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This is an excerpt from a Greenwire article today, “3 years to show visitors a tree? Slow permits hamper guides”… The article offers quotes from one guide, and there may be more at play in this instance than a shortage of staff and a slow process.

An Alaska guide’s three-year wait for a permit to show hikers a big tree in Tongass National Forest has ended — but only after the state’s senior senator intervened last week.

“It’s effectively taking an act of Congress,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told E&E News yesterday, days after she raised the subject with Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen at a committee budget hearing. “They recognize that it is not right.”

Dan Kirkwood, guide and general manager with Pack Creek Bear Tours in Juneau, has been trying to arrange tours of five to 10 people at a time in a wilderness area on Admiralty Island, part of the nearly 17-million-acre Tongass — the country’s biggest national forest. The Forest Service requires special-use permits for commercial activities to guard against overuse of sensitive sites, a system Kirkwood told E&E News he supports.

Kirkwood’s bureaucratic tangle isn’t unheard of: The Forest Service continues to struggle with delays handling the thousands of requests it receives nationally for special-use permits. The trouble is more profound in Alaska, where the agency has a shortage of staff, although Christiansen said officials continue to work at shortening the wait times.

The main attraction for Kirkwood: a giant spruce called the Candelabra Tree. It’s an example of the kind of old growth that endures in areas of the Tongass that haven’t been logged. But it’s not far from areas the public might visit; the spot is about 20 feet away from a state-owned beach, and it’s between two bear-viewing areas that Kirkwood said he already has permits to visit.

“This is a place we knew of because it’s a cool thing to look at,” said Kirkwood, who received a one-year temporary permit that might be extended. “We want to play by the rules.”

Congress and the Forest Service agree that staffing levels are largely to blame for the crunch. Budget cuts have played a role, Murkowski said, especially because the Forest Service appeared to apply them unevenly, with Alaska taking more than its share.

A Forest Service spokeswoman didn’t immediately return a request for comment from E&E News, but Christiansen said at the hearing that she’s making permits a high priority.

“Legal battles slow timber industry, forcing mill closure in Townsend,” an article by NBC Montana, has the usual back and forth over the issue, but includes a table from the USFS with the number of acres and volume affected by legal actions. Totals: 17588 acres, 138.3 mmbf. Anyone know how much of that is sales vetted by collaborative groups?

Ed Regan, resource manager at RY Timber, said: “I think the solution is that timber sales within timber management areas on national forests should not be subject to federal court review.”

That’s unlikely to happen, but it makes come sense to use CEs for timber sales within timber management areas, if there’s no unusual potential effect. After all, most timber sales are common activities and environmental effects are well understood.

Anyone know how much USFS land in Montana is in “timber management areas”?

Figures on USFS ownership in Montana, from the Montana Wilderness Assn.:

U.S. Forest Service: 16,893,000 acres
USFS Wilderness: 3,372,503 acres (~20% of USFS acres)
USFS Roadless: 5,337,694 acres (~32% of USFS acres)

Total USFS wilderness and roadless: ~52%

Here’s yesterday’s press release from the plaintiff groups.

DENVER— A federal appeals court today ruled that the U.S. Forest Service illegally approved a loophole allowing the coal industry to despoil unroaded National Forest lands in western Colorado. The decision gives new hope for the protection of Colorado’s North Fork Valley and for the climate.

“The Trump administration can’t sacrifice public lands at the expense of our climate,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ climate and energy program director.  “Today’s ruling is another win for the American public over the dirty coal industry and their climate-denying cronies in the federal government.”

“The Forest Service failed to provide a logically coherent explanation for its decision to eliminate the Pilot Knob Alternative,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit wrote.  The court held the Forest Service illegally refused to protect  4,900 acres in the Gunnison National Forest’s Pilot Knob roadless area when it reopened nearly 20,000 acres to coal leasing and mining.

“The Forest Service can no longer ignore the climate and wildlife benefits of keeping Pilot Knob’s roadless forest free from coal mining,” said Matt Reed, public lands director for High Country Conservation Advocates. “Pilot Knob is an irreplaceable treasure, providing winter range for deer and bald eagles, severe winter range for elk, and historic and potential future habitat for the threatened Gunnison sage grouse. It is the last place we should be tearing up for coal mining.”

