FYI, folks….

Forest Service Seeks Applicants For Forest Restoration Program Panel

The Southwestern Region of the Forest Service is seeking applicants for membership on the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program Technical Advisory Panel.  This 12 to15 member panel will evaluate proposals for federal grant funding to conduct forest restoration treatments on public land and utilize small diameter trees.  Panel applications are due to the Forest Service by July 18, 2018.

The panel includes: a New Mexico natural resources official; at least two representatives from federal land management agencies; at least one tribal and/or pueblo representative; at least two independent scientists experienced in forest ecosystem restoration; and equal representation from conservation, local communities, and commodity interests.  The Forest Service is currently seeking applications to represent commodity interests, local communities, tribal and pueblo interests, federal land management agencies, and independent scientists.

The Technical Advisory Panel will review project proposals for: wildfire threat reduction; ecosystem restoration, including non-native tree species reduction; reestablishment of historic fire regimes; reforestation; small diameter tree use; and the creation of forest-related local employment.  The grant proposals must include a broad and diverse group of stakeholders and may occur on federal, tribal, state, county, or municipal forest land.

Meetings will be held one to two times per year in Albuquerque.   Selected panel members will not receive compensation, however, they may be reimbursed for travel and per diem costs.  Panel selection procedures and meetings will be conducted under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Walter Dunn is the Designated Federal Officer and will serve as the point of contact for information on the nomination process as well as for the Technical Advisory Panel.  His phone number is 505-842-3425.

Application materials and other information on the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program can be found on the program website at http://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/r3/cfrp .

Completed application packets should be sent to the following address by July 18, 2018:

Walter Dunn

Cooperative and International Forestry

USDA Forest Service

333 Broadway SE

Albuquerque, NM 87102

Fax (505) 842-3165

Email: [email protected]

Background Information on Collaborative Forest Restoration Program:

Title VI of Public Law 106-393 creates a mechanism for local community collaboration with federal land managers by establishing a cooperative forest restoration program in New Mexico.   The law provides cost-share grants to stakeholders for experimental forest restoration projects to be designed through a collaborative process (the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program).

Projects can occur on federal, tribal, state, county, or municipal land and must address specified objectives.  These objectives include wildfire threat reduction; ecosystem restoration, including non-native tree species reduction; reestablishment of historic fire regimes; reforestation, including preservation of old trees; small diameter tree use enhancement; creation of forest-related local employment; and stakeholder diversity.

The law also provides that a review panel be formed to evaluate proposals for funding.  The Secretary of Agriculture chartered this panel under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.  Panel nominees will be evaluated based on their familiarity with forest management issues in New Mexico, including:

• experience working with the government planning processes,
• knowledge and understanding of the various cultures and communities in New Mexico,
• ability to actively participate in diverse team settings;
• demonstrated skill in working toward mutually beneficial solutions to complex issues,
• respect and credibility in local communities; commitment to attending Panel meetings, and
• their contribution to the balance and diversity of the Panel.

Equal opportunity practices, in line with USDA policies, shall be followed in all membership appointments to the Panel.  To ensure that the recommendation of the Panel have taken into account the needs of the diverse groups served by the Department, membership shall include, to the extent practicable, individuals with demonstrated ability to represent minorities, women, and persons with disabilities.

Thank you,

Walter

Lest we forget that not all National Forests are in the western US….

The Forest Service will more than double the timber cut on the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia in the next two years, reflecting the agency’s push to pull more wood from forests it considers underused.

“The Monongahela is really stepping up,” interim Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week.

At 919,000 acres, the Monongahela — sometimes referred to as “the Mon” — is twice as big as the Allegheny National Forest in neighboring Pennsylvania yet produces a small fraction of the timber.

In fiscal 2017, the Forest Service reported that $958,000 worth of timber was cut on the Monongahela, compared with $5.8 million worth on the Allegheny.

…

New study from Oregon State. From the press release:

Yesterday, Vicky Christiansen made her first Hill appearance as Forest Service chief, albeit with an “interim” asterisk. Her written testimony focused on fire funding and “active forest management,” aka, logging:

The funding and related work will support between 340,000 and 370,000 jobs and contribute more than $30 billion in Gross Domestic Product. Through the use of tools like the Good Neighbor Authority, with more than 127 agreements in 33 states, 20-year stewardship contracts with cancellation ceiling relief, and other internal process improvements like environmental analysis decision-making (EADM), the Forest Service will move forward to sell 3.7 billion board feet of timber while improving the resiliency and health of more than 3.4 million acres of National Forest System lands through removal of hazardous fuels and stand treatments.

