Role of science

Examining Historical and Current Mixed-Severity Fire Regimes in Ponderosa Pine and Mixed-Conifer Forests of Western North America

by

The other day I got the following note and link to some new relevant research from Douglas Bevington, author of The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism and the New Conservation Movement, 1989-2004.  Bevington’s note is shared below with his permission, along with a link to the new study and article. . – mk

——————

I wanted to let you know about an important new study that was just published by the high-profile science journal PLOS ONE. The article, titled “Examining Historical and Current Mixed-Severity Fire Regimes in Ponderosa Pine and Mixed-Conifer Forests of Western North America,” was co-authored by 11 scientists from various regions of the western US and Canada.

Their study found that there is extensive evidence from multiple data sources that big, intense forest fires were a natural part of ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer ecosystems prior to modern fire suppression. These findings refute the claims frequently made by logging and biomass advocates that modern mixed-severity forest fires (erroneously called “catastrophic” fires) are an unnatural aberration that should be prevented through more logging (“thinning”) and that more biomass facilities should be built to take the resulting material from the forest.

In contrast to these claims, logging done ostensibly to reduce fire severity now appears to be not only unnecessary, but also potentially detrimental when it is based on erroneous notions about historic forest conditions and fire regimes. These findings have big implications for biomass and forest policy, so I encourage you to take a look at this article.

The full article in PLOS ONE is available here.

Here are a few key points from the abstract and conclusion:

Abstract, p. 1

“There is widespread concern that fire exclusion has led to an unprecedented threat of uncharacteristically severe fires in ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests of western North America. These extensive montane forests are considered to be adapted to a low/moderate-severity fire regime that maintained stands of relatively old trees. However, there is increasing recognition from landscape-scale assessments that, prior to any significant effects of fire exclusion, fires and forest structure were more variable in these forests….We compiled landscape-scale evidence of historical fire severity patterns in the ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests from published literature sources and stand ages available from the Forest Inventory and Analysis program in the USA. The consensus from this evidence is that the traditional reference conditions of low-severity fire regimes are inaccurate for most forests of western North America….Our findings suggest that ecological management goals that incorporate successional diversity created by fire may support characteristic biodiversity, whereas current attempts to ‘‘restore’’ forests to open, low-severity fire conditions may not align with historical reference conditions in most ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests of western North America.”

Conclusion: p. 12

“Our findings suggest a need to recognize mixed-severity fire regimes as the predominant fire regime for most of the ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests of western North America….For management, perhaps the most profound implication of this study is that the need for forest ‘‘restoration’’ designed to reduce variation in fire behavior may be much less extensive than implied by many current forest management plans or promoted by recent legislation. Incorporating mixed-severity fire into management goals, and adapting human communities to fire by focusing fire risk reduction activities adjacent to homes, may help maintain characteristic biodiversity, expand opportunities to manage fire for ecological benefits, reduce management costs, and protect human communities.”

Research survey does not support logging as beetle outbreak remedy

by

sixOne of the nation’s leading mountain pine beetle experts is Dr. Diana Six, professor of Forest Entomology/Pathology at the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation.  As the Bozeman Chronicle reported yesterday, “On Friday, in the online journal Forests, University of Montana pine-beetle biologist Diana Six and two University of California-Berkeley policy experts published a review of the scientific evidence to date on whether forest manipulation is effective at preventing pine-beetle outbreaks. The answer is generally ‘No.’”

You can download the full PDF of the study here.  Meanwhile, the full abstract follows below:

ABSTRACT:  While the use of timber harvests is generally accepted as an effective approach to controlling bark beetles during outbreaks, in reality there has been a dearth of monitoring to assess outcomes, and failures are often not reported.  Additionally, few studies have focused on how these treatments affect forest structure and function over the long term, or our forests’ ability to adapt to climate change.  Despite this, there is a widespread belief in the policy arena that timber harvesting is an effective and necessary tool to address beetle infestations.  That belief has led to numerous proposals for, and enactment of, significant changes in federal environmental laws to encourage more timber harvests for beetle control. In this review, we use mountain pine beetle as an exemplar to critically evaluate the state of science behind the use of timber harvest treatments for bark beetle suppression during outbreaks. It is our hope that this review will stimulate research to fill important gaps and to help guide the development of policy and management firmly based in science, and thus, more likely to aid in forest conservation, reduce financial waste, and bolster public trust in public agency decision-making and practice.

Here’s a large chunk of Laura Lundquist’s article, “Research survey does not support logging as beetle outbreak remedy” from yesterday’s Bozeman Chronicle:

Logging trees in a forest can serve certain purposes, but preventing pine-beetle damage doesn’t seem to be one of them, and policy makers should stop making such claims, according to a University of Montana researcher…..Yet politicians and agency policy makers increasingly push logging projects with the claim that they will help stop the spread of pine beetles.

During the past decade, a handful of bills were introduced each year that promise bark beetle control. That number rocketed to 13 in 2013 and included bills such as Rep. Doc Hastings’, R-Wash., Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service has a number of projects intended to ward off beetle attacks such as one in the Bass Creek area of the Bitterroot National Forest.