Conservation groups sued in December 2017 to protect these pristine wildlands and force the agencies to look at alternatives to minimize climate pollution.

“Colorado roadless areas are a treasure we all share. The U.S. Forest Service long ago decided that these areas needed protection,” said Peter Hart, staff attorney at Wilderness Workshop. “Nonetheless, when the agency implemented the Colorado Roadless Rule, it exempted thousands of acres of pristine roadless lands outside of Paonia from protection to allow for coal mining. Today’s decision vacates that exception and it will, hopefully, ensure that North Fork Roadless Areas, including spectacular Pilot Knob, are properly protected for generations to come.”

“This is a big victory for Colorado’s wildlife and wild places,” said Allison Melton, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Trump officials have been ruthlessly sacrificing our national forests and beautiful wilderness at the behest of polluters. Now they must do their jobs and consider an alternative that would protect important wildlife habitat. It’s encouraging to see the court stand up for bald eagles, mountain lions, mule deer and sage grouse.”

Located in the West Elk Mountains just east of the town of Paonia, the West Elk mine is the single-largest industrial source of methane pollution in Colorado. In 2017 it released more than 440,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, equal to the annual emissions from more than 98,000 cars.

“While the Trump administration attempts to put our most treasured places in Colorado into the hands of corporate polluters, this victory undermines their blatant disregard for protecting our planet,” said Emily Gedeon, acting director of the Sierra Club’s Colorado chapter. “These are our public lands, and we’re proud to fight for them.”

“This is a victory for the remarkable wild forests of the North Fork Valley,” said Robin Cooley, the Earthjustice attorney who argued the case on behalf of the conservation groups. “The court reversed the Forest Service’s decision to carve out an exception to Colorado’s roadless area protections in order to pave the way for expansion of a dirty and destructive coal mine. As a result of the ruling, the Forest Service must go back to the drawing board and consider whether to protect more of the Valley’s irreplaceable roadless forests.”

In November a federal court in Colorado ruled for conservation groups in a related case and blocked expansion of the West Elk coal mine. The judge ordered the Trump administration to consider limiting methane emissions and address potential harm to water and fish.

Here is a very long and detailed “California Legislative Analyst’s Office Report on Governor Gavin Newsom’s Wildfire-Related Proposals.”

One problem with the proposal, IMHO: federal funding. 57 percent (nearly 19 million acres) of California forestlands are managed by the US Forest Service and other federal agencies, but will they have funding for adequate treatments?

Conclusion

Various factors are contributing to the state facing growing risks of destructive wildfires, which could continue in the decades to come. Given the long‑term and complex nature of wildfire risks—as well as the challenges and costs associated with effectively addressing those risks—we find it is important for the state to develop a statewide strategic wildfire plan. The purpose of the plan would be to inform and guide state policymakers regarding the most effective strategies for responding to wildfires and mitigating wildfire risks. This could include guidance on future funding allocations to ensure the highest‑priority and most cost‑effective programs and activities receive funding and that the state achieves an optimal balance of funding for prevention and mitigation activities with demands to increase fire response capacity.

In addition, we find that in the absence of such a strategic wildfire plan, the Governor’s 2020‑21 budget proposals are difficult to evaluate and in some cases might not align with some of the key elements we think might be included in a strategic approach. Consequently, it is possible that under the Governor’s budget plan, the state could be committing to wildfire strategies that are not the most effective or efficient. Therefore, until the state has developed a strategic wildfire plan, we recommend that the Legislature consider limiting certain ongoing budget commitments that would be difficult to change in the future. In so doing, the state would better maintain budget flexibility to implement the most effective and efficient wildfire risk reduction strategies recommended by the strategic wildfire plan.

The following article was written by Marc Heller, E&E News reporter. It includes perspective from Smokey Wire contributor Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

The Forest Service is looking to shift research away from wildlife in national forests and toward wildfire management, according to budget documents.

In its proposed spending plan for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, the service said it intends to eliminate research funding for fish and wildlife and close a research station in California. Staff would be reduced, although researchers would be given the opportunity to relocate within the Forest Service.

The wildlife and fish research totals $22 million this year.

“The proposed budget requires difficult decisions about what research stations and programs would continue to operate,” the Department of Agriculture said in a memo to staff, detailing the planned budget rollout. The administration presented the fiscal 2021 budget proposal to Congress on Monday.

