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What follows is a petition/action alert from the California Chaparral Institute. – mk

STOP destruction of 20 million acres of habitat and protect our communities from fire

The California state government has just refused to do what is necessary to protect us from the wind-driven wildfires that kill the most people and destroy the most homes.

Their solution? To double down on what they’ve always done – clear 250,000 acres of native habitat per year (20 million acres total targeted) through grinding, burning, and herbicides in their proposed Vegetation Treatment Program (VTP).* Even though the state admits that this approach will fail to protect lives and property during the most devastating wildfires, it nonetheless remains California’s priority solution to the wildfire problem.

Here is what the state admitted in response to our proposals to make communities fire safe:

“When high-wind conditions drive a large fire, such as when large embers travel long distances in advance of the fire, vegetation treatment would do little, if anything, to stop downwind advance of the fire front.”

In other words, the state is going to ignore the fires that cause the greatest loss of life and property. Instead, Cal Fire, the state fire agency, will only address 95% of the fires – the ones they can easily control under calm conditions.

This is absurd. Imagine if we designed buildings to withstand only 95th percentile earthquake movements, or what you would feel as a result of a magnitude 2.5.

The science is clear. Proper vegetation management around homes and directly around communities is an important part of reducing fire risk. But the wholesale destruction of the natural environment is not.

We need to follow the science. We need to protect communities from the fires that actually do the most damage. And we need to stop pretending we can control Nature by destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of native habitat through Cal Fire’s proposed Vegetation Treatment Program (VTP).

The California state government has shown a pattern of failure when it comes to protecting us.

State politicians say they agree that making communities fire safe is a priority, but Governor Newsom rejected $1 billion in funding to do so. Instead, he championed a $21 billion program to protect utility corporations from liability for the fires they cause. The state promotes it’s efforts to protect biodiversity, yet it is planning on clearing 250,000 acres/year of native habitat under the guise of fire protection.

The California state government needs to fulfill the main obligation it has to its citizens – protect them from harm.

What you can do:
Please sign this petition and forward it to family and friends.

Dear Governor Newsom,

We urge you to reject the California Board of Forestry’s and Cal Fire’s current approach to dealing with wildfire – clearing habitat as described in their recent final Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for the Vegetation Treatment Program (VTP).

1. Reject Cal Fire’s refusal to protect us from the growing threat of extreme, wind-driven wildfires. Cal Fire’s approach wastes millions of tax-payer dollars and fails to protect communities most at risk.

2. Immediately develop and fund a comprehensive and effective program to reduce the flammability of our communities through retrofits, exterior sprinklers, etc., so that our communities can survive wind-driven firestorms. We can do it, but it will require objective leadership OUTSIDE the Cal Fire bureaucracy, a bureaucracy trapped by its own paradigm paralysis – they can’t think outside their own priorities. Assemblyman Wood’s bill (AB 38), passed last term, provided an opportunity to make communities fire safe, but you did not support funding the program. The funding needs to be reinstated.

3. Develop and promote the policies needed to:

a. form community fire safety teams that will develop evacuation plans for actual disasters that will occur (not the minor events that we have been able to control in the past),
b. create fire safety parks WITHIN threatened communities where people can go and remain safe during a wildfire
c. form community-based volunteer fire response teams of people who DO NOT evacuate, but stay to assist their disabled and/or trapped neighbors
d. STOP the *unsustainable practice* of placing people in harm’s way by allowing development in known fire corridors

Here is a complete list of recommendations.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS supporting this petition

*To see the VTP, you can go to this link:
https://bofdata.fire.ca.gov/projects-and-programs/calvtp/

In case you might think the title of our petition is hyperbole, here is the text from the VTP EIR:

“Expansion of CAL FIRE’s vegetation treatment activities to reach a total treatment acreage target of approximately 250,000 acres per year to contribute to the achievement of the 500,000 annual acres of treatment on non-federal lands…” Page ES-2

And…

“Using this method, 20.3 million acres within the 31 million-acre SRA were identified that may be appropriate for vegetation treatments as part of the CalVTP…”
Page ES-3

An added note:
87% of the destruction to communities in 2017-18 was caused by 6 wildfires (out of 16,000), all wind-driven. The VTP admits it doesn’t address those. Let that sink in for a bit.

