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We issued this press release at WildEarth Guardians today. – mk

WildEarth Guardians scores groundbreaking legal win for the Joshua tree

Court rules that the federal government cannot ignore impact of climate change on iconic—and imperiled—Joshua trees

Los Angeles, CA—A federal district court in Los Angeles has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (the “Service”) violated the law when they failed to list the imperiled Joshua tree under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”).

The Service disregarded overwhelming scientific evidence showing that climate change poses a major threat to the Joshua tree’s survival when the agency denied listing the species as threatened under the Act. The decision stems from a 2019 lawsuit filed by WildEarth Guardians, challenging the Service’s decision that the desert icon did not warrant federal protection, despite all the available scientific evidence pointing to the same conclusion: Joshua trees will be in danger of extinction throughout most of their current range by century’s end from climate change driven habitat loss, invasive grass fueled wildfire, and other stressors.

“The Court’s decision represents a monumental step forward for the Joshua tree, but also for all climate-imperiled species whose fate relies upon the Service following the law and evaluating the best scientific data available with respect to forecasting future climate change impacts,” said Jennifer Schwartz, staff attorney for WildEarth Guardians and lead attorney on the case. “The Court’s unequivocal holding—that the Service cannot summarily dismiss scientific evidence that runs counter to its conclusions—will force the federal government to confront the reality of climate change and begin focusing on how to help species adapt.”

WildEarth Guardians first filed a petition to list the Joshua tree as “threatened” under the ESA in 2015 and the Service found the listing “not warranted” in August 2019. Under the Trump administration, the Service ignored every available peer-reviewed study to model future climate impacts to Joshua tree—all of which agree that the vast majority (roughly 90%) of the species’ current range will be rendered unsuitable by the end of the 21st century. The Court lambasted the Service’s decision in the ruling stating that “[i]n concluding that climate change will not affect Joshua trees at a population- or species level, the Service relies on speculation and unsupported assumptions.”

Notably, while the decision was issued by the Service under the Trump administration, the Service refused to budge from its indefensible position—or even consider taking a fresh look at the finding—even under the Biden administration. In addition to the litigation, Guardians filed emergency petitions to protect two species of Joshua tree in May 2021, following the release of even more conclusive climate change findings and the large Cima Dome fire that swept through the Mojave National Preserve and killed an estimated 1.3 million Joshua trees. But the Service has failed to respond to the renewed petitions.

“While we are grateful to the Court for this positive decision, we are very disappointed that the Biden administration failed at several junctures to do what’s right by these iconic Joshua trees,” said Lindsay Larris, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians. “The time and money the federal government spent defending a decision that the Court could clearly see was wrong—instead of using these funds to conserve species and determine how to mitigate massive biodiversity loss from climate change—is tragic and, unfortunately, telling. We need this administration to take swift action to protect species and habitat, not just deliver nice messages about the importance of fighting climate change while defending the damaging actions of the prior administration.”

The Court order now directs the Service to reconsider its decision, taking into account the best available science, including climate change models, in issuing a new decision for the Joshua tree. Pursuant to the ESA, this decision is required to be issued within the next 12 months, though the Service will now have 60 days to decide whether or not to appeal the decision.

“For the sake of the Joshua tree and the overwhelming majority of the public who believe in conservation, science, and protection of species and habitat, we are optimistic that the Service will use this opportunity to quickly issue a decision to protect the Joshua tree,” said Schwartz. “Our climate-imperiled species—plants and animals alike—do not have time for political gamesmanship that questions unambiguous science. Now is the time for action to preserve what we can of the natural world before it is too late.”

It’s September 15, which means the general wolf hunting season opened in Montana at dawn this morning. If you’ve been following the wolf issue in Montana recently, you are likely aware of a suite of new, archaic, brutal, and ethical laws and regulations on the books thanks to the Montana Legislature and Governor Greg Gianforte. (Idaho has also put in place similar draconian wolf-eradication laws and regulations).

You may recall that Governor Greg Gianforte is a convicted assailant who body-slammed a reporter on election eve in 2017.  Then in 2021, Governor Gianforte violated state hunting regulations when he trapped and shot a collared wolf near Yellowstone National Park in February. Governor Gianforte trapped the collared Yellowstone wolf on a private ranch owned by Robert E. Smith, director of the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Group, who contributed thousands of dollars to Gianforte’s 2017 congressional campaign.

