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From The Conversation: “Forest Service warns of budget cuts ahead of a risky wildfire season – what that means for safety.” By a pair of professors from Colorado State University. Excerpt:

Staffing is still a concern

Doing this work requires staff, and the Forest Service’s challenges in recruiting and retaining qualified firefighters may hinder its ability to accomplish all of its objectives.

In 2023, over 18,000 people were employed as federal wildland firefighters. While the Forest Service and Department of the Interior have not specified precise staffing targets, Moore has mentioned that “some crews have roughly half the staff they need.”

A recent Government Accountability Office report found that low wages and poor work-life balance, among other challenges, were barriers commonly cited by federal firefighting employees. The government boosted firefighters’ pay in 2021, but that increase is set to expire unless Congress votes to make it permanent. So far, firefighters have kept the same level of pay each time Congress pushed back acting on the 2024 budget, but it’s a precarious position.

The agency has started many initiatives to recruit and retain permanent employees, but it is too early to assess the results. A recent study involving one of us, Jude Bayham, found that highly qualified firefighters were more likely to remain with the agency after active seasons, during which they earn more money.

This article may be of interest from Smokey Wire folks….

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.

The Planet Needs Solar Power. Can We Build It Without Harming Nature?

Today’s decisions about how and where to set up new energy projects will reverberate for generations.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/11/climate/climate-change-wildlife-solar.html?unlocked_article_code=1.U00.n-mx.vSGlqqnyJPuL&smid=em-share

Some perspective: I live about 250 yards from a Bonneville Power Administration power line corridor that runs from The Dalles, Oregon, to Troutdale, known as Big Eddy–Troutdale No. 1. The corridor cuts across the Mt. Hood National Forest and a bit of private land for about 43 miles (measured via Google Earth Pro). Most of corridor was cleared of timber when it was built in the 1950s; these days, BPA crews regularly cut seedlings and shrubs and/or use herbicides on the brush before it grows tall enough to interfere with the lines. At roughly 375 feet wide, this section of the corridor is essentially a clearcut that covers about three square miles.

This article reports that, according to a National Renewable Energy Laboratory 100% clean electricity study, 91,000 miles of new high voltage interregional transmission lines are needed by 2035 to carry “affordable, reliable clean energy.”

Here’s a link to the planning effort.

Here’s a link to the report.

We had an offer from the FS to answer questions about the effort, so if you have questions please put them in the comments. It’s at a pretty strategic level. It would be interesting to compare this with the BLM Blueprint for 21st Century Outdoor Recreation. Apparently BLMers participated in the FS effort and vice versa.

I took some bullets out of the report. I don’t think there are many surprises, and many similarities to other FS programs.

The purpose of the workshop was to:
• Share knowledge and learn from one another’s experiences working on complex recreation challenges and opportunities on lands the Forest Service manages.
• Inspire solution-focused brainstorming on recreation issues ripe for national-level action by both partners and the Forest Service.
• Create a space for partners and staff to dissolve barriers to collaboration, illuminate shared interests, and improve communication

*******

Different styles of communication are needed to reach different generations and backgrounds.
• Working with partners to communicate data or other information can be beneficial because partners can typically share information faster than agencies due to the specific focuses of each organization.
• In addition to quantitative data, qualitative or story-telling data is important to gather, understand, and share.
• Consolidate and streamline public communication to create a “one-stop shop” for trip-planning information and data.
• Identify communication strategies and tools that have worked well for the Forest Service and partner organizations to serve as a model for recreation programs moving forward.
• Create a web-based communication platform for partners to share information.

*********************

• Representation plays an important role in increasing the diversity of the collective recreation workforce.
• Pursue creative recruiting methods and tools in collaboration with partners and local organizations instead of relying only on traditional approaches.
• Remote work options for recreation positions have increased access to recreation careers.
• Limited housing and high cost of living in areas with high recreation demands has caused ongoing workforce and capacity challenges.
• Recreational employment is increasingly seen as a solid career path rather than a temporary job.

********************

• The stories that are told on public lands should be inclusive to all, well-informed, and developed, with input from the people who the stories are about.
• Clear and consistent communication between partner organizations and the Forest Service is vital to successful, long-term partnerships.
• Equity-centered work is not going to be comfortable.
• Telling diverse stories is not the role of the Forest Service alone and should be done in partnership with other stakeholders, organizations, communities, and individuals.