Here is the Los Angeles Times’ editorial that repeats much of what we are saying in this petition:

Editorial: California will never control raging wildfires if it doesn’t stop building in high-risk areas
By The Times Editorial Board
Nov. 29, 2019

After three years of devastating and deadly wildfires, perhaps we should no longer be surprised by them.

It was shocking in 2017 when the Tubbs fire jumped the 101 Freeway and charred a suburban subdivision in Santa Rosa. It was unthinkable last year when Paradise residents had to run for their lives as the city was almost entirely destroyed by the Camp fire. And still people were caught off guard last month when the Saddleridge fire forced hundreds of residents in Sylmar and Porter Ranch to flee their homes in the middle of the night.

A terrifying pattern has been revealed. California’s wildfires are now regularly destroying subdivisions and established neighborhoods that once seemed at low risk from wildfires. There’s ample scientific data and research to explain why: Climate change amplifies natural variations in the weather, leading to more frequent and more destructive wildfires. Poorly maintained utility lines are setting blazes.

Despite that, we’re still building homes — more and more of them — in fire-prone areas. State and local leaders have been slow to adopt the housing, land-use and development reforms that would make California communities much safer in the coming years. Here are a few suggestions culled from experts that, if enacted soon, could deliver lasting security.

Harden homes

The devastation in Paradise, Santa Rosa, Ventura County and Malibu demonstrated that homes are not only casualties in the fires, but also the fuel that feeds and exacerbates the blazes. Wind-driven fires can blow embers over great distances. The embers lodge under eaves, get sucked into vents or broken windows and can ignite a house from the inside out, which creates more embers and more heat. The fire then spreads from house to house, sometimes leaving surrounding trees largely untouched. The first and most obvious step is to retrofit homes in high-risk areas to make them more resistant to fire. Researchers analyzed some 40,000 buildings exposed to wildfires between 2013 and 2018. They found that homes built to keep out embers and withstand extreme heat were much more likely to survive. Yet so far, the state has done little to require home hardening or to fund it.

The needed retrofits aren’t very expensive. Homeowners should cover their vents with fine wire mesh and enclose their eaves to prevent embers from getting inside the structure. Double-paned windows are less likely to shatter in high heat, and steel shutters can help too.

Properties also need regular inspections to make sure they are prepared for fire season. Are there gaps in roof tiles that might allow embers into the attic? Are the gutters full of dry leaves and twigs? Do the residents know to shut the doggie door when they evacuate?

Earlier this year, Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) proposed creating a billion-dollar revolving loan fund to help homeowners pay for retrofits and to remove flammable vegetation near their homes. The funding was cut from the bill.

Next year, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers should invest that $1 billion — or more — to help people in high-risk areas make their homes more fire resistant. But it’s not enough to have individual homeowners voluntarily harden their houses if neighboring properties are tinder boxes. Fire is contagious. The greatest protection comes when entire neighborhoods are hardened together and maintained together. Whatever legislation is passed should reflect that.

Buy out burned properties

Still, all the fire-resistant materials and hardening in the world can’t guarantee safety. During the 2017 Thomas fire in Ventura County, new houses built to the strictest fire codes still burned down. The houses were in a state-designated “very high fire hazard severity zone,” which means the area has the greatest probability of burning based on vegetation, topography and fire history. And when 80-mile-per-hour winds blow embers across a landscape that is already prone to burn, the fire can quickly overwhelm hardened homes.

State officials have to recognize that there are some homes and neighborhoods that shouldn’t be rebuilt. Or rebuilt again, since some communities have burned more than once. For decades, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has helped buy out properties destroyed by flood waters, in a bid to stop the expensive and sometimes deadly cycle of flood-rescue-and-rebuild in high-risk areas. In Texas, communities have used a combination of local bonds, drainage fees and federal dollars to buy out flood-prone houses.