“We wrote this paper because we’re seeing less of an interest for policy makers to include science in policy. We don’t really have the time to write things like this but someone has to do it,” Six said. “There’s this big push to do ‘something’ and people take for granted that there’s science behind these claims. Often there is not.”

Six poured through the scientific literature for any and all studies dealing with the control of pine beetles, from direct controls, such as traps, insecticides or wholesale salvage that gets rid of infected trees, to indirect controls, such as thinning, that seek to improve the health of remaining trees to improve their odds of holding off beetle attacks.

Six points out that the problem with both types of controls is they don’t address the underlying conditions of a beetle outbreak, which is tree stress due to drought and ultimately, climate change.

“People tend to think that it’s the forest’s fault, because the trees are too thick,” Six said. “In an outbreak situation, the trees are doing worse while the beetles are doing better because of the underlying conditions.”

Direct controls are expensive and deal only with a particular section of forest, so their effect appears to be limited.

It’s actually hard to nail down the effect of various controls, Six wrote, because there has been little monitoring of forests after controls were used, in spite of the fact that the U.S. and Canadian governments have spent millions to counter recent beetle outbreaks.

In one the few large studies conducted that compared treated areas to untreated areas in Canada, results seem to show that traps and tree removal limited infestation only when beetle populations were small.

When beetle populations increase, such as during an outbreak, no treatment made any difference.

Studies showed that direct efforts to keep beetle populations down must be extensive, long-term and work only at the beginning of infestation.

Six wrote that the mechanism of thinning is not well understood as far as how it improves tree health. Many studies that record success were done right after thinning occurred and could have more to do with changes in local climate than tree health.

Six said that thinning operations that don’t diminish beetle kills are often not reported, leaving a gap in the information that could further inform scientists.

No long-term studies have looked at the effect of thinning during outbreaks.

Six noted that researchers struggle to accurately assess beetle density, which is not surprising when dealing with a flying insect the size of a grain of rice. So often, efforts to keep beetle populations low may already be too late because the population is larger than what people assumed.

During winter cold snaps, many hope that the temperatures dip low enough to kill the beetles hunkered down under the pine bark. Scientists know that temperatures need to go below minus 30 degrees and stay that low for several days to do the trick.

Six said even extended cold is no guarantee.

“Even when there’s a cold snap, there will always be some that survive. That’s what happened in the Big Hole a few years ago. Ninety percent were killed, but now they’re back,” Six said.

The paper concludes that weakening environmental laws to combat beetle outbreaks is unjustified given the high financial cost of continual treatment, the negative impacts such treatment can have on other values of the forest, and the possibility that trying to control beetles now could hurt forests as they try to survive climate change in the future.

Democratic Sen. Jon Tester’s spokeswoman, Andrea Helling, said Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act evolved out of concern over beetle outbreaks but does not argue that the mandated logging would control beetle populations.

“That said, dead trees in the urban interface are a significant fire hazard to forested communities and harvesting some of the dead trees would reduce some of the risk,” Helling wrote in an email.

———————–

NOTE: Here’s the opening paragraph of Sen Tester’s website devoted to his mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act:

“Montana’s forest communities face a crisis. Our local sawmills are on the brink and families are out of work while our forests turn red from an unprecedented outbreak of pine beetles, waiting for the next big wildfire. It’s a crisis that demands action now.  That’s why I wrote the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.”

It’s also worth pointing out that during the first two Senate Committee hearings on the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, Senator Tester opened the hearing sitting right next to huge blown up pictures showing bark beetle outbreaks. But, hey, Sen Tester “does not argue that the mandated logging would control beetle populations” right?

“Wild Buck” Timber Sale Undercuts Forest Restoration

by
Screen shot 2014-02-03 at 7.52.58 AM
By Jay Lininger
http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/articles/20140202old-growth-logging-undercuts-forest-restoration.html

The old “yellow-belly” ponderosa pines anchoring the majestic forests of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim grew up long before European settlement. Precious few remain.

More than 1,000 of them will be lost forever in the “Wild Buck” timber sale later this year, undercutting U.S. Forest Service claims that it is restoring this fire-adapted forest ecosystem.

Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that 38 percent of timber volume in the Wild Buck sale will come from logging 1,174 trees larger than 24-inches diameter. Field surveys by the Center for Biological Diversity revealed that many of those giant trees stood tall when the United States declared independence well over 200 years ago.

Old-growth pines are rare as a result of past logging. Their towering canopies and thick bark make them naturally fire resistant.

Hundreds of thousands of smaller trees that would have burned off as saplings during natural fire events have encroached on the forest during a century of fire suppression. Small trees now blanket Arizona’s forests like kindling.

Wild Buck is part of a larger project spanning 20,000 acres on the north rim with a stated purpose to reduce fire hazard and restore historic forest conditions.

The Forest Service assured the public last year that “little more than 1 percent” of trees to be removed from the North Rim are larger than 16 inches diameter.