**********

Making connections between recreation, the economy, resource protection, and long-term vision spur momentum when working with partners and organizations.
• New projects can generate interest among industries and create reciprocal relationships between different entities.
• Focusing on long-term, tangible culture changes rather than short-term successes in an industry or agency can create sustainable change.
• Acknowledging the importance of and building transparent communication builds trust, furthers relationships, and leads to successful projects and endeavors.

*************

Sharing small successes on the way to achieving a broader vision can help maintain momentum to complete long-term projects.
• Cross-boundary collaboration can occur across roles, skill sets, and entities.
• Using a more strategic approach would be beneficial around (1) the types of resources that are being dispersed and (2) where resources are shared to decrease competition between agencies.

************

• Visitor use management data can be leveraged to make informed decisions about improving recreation and other infrastructure. This type of data should be part of infrastructure investment conversations.
• Informing and educating visitors before they arrive at recreation sites is crucial. Conservation messaging can be woven into visitor communications before visitors arrive.
• Recreation and conservation organizations need to consider the perspectives and voices of Native American Tribes and respect Tribal wishes on how to use and manage public lands.

Recreation is part of a larger ecosystem and should be woven together with other issues and interests, from wildland fire and fire management to economic development.
• “Everyone who steps into the natural world has the tool to develop an environmental ethic.”
• Agency and organizational culture matters! Forest Service staff need to be consistently supported to show up as a great partner. This includes fostering a culture of transparency and willingness to share responsibility from the highest levels of the agency.
• Cross-boundary collaboration requires that we depend on one another’s strengths and engage partners and organizations to fill the gaps.
• Agency staffing levels and turnover negatively impact relationships. The Forest Service should invest in “professionalizing” the recreation workforce, streamline hiring processes using private partners, engage in transition planning, and coordinate with local governments on shared issues such as limited housing.
• Recreation funding is challenging and requires stability, flexibility, and streamlining.
• Data can convey great meaning, especially when framed as part of achieving
collective goals.
• Equity-centered work is not easy work. We must commit to take up this challenge
together, embrace tough conversations, and deepen our relationship with the
history of the land.
• The Forest Service should base recreation planning and stewardship work in
community, place, and relationships.
• “Recreation management is an all-hands-on-deck situation.”

Rainy day, so I’m cleaning out my office — I do so every decade or so. Found a flier for a 2004 conference in Medord, OR, sponsored by OSU’s College of Forestry: “Creating Fire-resilient Landscapes: Improving Our Understanding and Application.” A decade later, we’re still working on it….

Thanks to Nick Smith of Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities for including this item from The Missoulian in today’s email list….

GUEST VIEW
James Burchfield: A view from inside forest collaborative groups

I applaud the Missoulian for publishing various views on forest management and the role of citizen-driven forest collaborative groups in decisions regarding public lands.

With the wide-ranging disruptions of climate change, forward looking, science-based management of our forests will be critical in sustaining social and environmental health. Yet too often characterizations of collaborative groups by Missoulian contributors miss the mark, erroneously claiming that these voluntary associations are captured by profit-driven representatives of timber industry to advance exploitation of forests at the expense of other values.

For the past 13 years, I have been a participant in the Lolo Restoration Committee and the Southwest Crown of the Continent Collaborative. I have found them to be steadfastly independent, thoughtful, and focused on outcomes that will benefit forests for the long term. Each of these groups has a written charter that identifies principles of inclusion, diverse representation, deliberation, and fairness.

In each, federal or state land management agency representatives are encouraged to join our meetings but are enjoined from voting on the group’s recommendations, which are typically generated through consensus. These and other collaborative groups convene their own meetings, design their own agendas, and are beholden to no one other than themselves.

The power of these groups is their creativity, as the collision of different points of view and respectful deliberation leads to original ideas and approaches to highly complex, contextually dependent problems within the forest. There has never been an occasion where timber industry has possessed singular influence.

Collaborative groups contain people expressing powerful conservation ideals as well as advocates for environmental protection. A large proportion of participants are retired natural resource management professionals with ample experience in wildlife management, recreation, wilderness management, and public lands administration.

In fact, on multiple occasions the two groups with which I have been involved have struggled to sustain representation from timber industry, since the demands on industry staff can be extreme.

Put simply, the assertion that collaborative groups are captured by timber industry is false.