Buyouts are considered one of the most cost-effective ways to prevent flood destruction. These are voluntary sales and the government pays fair market value. The homes are demolished and the property becomes open space. It’s pricey to buy up dozens of properties at a time, but it can be cheaper and more effective than developing new flood control infrastructure.

Yet there’s been little discussion in California of trying to use FEMA grants or other funds to make similar buyout offers in high fire-risk areas. It wouldn’t be possible to buy out every property owner in the very high fire hazard severity zones — there are an estimated 2.7 million Californians living there. Rather, a buyout program could target the areas at the very greatest risk, perhaps because the community was built without adequate evacuation routes, or because the neighborhood has been burned two or more times before.

Don’t build in high fire-risk areas. But if development must be approved, build exceptionally safe communities

The best way to prevent wildfire destruction and death is to stop building houses in the path of fire. Half of all buildings destroyed by wildfire in California over the last 30 years have been in developed areas next to wildlands.

So far, though, gentle suggestions that local governments should consider wildfire risk when approving development aren’t working, and neither is Newsom’s call to “deprioritize” development in high fire-risk areas. Land-use decisions are made by local elected officials and they’ve proven themselves unwilling to say no to dangerous sprawl development and equally unwilling to say yes to denser, urban infill housing construction that would be more sustainable. Just look at Los Angeles County, where the Board of Supervisors approved construction of a 19,000-home mini-city to be built at Tejon Ranch in a remote valley that has been deemed a high risk for wildfires.

California lawmakers need to push — even force — local elected officials to make more responsible development decisions.

Earlier this year, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) introduced Senate Bill 182, which would prohibit cities and counties from approving new housing developments in high fire-risk areas unless the projects meet new “wildfire risk reduction standards.” Those would include siting the homes so they have natural fire breaks and are easier for firefighters to defend, building evacuation routes, and having an ongoing, funded program to inspect and maintain defensible space around homes.

The bill was held up amid concerns that it could allow anti-growth cities to use the presence of some high fire-risk areas within their borders as an excuse to shirk their responsibility to build enough housing in the non-fire-risk areas of the city. That should not be allowed.

Yes, California has a severe housing shortage that is making the state unaffordable and unlivable for too many people. But the state can’t keep counting on sprawl to solve the housing crisis. That only puts more people at risk in future wildfires, and it generates more greenhouse gases as residents commute from far-flung subdivisions. That hastens climate change, which, in turn, worsens wildfire conditions in California.

The entire history of the state’s effort to ignore the fires that cause all the damage can be found here:
http://www.californiachaparral.org/threatstochaparral/helpcalfireeir.html

OSU professor Beverly Law and her researchers have published another paper on a topic we’ve discussed before, such as here — that it would be better, carbon-wise, to preserve forests rather than harvest timber. This new paper builds on that theme

Carbon sequestration and biodiversity co-benefits of preserving forests in the western USA

Authors: Polly C. Buotte1, Beverly E. Law, William J. Ripple, Logan T. Berner

Abstract and conclusions below. The paper is behind a pay wall.

I noted in the abstract that the authors based their modeling on “two high-carbon emission scenario (RCP 8.5) climate models.” RCP 8.5 was the subject of a recent article in Forbes by Roger Pilke Jr., “It’s Time To Get Real About The Extreme Scenario Used To Generate Climate Porn,” in which he says RCP 8.5 is a “worst-case scenario” and that “it may not even be a plausible worst-case scenario, because it requires improbable changes to our global energy policies, such as a wholesale return to coal throughout the 21st century and the abandonment of natural gas and renewables.”

So I hope any discussion here the Buotte/Law article will focus on climate modeling and scenarios, rather than the proposal to preserve much of the west-side forests and reduce harvesting (though that certainly is a topic of interest).