However, nearly 30 percent of trees to be cut in the Wild Buck sale — 78 percent of total volume — are larger than 16 inches diameter. In other words, the Forest Service’s first move out of the gate in a “forest restoration” project is to sell thousands of large and old trees for commercial purposes rather than meeting its own mandate to clear small trees for fire safety.

Ponderosa pine forests need small-tree thinning to safely reintroduce natural low-intensity fires without causing undue harm to wildlife and the amenities that people cherish.

Recognizing this, the Center for Biological Diversity collaborated with partners of all political stripes to develop an old-growth protection and large-tree-retention strategy for the historic Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) that will expedite thinning across millions of acres.

Unfortunately the Forest Service dismissed the collaborative 4FRI strategy and routinely rejects good-faith restoration proposals from the public, opting instead to log big, old trees, as evidenced by the Wild Buck timber sale.

Wild Buck is separate from the 4FRI, but it is on the same national forest (Kaibab) dressed with the same restoration purpose. It demonstrates the Forest Service’s willingness to exploit a lack of accountability and mine large, fire-resistant trees from the landscape.

At a time when the Forest Service claims to be working with stakeholders to do the right thing, the Wild Buck timber sale is a vivid example of what’s wrong with the agency. Its addiction to logging big, old trees and its refusal to collaborate in management of public forests demonstrate a need for better leadership and reform.

Reform should start with permanent protection of the irreplaceable old-growth pillars of our region’s unique natural history.

Jay Lininger is a senior scientist with the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. Read him via email at [email protected].

Saving Wild Salmon: A 165 Year Policy Conundrum: Bob Lackey

by

Massive Adams River Sockeye Salmon Migration

Here’s a paper that in which Bob Lackey talks about salmon policy 165 Year Salmon Policy Conundrum – R T Lackey, which Bob asked me to review before it was published (full disclosure).

Scientists tend to depict the policy debate as a scientific or ecological challenge and the “solutions” they offer are usually focused on aspects of salmon ecology (Naiman et al 2012). There is an extensive scientific literature about salmon (Quinn 2005, Lackey et al 2006a), but the reality is that the future of wild salmon largely will be determined by factors outside the scope of science (Montgomery 2003, Lackey et al 2006b). More specifically, to effect a long-term reversal of the downward trajectory of wild salmon, a broad suite of related public policy issues must be considered:

 Hydroelectric energy — how costly and reliable does society want energy to be given that wild salmon ultimately will be affected by providing the relatively cheap, carbon-free, and reliable energy produced by hydropower?

 Land use — where will people be able to live, how much living space will they be permitted, what activities will they be able to do on their own land, and what personal choices will they have in deciding how land is used?

 Property rights — will the acceptable use of private land be altered and who or what institutions will decide what constitutes acceptable use?

 Food cost and choice — will food continue to be subsidized by taxpayers (e.g., publicly funded irrigation, crop subsidies) or will the price of food be solely determined by a free market?

 Economic opportunities — how will high-paying jobs be created and sustained for this and subsequent generations?

 Individual freedoms — which, if any, personal rights or behavioral choices will be compromised or sacrificed if society is genuinely committed to restoring wild salmon?

 Evolving priorities — is society willing to substitute hatchery-produced salmon for wild salmon and, if so, will the ESA permit this?

 Political realities — will society support modifying the ESA such that salmon recovery expenditures can be shifted to those watersheds offering the best chance of success?

 Cultural legacies — which individuals and groups, if any, will be granted the right to fish and who or what institutions will decide?

 Indian treaties — will treaties between the United States and various tribes, negotiated over 150+ years ago, be modified to reflect today’s dramatically different biological, economic, and demographic realities?

 Population policy — what, if anything, will society do to influence or control the level of the human population in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho or indeed the U.S. as a whole?

 Ecological realties — given likely future conditions (i.e., an apparently warming climate), what wild salmon recovery goals are biologically realistic?

 Budgetary realities — will the fact that the annual cost of sustaining both hatchery and wild salmon runs in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho exceeds the overall market value of the harvest eventually mean that such a level of budgetary expenditure will become less politically viable?

These are a few of the key policy questions that are germane to the public debate over wild salmon policy. Scientific information, while at some level relevant and necessary, is clearly not at the crux of the wild salmon policy debate. Scientists can provide useful technical insight and ecological reality checks to help the public and decision makers answer these policy questions, but science

There are three interesting subtopics to me in this paper.

First, he tackles how ESA is not working for salmon in his view.. worth looking at.

Second, he describes the dynamics that keep scientists working and funded yet not producing information that leads to the desired outcome.. because..

(Third,) the desired outcome is very very hard or impossible to achieve politically when it goes toward a kind of a political “undiscussable” (I first heard this term used by folks from Dialogos, but they probably did not coin it); population growth. Now those of us old enough to be retired may remember when population stabilizing and reduction was an important part of the environmental NGO agenda. Perhaps Andy’s post about the Old Times started me thinking about this aspect of the environmental movement of the past.

I think we’ve discussed enough topics on this blog so that we can even tackle this one without name-calling.

Here’s a a quote from the Dalai Lama:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 14th leader of Tibetan Buddhists.