Sadly, there are individuals and organizations that prefer complaining about collaborative groups rather than joining a group and doing the difficult work of examining potential forest management decisions or resource protection measures.

Along with my fellow collaborative group participants, I have tried to encourage diverse voices to join groups so we can listen to their ideas and incorporate their views. I believe that those who criticize collaborative groups have legitimate concerns and have an honest desire, like the members of collaborative groups, to protect forests so they can provide the remarkable environmental services on which we all depend.

I hope these critics have a change of heart, join a group, and use their influence to help shape better decisions.

The energy behind collaborative groups emerges from a strong American tradition that allows voices with local knowledge to reflect and consider how public issues within their everyday lives might be addressed. This does not mean that these local voices will carry the day, but only that they be heard. There may be larger scale interests or other critical factors that lead to decisions that may not adhere to local demands. Every collaborative group recognizes that their recommendations are simply one set of suggestions across the spectrum of public engagement.

In the case of national forests, the responsible officials rightly make the final decisions on these forests. The significant contributions made by collaborative groups are the original, often well-grounded thoughts and observations that can lead to better plans and actions.

In a world where we feel like we are often victims of forces beyond our control, collaborative groups offer a refreshing opportunity to work together for the common good.

Apologies for this long post, but it took awhile to research this proposal. We don’t even have a category in TSW for “financial instruments.”

Well, as most of us can’t help but know, this year is a Presidential election year. For our friends currently in the federal government, we are well in to the “silly season,” characterized by random  flounderings of the current Administration seeking to placate or enthuse various groups whom they consider to be Important, and to avoid doing anything that they might be upset about, or that the Opposition might highlight.  It’s hard to thread that needle and actually accomplish anything, and when in doubt.. don’t is the word of the season.

The image that comes to mind is of a loose hose. As a career fed, my goal was to stay out of the way and not get blasted.

It seems to me that the “natural asset companies” idea of the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) exhibits some silly season attributes. Just when I felt I had done enough research to come to an opinion on it, the proposal was cancelled. I try to stay away from partisan politics, but perhaps the best thing we can do this year is to show that many policy issues in our area of forests and federal lands do not fit neatly into the R/D divide. It seems like some folks are trying to shoehorn complex political views and ideologies into the “us or them” box prior to the election.  This shoehorning can cut off consideration of obvious policy choices that people of various views agree on, obfuscates honest rendering of within-party disagreements, and makes people seem more divided than we really are.  Yes, we disagree, but not neatly along party lines. After all, political parties are somewhat artificial constructs.

Anyway, back to an E&E News article on the effort being cancelled.

The NYSE withdrew a proposal pending before the Securities and Exchange Commission that would have allowed it to offer the new kind of investment known as “natural asset companies,” or NACs. The investment concept centered on the creation of companies geared toward improving ecosystems, including those on state or federal public lands, in the United States or abroad, as well as privately owned acreage. The companies would then put a dollar figure on the resulting improvements, such as clean air, wildlife habitat and even “sensory benefits” like a nice view.

But the idea, first unveiled in 2021 by the financial services firm Intrinsic Exchange Group and supported by the NYSE and groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, has faced significant opposition from Republican officials and property rights advocates since the SEC began reviewing it last fall. Critics asserted the companies could become a backdoor for stricter management of public lands and waters by limiting extractive industry, as well as uses like grazing. They also asserted it could create an avenue for foreign governments to gain operational control of U.S. public lands. In a statement, the NYSE pointed to “feedback from regulators, market participants and others” for its decision to withdraw the proposal but did not address any specific criticisms.

To be fair, critics included recreationists who were concerned about access. We can also wonder about how Tribes might be involved.

Earlier this month, a coalition of 25 Republican state attorneys general inked a letter opposing the investment scheme, and the House Natural Resources Committee’s Republican members opened an inquiry on the development of the proposal.

“Innovation is the lifeblood of our economy and we are always open to ideas in the area of sustainable finance and elsewhere that have the potential to further strengthen our U.S. capital markets,” an NYSE spokesperson said. IEG Chair Douglas Eger said the firm does not intend to abandon its idea, noting the investments could still be pursued through private equity or another public exchange.

“We’re moving ahead. This is just too important for conservation, sustainability, for the farm economy,” Eger said. “These are fundamental things that need to be addressed at a capital market scale. IEG is committed to bringing this to the markets, private and eventually public.”

Ah.. private equity.  They did so well with nursing homes.. not.