Abstract:

Forest carbon sequestration via forest preservation can be a viable climate change mitigation strategy. Here we identify forests in the western conterminous United States with high potential carbon sequestration and low vulnerability to future drought and fire, as simulated using the Community Land Model and two high-carbon emission scenario (RCP 8.5) climate models. High-productivity, low-vulnerability forests have the potential to sequester up to 5,450 TgCO2 equivalent (1,485 Tg C) by 2099, which is up to 20% of the global mitigation potential previously identified for all temperate and boreal forests, or up to ~6 years of current regional fossil fuel emissions. Additionally, these forests currently have high above- and belowground carbon density, high tree species richness, and a high proportion of critical habitat for endangered vertebrate species, indicating a strong potential to support biodiversity into the future and promote ecosystem resilience to climate change. We stress that some forest lands have low carbon sequestration potential but high biodiversity, underscoring the need to consider multiple criteria when designing a land preservation portfolio. Our work demonstrates how process models and ecological criteria can be used to prioritize landscape preservation for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and preserving biodiversity in a rapidly changing climate.

Conclusions:

If we are to avert our current trajectory towards massive global change, we need to make land stewardship a higher societal priority (Chan et al. 2016). Preserving temperate forests in the western US that have medium to high potential carbon sequestration and low future climate vulnerability could account for approximately eight years of regional fossil fuel emissions, or 27-32% of the global mitigation potential previously identified for temperate and boreal forests, while also promoting ecosystem resilience and the maintenance of biodiversity. Biodiversity metrics also need to be included when selecting preserves to ensure species-rich habitats that result from frequent disturbance regimes are not overlooked. The future impacts of climate change, and related pressures as human population exponentially expands, make it essential to evaluate conservation and management options on multi-decadal timescales, with the shared goals of mitigating committed CO2 emissions, reducing future emissions, and preserving plant and animal diversity to limit ecosystem transformation and permanent losses of species

Steve Wilent posted about the Trump administration allowing motorized electronic e-bikes on nonmotorized trails back in August. Here’s that post and discussion/debate.

Today, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and a coalition of conservation groups and affected individuals filed a lawsuit to restore the ban on e-bikes in National Parks. Here’s the PEER press release:

Washington, DC — The recent National Park Service (NPS) order allowing electric bicycles on park trails violates several federal laws and should be rescinded, according to a lawsuit filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and a coalition of conservation groups and affected individuals. Nearly 25 National Park System units have acted to implement the e-bikes order.

Following a Secretarial Order by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt directing that all Interior Department agencies, including the NPS, immediately allow e-bikes “where other types of bicycles are allowed,” on August 30, 2019, Deputy NPS Director P. Daniel Smith issued a “Policy Memorandum” ordering all park superintendents to now allow e-bikes on trails where the parks currently allow bicycles.

The PEER suit cites several legal impediments to the NPS order, including that it:

• Violated NPS’s own regulations that may not be set aside by administrative fiat;

• Improperly evaded legally-required environmental reviews; and

• Came from an official, Smith, who lacked the authority to issue such an order.

“This e-bikes order illustrates an improper and destructive way to manage our National Parks,” stated PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, a former enforcement attorney with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Concerned groups and individuals are joining PEER in demanding that the Park Service follow the normal regulatory processes and assess the additional impacts that higher speed e-bike riders pose both to other trail users and to wildlife in the parks.”

It also turns out that Bernhardt and Smith’s staffs have been regularly meeting behind closed doors with an industry-dominated advisory committee called the “E-bike Partner & Agency Group” at Interior Headquarters and through teleconferences. E-bike vendors stand to profit from the NPS move. The PEER suit demands a halt to these meetings because they violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires transparency to prevent such clandestine lobbying.

“The impetus from industry is not surprising given that, as a former industry lobbyist himself, Secretary Bernhardt is known for hearing industry concerns and not public concerns,” added Whitehouse, noting that other Bernhardt moves, such as forbidding parks from trying to limit plastic bottle sales, are a form of creeping commercialization affecting park policies. “E-bikes represent another inroad of commercialized recreation into our National Parks.”

Joining PEER in the suit as co-plaintiffs are Wilderness Watch, Marin Conservation League, Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, Save Our Seashore, and three impacted individuals.