Specific to national forest policy, the new wolf-killing laws in Montana allow for unethical baiting of wolves by hunters and trappers, including within federal public lands and Wilderness areas. The state of Montana intends to killed up to 50% of the wolves in the state, so to help make that happen, the state has authorized any individual to kill up to 10 wolves during the hunting and trapping season, including deep within Wilderness areas and inventoried roadless areas on U.S. Forest Service administered public lands. The state also now allows snaring of wolves, including in designated Wilderness. So, essentially a Montana hunter or trapper can shoot, trap, and/or snare 10 wolves during the next 6 months on federal public lands—including Wilderness areas—in the state of Montana while using bait. The state also now allows night hunting of wolves with artificial lights or night vision scopes on private land statewide.

What do readers of this blog think? Does this sound like science-based management of a keystone native species? Should this type of brutal and unethical “management” of a rare keystone species be allowed on federal public lands, including deep within Wilderness areas? As a Montana resident, who is also a backcountry hunter of elk and deer, I personally find these news laws and regulations tragic and disgusting.

Below is a press release we issued today at WildEarth Guardians.

MISSOULA, MONTANA—Starting today, iconic Yellowstone wolves crossing the boundary of Yellowstone National Park into the state of Montana face slaughter by trophy hunters with high-powered rifles, including within federally-designated Wilderness areas. Wolves living in Glacier National Park face a similar fate when they exit the national park.

Last month, Montana not only eliminated any cap on the number of wolves that can be killed in hunting and trapping zones bordering Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park, but individuals can now kill a total of 10 wolves per season. New regulations also allow unethical baiting for wolves statewide, including within federal public lands and Wilderness areas. Night hunting with artificial lights or night vision scopes is also allowed on private lands statewide.

“Despite a groundswell of public opposition from individuals across Montana, the nation, and world, Montana has declared open season on wolves in the state, clearing the way for nearly 50% of the state’s wolf population to be decimated in the upcoming hunting and trapping season,” said Sarah McMillan, the Montana-based conservation director for WildEarth Guardians.

“Yellowstone’s wolves are nationally and internationally famous and the biological role these iconic wolves play within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is priceless. Yet starting today, an individual can slaughter up to ten Yellowstone wolves for just $12,” explained McMillan.

The general wolf hunting season in Montana runs for the next six months, until March 15, 2022, while the wolf trapping and snaring season will start on November 29, 2021 and also run until March 15, 2022.

In response to the on-going slaughter of wolves, in June, WildEarth Guardians and a coalition of fifty conservation groups asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to immediately restore Endangered Species Act protections to gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. In July, Guardians and allies also petitioned the Biden administration to list the Western North American population of gray wolves as a distinct population segment.  Over 120 Tribes have signed “The Wolf: A Treaty of Cultural and Environmental Survival,” and have called on Interior Secretary Haaland to meet with a Tribal delegation regarding the Treaty and to reinstate protections for wolves. So far, the Biden administration has failed to take any steps to protect wolves.

“As we clearly warned would happen, state ‘management’ of wolves essentially amounts to the brutal state-sanctioned eradication of this keystone native species,” said McMillan. “We must not abandon wolf-recovery efforts or allow anti-wolf states, hunters, and trappers to push wolves back to the brink of extinction.”

Montana’s hunting regulation changes come on the heels of the Biden administration doubling down on its commitment to keep all wolves federally delisted, despite the massive public outcry. In August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed a brief in federal court opposing legal efforts from multiple environmental groups—including WildEarth Guardians, Western Environmental Law Center, and Earthjustice—to challenge the federal delisting rule. This case is set for oral arguments in Northern California District Court in November 2021. As the Northern Rocky Mountain population of wolves was delisted by an act of Congress in 2011, the outcome of this litigation will not impact wolves in Montana.

Gray wolves became functionally extinct in the lower 48 states in the 1960s largely due to rampant hunting and trapping, including deliberate extermination efforts carried out by the federal government. Though first listed as endangered in 1967 under a precursor to the Endangered Species Act, gray wolves only began to recover in the West following reintroductions to central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s. Scientists estimated a steady population of about 1,150 wolves in Montana between 2012 and 2019. However, hunters and trappers killed 328 wolves in Montana during the 2020-2021 season, and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks now estimates that only 900 to 950 wolves remain in the state. The total wolf-kill quota for the 2021-2022 hunting and trapping season in Montana is 450, meaning that nearly 50% of the wolf population in Montana could be eliminated in the next six months.