Anyway, this got my political spidey sense tingling.. a NY financial fellow proclaiming what is important to the “farm economy.” Farmers are often Republicans. Republicans, by and large, were not fans of this proposal. Maybe farmers are not fans of novel capital markets; maybe they’re happy with the current USDA structure that has been built and working for over one hundred years. The old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  IMHO, it takes some hubris for people in one sector to simply claim we need them involved in our sectors.  Perhaps this is the sectoral equivalent (sectoral encroachment) of scientific disciplinary encroachment that I posted about on Monday.

Then there are a few issues around trust and the Wall Street folks. Not that long ago, it was a progressive thing to mistrust Wall Street. Remember Matt Taibbi’s reporting in Rolling Stone.. not on Fox News?  It wasn’t that long ago that our financial friends and their regulators caused the Great Recession. In fact, many progressive Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, have questioned various things about Wall Street’s behavior patterns.

Since irritating Republicans seems a feature, not a bug, of many current Admin policies (think Monumentizing in R States), my hypothesis is that this was ultimately a D vs. D decision; that the former Bernie-ites were not thrilled by handing conservation and food over to a sector which notably screwed up the entire world not that long ago. And who can blame them? Maybe that’s something we can agree on.  Perhaps this switcheroo is due to the flailing firehose effect.

On the other hand, at least some of our libertarian friends, usually considered to be right-wing and Republican-adjacent, see this as another example of “willing buyer and willing seller.” So I don’t see people lining up in any traditional R/D lines here.

Then there’s your average citizen who reads newspapers, who may have internalize the lesson “if a financial instrument is developed that is really difficult to understand, the people involved probably doesn’t have your best interests at heart.” If only.. we had a Good Governance Party, one of the principles would be: “we don’t give regulatory agencies any more responsibilities until they have proven accountable for the regulations they already enforce.” And..SEC would not be on that list.

If I were in the business of building trust for new ideas, I’d be really clear on what  the needs is and why current solutions aren’t working. Also, I’d give  people time to understand it, including public meetings and so on.  From Federal Newswire

After SEC issued their proposed rule to approve NACs, they initially allowed only 21 days for comment and 45 days for review. After major concerns were raised by ASL and its partners, the decision-making time was extended to January 2.

To paraphrase the expression “great claims require great evidence’, I’d say “novel interventions require great explanation and public involvement.”

What this reminds me of is the “conservation lease” idea in the proposed BLM Rule- retirees and common sense tell us we can already restore degraded landscapes and we don’t need new financial arrangements.  If there were policy referees, they might give a penalty for “inadequate need for change.”

As always, in the absence of rational arguments, we must consider- partisan politics. From CNBC:

“Year in and year out, this torrent of money gives Wall Street an outsized role in how we are governed, while driving and protecting policies that help this industry’s super wealthy amass even greater fortunes at the expense of the rest of us,” Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, told CNBC in a statement.

The report says that individuals and campaign entities linked to the financial sector contributed just more than $1.9 billion toward backing candidates running for federal office, including over $74 million that went to supporting President Joe Biden’s run for president.

Of the $1.9 billion, 47% went to Republicans and 53% went to Democrats. In fact, this report notes that more than $250 million from those working in the FIRE sector went toward supporting Biden, the most out of all the contenders for president. Those contributions were a mix of donations to his campaign and outside groups supporting him.

But back to the proposal from the E&E news story:

Eger also emphasized that the decision to withdraw the rule change pending before the SEC came from the NYSE and not his firm. “They made the decision that they wanted to pull the filing because of the opposition,” Eger said. “They felt there were a number of concerns that had been raised, and they felt it was better to pull it. We were disappointed in that.” Eger also lamented “misinformation” that targeted the proposal, pointing to arguments that the NACs would allow foreign governments to control federal or state lands, and allegations that the firm collaborated with the Biden proposal to further its own conservation agenda.

“It got tied up with a lot of other political agendas,” Eger said. “And unfortunately that got a lot of people upset, and they never were willing to dig down or even have conversations with us about what NACs are intended to do, what they can do, what they can’t do.”

Now even the humble career civil servants at the FS and BLM know that presenting new ideas to the public is their responsibility, and it is the work of the proposer to start the conversations. Transparency and accountability build trust in institutions.