Read the PEER suit

See partial list of National Park units moving to allow e-bikes

Find out more about the issue

Thanks to Nick Smith for including this press release in his Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities news roundup today. The paper mentioned is here ($S). Goshawks prefer late-seral forest, but such stands are at greater risk of fire. California spotted owls aren’t the only at-risk species.

Changing wildfires in the California’s Sierra Nevada may threaten northern goshawks

Amsterdam, December 5, 2019 – Wildfire is a natural process in the forests of the western US, and many species have evolved to tolerate, if not benefit from it. But wildfire is changing. Research in the journal Biological Conservation, published by Elsevier, suggests fire, as it becomes more frequent and severe, poses a substantial risk to goshawks in the Sierra Nevada region.

How Northern Goshawks respond to fire is not well understood. The single study to date examined the effects of fire on nest placement and found that the birds avoided nesting in areas burned at high severity. The effects of fire on the birds’ roosting and foraging habitat however may be more complex, because prey populations may temporarily increase in burned areas and improve their quality as a foraging habitat.

“To effectively manage and conserve wildlife, we need to understand how animals use the landscape across their life cycle,” noted corresponding author Dr. Rachel Blakey at The Institute for Bird Populations and UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science.

Dr. Blakey and her colleagues at the institute wanted to better understand the habitat preferences of Northern Goshawks. In collaboration with scientists at the US Forest Service and the US Geological Survey Missouri Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Missouri, the research team looked specifically at how goshawks use burned areas in the Plumas National Forest, California.

Twenty Goshawks were fitted with solar-powered global positioning system (GPS) tracking devices that monitored the habitats the goshawks chose for foraging and night-time roosting. Goshawks preferred forest stands with larger, more mature trees and higher canopy cover-also called “late seral” forest-for both roosting and foraging.

“While there was individual and sex-based variability in selection of habitat at the finest scales, at the larger spatial scales that are arguably most important for management, goshawks consistently selected for late-seral forest,” added Dr. Blakey.

Unfortunately, late-seral forest is already in short supply in the western US and the attributes that make it attractive to Northern Goshawks also put it at a high risk of large and severe wildfires. Further analysis of the study area showed that 80 percent foraging habitat and 87 percent of roost sites were designated a “High Wildfire Potential Hazard” by the US Forest Service.

Rodney Siegel, Executive Director of The Institute for Bird Populations and co-author of the study said “A lot of work by our organization and others over the past decade has shown that some wildlife species are quite resilient to forest fire and can even thrive in recently burned forests.

“But habitat selection by the Northern Goshawks we studied suggests that these birds, with their strong preference for late seral forest attributes like big trees and closed forest canopy, are jeopardized by changing fire patterns that reduce forest cover,” added Dr. Siegel.

Dr. Siegel also notes that reducing wildfire risk in goshawk habitat will be a major challenge for forest managers. “The treatments to reduce risk of high-severity fire, including forest thinning and prescribed fire, may also reduce goshawk foraging and roosting habitat quality if they decrease canopy cover and fragment late-seral forest,” said Dr. Siegel.

Dr. Blakey expects that the foraging and roosting habitat preferences seen in goshawks in this study are probably common to goshawks throughout the Sierra Nevada region, and perhaps western montane forests in general. Likewise, this preferred habitat is likely at risk of high severity fire across the region as well.

“Given that fire regimes are changing across the range of the Northern Goshawk, both in the US and across the species’ distribution globally, the use of burned habitats by this species should also be investigated more broadly,” concluded Dr. Blakey.

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The following piece was written by Brandon Keim, who provides comments on this blog once in a while. It’s shared here with his permission. – mk

When to let a dead tree lie

It’s often argued that logging trees killed by insects or diseases is beneficial for forests—but evidence is mounting that it causes long-term ecological disruption.

By Brandon Keim

When trees are damaged by insects or disease, there’s often pressure to cut them down. It’s argued that “salvaging” these trees is actually beneficial for forests—but evidence is mounting that it causes long-term ecological disruption.

