“At the Gila National Forest and elsewhere, Armatas and his coworkers have implemented a public engagement protocol based on a social science information-gathering approach known as Q methodology. Invented in 1935 but recently adapted and peer-reviewed for Forest Service use, Q methodology is a structured analysis of personal opinions on a given topic. It requires participants to complete something called a Q sort, where tradeoffs are elicited and natural resource benefits are prioritized. Participants also identify drivers of change—such as management actions and climate change impacts—that are most concerning to them. Information can be collected in less than an hour, participants generally find the hands-on process to be thought-provoking and fun, and the final results include an understandable and engaging representation of a diverse range of perspectives.”
The Post article says “the United States has been inadvertently pushed back on track to meet the commitments the Obama administration made at the Paris climate agreement…” But the US has been on track since 2005 to meet or beat those commitments, regardless of the pandemic.
The 9 percent fall has been partially offset by extreme forest fires
The Washington Post
November 19, 2020
Greenhouse gases generated by the U.S. economy will slide 9.2 percent this year, tumbling to the lowest level in at least three decades, a new BloombergNEF study says.
Battered by the coronavirus pandemic, the stalled economy is projected to have generated 5.9 billion metric tons of emissions, about the same level as 1983, according to the private research organization.
As a result, the United States has been inadvertently pushed back on track to meet the commitments the Obama administration made at the Paris climate agreement in December 2015, despite the fact the Trump administration pulled the country out of the pact. Before 2020, the United States had fallen badly behind its targets under the accord.
Still, net emissions are expected to be 6.4 percent lower after taking into account the unusually extreme forest fires that swept the West Coast and Rocky Mountains earlier this year, pumping carbon dioxide and other pollution into the air and offsetting much of the drop in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. [emphasis added]
The Property and Environment Research Center, “The home of free market environmentalism,” has three new policy briefs, according to an email from them today:
How to Care For Our Public Lands: New PERC Policy Briefs Our public lands need our help, and now is the time to make a difference. Between maintenance needs, local management challenges, and funding insecurities, getting the incentives right for public lands conservation is crucial. Recent efforts, such as the Great American Outdoors Act, have been a start, but there’s much more to do. The good news is we now have the opportunity to make changes that will help solve these problems.
In our new series of policy briefs authored by PERC research fellow Tate Watkins, we look ahead to the future of our public lands. The series explores the challenges that remain and offers creative solutions to ensure sustainable, secure funding so that our public lands will be taken care of for generations to come.
Enhancing the Public Lands Recreation Fee System Visitors are already helping public lands flourish by contributing revenues that support recreation. Reforms could improve management and benefit visitors even more.
It appears that rumors of ‘natural and beneficial’ wildfires in the southern Sierra Nevada have been ‘greatly exaggerated’. Even the Alder Creek grove, which was recently bought by Save the Redwoods, was decimated. Of course, this eventuality has been long-predicted.
AFRC Submits Comments on the Eastside Screens EA
On October 12, AFRC submitted comments in response to a Preliminary Environmental Assessment (PEA) published by the Forest Service that considers amendments to a set of guidelines known as the Eastside Screens. The PEA specifically proposes amending that portion of the Eastside Screens that prohibits harvest of any tree over 21 inches in diameter. See August Newsletter for a summary of the findings in the PEA.
Our comments urged the Forest Service to adopt the alternative that best meets the goal of the EA, which is described as “maintaining the abundance and distribution of old forest structure.” The effects analysis outlined in the PEA was based on a robust review of scientific literature and concluded that the Adaptive Management Alternative would permit the “development of more open late old structure than all other alternatives.” As such, AFRC expressed our full support for adoption and implementation of the Adaptive Management Alternative in order to maximize the attainment of the goals of the proposed amendment and the goals of the Eastside Screens.
We are hopeful that AFRC is not alone in its support for the scientifically supported replacement for the 21-inch rule and that the Forest Service adopts this alternative that will allow its forest management professionals the flexibility to effectively manage the diverse forest ecosystems in eastern Oregon without the burden of an arbitrary diameter limit. /Andy Geissler
Two former Obama officials, Robert Bonnie and his long-time associate Meryl Harrell, are the Forest Service-relevant Biden transition team members. They are also two of the three authors of a “transition memo” that frames their advice regarding USDA actions and policies through a climate lens.