But what is the link between the NACs and the BLM conservation rule? The Center for Western Priorities tells us that there is no connection, and gives some history of the idea. People who are legitimately concerned about access.. like RV folks and others, are accused of being “conservation opponents,” or are concerned about Wall Street taking over more of our lives are now “conspiracy theorists.” For those of you not familar with CWP, it is a project of the Resources Legacy Fund funded by the usual philanthropic suspects, who have ties to D politics.

The BLM’s proposed conservation rule has nothing to do with this theoretical accounting future. It just happens to be moving through the regulatory process at the same time that Wall Street is considering letting some companies voluntarily account for the value of nature. But that alone is enough of a threat to the status quo that conservation opponents are willing to invent new conspiracy theories to try to stop it.

In my experience, “conspiracy theory” has been used by some to discourage people from doing more research and analysis (think Covid origins).

Here’s a link to the SEC proposed rule:

NACs will be corporations that hold the rights to the ecological performance ( i.e., the value of natural assets and production of ecosystem services) produced by natural or working areas, such as national reserves or large-scale farmlands, and have the authority to manage the areas for conservation, restoration, or sustainable management. These rights can be licensed like other rights, including “run with the land” rights (such as mineral rights, water rights, or air rights), and NACs are expected to license these rights from sovereign nations or private landowners.

So the proposal includes “national reserves,” and the BLM proposed rule says conservation leases, and yet from CWP we are to believe that for there to be a connection it must be a conspiracy theory.  So I guess the answer is that agencies are going in random directions that, through happenstance, line up. Not sure that that’s a better argument for the managerial excellence of this Admin.

I don’t know about you, but it sounds to me like a lot of money will be changing hands.. but the more direct method would be “funder or group of funders to willing landowner to manage for specific values.”  Maybe we need a “poor people’s instrument to combine to pay for ecosystem services” that is not publicly traded, without all the regulatory (transaction) costs on both the landowner and SEC sides. More money for conservation, less for counting and watching and paying counters and watchers and possibly investors.

The Exchange and IEG have entered into an agreement pursuant to which IEG has granted the Exchange an exclusive license in the United States to use the Reporting Framework in connection with the listing of NACs on the Exchange (although the Reporting Framework will remain proprietary to IEG). Under the terms of the agreement, the Exchange has acquired a small minority interest in IEG and one seat on IEG’s board of directors. IEG has agreed to seek to identify and develop NACs for listing on the Exchange, in addition to marketing the listing and trading of NACs on the Exchange and providing training with respect to the NAC structure and the Reporting Framework to NYSE personnel and currently listed and potential listed NACs. IEG will be entitled to a share of the revenues generated by the Exchange from the listing and trading of NACs on the NYSE.

So NYSE makes money from NACs, IEG makes money (from license) to NYSE. It all sounds very cozy.

Who is IEG? Here’s some information I could find.

The company’s asset’s primary purpose is to maximize ecological performance and the production of ecosystem services and provide a platform to list these companies for trading, enabling companies to convert natural assets into financial capital.

This sounds very free-market-y indeed to me.

Related news I just saw thanks to PERCs TwitX feed: More jaguars coming back to Arizona.

1. Giving jaguars ‘food poisoning’ may stop them from killing livestock
Jaguar attacks on pets and farm animals are a common problem, but after developing a drug-induced stomach ache, the big cats seem to learn not to kill certain animals.

Here’s a link to the study.

By treating meat with high doses of deworming medication and wrapping it in the skin of domestic animals, scientists may have successfully thwarted attacks on livestock and pets – and hence lethal repercussions on the wild cats, says Ivonne Cassaigne at Primero Conservation in Mexico City.

In 1974, researchers reported trying to prevent coyote attacks on sheep by taking advantage of the “food poisoning” effect that occurs in people when we experience nausea and abdominal pains after a bad meal and then find the same food disgusting later. This reaction, called conditioned taste aversion, evolved in most animals as a way to avoid toxic food, says Cassaigne. Unfortunately, early taste-aversion studies in wild predators generally failed because the animals could smell the poison in the meat, she says.

In 2009, Ron Thompson at Primero Conservation in Pinetop, Arizona, found that thiabendazole – an odourless, tasteless deworming medication – gave two captive pumas a safe but serious stomach ache when injected into the skin-wrapped meat of desert bighorn sheep. The cats later refused to eat any desert bighorn sheep meat, he says.