The latest findings come from Białowieża Forest, a 550-square-mile woodland that straddles Poland and Belarus and is a last redoubt of the vast forest that once stretched from France to Russia. Long the protected domain of aristocracy, Białowieża escaped large-scale logging; it’s one of the few places in Europe where natural cycles of wind, fire, and disease still shape a forest at landscape scales.

Only during the last century has logging taken place. A prime target is the dead trees that are present in far larger numbers than in commercially-managed forests, in particular trees afflicted by bark beetles. Salvage logging following outbreaks is presented by supporters as ecologically beneficial, but it “alters the potential for natural regeneration,” says Anna Orczewska, an ecologist at the University of Silesia.

Orczewska is the lead author on a new study, published in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, of what grows in the aftermath of salvage logging in Białowieża. The forest is set on a new trajectory; “the human ‘clean-up’ attitude,” writes Orczewska and colleagues, “inevitably leads to the homogenization of the forest.”

The researchers looked at the so-called herb layer—low-growing grasses, ferns, and flowering plants—in sites where spruce and pine trees were killed by beetle outbreaks and either logged or left alone. Salvage logging in Białowieża, as in many places worldwide, involves clearcuts followed by removal of trees with heavy machinery and plantation-style replanting.

Several years later, the herb layer in logged sites was dominated by disturbance specialists rarely found within the intact forest. The previous herb layer was largely destroyed by machinery or withered in the suddenly intense sunshine. Their seeds did not sprout. When beetle-killed trees were left alone, though, the original herb layer regrew. Dead trees provided necessary shade; their fallen trunks and branches created pockets of protection from grazing.

In short, the regrowth that occurred after natural disturbance was dramatically different from that which occurred after human-driven disturbance. And whereas the former represent the first stages in a cycle that will eventually restore the original plant community, the latter represent something different. The new, disturbance-specialized assemblage may persist for decades. “In some cases, it seems that pre-disturbance herb layer assemblages never recover,” write Orczewska’s team.

They argue that salvage logging is actually worse than disease outbreaks for Białowieża’s plant communities—a lesson that, though based in this study on the research in Białowieża, is broadly applicable elsewhere. Natural disturbances create structurally and biologically complex forests.

“In the era of global warming we should eliminate salvage logging, at least in forests which still hold the potential for natural regeneration,” Orczewska says. “Instead we continue cutting.”

Source: Orczewska et al. “The impact of salvage logging on herb layer species composition and plant community recovery in Białowieża Forest.” Biodiversity and Conservation, 2019. Open access here.

About the author: Brandon Keim is a freelance journalist specializing in animals, nature and science. He is now writing Meet the Neighbors, a book about what animal personhood means for our relationships to animals and to nature. Connect with him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Let’s talk about framing issues- described  in the Wikipedia entry here.

In social theory, framing is a schema of interpretation, a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes, that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events.^[2] In other words, people build a series of mental “filters” through biological and cultural influences. They then use these filters to make sense of the world. The choices they then make are influenced by their creation of a frame.

Framing is also a key component of sociology, the study of social interaction among humans. Framing is an integral part of conveying and processing data on a daily basis. Successful framing techniques can be used to reduce the ambiguity of intangible topics by contextualizing the information in such a way that recipients can connect to what they already know.

Framing involves social construction of a social phenomenon – by mass media sources, political or social movements, political leaders, or other actors and organizations. Participation in a language community necessarily influences an individual’s perception of the meanings attributed to words or phrases. Politically, the language communities of advertising, religion, and mass media are highly contested, whereas framing in less-sharply defended language communities might evolve imperceptibly and organically over cultural time frames, with fewer overt modes of disputation.

Two additions to the Wikipedia entry. Scientific communities and disciplines specifically also do framing (“other actors”). But what the entry isses is that individuals are each entitled to her or his own framing of any issue. We can each drop our pin and define the problem in our own way. But only some of us have access to research funding to investigate and publish on a particular topic. So when folks say “the science says, so we should..,” it can be another case of “authority by privilege,” as people without access to research funding to study questions within their framing, remain unheard. Different framings most commonly lead us into talking past each other. Let’s look at an example.