One of the great challenges today is the population explosion. Unless we area able to tackle this issue effectively we will be confronted with the problem of the natural resources being inadequate for all the human beings on this earth.

So now the question is…the population of the human being…So the only choice…limited number…happy life…meaningful life. Too many population…miserable life and always
bullying one another, exploiting one another…there’s no use.

Note that he talks about natural resources being inadequate.

Well, back to Bob Lackey. Actually, he hits on three pretty- much undiscussables (not that you can’t discuss them, but in many fora you will be called names if you do); problems with ESA, how science really works, and population. I think it’s worth bringing these to the attention of folks on the blog; one of the things I hope to do is share views of people who aren’t heard from through the standard media or academic channels. Possibly because their worldview does not fit their paradigms or structures.

Tongass Timber Sale Update: How an endemic species can halt a timber sale

by

Earlier in September, a press release from the Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community (GSACC) was shared with this blog. It opened with:

On August 16, GSACC and four other organizations filed an administrative appeal of the Tongass Forest Supervisor’s decision to proceed with the Big Thorne timber project. The appeal went to to the next highest level in the agency, Regional Forester Beth Pendleton. The appeal is known as Cascadia Wildlands et al. (2013), and other co-appellants are Greenpeace, Center for Biological Diversity and Tongass Conservation Society.

The project would log 148 million board feet of timber [enough to fill 29,600 log trucks], including over 6,000 acres of old-growth forest from heavily hammered Prince of Wales Island. 46 miles of new logging roads would be built and another 36 miles would be reconstructed.

Today, we get an update on the Big Thorne timber sale on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska in the form of this article, written by Dr. Natalie Dawson, one of GSACC’s board members.

Wolf

“When you spend much time on islands with naturalists you will tend to hear two words in particular an awful lot: ‘endemic’ and ‘exotic’. Three if you count ‘disaster’. An ‘endemic’ species of plant or animal is one that is native to an island or region and is found nowhere else at all.”
-From Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams, author of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

by Natalie Dawson

On the Tongass National Forest, we hear mostly about trees – whether it be discussions about board feet, acres of old growth, percentage of forest converted to “second-growth” or “the matrix”[*], our conversations tend to focus on the dominant plant species group that defines the rare “coastal temperate rainforest” biome. However, the Tongass is more than a forest, it is a conglomerate of islands, islands of different sizes, islands of different geologic and cultural histories, islands with or without black bears, grizzly bears, or wolves, the iconic species of Alaska. Because of these islands, there are unique, or, endemic, species of various size, shape and color across the islands. Though they have played a minimal role in management throughout the course of Tongass history, they are now rightfully finding their place in the spotlight thanks to a recent decision by regional forester Beth Pendleton.

On Monday (Sept. 30), the US Forest Service announced its decision to reconsider the Big Thorne timber project. This project would have been the largest timber project on the Tongass National Forest in twenty years, taking 6,200 acres of old growth forest (trees up to 800 years old, 100 feet tall, and 12 feet in diameter) from Prince of Wales Island, an island that has suffered the most intense logging in the region over the past six decades. It is also an island that is home to endemic animals found nowhere else in the world.

Citizens of southeast Alaska and environmental organizations including GSACC jointly filed an administrative appeal on the Big Thorne timber project on August 16th of this year. Monday’s response comes directly from regional forester Beth Pendleton. In the appeal, Pendleton cited an expert declaration written by Dave Person, a former Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) biologist with over 22 years of experience studying endemic Alexander Archipelago wolves on Prince of Wales Island, with most of his research occurring within the Big Thorne project area. Pendleton cited Person’s conclusion that “the Big Thorne timber sale, if implemented, represents the final straw that will break the back of a sustainable wolf-deer predator-prey ecological community on Prince of Wales Island…” Her letter states, “This is new information that I cannot ignore.” The response to the appeal requires significant review of the timber project before it can move forward, including cooperative engagement between the Tongass National Forest and the Interagency Wolf Task Force to evaluate whether Dr. Person’s statement represents “significant new circumstances or information relevant to” cumulative effects on wolves (including both direct mortality and habitat).

As one of my students today in class asked me pointedly, “So what does all this mean?” Well, it means that the largest potential timber sale in recent history on our nation’s largest national forest, on the third largest island under U.S. ownership, is temporarily halted under administrative processes due to an endemic species. It does not mean that this area is protected. It does not mean, that our work is done. Pending the outcome from conversations between the Forest Supervisor and the Interagency Wolf Task Force, especially under the current political climate within the state of Alaska, we may have plenty to keep us busy in the near future. It does mean that, even if only briefly, the endemic mammals of the Tongass National Forest received a most deserving moment in the spotlight. This could result in a sea-change in how the Tongass National Forest is managed.