“Making these decisions will allow the Forest Service to focus its resources on its highest priority science activities,” USDA said. “These highest priority science activities are those which make the greatest contribution to the agency’s land management responsibilities.”

In the memo, obtained by E&E News, the department told staff the proposal doesn’t mean the Forest Service is turning away from science and research, but rather that it’s realigning its research priorities to reflect the relative importance of wildfire and forest health. The proposal also would eliminate funding for research related to recreation, saving $9 million.

The forest inventory and analysis budget would climb 2%. The service would also invest more than $12.5 million to strengthen the link between research and wildfire suppression operations, the department said.

“The Forest Service will continue to be a national leader in conducting applied science to inform forest management and improve forest conditions,” USDA said.

Cutting research is likely to raise objections in Congress, particularly from Democrats who view the Trump administration as hostile to science. The department appeared to anticipate that line of inquiry, posing in a question-and-answer section of the memo: “This budget is yet another example of this Administration’s war on science. How can you justify this huge cut to research and say that you will still have enough capacity for a viable research program that will support the management of the Nation’s forests?”

The department’s answer, in part: “Selecting priority research areas on which to focus resources is essential to maintaining the quality of the Forest Service’s research enterprise and represents the agency’s commitment to producing high-quality, impactful science.”

Research on wildlife and fish directly affects Forest Service decisions on land use, including logging that has impacts on wildlife, said Chad Hanson, a forest biologist with the John Muir Project in California who is opposed to logging on federal land.

The research has sometimes been at odds with timber industry priorities, said Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

“Fish and wildlife research reformed Forest Service logging. But for the work of a generation of Forest Service fish and wildlife scientists, old-growth forests would all be stumps today,” Stahl said.

Other potential points of contention are the proposed closure of the Pacific Southwest Research Station in Albany, Calif., and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico. The research station in California is the smallest of the Forest Service’s five research and development stations and can be merged with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, the department said.

USDA said the proposal would cut 287 staff years, although the proposal didn’t say how many researchers would be affected. Scientists working on forest inventory and analysis, for instance, would be kept on at other facilities, the department said.

In the budget justification document presented to Congress, USDA said, “These closures would require the use of reduction in force authority, voluntary early retirement authority and voluntary separation incentive authority.”

What IF this was by design and part of the Trump administration’s plans from the beginning? I mean, what IF?

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Contact: Peter Jenkins (202) 265-4189

Special Assistant a No-Show; Two-Thirds of Top Slots Vacant or Acting

Washington, DC — The hallways of the National Park Service Headquarters now open onto empty offices or those filled on a temporary basis. At the same time, a senior official has gone AWOL according to a new complaint filed with the Department of the Interior’s Inspector General (IG) by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Two-thirds of the top NPS slots lack a permanent official — an unprecedented leadership vacuum. While the Trump White House is notably reluctant to submit nominations for Senate confirmation across the Executive agencies, many senior NPS vacancies are for positions that do not require Senate confirmation. Besides having neither a confirmed Park Service Director nor a nominee for that key job, currently –

• Ten of 15 Deputy, Assistant, and Associate NPS Director slots are entirely vacant or temporarily filled by an “acting” appointee;

• Several Superintendent positions at major parks, such as Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Grand Teton, also are filled by “actings” on an interim basis; and

• P. Daniel Smith, who was brought out of retirement in 2018 and given an NPS Deputy slot in which he “exercised the authority of the Director,” then was moved out of that slot last summer to serve as a teleworking special assistant, but he apparently has not been seen at NPS Headquarters since.

“The Park Service is suffering from a multi-billion-dollar maintenance deficit and it can ill afford high-salary ghost employees,” stated PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse. “Keeping so many leadership slots unfilled by permanent jobholders hobbles management and means that major decisions affecting our national parks are increasingly made by political appointees in the Interior Secretary’s office.”

The PEER complaint asks the IG to determine the whereabouts of Smith. He draws a top salary as a Special Assistant to the Director, but there is no confirmed or acting Director. One of the ironies involving P. Daniel Smith is that he appears to be in violation of a restrictive telework policy that was adopted under his aegis when he was still in NPS Headquarters.