Here’s an article that gets into what this blog was started for: national forest forest planning.

Official says Santa Fe forest draft management plan adds flexibility to adapt

…

From an Associated Press article.…

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — U.S. wildfire managers have started shifting from seasonal to full-time firefighting crews to deal with what has become a year-round wildfire season as climate change has made the American West warmer and drier. The crews also could remove brush and other hazardous fuels when not battling blazes.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Thursday that it’s adding 76 firefighters and support personnel to its 3,400-person firefighting workforce.

Additionally, 428 firefighters will change from part-time seasonal work to either full-time seasonal or permanent work with health and retirement benefits. Ultimately, the agency wants about 80% of its firefighters on permanently. The rest would be seasonal, many of whom are college students who return to class in the fall.

Folks, last week I sat in on an hour-long briefing on wildfire for journalists, presented by SciLine, a free service of the the American Association for the Advancement of Science for journalists and scientists. This event was called “Wildfires: Climate connections & community impacts,” and featured presentations and a Q&A session with three scientists:

Dr. Phil Higuera, a professor of fire ecology at the University of Montana, who’s going to describe how wildfires and wildfire seasons have been changing in recent years and decades and ways in which climate change and other factors are driving those changes. Second, you’re going to hear from Dr. Colleen Reid, an assistant professor in geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, who specializes in environmental health issues and is going to speak about these huge plumes of smoke that wildfires create, what’s in them and what are the health effects from breathing those pollutants. And third, you’ll hear from Dr. Crystal Kolden, assistant professor at the University of California, Merced, who will speak about the role of forest management in getting wildfire activity back in balance and will describe some of the individual- and community-level inequities that exist when it comes to the burden of risk from wildfires.

I think this was a superb briefing, and I hope the journalists in attendance have a new and better understanding of the topics discussed. The transcript and video are available here. It’s an excellent resource for we denizens of The Smokey Wire.

The American Forest Resource Council’s latest newsletter has a nice summary of the wildland fire and land-management appropriations in the recent $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill…. And lots of other interesting info, as usual:

Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. The five-year, $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure legislation includes about $3.3 billion for “wildfire risk reduction” activities and wildland firefighters, $2.1 billion for “ecological restoration,” and several new authorities for federal forest management activities. Below is an outline of the major provisions and the allocation by department:

Wildfire Risk Reduction – $3.3 billion

• $500 million for “mechanical thinning and timber harvesting in an ecologically appropriate manner” (80% USDA-USFS; 20% DOI).
• $500 million for establishing wildfire “control locations” including shaded fuelbreaks when “ecologically appropriate” (50% USDA-USFS; 50% DOI).
• $200 million to contract “for the removal of flammable vegetation on federal land” with an emphasis on using treatment materials for “biochar and other innovative wood products” (50% USDA-USFS; 50% DOI).
• $200 million for post fire restoration activities within three years of fire containment date.
• $100 million for Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act projects (100% USDA-USFS). Also reauthorizes program for five years and prioritizes certain projects.
• $600 million for increased wildland firefighter salaries (80% USDA-USFS; 20% DOI).

Most of the funded activities must be conducted consistent with Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The legislation also includes a priority for projects: signed record of decision as of date of enactment, “strategically located” to “minimize risks from wildfires”, maximize large and old growth tree retention to promote fire-resilient stands, and create no new roads and obliterate any temporary roads.

The legislation would also create a permanent Federal wildland firefighter job series within the Forest Service and Department of the Interior, convert 1,000 seasonal to full-time employees, provides for a $20,000 or 50% salary increase, and directs that firefighter positions should spend half of the year doing hazardous fuels reduction work.

The Forest Service and the Department of the Interior would be required to report accomplishments annually and develop a five-year treatment, monitoring, and maintenance plan for fuels reduction activities funded under this section.