Hoping to put jaguars off hunting domestic animals, Cassaigne, Thompson and their colleagues recently added high but non-lethal doses of powdered thiabendazole into 2 kilograms of mutton or pork wrapped in the animals’ own skin. They fed this meat to six captive jaguars in three Mexican wildlife refuges.

Within 3 hours, the cats became lethargic and sometimes howled, says Cassaigne. Some later vomited and had diarrhoea for a few hours.

The next day, the jaguars had good appetites and eagerly ate beef. But none of them ate the pork or mutton offered to them. “[One female] grabbed it and had it in her mouth, but then she spit it away,” says Cassaigne. “She was like, ‘Oh wow, yeah, I remember now!’” Their aversion to those specific meats lasted at least a month, when the experiment ended.

Later, Cassaigne and her colleagues injected thiabendazole into the carcasses of a calf and a feral dog that had been killed and then left by two wild jaguars in Mexico. Villagers were contemplating targeting the cats due to their killing sprees. “We spoke with the locals and said, ‘Please just let us try this instead of killing them,’” she says.

In both cases, the wild males came back to continue eating the spoils. One never attacked another calf over the next seven months. The other killed one dog – but didn’t eat it – and never attacked again over the following year of monitoring, says Cassaigne. This jaguar might have been attacking dogs for years already and was used to hunting them, making it harder to stop the habit, she adds.

Jorge Tobajas at the University of Córdoba in Spain says he is relieved that researchers are finally exploring the use of conditioned taste aversion in endangered felines due to their conflicts with humans over livestock. While the tests in the wild were inconclusive, those in captive jaguars showed great promise, he says.

“It is crucial to conduct further field experiments in a more controlled manner, focusing on areas with recurring attacks that allow for before-and-after treatment comparisons,” says Tobajas. An important next step would be to follow tagged jaguars with GPS transmitters to better understand their reaction to treatment, he adds.

Training predators to learn a taste aversion before releasing them into the wild – such as in rewilding programmes – is the ideal scenario, says Cassaigne. “You don’t want to start with a problem.”

2. Wildfire Evacuation App

I wonder whether similar apps are being developed in the US?

“It’s a very serious problem,” says Andreas Kamilaris at the CYENS Center of Excellence in Cyprus. “The statistics show that casualties, as well as the area of land burned, around the world are increasing year by year.”

That prompted Kamilaris and his colleagues to build a mobile app that provides personalised evacuation routes to anyone caught in the path of a wildfire. The app connects over mobile networks to a web server running a fire simulation program, which uses publicly available data on geography, weather and vegetation type to predict the spread of fires at 15-minute intervals.

A fire management tool similar to those already in use lets local fire departments quickly tag when and where a fire starts, which is then used to generate real-time simulations. The app then uses the GPS location of each user to work out potential routes, selecting the best by weighing up how quickly each route gets them to safety against how close it takes them to the fire’s path. The best option is then displayed either as turn-by-turn directions or as a route overlaid on a map of the area.

In a small pilot at the Athalassa National Forest Park in Cyprus, all 17 people who took part successfully escaped a simulated fire. In questionnaires afterwards, they said the app was easy to use and that they would use it in a real wildfire.

But Ed Galea, a fire safety expert at the University of Greenwich in the UK, worries the route-planning algorithm the researchers use is too simple to deal with the complexities of a real-world evacuation, such as varying travel speeds or congestion on escape routes.

And while fire and evacuation models can help experts plan or respond to emergencies, he thinks even state-of-the-art systems have limitations that currently make them unsafe in the hands of untrained people. “That is not to say that the goal of having a personalised wildfire evacuation guidance system is not achievable,” he says. “Just not today.”

Kamilaris admits the app still needs work and says the researchers plan to add features, like the ability to tailor travel speed and monitor users to prevent congestion, before testing again in more challenging scenarios.

3.  Adding wild fungi to soil could make trees store more carbon

This story is interesting because there are two ideas here that seem a little different. First is the “intact forests” idea:

With Funga, Averill is using soil from intact forests to inoculate newly planted trees to make them grow bigger and faster, generating carbon credits the company can sell. The concept is similar to faecal transplants for gut microbiome disorders, says Averill. “But we apply it to the forest.”

In mid-February, planters started inoculating soil on 40 hectares of a commercial loblolly pine plantation near Lexington, Georgia. The planting itself is straightforward: a scoop of soil from an area of intact forest is added to a hole where a sapling is planted. Identifying precisely which soil to scoop is more complicated.