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See NPS’s 2/3rds leadership vacancies

Vacant, Director
David Vela, Deputy Director, exercising the authority of the Director
Lena McDowall, Deputy Director, Management and Administration
Shawn Benge, Acting Deputy Director, Operations
Vacant, Deputy Director, Congressional and External Relations
Chris Powell, Chief of Staff
Shane Compton, Associate Director, Chief Information Office
Vacant, Assistant Director, Communications
Joy Beasley, Acting Associate Director, Cultural Resources, Partnerships and Science
Tom Medema, Acting Associate Director, Interpretation, Education, and Volunteers
Charles Laudner, Assistant Director, Legislative and Congressional Affairs
Ray Sauvajot, Associate Director, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science
Mike Caldwell, Acting Associate Director, Park Planning, Facilities, and Lands
Reggie Chapple, Acting Assistant Director, Partnerships and Civic Engagement
Marlon Taubenheim, Acting Associate Director, Workforce and Inclusion
Vacant, Associate Director, Business Services
Louis Rowe, Acting Associate Director, Visitor and Resource Protection

Read PEER’s complaint on Smith filed with Interior IG

Look at checkered history of Danny Smith

This is the beginning of a series in which we will explore current trends in recreation and tourism and their impacts on federal lands.

I’ve noticed that when people write op-eds about Wilderness, they tend to talk about the value of the “recreation industry.” But are those figures really relevant to their argument?

In this recent op-ed in the Colorado Springs Gazette, for example, John Stansfield, of Wild Connections, wrote
“Colorado’s public lands are a major economic driver for the state’s economy with our outdoor recreation industry generating $28 billion annually, supporting 229,000 jobs.”

I tried to find where this figure came from and found this Denver Post article.

The value of Colorado’s outdoor recreation economy has grown to $62.5 billion, almost double what it was just five years ago, and now supports about 511,000 jobs across the state, says a state report released Friday.

Gov. John Hickenlooper joined staffers from several different state and federal agencies, outdoor businesses and conservation groups along the South Platte River in Lower Downtown to unveil the latest survey of the state’s outdoor recreation economy. Hickenlooper noted the big increase in the overall economic contribution — to $62.5 billion from $34 billion in 2013.

“This puts it as one of the top economic drivers of our economy,” Hickenlooper said. “That’s a $35 billion contribution to our GDP (Gross Domestic Product). That’s more than 10 percent.

So I looked into the Colorado Parks and Wildlife report which was based on information from the Outdoor Recreation industry (I’m not criticizing this approach, just pointing out that getting information from industries should not be a “bad” thing or a “good” thing depending on our views about that industry). Also, it’s probably true that CPW is not unbiased either, but that’s OK, because we can read the report.

The DPW study used a broader definition than the OIA study, so that’s why their figures are higher. Here’s a link to the OIA study.

But is it really fair to argue for Wilderness based on recreation figures from skateboarding, to RVing to snowmobiling, most of which don’t take place in Wilderness? If you were designing an economic study to argue for Wilderness, wouldn’t you want to include ($ paid by people who would only visit if this area were Wilderness) – ($lost by people who could no longer recreate in this Wilderness)? How would you design an accurate estimate? I’d start with a survey that asks “in these specific areas (in the Wilderness Bill under consideration) are you more or less likely to recreate there if it were Wilderness? Then there’s the related impact question of “how much more impact would these recreationists have, both in terms of the land and wildlife, and in the travel to get there?”

These are all the questions that might be asked and answered in an EIS, but Congressional designation is political (in this particular case it appears to be a symbolic political act).

Here’s another quote:
“Frequent surveys show a majority of Coloradans prefer to permanently protect our public lands for present and future generations to enjoy.”
This leaves out “exactly what are we protecting them from? from other members of the public enjoying them?” and “by designating Wilderness, are they adequately protected from recreation impacts?”. What are the mechanics of that? If it is narrowing down the user pool (to only hikers and equestrians) permanently, I guess that makes sense, but of course they have their own impacts, sometimes fairly significant. It’s just confusing to me that there is the “protection from people” language in the same argument as “the outdoor industry makes lots of money.”

The “urban-rural divide” has been discussed for years, especially in the western US. Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions has a new report on the issue. Here’s a press release….