Since the 80’s (at least) folks have been talking and studying about the pros and cons of harvesting trees in Western (and to a lesser degree, Central and Eastern Oregon). If you’re in Western Oregon, the framing may be “should timber harvest occur? If so, what practices will sustain the (owls, fish), minimize carbon loss, be resilient to climate change,  and so on?”

But what if the pin is dropped instead somewhere in the Front Range of Colorado, which is a wood products sink, not source, with expanding residential and commercial development?  If we were to look for environmentally protective things to do (to use less wood), we could try (1) not allowing people to move here, (2) changing building codes to allow only multi-family housing (from the lumber and heating and cooling efficiency perspective), plus a variety of other planning and development regulation options.

Let’s imagine our fully-funded Front Range Sustainable Development Research Center. First we’d gather stakeholders, including representatives of state and county governments, who would decide what questions to be addressed. Perhaps we’d do a study comparing wood and other construction materials in terms of their environmental costs and benefits (or at least try to figure out why existing studies disagree). Environmental impact would include emissions from transport to us, what would happen if trees weren’t cut in terms of carbon, including the social likelihood of other uses of forested areas (say the Southern US) or possibly burning up (with more fires due to climate change), as well as all the other considerations.

But all that is from the environmental perspective, which is not the only one. There are also possible social costs, due to (maybe) higher prices from Canada (cue the various incarnations of the Softwood Lumber DisAgreements). Plus, there are tax and feeding families advantages to producing products in our own country. Our Center would do research on all these aspects of wood product sources and uses, as guided by the stakeholder group.

And we can’t leave out the conditional nature of any scientific knowledge. So the folks working on putting CO2 into concrete might change all these calculations if/when they scale up.

Holy Pseudotsuga! There are a great many things that could be studied, from a variety of perspectives and across a wide range of disciplines! And whether your state or county is a source or a sink might well affect the design of research. And while all these studies will help inform policy, none should determine policy. After all, perhaps the most environmentally preferable one would be to keep people out. But then where would they go, and what would be the impacts there?

So where do you drop your pin or frame the issue?And what would your research program look like?

One more thing you may have noticed. It’s fairly easy to calculate some impacts, but at some point you are making guesses about what people and technology are going to do or not do. Is it better for decision makers and the public  to openly discuss those guesses (say, scenario planning) or to put guesses into models where they lose the information on their uncertainty?

Press release about a Portland State University-led study. Open access, here…. and worth a look. The Management Implications section offers a concise look at the problems.

“…the team’s findings suggest that forest managers should consider projected climate changes and increasing wildfire size, frequency and severity on future forest composition when planning long-term forest management strategies.”

Well, yes, of course! That implies removing timber — commercial harvests.

The team also suggests that in light of the projected expansion of grand fir, managers should continue to reduce fuel continuity through accelerated rates of thinning and prescribed burning to help reduce the extent and severity of future fires.

Reduce fuel continuity — yes, but that’s not enough. Fuel loading needs to be reduced.

Study: Wildfires in Oregon’s blue mountains to become more frequent, severe due to climate change

Portland State University

Under a warming climate, wildfires in Oregon’s southern Blue Mountains will become more frequent, more extensive and more severe, according to a new Portland State University-led study.

Researchers from PSU, North Carolina State University, University of New Mexico and the U.S. Forest Service looked at how climate-driven changes in forest dynamics and wildfire activity will affect the landscape through the year 2100. They used a forest landscape model, LANDIS-II, to simulate forest and fire dynamics under current management practices and two projected climate scenarios.

Among the study’s findings:

• Even if the climate stopped warming now, high-elevation species such as whitebark pine, Engelmann spruce and sub-alpine fir will be largely replaced by more climate- and fire-resilient species like ponderosa pine and Douglas fir by the end of the century.
• A growing population of shade-loving grand fir that has been expanding in the understory of the forest was also projected to increase, even under hotter and drier future climate conditions, which provided fuels that helped spread wildfires and made fires even more severe.