But this sounds like they figured out the best ones (like selecting trees, only microbes) and collected them from the test site (not “intact” forests).

Over the past year, Funga researchers analysed tree growth rates and sequenced the DNA of soil microbes in 500 loblolly pine forests around the south-eastern US to determine which composition of microbes is associated with the most growth. They then collected these candidate microbes from the test site in Lexington and inoculated new saplings.

Averill says they also planted trees without the added soil to establish a baseline against which to compare any additional carbon stored by the inoculated trees.

Results won’t be available until the end of 2023, but Averill says similar methods increased forest productivity between 30 and 70 per cent at a research plot where he works in Wales.

He and his colleagues also analysed 81 experiments that examined how inoculating soil with wild microbiomes affected various types of plants in different ecosystems. They found a range of effects, from a small reduction of biomass to a more than 700 per cent increase. On average, plant biomass increased 64 per cent.

“It’s going to do something,” says Jennifer Bhatnagar at Boston University, though she says how much depends on a lot of factors, such as how degraded the soil is to begin with. She also says the effects of soil restoration are better understood with saplings than with older trees. “When they get older, will that initial inoculant be enough?”

Sourcing the soil poses another challenge, says Prescott. Many species of fungi can’t be cultured, and at larger scales, soil extraction could degrade the collection sites.

Here’s an interesting article from Forbes about the company, and here is a link to their website.

Yesterday was way below zero here with a wind chill,  so I was cleaning my office and thought I’d share some totally random pieces I thought were interesting.  Most timely and relevant:

1. Wood Stoves Are Bad For You

FOR MANY AIR QUALITY regulators and advocates, tweaking wood stove emissions is missing the point. Though reducing emissions in the short term can be beneficial, a longer-term solution would phase out wood stoves altogether, said Laura Kate Bender, the national assistant vice president for healthy air at the American Lung Association.

“Right now, what the science shows us is that there’s actually no safe level of particle pollution exposure,” Bender said. “There’s no amount that’s healthy to breathe.”

It’s interesting.. in some cases it’s a trade-off so people have multiple heating sources; diversity is good for economic and survival resilience.  And certainly there have to be restrictions in populated areas.  But people do other unhealthy things.. most notably, perhaps, food and beverage choices.  Say sugar or alcohol or marijuana?

But for most of them, the more immediate issue is getting rid of uncertified wood stoves and discouraging people from burning for recreation — an uphill battle for many who are unaware of the health impacts of woodsmoke.

“People are just sort of like, well, yeah, it stinks,” said Traviss, the Keene air pollution researcher. “But, it’s wood. How bad can it be?”

Maybe they aren’t unaware, maybe they are making different choices than some would prefer.

There’s also an interesting question of EPA’s analysis of wood stoves.   In this article (titled “10 blue states are planning to sue the EPA”- and includes Alaska as a blue state), it goes into some detail, but if the author seems confused about what people use wood stoves for (and the partisan feelings of Alaska) there are probably better stories out there.

 According to public health experts in the UK, a wood-burning stove is 450 times more polluting than a gas one. An electric stove is the least polluting option and often the most efficient, too.

2. Can ecosystems be intact if they are under solar panels?

Can massive solar power expansion regenerate the US’s iconic prairies?
Renewable energy development is transforming the US countryside. It could be a chance to restore the iconic prairies if rural opposition can be overcome

This is from New Scientist, last September.

Rapid development of renewable energy facilities, such as solar farms and wind turbines, is necessary to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. But the industry’s demand for rural land – what Shannon Eddy, director of the Large-scale Solar Association, calls “the biggest shift in land-use patterns in modern history” – has generated intense opposition among local communities across the US. Amid this, researchers and some developers, including Ørsted, are looking for ways to make facilities that bring benefits not only to rural populations but landscapes too.

The one that has perhaps gained most traction is the idea that solar development can restore lost habitat if native flora is planted beneath panels, supporting birds and insects and improving the soil on potentially millions of hectares. This, the argument goes, could finally herald the return of the iconic prairie.

They’re kidding, right?

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Prairie rewilding

Then there are decisions about the maintenance needed to ensure seeds grow and outcompete invasive plants. Mowing is better than herbicides for pollinators. Some sites use goats or sheep to control vegetation through grazing. Prescribed burning would be ideal, says Walston: native prairie plants have deep roots adapted to withstand fire. Indeed, fire suppression by European settlers is a major reason for the loss of prairie to encroaching woody plants. However, burning hasn’t yet been tried at a solar facility to his knowledge. Beneath solar panels or not, “prairie restoration is not going to be easy”, says Harms.