Chief Christiansen may be heartened to read the memo’s caveat that “Notably, the Forest Service has no political positions; the Secretary should maintain that tradition . . .” Unsurprisingly, it appears her tenure as Chief will be secure after January 20, if she survives the Trump purge.
What other takeaways do ambitious readers glean from the memo?
“This report contains a detailed cradle-to-gate life-cycle assessment method including data collection, development of life-cycle inventory, and life-cycle impact assessment for production of redwood lumber in the United States. The results illustrated that redwood lumber production has a very low carbon footprint (37.97 kg CO2e/m3 of lumber) and stores about 18 times more carbon compared with its cradle-to-gate carbon footprint.”
In 1993 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Mexican spotted owl as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Photo by USFWS.
This issue has been discussed on this blog numerous times…and will certainly continued to be discussed.
SANTE FE, NEW MEXICO—WildEarth Guardians, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached an agreement (here and here) to resolve a major legal dispute over threatened Mexican spotted owls and national forest protection in New Mexico and Arizona. A federal court issued an injunction on tree cutting on national forests in the Southwest that has been in place since September 2019. The injunction came in response to a lawsuit, originally filed in 2013 by WildEarth Guardians.
The agreement requires the U.S. Forest Service to comply with the Endangered Species Act by conducting annual Mexican spotted owl population trend monitoring through 2025, the key legal dispute at issue and the legal basis for the federal judge’s order that the agency had violated the Act.
“This agreement provides a framework for the Forest Service to better protect national forests and Mexican spotted owls,” said John Horning, Executive Director of WildEarth Guardians. “By agreeing to rigorously monitor species and track habitats, this management framework could be a national model for the Forest Service to protect and recover threatened and endangered species.”
The agreement also contemplates that the Forest Service will comply with the requirements of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s spotted owl recovery plan by identifying and protecting owls by surveying for owls prior to ground-disturbing activities and protecting those areas where owls are found and tracking long-term trends in the owl’s habitat. The agreement also establishes a Mexican spotted owl leadership forum, something the agency recently created. The agreement applies to all 11 national forests in Arizona and New Mexico, which cover over 20 million acres.
“WildEarth Guardians has tenaciously fought to protect the Mexican spotted owl and its ancient forest habitat since the mid-1990s, when the species was first recognized as threatened,” said Steve Sugarman, a Guardians founder and the attorney who litigated the case on behalf of WildEarth Guardians. “Hopefully, the comprehensive management framework contemplated by the agreement reached by Guardians and the Forest Service in this case will end the cycle of forest mismanagement and ensuing litigation.”
The agreement to end this litigation on the basis of a mutually agreed to management framework concludes the latest chapter in a 25-year saga over the management of Mexican spotted owls on national forests in the Southwest. During that period, beginning in 1996, the courts have sided with Guardians multiple times in its legal advocacy to assure that the Forest Service accounts for old-growth dependent species in its approach to national forest management in Arizona and New Mexico.
The agreement further requires the Forest Service to assess the effects of timber management activities such as logging, thinning, and prescribed burning on the owls and their habitat. The Forest Service will then use its monitoring data and assessments of effects, along with up-to-date scientific studies, to inform, constrain, and modify ongoing and future timber management in owl habitat.
“We have long contended that the Forest Service’s claims that logging is good for owls is not based on sound science,” stated Judi Brawer, WildEarth Guardians’ Wild Places Program Director. “This agreement requires the agency to finally assess the impacts of its timber management actions and adjust those actions accordingly to ensure that they do not harm the owls or their habitat.”
The parties negotiated the agreement over a six-month period and the ultimate product reflects the efforts of all of the parties to create a new paradigm for forest protection that will ensure that the agency funds, creates, and abides by the latest and best available science.
“The agreement’s greatest significance is that it brings citizens, science, and the law together in the way that the framers of environmental laws intended,” stated Horning “The foundational principle of environmental laws is that citizens uphold the laws. This is the core principle of healthy, functioning, and effective democracy, and one that is currently under direct threat.”
Background: WildEarth Guardians filed the case in March 12, 2013 over the agencies’ failure to ensure the recovery of the owl by collecting basic information, for more than 20 years, about the status of owl populations across the Southwest. In September 2019, a federal district court judge in Arizona ruled that the agencies have shirked their responsibilities to ensure that Forest Service management activities are making progress towards recovery of the Mexican spotted owl. The ruling halted all “timber management actions” on six national forests in New Mexico and Arizona, including all the national forests in New Mexico and the Tonto National Forest in Arizona.