Ecosystem Restoration – $2.1 billion

• $300 million for contracts for a minimum of 10,000 acres of ecological restoration on federal lands, including $100 million for a capital fund to address contract cancellation ceiling (75% USDA-USFS; 25% DOI).
• $200 million for matching payments to states and tribes for Good Neighbor Agreements (80% USDA-USFS; 20% DOI).
• $400 million for loan guarantees or low-interest loans for wood using facilities “that purchase byproducts of restoration treatments.” Facilities must be near a unit of federal land identified as high or very high priority for ecological restoration and substantially decrease the cost of conducting ecological restoration projects.
• $400 million to provide grants to states and tribes for ecosystem restoration on federal and non-federal lands, emphasizing cross-boundary projects.
• $200 million for invasive pest detection, prevention, and eradication (50% USDA-USFS; 50% DOI).
• $100 million to restore and improve recreation sites on federal land (50% USDA-USFS; 50% DOI).
• $200 million for abandoned mine land restoration (50% USDA-USFS; 50% DOI).
• $200 million for reforestation on both public and private lands (65% USDA-USFS; 35% DOI).
• $80 million for a new “collaborative based, landscape-scale restoration program to restore water quality or fish passage on federal land.”

Additional Authorities

• 3,000-acre Categorical Exclusion to “establish and maintain linear fuel breaks” within up to 1,000 feet of “existing linear features, such as roads, water infrastructure, transmission and distribution lines, and pipelines of any length on federal land.” Actions must be consistent with existing forest plans and located “primarily in” WUI or water supply area. Also includes prohibition on new roads.
• Codifies the Forest Service’s existing administrative Emergency Situation Determination to streamline certain emergency salvage, reforestation, and roadside hazard tree removal projects and expands to DOI agencies. Agencies are only required to analyze the proposed action and no-action alternative with no administrative objections. Directs courts not to issue injunctions unless plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits.
• Includes the REPLANT Act, which would direct the Forest Service to identity areas in need of reforestation and provide an additional $80-$90 million annually to the Reforestation Trust Fund (currently receives $30 million annually).

A question for the Smokey Wire community: What role, if any, does forest planning and management have in this “new normal” megafire era? This the issue of our professional careers. Some grist for discussion:

1. If, with the Caldor and Dixie Fires, past forest management is irrelevant when it comes to megafires,

2. And because our current wildfire suppression resources are inadequate for stopping some wildfires such as Caldor, Dixie, Camp, and other fires once they become megafires,

3. And since any effort to slow climate change, even if successful — say, if the world meets the Paris accord emissions targets — will have no appreciable positive effect on forest health and susceptibility to fire in the near- or medium-term future,

4. And because there will be no mass emigration from WUI zones,

Then what is our course of action?

My take on these 4 points:

A. We must dramatically increase the pace and scale of forest health and fuels reduction. Doing so won’t prevent wind-driven megafires, but it will help reduce the number of smaller fires and perhaps keep some from exploding into megafires.

B. Assemble a wildfire air force of sorts. Maybe we need 10 times the number of air tankers and tanker bases, maybe more. Such a force would put enough retardant between fires and communities, and water on hot spots, to prevent widespread destruction of homes, business, infrastructure — even whole towns.

C. A significant increase in active management, as in my point A above, would at least serve to reduce emissions — GHGS and smoke — from wildfires of all sizes.

D. Forest management in WUI zones is more important than ever important, as will “hardening” structures to better withstand wildfires. However, the pace and scale of management and hardening will have to be dramatically increased, including forest management much farther from current WUI zone boundaries. To do this, city/county ordinances, state building codes, insurance companies, and federal policymakes must make commensurate revisions/action.

What’s your take?

KCRA, a Sacramento news station, reports: Evacuation orders were issued Monday for all of South Lake Tahoe after expanded evacuations the night before as the massive Caldor Fire in El Dorado County experienced a “rapid spread,” Cal Fire said.

Esri has a map here. The fire is very close to houses and businesses.

This is from the Ten Common Questions paper, a synthesis published in Ecological Application. I’m posting each answer separately. If you use the search box and look for Ten Common Questions, you can find them all.  My introduction to the paper is here. Please put any questions for the authors in the comments; I’ll try to get answers from them. I’d appreciate if the tone were respectful (think graduate seminar, not Twitter).

Question 2: “Is forest thinning alone sufficient to mitigate wildfire hazard?”