The Forest Service’s FY 2018 Budget is the source for her jobs and GDP data. Here’s what the budget says:

The proposed Forest Service program of work is projected to contribute between 340,000 and 370,000 jobs in the economy and between $30 billion and $31 billion in GDP. A greater share of the economic benefit, up to 70 percent, is anticipated to be generated by resource use effects in FY 2018. While all resource uses are important to the nation, recreation and wildlife visitor use will continue to provide the single largest category of economic contribution.

Guess what she left out of her testimony? Yep, not one word about the importance of recreation and wildlife visitor use.

A couple of months ago, I reported that several west coast wilderness areas remained closed months after their summer wildfires had gone out. I’m pleased to report that the Forest Service has rescinded some of the closure orders in response to FSEEE’s requests.

An email update from the Forest Resources Association….

Yesterday, the House Agriculture Committee released its long-awaited Farm Bill draft titled the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018. The bill is 641 pages and we continue to review its many titles and provisions, but wanted to flag a few areas in which FRA has worked on and will continue to support.

Timber Innovation Act: Research provisions of the Timber Innovation Act were included in the House’s version of the Farm Bill. The legislation directs USDA to conduct performance-driven research and development, education, and technical assistance for the purpose of facilitating the use of innovative wood products (mass timber/tall wood buildings) in wood building construction in the United States.

Federal Forest Management Reform: Following up on several favorable federal forest management reforms included in the recently enacted omnibus spending bill, the House Farm Bill would create several new authorities for the Forest Service to conduct forest management projects on federal lands. Expressly, the bill authorizes a number of new “categorical exclusions” from National Environmental Protection Act or NEPA reviews that will make initiating and completing needed project work easier.

These new CEs are designed to:

§  Expedite salvage operations in response to catastrophic events

§  Meet forest plan goals for early successional forests

§  Manage “hazard trees”

§  Improve or restore National Forest System lands or reduce the risk of wildfire.

§  Forest restoration

§  Infrastructure-related forest management activities.

§  Managing insect and disease infestation.

Community Wood Energy Program (CWEP): The legislation significantly increases the authorization for this program to $25 million to fund grants for installing wood heating systems that run on sawmill residuals—sawdust that is converted to pellets and/or woodchips. In addition to funding wood heating installations, the bill would also provide grants to innovative wood products facilities—those manufacturing cross laminated timber for tall wood buildings or other cutting edge technologies using wood or lignin. This program is viewed as one policy mechanism that could be used to address the sawmill residuals issue that has become a challenge in recent months.

A markup of this legislation is scheduled for April 18 in the House Agriculture Committee.

Mike Archer listed this article in today’s Wildfire News Of The Day email: “California fights wildfires aggressively—but prevention takes a back seat.”

“A 19^th-century California forest would have held fewer than 50 trees an acre. Today the state’s forests have grown to an unnatural 300 to 500 trees an acre, or more. That doesn’t count the 2 million drought-stressed trees a month lost to bark beetles that have killed entire stands.” [emphasis mine]

Mentions the Little Hoover Commission report, “Fire on the Mountain: Rethinking Forest Management in the Sierra Nevada.”

FYI, to subscribe to the Wildfire News Of The Day list, contact Archer at [email protected].

Here’s a link to video that Nick Smith included in today’s Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities News Round Up email. In the video, Chris French, Director of Ecosystem Management Coordination, gives a presentation on NEPA reform at the Environmental Analysis and Decision Making Workshop in Phoenix, Arizona. French gives examples of the time and money the USFS spends on various planning documents and looks at documents for similar projects from other agencies — BLM, BIA. Nick’s link is an ~8 minute portion of the full video, nearly an hour, which is here. I haven’t had time to watch the whole thing. The 8-minute excerpt is worth a look.

I noted this article in an Oregon newspaper, “Siuslaw National Forest supervisor moving on”. States that “The longtime head of the Siuslaw National Forest is leaving next month to take a promotion, the U.S. Forest Service announced on Thursday.

Long-time?

Jerry Ingersoll, who has been forest supervisor on the Siuslaw since March 2010, has been tapped to become the deputy regional forester for the agency’s Alaska Region.

Eight years doesn’t seem like a long time, but for the USFS maybe it is.

OSU press release: “CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon could eliminate an estimated 17 percent of carbon emissions from its forest ecosystems in the next century by increasing the amount of forested area and lengthening times between harvests, according to a new study from the University of Idaho, Oregon State University and EcoSpatial Services LLC.”

The full text of the study is online and free, from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The authors consider substitution:

“While product substitution reduces the overall forest sector emissions, it cannot offset the losses incurred by frequent harvest and losses associated with product transportation, manufacturing, use, disposal, and decay. Methods for calculating substitution benefits should be improved in other regional assessments.”