Products

Approximate Funding Ceiling: $20,000,000

 

TRACT Program: Traceable Reforestation for America’s Carbon and Timber

This project builds climate-smart markets for timber and forest products and addresses the need to expand and recover the nation’s forest estate to balance the demand for wood products with the increasing need for forests to serve as carbon reservoirs. The project will deploy funding, planning, and implementation of reforestation and afforestation activities in lands deforested by wildfire in the Western U.S. and degraded agricultural lands in the Southern U.S. Every acre planted and the volume of forest products generated will have a quantified and verified climate benefit in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e).

Lead Partner: Oregon Climate Trust
Other Major Partners: Arbor Day Carbon, Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, Nez Perce Tribe, TerraCarbon
Primary States Expected: AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, ID, LA, MS, MT, NC, NM, OK, OR, SC, TN, TX, WA, WY, Tribal
Major Commodities: Timber, Forest Products

Approximate Funding Ceiling: $15,000,000

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Building a Regenerative Ranching Economy in the West

This project will expand climate-smart markets for beef and implement climate-smart grazing practices in beef production for 120 operations across 13 states, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing market returns for participants.

Lead Partner: Sustainable Northwest
Other Major Partners: Country Natural Beef, Beef Northwest, Northway Ranch Services, Syracuse University, Quantis International, Stockpot Collective, Washington State University, Colorado State University, RaboResearch & Food Agribusiness-North America
Primary States Expected: AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, TX, UT, WA, WY
Major Commodities: Beef, Corn, Wheat, Alfalfa

Approximate Funding Ceiling: $10,000,000

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Expanding Agroforestry Production and Markets

This project will build climate-smart markets and increase capital investments in tree planting that will increase the supply of agroforestry commodities utilizing a network of leaders in forestry. This will work directly with manufacturers and retailers to connect potential buyers with producers (including underserved producers).

Lead Partner: The Nature Conservancy
Other Major Partners: Propagate, Savanna Institute, Tuskegee University, University of MO Center for Agroforestry, VA Tech, Hawai’i ‘Ulu Cooperative, Appalachian Sustainable Development, Canopy Farm Management, Cargill, Handsome Brook Farm, NY Tree Crop Alliance, Practical Farmers of IA, Resource Environmental Solutions, Sustainable Farming Association, Trees Forever, Trees for Graziers, University of Illinois, Association For Temperate Agroforestry, Osage Nation, Agroforestry Partners, Live Oak Bank, Walnut Level Capital, Yard Stick, Propagate, Working Trees, University of Hawaii, Cargill, Danone, Applegate, Epic Institute, General Mills, Current Cassis, Hawaii Ulu Cooperative, Simple Mills, Hawaii Foodservice Alliance, 1890 Consortium, AgLaunch Early Adopter Network, Lincoln University, and Tuskegee University
Primary States Expected: AL, AR, CT, DE, GA, HI, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MS, MO, NE, NH, NJ, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WV, WI
Major Commodities: Nuts, Berries, Beef, Fruit Trees, Forest Products

Approximate Funding Ceiling: $60,000,000

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NYS Connects: Climate-Smart Farms and Forests

Utilizing behavioral systems approach to break through social norms/barriers, this project will build on strong existing partnerships in the conservation and agricultural communities in NY state to expand climate-smart markets. This project will fund ag producers/forest landowners to implement multiple climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices, utilize modern tools to quantify results of climate-smart agriculture, and build connections between landowners and companies with a demand for climate-smart commodities.

Lead Partner: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Other Major Partners: NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, Dept. of Agriculture and Markets, Energy Research & Development Authority & Soil and Water Conservation Committee, Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse University, County Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Evidn, Michigan State University, Mercy Works, Cervantes Farm, Cornell Small Farms Equitable Farm Futures Initiative & Veterans FarmOps program, Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest NY urban ag team, International Refugee Committee NY, Rosario Brothers Farm, Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanic Garden, Mercy Works, Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, West Haven Farms
Primary States Expected: NY
Major Commodities: Dairy, Forest Products

Approximate Funding Ceiling: $60,000,000

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Engaging Family Forests to Improve Climate-Smart Commodities (EFFICACI)

This project will address the relationship between family forest owners, the forest products industry, and broader climate goals across the eastern US. The goal is to build a region-wide climate-smart commodity (CSC) forest program that leverages the field-tested Family Forest Carbon Program, an engaged and trusted landowner network, and advanced digital forestry tools to engage traditional and underserved partners and advance the production and marketing of CSC forest products.