Dividing Lines — and Common Ground — Between Rural and Urban Voters on Environmental Policy

DURHAM, N.C. — Rural and urban Americans are divided in their views on the environment, but common ground does exist, says a new report led by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

“The urban/rural divide on the environment is real, but it centers not on differences in how much people value environmental protection but on divergent views toward government regulation,” said lead author Robert Bonnie, executive in residence at the Nicholas Institute and a former undersecretary for natural resources and environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Rural Americans, across party lines, are less supportive of governmental oversight on the environment than their urban/suburban counterparts.”

The study was conducted over two years by the Nicholas Institute with assistance from the University of Rhode Island, the University of Wyoming, Hart Research Associates and New Bridge Strategy. It involved extensive outreach to rural constituencies, including a national survey of more than 2,000 registered voters, focus groups with more than 125 rural voters and in-depth interviews with 36 rural leaders.

Rural Americans have an outsized impact on national environmental policy, from strong representation in the halls of Congress to management of vast swaths of lands and watersheds, the authors note.

Polling results indicated broad support for conservation and environmental protection among both rural and urban/suburban voters. The study also found rural voters to be relatively knowledgeable about environmental policies and the potential economic trade-offs that come with them.

“Americans living in rural communities showed a powerful commitment to protecting the environment, motivated in large part by a strong place identity and desire to maintain local environmental resources for future generations,” said study co-author Emily Diamond, assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island.

Rural voters significantly diverged from urban and suburban voters over attitudes toward federal regulation, the study found. In the polling, rural voters across political parties expressed more skepticism for government policies. Participants in focus group conversations often voiced strong support for conservation and environmental protection in the abstract but raised concerns about the impacts and effectiveness of specific policies.

Climate change proved to be another dividing line between rural and urban/suburban voters.

“Our focus groups and interviews echoed this sense that rural opposition to climate change policies may be tied to negative experiences they have had with other federal environmental regulations,” Diamond said.

“Climate change is a polarizing issue in rural America, but there is a path forward that can win rural support,” Bonnie added. “Our study shows that engagement and collaboration with rural stakeholders will be important to winning over rural support.”

There is no quick fix to bridging the urban/rural divide on environmental policies, the authors said. They recommend that policymakers, environmentalists and conservation groups engage more with rural communities when developing policies that could affect them. The authors also suggest federal policies — especially for addressing climate change — are more likely to gain rural voters’ support if they allow for state and local partnerships and collaboration with rural stakeholders.

Other key recommendations include:

* Working with trusted messengers, such as farmers, ranchers, and cooperative extension services, to convey information about environmental policies to local stakeholders
* Improving scientific outreach to rural communities
* Offering opportunities to address environmental policy priorities in a way that is compatible with rural economies

Support for the study was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Wilburforce Foundation and the Rubenstein Fellows Academy at Duke University. The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions contributed seed funding through its Catalyst Program to get the project started. The full report, “Understanding Rural Attitudes Toward the Environment and Conservation in America,” is available at nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/publications/understanding-rural-attitudes-toward-environment-and-conservation-america.

The study was led by Bonnie with co-authors Diamond and Elizabeth Rowe, a master of environmental management student at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Jay Campbell at Hart Research Associates and Lori Weigel at New Bridge Strategy conducted focus groups and polling for the study.

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From Science Daily.

Summary: New research reveals that even simultaneous bark beetle outbreaks are not a death sentence to the state’s beloved forests. The study found that high-elevation forests in the southern Rocky Mountains actually have a good chance of recovery, even after overlapping outbreaks with different kinds of beetles. One thing that is slowing their recovery down: Foraging elk and deer.

Two words, and a tiny little creature, strike fear in the hearts of many Colorado outdoor enthusiasts: bark beetle. But new research from University of Colorado Boulder reveals that even simultaneous bark beetle outbreaks are not a death sentence to the state’s beloved forests.

The study, published this month in the journal Ecology, found that high-elevation forests in the southern Rocky Mountains actually have a good chance of recovery, even after overlapping outbreaks with different kinds of beetles. One thing that is slowing their recovery down: Foraging elk and deer.

“This is actually a bright point, at least for the next several decades,” said Robert Andrus, lead author of the study and recent PhD graduate in physical geography. “Even though we had multiple bark beetle outbreaks, we found that 86 percent of the stands of trees that we surveyed are currently on a trajectory for recovery.”