As the September 2019 decision explains, the Forest Service was required to implement a population monitoring protocol for Mexican spotted owl since at least 1996. It was expected that, within 10-15 years, management activities such as logging and prescribed burning that the agencies claimed would improve owl habitat, supported by monitoring that would show the species recovery, would enable its de-listing from the Endangered Species Act. Yet, as the decision stated, “Over twenty years later, delisting has not occurred, and information about the current [Mexican spotted owl] population is still minimal.”
The West Elk Mountains in the Uncompahgre Field Office are threatened by coal mining under a plan illegally approved by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Stay tuned, there will be more of these lawsuits coming because of the self-described Sagebrush Rebel’s unlawful tenure directing the Bureau of Land Management.
DENVER— Climate groups filed new legal claims today challenging the federal government’s 1.7 million-acre resource-management plan (RMP) to expand fossil fuel development in southwestern Colorado, saying it should be overturned because it was approved during William Perry Pendley’s unlawful tenure directing the Bureau of Land Management (“Bureau”).
“This amendment to our challenge of the Uncompahgre RMP reflects a reality that is now established legal precedent: Pendley’s authority as bureau director is invalid and planning decisions approved on his watch are likewise invalid,” said Melissa Hornbein, staff attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. “The RMP is blatant in its disregard of the law, and our new claim merely reflects the fact that its legal failings stem from Pendley’s unlawful leadership of the bureau.”
Today’s claims follow a court order last week overturning three Pendley resource-management plans in Montana and a September ruling that Pendley’s 424-day tenure was unlawful. The legal filing also amends the groups’ August lawsuit challenging the resource plan for the Uncompahgre Field Office, which calls for more fracking and coal mining in one of the country’s fastest-warming regions.
“This is the first step in scrubbing the stain of Pendley’s corrupt, unlawful legacy from our public lands,” said Taylor McKinnon, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Pendley has built his career on industrializing and destroying public lands. He should never have been allowed to set foot in the building.”
“It’s critical that we undo all the damage done to public lands and the climate by the Bureau of Land Management and its sham leadership,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program director. “By confronting the illegal fossil fuel industry giveaway that is the Uncompahgre Resource Management Plan, we’re taking the steps needed to ensure protection of these irreplaceable lands and values.”
Under Pendley the Bureau of Land Management has amended resource-management plans to enable decades of fossil fuel expansion and climate pollution on public lands across the West. Climate groups have identified unlawful Pendley decisions that include at least 16 resource-management plans and other projects that open 30 million acres of public lands to oil and gas drilling, mining and grazing in Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho and Utah. The plans range from expanding coal mining in Montana and open-pit copper mining in Arizona to allowing fracking across more than 1 million acres in California — the first leases since 2013.
“The bureau’s proposal of a new preferred Alternative E, out of whole cloth, in contradiction of state recommendations, in defiance of over 50,000 public comments, and outright disregard for protests from the state of Colorado, county and municipal governments, and the public were all under Pendley’s watch,” said Natasha Léger, executive director of Citizens for a Healthy Community. “The Uncompahgre RMP should be invalidated just like the Montana RMPs under his tenure.”
Resource-management plans are 20-year blueprints for public lands that govern every activity across the landscape, including which lands are open to fracking and drilling and which areas are protected for their ecological and wildlife values. The Bureau of Land Management director has sole decision-making authority over administrative protests that raise concerns about these plans.
“These public lands are a treasured resource, valued locally for their wildlands, wildlife, and opportunities for sustainable recreation,” said Matt Reed, public lands director at Gunnison County-based High Country Conservation Advocates. “Pendley has never recognized that, and we’re thankful that his ill-conceived tenure at the bureau has come to an end.”
In his September decision saying Pendley had served unlawfully, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled that any duty that Pendley performed during his 424 days as acting director of the Bureau “would have no force and effect and must be set aside as arbitrary and capricious.”
“Pendley’s dirty fingerprints are all over this plan, which will further imperil the Gunnison sage-grouse,” said Talasi Brooks, a staff attorney with Western Watersheds Project. “The public shouldn’t have to live with such terrible decisions being made by an unlawfully appointed bureau director.”