This also means that science is being given a chance to play an important role in an administrative decision on our nation’s public lands, and two endemic species, the Alexander Archipelago wolf, and its primary prey species, the Sitka Black-Tailed deer, are forcing federal and state agency personnel to reconsider their actions. Science must continue to play an important role in the future of all activities on Prince of Wales Island. It is home to many endemic animals found only on a small percentage of islands on the Tongass National Forest, and nowhere else in the world. This lineup includes the Prince of Wales Island flying squirrel, the spruce grouse, the Haida ermine, and potentially the Pacific marten, which was only recently discovered on nearby Dall Island. The future of the Tongass timber program and human development on these complex islands are inextricably tied to ensuring a future for all other species in one of the world’s only remaining coastal temperate rainforests.
____

Dr. Natalie Dawson has done years of field work on endemic mammals throughout much of Southeast Alaska, studying their population sizes and distributions through field and laboratory investigations, and has published peer-reviewed scientific papers on these topics. She presently is director of the Wilderness Institute at the University of Montana and a professor in the College of Forestry and Conservation.

[*] What is the matrix? The conservation strategy in the Tongass Forest Plan establishes streamside buffers (no logging) and designates minimal old growth reserves, in an attempt to ensure that wildlife species on the Tongass remain viable. (Whether the strategy is sufficient for this is at best questionable.) The matrix is the expanse of habitat that is allocated to development (such as logging) or that is already developed, and which surrounds those patches of protected habitat.

UPDATE: Readers may notice that in the comments section a claim is made that the Sitka black-tailed deer are not endemic, but were were introduced. The Sitka black-tailed deer (Odocdileus hemionus sitkensis) were not introduced to Southeast Alaska; the Sitka black-tailed deer is indeed an indigenous, endemic species there.

Also, another commenter suggested referring to the article on the GSACC website, as at the bottom of the article one can find much more information about the Big Thorne timber sale and also the declaration of Dr. David Person regarding Big Thorne deer, wolf impacts. Thanks.

Science Policy Forum: Managing Forests and Fire in Changing Climate

by

Scientists claim policy focused on fire suppression only delays the inevitable. Read more here. The opening paragraph and names of the authors are below.

With projected climate change, we expect to face much more forest fire in the coming decades. Policymakers are challenged not to categorize all fires as destructive to ecosystems simply because they have long flame lengths and kill most of the trees within the fire boundary. Ecological context matters: In some ecosystems, high-severity regimes are appropriate, but climate change may modify these fire regimes and ecosystems as well. Some undesirable impacts may be avoided or reduced through global strategies, as well as distinct strategies based on a forest’s historical fire regime.

Authors: S. L. Stephens, J. K. Agee, P. Z. Fulé, M. P. North, W. H. Romme, T. W. Swetnam, M. G. Turner

5 Groups Appeal Tongass Timber Sale: 6,000 acres of old-growth would be logged, 46 miles of new roads constructed

by

The following was sent to me by the Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community (GSACC). If you have any questions about the release and the info contained within it, please contact the GSACC directly. Thanks. – mk

On August 16, GSACC and four other organizations filed an administrative appeal of the Tongass Forest Supervisor’s decision to proceed with the Big Thorne timber project. The appeal went to to the next highest level in the agency, Regional Forester Beth Pendleton. The appeal is known as Cascadia Wildlands et al. (2013), and other co-appellants are Greenpeace, Center for Biological Diversity and Tongass Conservation Society.

The project would log 148 million board feet of timber [enough to fill 29,600 log trucks], including over 6,000 acres of old-growth forest from heavily hammered Prince of Wales Island. 46 miles of new logging roads would be built and another 36 miles would be reconstructed. Our points of appeal encompass fundamental problems with the concept of the project, its economic problems, aquatic impacts from roading and logging, and severe impacts to wildlife including wolves, deer, bear, goshawks and flying squirrels. Our Request for Relief is that “the decision to approve the ROD and FEIS be reversed and that the project be cancelled in its entirety because of multiple failures to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), National Forest Management Act (NFMA), Clean Water Act (CWA), Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), Tongass Timber Reform Act (TTRA), Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and various regulations and policies implementing these statutes.”

Included with the appeal were three expert declarations. One is by Dr. David Person, who did 22 years wolf and other ecological research on Prince of Wales Island and recently retired from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. It says that the predator-prey system on the island (which includes wolves, bear, people and deer) is likely at the point of collapse, with the Big Thorne project being the tipping point. Another declaration is by Jon Rhodes, an expert on the sediment impacts of logging roads and their effect on fish. The third is by Joe Mehrkens, GSACC board member and former Alaska Regional Economist for the Forest Service, on the failings of the economic analysis in the Big Thorne EIS and economic nonsense this project embodies.

The appeal and the declarations are available for viewing and download at this link. Because the appeal is 127 pages, you will likely find the clickable table of contents useful. This series of e-mails illustrates the kind of biological knowledge that the State of Alaska has withheld from the NEPA process for the Big Thorne timber sale project on the Tongass National Forest.