Between 2005 and 2017, a severe outbreak of spruce bark beetles swept through more than 741,000 acres of high-elevation forest in the southern Rocky Mountains near Wolf Creek Pass — killing more than 90 percent of Engelmann spruce trees in many stands. At the same time, the western balsam bark beetle infested subalpine fir trees across almost 124,000 acres within the same area.

If you go skiing in Colorado, you’re usually in a high-elevation, Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir forest, said Andrus.

The researchers wanted to know if these overlapping events, caused by two different types of bark beetles, would limit the ability of the forest to recover. So they measured more than 14,000 trees in 105 stands in the eastern San Juan Mountains, tallying the surviving species and the number of deaths. They had expected that the combined effects of two bark beetle outbreaks would prevent forest recovery, but they found that the forests were quite resilient.

That’s an important contrast from what happens following a severe fire, which can cause forests to convert to grasslands, according to previous research by Thomas Veblen, coauthor of the study and Distinguished Professor of Geography.

“It’s important that we perform these sorts of studies, because we need different management responses depending on the forest type and the kind of disturbance,” said Veblen.

They also found that greater tree species diversity prior to the bark beetle outbreaks was a key component of resilient forests.

Tens of millions of acres across the Western United States and North America have been affected in the past two decades, and Colorado has not been spared. A severe mountain pine beetle outbreak began in 1996, easily visible along I-70 and in Rocky Mountain National Park. Since 2000, more than 1.8 million acres of Engelmann spruce statewide have been affected by spruce beetles in high-elevation forests.

With continued warming there will come a time where conditions caused by climate change exceed the forests’ ability to recover, said Veblen.

Impacts of Ungulates

The study is the first to consider the effects of two different types of beetles that affect two different dominant tree species, as well as the effects of browsing elk and deer in the same area.

Bark beetles prefer bigger, mature trees with thicker bark, which offer more nutrients and better protection in the wintertime. They typically leave the younger, juvenile trees alone — allowing the next generation to recover and repopulate the forest.

But while in the field, researchers noticed many smaller trees were being munched on by elk and deer. Known as “ungulates,” these animals like to nibble the top of young trees, which can stunt the trees’ vertical growth. They found more than half of the tops of all smaller trees had been browsed.

That doesn’t mean that those trees are going to die — ungulates are just more likely to slow the rate of forest recovery.

Avid Colorado skiers and mountaineers looking forward to typical, green forests, however, will have to be patient.

“We don’t expect full forest recovery for decades,” said Andrus.

Story Source: Materials provided by University of Colorado at Boulder. Original written by Kelsey Simpkins. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference: Robert A. Andrus, Sarah J. Hart, Thomas T. Veblen. Forest recovery following synchronous outbreaks of spruce and western balsam bark beetle is slowed by ungulate browsing. Ecology, 2020; DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2998

You may recall a paper last year that called for large-scale tree planting as “our most effective climate change solution to date.” And President Trump’s call for planting a trillion trees. An op-ed in today’s NY Times debunks this notion, writing that:

There is no way that planting trees, even across a global area the size of the United States, can absorb the enormous amounts of fossil carbon emitted from industrial societies. Trees do take up carbon from the atmosphere as they grow. But this uptake merely replaces carbon lost when forests were cleared in the first place, usually long ago. Regrowing forests where they once flourished can undo some damage done in the past, but even a trillion trees can’t store enough carbon to head off dramatic climate changes this century.

The op-ed mentions a rebuttal to the first paper in Science (open access), in which the authors state that”

“…regardless of the exact amount of carbon that could be stored via forest restoration, this solution can only temporarily delay future warming. The 205 GtC proposed by the authors is equal to about 20 years of global anthropo-genic CO2 emissions at the current emission rate of about 10 GtC/year (2). Without radical reductions in fossil carbon emissions, forest restoration can only offset a share of future emissions and has limited potential. The only long-term and sustainable way to stabilize the climate at any temperature target is to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions to zero (over the coming 30 to 50 years to meet the temperature targets of the Paris Climate Agreement).”

In any case, maintaining forest health and resilience, and reducing the chances of large, intense wildfires, is still important.