“For 424 days, William Perry Pendley illegally ran the Bureau of Land Management as a one-stop-shop catering to the interests of oil and gas companies,” said Athan Manuel, Sierra Club director of public lands protection. “The decisions made during his unlawful tenure have had real and devastating effects on our communities, our environment, and our wildlife. We deserve a bureau that will protect our public lands and waters, not advance the agenda of dirty fossil fuels.”
Sapphire Wilderness Study Area, Bitterroot National Forest, Montana. Photo by Friends of the Bitterroot.
The following press release was issued today by Friends of the Bitterroot, Hellgate Hunters and Anglers, Missoula Back Country Horsemen, Selway-Pintler Wilderness Back Country Horsemen, WildEarth Guardians, Winter Wildlands Alliance, Montana Wilderness Association, and Earthjustice.
Seattle, WA – Today the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld protections for wilderness-quality lands within the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana against a rising tide of motorized and mechanized backcountry use. The court affirmed a 2018 Montana district court ruling which upheld the U.S. Forest Service’s 2016 Bitterroot National Forest Travel Plan against a legal challenge brought by motorized and mechanized users.
Earthjustice argued the case in defense of the 2016 Forest Plan on behalf of a broad coalition of Montanans including Friends of the Bitterroot, Hellgate Hunters and Anglers, Missoula Back Country Horsemen, Montana Wilderness Association, Selway-Pintler Wilderness Back Country Horsemen, WildEarth Guardians, and Winter Wildlands Alliance.
“The wilderness-quality lands the Travel Plan protects are important to people from all walks of life in the Bitterroot valley including hunters, fishermen, horsepackers, hikers, and skiers,” said Tim Preso, Earthjustice attorney. “The court’s decision ensures that these special places will continue to support elk and other wildlife and provide Montanans with outstanding opportunities for solitude and quiet recreation for years to come.”
“Friends of the Bitterroot is extremely pleased with this victory in court protecting mountain goats, wolverine, lynx and grizzly bears from the clear and present threats posed by motorized and mechanized recreation in Wilderness Study and Recommended Wilderness Areas on the Bitterroot National Forest,” said Larry Campbell, FOB Conservation Director. “FOB has persevered for over two decades to finally see iconic and rare wildlife given the protection they need for survival. There’s still plenty of places for people to play.”
“Today’s victory is a win for wild places and a clear rebuke of the challenge from motorized activists and those opposed to protecting wildlife habitat,” said Adam Rissien with WildEarth Guardians. “The Forest Service can now firmly reject political meddling from Sen. Daines who pressured the agency to ignore safeguards enacted in Montana’s 1977 Wilderness Study Act.”
“This plan was eight years in the making and informed by hundreds of Montanans who asked the Forest Service to protect habitat for wildlife; to ensure the headwaters of the Bitterroot River and Rock Creek remain clean and cold and its wild trout populations healthy; and to practice true multiple use in the Bitterroot National Forest,” said Erin Clark, western Montana field director with Montana Wilderness Association. “The plan leaves one third of the Forest open to snowmobiling and over 2,000 miles of road and trail open to mountain biking while adhering to the spirit and law of the Montana Wilderness Study Act.”
“Today’s ruling ensures that wild lands on the Bitterroot National Forest will remain protected in all seasons, providing refuge for wildlife and opportunities for human-powered winter adventure,” said Hilary Eisen, policy director with Winter Wildlands Alliance. “The plan strikes a fair balance between providing opportunities for snowmobiling and preserving quiet places for skiers, snowshoers, and others who seek opportunities for solitude and prefer to enjoy the backcountry at a slower pace. We’re pleased that the Court has upheld this balance.”
“The Backcountry Horsemen are delighted that these special areas will continue to be enjoyed for their quiet beauty and primitive travel by foot or horse,” said Dan Harper, vice president of the Backcountry Horsemen of Missoula Chapter.
“This ruling is a long-awaited victory for Montana’s wildlife and our conservation community,” said Walker Conyngham, president of Missoula-based Hellgate Hunters & Anglers. “Sportsmen and women recognize that the species we rely upon deserve healthy, undisturbed habitat in order to thrive. We look to this ruling as a clear precedent for preserving valuable wildlife sanctuaries like our wilderness study areas.