Hanson: The Ecological Importance of California’s Rim Fire

by

The following article, written by Dr. Chad Hanson, appeared yesterday at the Earth Island Journal. Once again, I’d like to respectfully request that if anyone has questions about the content of the article please contact Dr. Hanson directly. Thanks. – mk

The Ecological Importance of California’s Rim Fire: Large, intense fires have always been a natural part of fire regimes in Sierra Nevada forests
by Chad Hanson – August 28, 2013

Since the Rim fire began in the central Sierra Nevada on August 17, there has been a steady stream of fearful, hyperbolic, and misinformed reporting in much of the media. The fire, which is currently 188,000 acres in size and covers portions of the Stanislaus National Forest and the northwestern corner of Yosemite National Park, has been consistently described as “catastrophic”, “destructive”, and “devastating.” One story featured a quote from a local man who said he expected “nothing to be left”. However, if we can, for a moment, set aside the fear, the panic, and the decades of misunderstanding about wildland fires in our forests, it turns out that the facts differ dramatically from the popular misconceptions. The Rim fire is a good thing for the health of the forest ecosystem. It is not devastation, or loss. It is ecological restoration.

What relatively few people in the general public understand at present is that large, intense fires have always been a natural part of fire regimes in Sierra Nevada forests. Patches of high-intensity fire, wherein most or all trees are killed, creates “snag forest habitat,” which is the rarest, and one of the most ecologically important, forest habitat types in the entire Sierra Nevada. Contrary to common myths, even when forest fires burn hottest, only a tiny proportion of the aboveground biomass is actually consumed (typically less than 3 percent). Habitat is not lost. Far from it. Instead, mature forest is transformed into “snag forest”, which is abundant in standing fire-killed trees, or “snags,” patches of native fire-following shrubs, downed logs, colorful flowers, and dense pockets of natural conifer regeneration.

This forest rejuvenation begins in the first spring after the fire. Native wood-boring beetles rapidly colonize burn areas, detecting the fires from dozens of miles away through infrared receptors that these species have evolved over millennia, in a long relationship with fire. The beetles bore under the bark of standing snags and lay their eggs, and the larvae feed and develop there. Woodpecker species, such as the rare and imperiled black-backed woodpecker (currently proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act), depend upon snag forest habitat and wood-boring beetles for survival.

One black-backed woodpecker eats about 13,500 beetle larvae every year — and that generally requires at least 100 to 200 standing dead trees per acre. Black-backed woodpeckers, which are naturally camouflaged against the charred bark of a fire-killed tree, are a keystone species, and they excavate a new nest cavity every year, even when they stay in the same territory. This creates homes for numerous secondary cavity-nesting species, like the mountain bluebird (and, occasionally, squirrels and even martens), that cannot excavate their own nest cavities. The native flowering shrubs that germinate after fire attract many species of flying insects, which provide food for flycatchers and bats; and the shrubs, new conifer growth, and downed logs provide excellent habitat for small mammals. This, in turn, attracts raptors, like the California spotted owl and northern goshawk, which nest and roost mainly in the low/moderate-intensity fire areas, or in adjacent unburned forest, but actively forage in the snag forest habitat patches created by high-intensity fire — a sort of “bedroom and kitchen” effect. Deer thrive on the new growth, black bears forage happily on the rich source of berries, grubs, and small mammals in snag forest habitat, and even rare carnivores like the Pacific fisher actively hunt for small mammals in this post-fire habitat.

In fact, every scientific study that has been conducted in large, intense fires in the Sierra Nevada has found that the big patches of snag forest habitat support levels of native biodiversity and total wildlife abundance that are equal to or (in most cases) higher than old-growth forest. This has been found in the Donner fire of 1960, the Manter and Storrie fires of 2000, the McNally fire of 2002, and the Moonlight fire of 2007, to name a few. Wildlife abundance in snag forest increases up to about 25 or 30 years after fire, and then declines as snag forest is replaced by a new stand of forest (increasing again, several decades later, after the new stand becomes old forest). The woodpeckers, like the black-backed woodpecker, thrive for 7 to 10 years after fire generally, and then must move on to find a new fire, as their beetle larvae prey begins to dwindle. Flycatchers and other birds increase after 10 years post-fire, and continue to increase for another two decades. Thus, snag forest habitat is ephemeral, and native biodiversity in the Sierra Nevada depends upon a constantly replenished supply of new fires.

It would surprise most people to learn that snag forest habitat is far rarer in the Sierra Nevada than old-growth forest. There are about 1.2 million acres of old-growth forest in the Sierra, but less than 400,000 acres of snag forest habitat, even after including the Rim fire to date. This is due to fire suppression, which has, over decades, substantially reduced the average annual amount of high-intensity fire relative to historic levels, according to multiple studies. Because of this, and the combined impact of extensive post-fire commercial logging on national forest lands and private lands, we have far less snag forest habitat now than we had in the early twentieth century, and before. This has put numerous wildlife species at risk. These are species that have evolved to depend upon the many habitat features in snag forest — habitat that cannot be created by any other means. Further, high-intensity fire is not increasing currently, according to most studies (and contrary to widespread assumptions), and our forests are getting wetter, not drier (according to every study that has empirically investigated this question), so we cannot afford to be cavalier and assume that there will be more fire in the future, despite fire suppression efforts. We will need to purposefully allow more fires to burn, especially in the more remote forests.