While “thin the forest to reduce wildfire threat” is commonly cited in the popular media, the capacity for thinning alone to mitigate wildfire hazard and severity is not well supported in the
scientific literature. Thinning treatments require strategic selection of trees to target fuel ladders and fire-susceptible trees, along with a subsequent fuel reduction treatment (Jain et al. 2020).

When thinning is conducted without accompanied surface fuel reduction, short and long-term goals may not be realized.  Thinning from below reduces ladder fuels and canopy bulk density concurrently, which can reduce the potential for both passive and active crown fire behavior (Agee and Skinner 2005). For instance, Harrod et al. (2009) found that thinning treatments that reduced tree density and canopy bulk density, and increased canopy base height significantly reduced stand susceptibility to crown fire compared to untreated controls. Furthermore, large-diameter trees and snags that provide essential wildlife habitat and other ecosystem values can be retained and fuels can be deliberately removed around these structures using this approach (Lehmkuhl et al. 2015). Where wood from treatments can be marketed, revenues from thinning help to sustain broader management goals on public lands. For example, some landscape restoration collaboratives seek to reinvest profits from commercially viable thinning to off-set costs associated with more labor-intensive manual thinning and prescribed or cultural burning needs (Shultz and Jedd 2012).

Some studies show that thinning alone can mitigate wildfire severity (e.g., Pollet and Omi 2002, Prichard and Kennedy 2014, Prichard et al. 2020), but across a wide range of sites, thin and
prescribed burn treatments are most effective at reducing fire severity (see reviews by Fulé et al. 2012, Martinson and Omi 2013, Kalies and Yocom Kent 2016). On most sites, thinning alone
achieves a reduction of canopy fuels but contributes to higher surface fuel loads. If burned in a wildfire, these fuels can contribute to high-intensity surface fires and elevated levels of associated tree mortality (e.g., Stephens et al. 2009, Prichard and Kennedy 2012). When trees are felled and limbed, fine fuels from tree tops and branches (termed activity fuels) are re-distributed over the treatment area, thereby increasing surface fuel loads (Martinson and Omi 2013). Mechanical fuel reduction treatments of these activity fuels are possible, but in many locations, biomass removal and utilization (e.g., for bioenergy) after thinning treatments can be cost-prohibitive due to long hauling distances and the economic and technological challenges of building new biomass facilities (Hartsough et al. 2008). Mastication equipment is sometimes used to shred understory trees and shrubs into smaller woody fragments, which are then redistributed and left on site (Kane et al. 2009). However, following mastication, surface fuels are temporarily elevated, and masticated stands that burn in wildland fires can cause deep soil heating from smoldering combustion and elevated fire intensities (Kreye et al. 2014).

Other unintended consequences of thinning without concomitant reduction in surface fuels can occur. For instance, decreasing canopy bulk density can change site climatic conditions (Agee and Skinner 2005). Wildfire ignition potential is largely driven by fuel moisture, which can decrease on drier sites when canopy bulk density is reduced through commercial thinning (e.g., Reinhardt et al. 2006). Reduced canopy bulk density can lead to increased surface wind speed and fuel heating, which allows for increased rates of fire spread in thinned forests (Pimont et al. 2009, Parsons et al. 2018). Other studies show no effect of thinning on surface fuel moisture (Estes et al. 2012, Bigelow and North 2012), suggesting that thinning effects on surface winds and fuel moisture are complex, site specific, and likely vary across ecoregions and seasons.

In summary, although the efficacy of thinning alone as a fuel reduction treatment is questionable and site dependent, there exists widespread agreement that combined effects of thinning plus prescribed burning consistently reduces the potential for severe wildfire across a broad range of forest types and conditions (Fig. 3, Fulé et al. 2012, Kalies and Yocom Kent 2016, Stephens et al. 2021). Given this broad consensus in the scientific literature, some authors suggest that forest thinning should be considered in the context of wildfire hazard abatement, ecological restoration and adaptation, and revitalization of cultural burning (Lehmkuhl et al. 2007, Hessburg et al. 2015, Huffman et al. 2020). Where restoring resilient forest composition and structure and reducing future wildfire hazard are goals of management (Koontz etal. 2020), combined thinning and burning approaches will provide ecological and wildfire-risk reduction benefits (Knapp et al. 2017).

From Sharon: I didn’t find anything surprising here, did you?