Brooke Cassell, the study’s lead author and a recent Ph.D. graduate from PSU’s Earth, Environment and Society program, said that if these forests become increasingly dominated by only a few conifer species, the landscape may become less resilient to disturbances, such as wildfire, insects and diseases, and would provide less variety of habitat for plants and animals.

Cassell said that the team’s findings suggest that forest managers should consider projected climate changes and increasing wildfire size, frequency and severity on future forest composition when planning long-term forest management strategies.

The team also suggests that in light of the projected expansion of grand fir, managers should continue to reduce fuel continuity through accelerated rates of thinning and prescribed burning to help reduce the extent and severity of future fires.

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The study’s findings were published in the journal Ecosphere. The research team also included Melissa Lucash, a research assistant professor of geography in PSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Robert Scheller from North Carolina State University; Matthew Hurteau from the University of New Mexico; and E. Louise Loudermilk from the U.S. Forest Service.

Interesting item from the American Forest Resource Council‘s Nov. 2019 newsletter. This line drew my attention:

The Forest Service is developing a “market based” approach to timber sale appraisals that will aim to improve alignment between local market conditions and appraisal metrics.

I assumed that they’d been doing this all along. Anyone have insights?

Federal Timber Purchasers Committee Meeting
Last month the Federal Timber Purchasers Committee (FTPC) met in Alexandria, Louisiana with Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management leadership from around the country. The committee meets with agency personnel twice a year to discuss issues pertinent to the timber sale program. The meeting covered topics such as timber sale appraisals, updates to Forest Service manuals and handbooks, and product utilization standards.

The Forest Service had initially established a timber target of 3.7 billion board feet (BBF) for Fiscal Year 2019. That level was assigned to the Regions and then reduced by the Chief of the Forest Service in May to 3.3 BBF for reasons including, but not limited to, the government shutdown, the impact of not receiving the 2018 fire repayment, and delays in hiring new staff. However, the agency target, assigned by the Department of Agriculture, remained at 3.7 BBF. The Regions sold 3.26 BBF, attaining 99% of the adjusted target. The agency as a whole attained 88% of its assigned target. Forest Service leadership emphasized the need to grow in 2020 and anticipates establishing a timber target of 3.7 BBF with a goal of hitting 4.0 BBF in 2021.

These ambitions for growth will likely be augmented by ongoing Forest Service efforts including Forest Products Modernization (FPM), Environmental Analysis and Decision Making (EADM), and Shared Stewardship. Through FPM the Forest Service is developing a “market based” approach to timber sale appraisals that will aim to improve alignment between local market conditions and appraisal metrics. There was general agreement and recognition among all participants that demand for federal timber products remains high and that improvements to the agency’s appraisal practices will help ensure that all economical sales with useful products will sell. Coupled with this effort were recommendations that Regions and Forests improve their access to up-to-date information on product utilization specifications to ensure alignment with local industry standards. Revisions and updates to Forest Service Manuals and Handbooks are ongoing and solicitation for public comment is anticipated to begin this calendar year. Updates on items ranging from timber cruising to stewardship contracting will be rolled out in batches over a six-month period.

Efforts to supplement the agency’s capacity for growth through outside partnerships, generally referred to as Shared Stewardship, were recognized as an integral component of expanding active management. There are currently 10 Shared Stewardship Agreements signed across the country and an additional 10 in progress. Partnering with entities such as State governments and Tribes continues to be a national priority. Forest Service leadership emphasized not just the importance of establishing these agreements but also developing clear metrics that can be used to gauge their effectiveness to further the agency’s mission.

“You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
Girl, we couldn’t get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire.”
– The Doors (1967)

The following was posted by the California Chaparral Institute (https://www.californiachaparral.org/) and I thought it was worth sharing their post:

“Next time you hear someone claim California, the Sierra Nevada (pick your spot) is supposed to burn every 5-10 years or so, or when someone uses the pine forests in the Southeast or Arizona/New Mexico as a model of what is supposed to happen in California fire wise, show them this map. The natural fire return interval in California is pretty low… from nothing to pretty darn infrequent when compared to the rest of the country.”