The black-backed woodpecker, for example, has been reduced to a mere several hundred pairs in the Sierra Nevada due to fire suppression, post-fire logging, and commercial thinning of forests, creating a significant risk of future extinction unless forest management policies change, and unless forest plans on our national forests include protections (which they currently do not). This species is a “management indicator species”, or bellwether, for the entire group of species associated with snag forest habitat. As the black-backed woodpecker goes, so too do many other species, including some that we probably don’t yet know are in trouble. The Rim fire has created valuable snag forest habitat in the area in which it was needed most in the Sierra Nevada: the western slope of the central portion of the range. Even the Forest Service’s own scientists have acknowledged that the levels of high-intensity fire in this area are unnaturally low, and need to be increased. In fact, the last moderately significant fires in this area occurred about a decade ago, and there was a substantial risk that a 200-mile gap in black-backed woodpeckers populations was about to develop, which is not a good sign from a conservation biology standpoint. The Rim fire has helped this situation, but we still have far too little snag forest habitat in the Sierra Nevada, and no protections from the ecological devastation of post-fire logging.

Recent scientific studies have caused scientists to substantially revise previous assumptions about historic fire regimes and forest structure. We now know that Sierra Nevada forests, including ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests, were not homogenously “open and parklike” with only low-intensity fire. Instead, many lines of evidence, and many published studies, show that these areas were often very dense, and were dominated by mixed-intensity fire, with high-intensity fire proportions ranging generally from 15 percent to more than 50 percent, depending upon the fire and area. Numerous historic sources, and reconstructions, document that large high-intensity fire patches did in fact occur prior to fire suppression and logging. Often these patches were hundreds of acres in size, and occasionally they were thousands — even tens of thousands — of acres. So, there is no ecological reason to fear or lament fires like the Rim fire, especially in an era of ongoing fire deficit.

Most fires, of course, are much smaller, and less intense than the Rim fire, including the other fires occurring this year. Over the past quarter-century fires in the Sierra Nevada have been dominated on average by low/moderate-intensity effects, including in the areas that have not burned in several decades. But, after decades of fear-inducing, taxpayer-subsidized, anti-fire propaganda from the US Forest Service, it is relatively easier for many to accept smaller, less intense fires, and more challenging to appreciate big fires like the Rim fire. However, if we are to manage forests for ecological integrity, and maintain the full range of native wildlife species on the landscape, it is a challenge that we must embrace.

Encouragingly, the previous assumption about a tension between the restoration of more fire in our forests and home protection has proven to be false. Every study that has investigated this issue has found that the only way to effectively protect homes is to reduce combustible brush in “defensible space” within 100 to 200 feet of individual homes. Current forest management policy on national forest lands, unfortunately, remains heavily focused not only on suppressing fires in remote wildlands far from homes, but also on intensive mechanical “thinning” projects — which typically involve the commercial removal of upwards of 80 percent of the trees, including mature trees and often old-growth trees —that are mostly a long distance from homes. This not only diverts scarce resources away from home protection, but also gives homeowners a false sense of security because a federal agency has implied, incorrectly, that they are now protected from fire — a context that puts homes further at risk.

The new scientific data is telling us that we need not fear fire in our forests. Fire is doing important and beneficial ecological work, and we need more of it, including the occasional large, intense fires. Nor do we need to balance home protection with the restoration of fire’s role in our forests. The two are not in conflict. We do, however, need to muster the courage to transcend our fears and outdated assumptions about fire. Our forest ecosystems will be better for it.

Chad Hanson, the director of the John Muir Project (JMP) of Earth Island Institute, has a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California at Davis, and focuses his research on forest and fire ecology in the Sierra Nevada. He can be reached at [email protected], or visit JMP’s website at www.johnmuirproject.org for more information, and for citations to specific studies pertaining to the points made in this article.

Advice for Experts Giving Congressional Testimony

by

pielke_testimony2

I know we have a variety of readers, and who knows, some of them may be giving testimony and would appreciate helpful advice. This is from Roger Pielke, Jr. .

Here’s an excerpt:

Independent experts not affiliated with formal assessments are also commonly invited to provide testimony. A specific expert is asked to testify because policy makers see some political advantage in having that expert testify. Academics unaffiliated with government, advocacy groups, or formal scientific assessments should quickly disabuse themselves of any notion that they have been invited to “speak truth to power.” Rather, they are carefully selected for the perceived political benefits of their testimony.

In my case, I was invited by Republicans on the Senate committee because several Democrats, including President Obama, have recently been making statements about the relationship between human-caused climate change and extreme weather that go well beyond what can be supported based on current scientific understandings. The previous time that I testified before this same committee, I was invited by Democrats. An expert cannot control when their knowledge will be perceived as relevant, or by whom; but when an invitation is received, we have an obligation to participate in the democratic process.

Expertise is commonly brought into the political process through some overt political conflict, as politicians seek to hold each other accountable for public representations that invoke claims grounded in science. This strategy was on display in the Senate hearing, when a Democratic senator queried me on the reality of climate change – an issue on which we agreed – but steered clear of the substance of my testimony, which focused on extreme events.