Restoring habitat isn’t all expense, though. Once established, a solar prairie might actually require less maintenance than close-cut turfgrass and it may be less prone to erosion than gravel, says Walston. Prairie locks up carbon in the soil, so restoration projects could be marketed as carbon credits. Research has also found that having vegetation beneath panels improves their efficiency on hot days by cooling them. The scale of these benefits is potentially vast. In California alone, Hernandez envisions solar developments that incorporate prairie restoration happening on the hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland set to be taken out of production to prevent overuse of groundwater.

The rest of  the article is also interesting albeit paywalled.

3. Those Darn Humans Department: Destroying Ecosystems Since 13K BCE

Extreme fires caused by ancient humans wiped out Californian megafauna

A series of catastrophic fires killed off many large mammals in southern California by 13,000 years ago, and they were largely due to the arrival of humans

A series of catastrophic fires was the immediate cause of the extinction of many large mammals in southern California 13,000 years ago, according to a study of fossils from the La Brea tar pits. The findings suggest these extreme fires were probably a result of humans abruptly changing the ecosystem by killing off herbivores – meaning there was more vegetation to burn – and deliberately starting fires.

“It’s a synergy of the drying climate and the humans, and the fact that they are killing herbivores and increasing fuel loads, and all of those things go together to make a feedback loop that takes the ecosystem to a chaotic state,” says Robin O’Keefe at Marshall University in West Virginia. “The fire event is really catastrophic.”

4.  Airbnb and Florence.  From the Wall Street Journal. It’s not just resort communities in the US…

The spread of short-term rentals has pushed up rents and priced out residents. Shops that once served locals have become rarities. Lockboxes for keys sit next to the doorbells at many buildings’ entrances. On some streets in central Florence, most of the buildings have at least one lockbox, which allows visitors to access their short-term apartment without having to meet the owner. Some buildings have four or five.The telltale lockboxes have also proliferated along the canals of Venice, the small alleys of the Cinque Terre and the chaotic streets of Rome.

Florence’s historic center—a Unesco World Heritage site—has more beds listed on Airbnb than it has residents, according to the study. “Even if you have a lot of money, you can’t find a place to rent in Florence because all the apartments are on Airbnb,” said Linda Sanesi, who lives outside the city’s central area and runs a hair salon with her husband on a small street next to Florence’s cathedral.

Up until the 1990s, stores serving locals populated the downtown area. Few have survived. About 60% of Sanesi’s clients are tourists looking for a haircut.

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Florentine property owners and professional managers of short-term rentals are promising to fight the city’s restrictions in court.

Italy’s government has debated what to do about short-term rentals, but has yet to make any significant intervention. Its draft budget for 2024 would raise the tax rate on rental profits to 26% from 21%, starting with the second apartment an owner rents out. The first rental would still be taxed at 21%. Critics say it will make little difference.

Other European tourist destinations have restricted short-term rentals. Amsterdam introduced its first regulations in 2014, under which apartments generally can’t be rented out on platforms such as Airbnb for more than 30 days a year. Owners can rent out only one property, and a permit is needed for offering an entire apartment. Barcelona, Paris and Berlin have also aggressively reined in short-term rentals.

New York City began enforcing new rules in September that Airbnb called “a de facto ban on short-term rentals.” Hosts must register with the city, can’t rent out an entire property and must be present when they have paying guests.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, click on the photo to go to the article.  Nothing different from what I learned in undergraduate studies at Virginia Tech from 1963-1967 – Rated #1 in our field in the US the last that I saw.  I and many others have been trying to explain this well established and long validated science to many on this site who came here with their own emotionally driven faux science and without any interest in anything that didn’t support their pet suppositions or studies that haven’t been validated over a long time and varied places.  I haven’t checked in to the Smoky Wire for a long time, so I sincerely hope that things have changed for the better on this site.

No matter, it’s time to unite behind the validated science based on sound research rather than walks through the woods and statistically confounded studies.  If you really love forests, cleaner air and a healthier planet; get on board with what works instead of letting your ego carry you and everyone else down the path of increasingly greater catastrophic destruction.

Twenty-year study confirms forests are healthier when burned or thinned