Lead Partner: American Forest Foundation
Other Major Partners: The Nature Conservancy, Purdue University, Center for Heirs Property Preservation, Women Owning Woodlands
Primary States Expected: AL, GA, IN, KY, MD, NY, NC, OH, PA, SC, TN, VA, WV
Major Commodities: Timber, Forest Products

Approximate Funding Ceiling: $35,000,000

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New England Climate-Smart Forest Partnership Project

This project will implement forest management practices with large commercial producers and smaller woodlot owners to store more carbon in the forest, quantify the resulting carbon gains, and build markets for climate-smart forest products to store carbon in wood products and substitute wood products for fossil fuel-based materials.

Lead Partner: New England Forestry Foundation
Other Major Partners: Seven Islands, Weyerhauser, Wagner Woodlands, Baskahegan, Robbins Lumber, Pasamoquoddy Forestry Dept, UMaine, Nature Conservancy, Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership, Mass Tree Farm Program, Hull Forestlands, Heyes Family Forests, trust to Conserve Northeast forestlands, American Forest Foundation, Spatial informatic group, Innov. Natural Res. Solutions, Spritios Properties, Leers Weinzapfel Assoc, Quantified Ventures, Woodworks, Forest Stewards Guild, Mas Audobon, Our climate common, Highstead Foundation, Mass Forest Alliance, CT Forest & Park Assoc, Appalach. Mtn Club. Mass Woodlands Institute
Primary States Expected: ME, MA, NH, VT, CT, RI
Major Commodities: Timber, Forest Products

Approximate Funding Ceiling: $30,000,000

Science is clear: Catastrophic wildfire requires forest management

by

“Science is clear: Catastrophic wildfire requires forest management” was written by Steve Ellis, Chair of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees (NAFSR), who is a former U.S. Forest Service Forest Supervisor and retired Bureau of Land Management Deputy Director for Operations—the senior career position in that agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

I have extracted a few snippets (Emphasis added) from the above article published by the NAFSR:

1) Last year was a historically destructive wildfire season. While we haven’t yet seen the end of 2021, nationally 64 large fires have burned over 3 million acres. The economic damage caused by wildfire in 2020 is estimated at $150 billion. The loss of communities, loss of life, impacts on health, and untold environmental damage to our watersheds—not to mention the pumping of climate-changing carbon into the atmosphere—are devastating. This continuing disaster needs to be addressed like the catastrophe it is.

2) We are the National Association of Forest Service Retirees (NAFSR), an organization of dedicated natural resource professionals—field practitioners, firefighters, and scientists—with thousands of years of on the ground experience. Our membership lives in every state of the nation. We are dedicated to sustaining healthy National Forests and National Grasslands, the lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service, to provide clean water, quality outdoor recreation, wildlife and fish habitat, and carbon sequestration, and to be more resilient to catastrophic wildfire as our climate changes.

3) As some of us here on the Smokey Wire have been explaining for years, the NAFSR very clearly and succinctly states:
“Small treatment areas, scattered “random acts of restoration” across the landscape, are not large enough to make a meaningful difference. Decades of field observations and peer reviewed research both document the effectiveness of strategic landscape fuel treatments and support the pressing need to do more. The cost of necessary treatments is a fraction of the wildfire damage such treatments can prevent. Today’s wildfires in overstocked forests burn so hot and on such vast acreages that reforestation becomes difficult or next to impossible in some areas. Soil damage and erosion become extreme. Watersheds which supply vital domestic, industrial, and agricultural water are damaged or destroyed.”

4) This summer, America watched with great apprehension as the Caldor Fire approached South Lake Tahoe. In a community briefing, wildfire incident commander Rocky Oplinger described how active management of forestlands assisted firefighters. “When the fire spotted above Meyers, it reached a fuels treatment that helped reduce flame lengths from 150 feet to 15 feet, enabling firefighters to mount a direct attack and protect homes,” The Los Angeles Times quoted him.

5) And in a Sacramento Bee interview in which fire researcher Scott Stephens was asked how much consensus there is among fire scientists that fuels treatments do help, he answered “I’d say at least 99%. I’ll be honest with you, it’s that strong; it’s that strong. There’s at least 99% certainty that treated areas do moderate fire behavior. You will always have the ignition potential, but the fires will be much easier to manage.” I (Steve Ellis) don’t know if it’s 99% or not, but a wildfire commander with decades of experience recently told me this figure would be at least 90%. What is important here is that there is broad agreement among professionals that properly treated landscapes do moderate fire behavior.

6) During my career (Steve Ellis), I have personally witnessed fire dropping from tree crowns to the ground when it hit a thinned forest. So have many NAFSR members. This is an issue where scientist and practitioners agree. More strategic landscape treatments are necessary to help avoid increasingly disastrous wildfires. So, the next time you read or hear someone say that thinning and prescribed fire in the forest does not work, remember that nothing can be further from the truth.