Experts offering evidence in such an unavoidably political process need to remember that their job is not to tell policy makers what they want to hear, but to provide their best judgment about what the evidence can support on subjects in which they have some expertise. While this is an easy recommendation to make, there is no shortage of experts willing to engage in stealth advocacy by presenting a view of evidence that is friendly to a partisan agenda by engaging in cherry picking of research or even offering misleading or unsupportable testimony. Those tactics were fully on display at the Senate hearing in which I participated, and are unavoidably fundamental to the process.

Each of us “independent” experts afforded the privilege of participating in the democratic process by delivering evidence has to decide what role we wish to play. I have long argued that stealth advocacy by experts — while seductive and offering a quick route to political impact — ultimately risks the legitimacy and authority of expertise, especially the ability of the expert community to offer effective science arbitration or honest brokering. The flip side, of course, is that in the context of the most politicized issues, representations of evidence that do not fit a partisan agenda may simply not be welcome in the process, especially if it is equivocal, nuanced, or uncertain.

The expert can reduce the odds of merely serving as a political prop in a larger debate by asking policy makers what specific questions they would like to see addressed in the testimony. In my testimony before the Senate last month, I was asked to testify about extreme weather, a subject I have been researching for more than 20 years. In the vocabulary of The Honest Broker (Cambridge, 2007), I assumed the role of the “science arbiter.” I was not asked to share my strongly held views on a carbon tax, light bulb standards, global energy access, or the reform of FIFA. Staying focused requires discipline, restraint, and a healthy respect for the process.

Research rejects past fire suppression & “unnatural” fuel build-up as factors in the size & occurrence of large fires in So Cal

by

The following press release and new scientific review arrived in my in-box yesterday via the California Chaparral Institute. If you have questions about the press release, or the new scientific review, please direct them to the California Chaparral Institute’s Director or Conservation Analyst listed below. Thank you. – mk

For Immediate Release, August 1, 2013

Contact:  Richard W. Halsey, Director, (760) 822-0029
Dylan Tweed, Conservation Analyst, (760) 213-3991

Fire Service Unfairly Blamed for Wildfires
 
Research rejects past fire suppression and “unnatural” fuel build-up as factors in the size and occurrence of large fires in southern California

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – A new scientific review and five major studies now refute the often repeated notion that past fire suppression and “unnatural” fuel build-up are responsible for large, high-intensity fires in southern California. Such fires are a natural feature of the landscape. Fire suppression has been crucial in protecting native shrubland ecosystems that are suffering from too much fire rather than not enough.

The research has also shown that the creation of mixed-age classes (mosaics) of native chaparral shrublands through fuel treatments like prescribed burns will not provide reliable barriers to fire spread; however, strategic placement may benefit fire suppression activities.

The research will be presented during a special California Board of Forestry hearing, August 8, 2013, 8am, at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel, in Ventura, California.

Advocates of the fire suppression/mosaic view often misinterpret the research and ignore contrary information. For example, the recent Mountain fire near Idyllwild in the San Bernardino National Forest was blamed on 130 years of fire suppression. More than half of the area had burned in the 1980s. A 770 acre portion had burned five years ago. The 2007 fires in southern California re-burned nearly 70,000 acres that had burned in 2003. The majority of southern California’s native habitats are threatened by too much fire rather than not enough. This is especially true for chaparral, sage scrub, and desert habitats. Fires less than ten to twenty years apart can convert native shrublands to highly flammable, non-native grasslands.

“All of us need to take responsibility in making our homes and communities fire safe,” said Richard Halsey, director of the California Chaparral Institute. “Political leaders also need to find the courage to prevent developments from being built in high fire hazard locations. Blaming the fire service for large, intense fires because of their past efforts to protect lives, property, and the environment from wildfires is counterproductive and contrary to the science.”

The scientific review can be found here

Additional Information

1. August 8, 2013 Board of Forestry Meeting Agenda

2. The five key research papers refuting the fire suppression/mosaic perspective:

Keeley, J.E. and P.H. Zedler. 2009. Large, high-intensity fire events in southern California shrublands: debunking the fine-grain age patch model. Ecological Applications 19: 69-94.

Lombardo, K.J., T.W. Swetnam, C.H. Baisan, M.I. Borchert. 2009. Using bigcone Douglas-fir fire scars and tree rings to reconstruct interior chaparral fire history. Fire Ecology 5: 32-53.

Moritz, M.A., J.E. Keeley, E.A. Johnson, and A.A. Schaffner. 2004. Testing a basic assumption of shrubland fire management: Does the hazard of burning increase with the age of fuels? Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 2:67-72.

Keeley, J.E., Fotheringham, C.J., Morais, M. 1999. Reexamining fire suppression impacts on brushland fire regimes. Science Vol. 284. Pg. 1829-1832.

Mensing, S.A., Michaelsen, J., Byrne. 1999. A 560 year record of Santa Ana fires reconstructed from charcoal deposited in the Santa Barbara Basin, California. Quaternary Research. Vol. 51:295-305.

3.  The Science Basics on Fire in the Chaparral