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“Public lands advocates push collaborative approach “

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A Nov. 7 article in The Missoulian by Rob Chaney.

Public lands advocates push collaborative approach

Collaboration brings people together. Lawsuits divide them. Reaching the first without triggering the second remains the challenge for those interested in the future of forests.

Montana public lands currently have between 30,000 and 40,000 acres left in legal limbo because of litigation, participants at Montana Forest Collaboration Network conference heard Tuesday. Getting beyond that might take congressional legislation or simply better local relationships, according to panel moderator Brian Kahn.

“Blaming environmentalists for litigation is politically inflammatory,” Kahn said. “It’s said by people who don’t know that eight out of 10 environmentalists are participants in collaborative efforts. That kind of polarization is fertile ground for demagoguery.”

Collaborative forest projects occupy a special slice of work in the woods. They depend on a group of local residents, county and state officials, clubs and organizations and businesses to semi-formally advise the U.S. Forest Service on how to manage a particular part of a national forest.

Projects developed through the collaborative process should have more value than traditional agency-industry deals because they reflect local knowledge about jobs, habitat, wildlife, recreation and other on-the-ground knowledge.

That hasn’t protected them from scrutiny by critics of the Forest Service, who sue the agency over alleged violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act, and other federal requirements. In 2013, the last year with complete data available, national forests in Montana had 13 of 29 forestry project decisions challenged in court.

“If you can’t find a NEPA violation in a document, you’re not trying hard enough,” American Forest Resource Council attorney Lawson Fite said. “These are policy matters. It’s not: Are you following the law? It’s: We want you to do different things.”

The Wilderness Society forest campaign manager Megan Birzell said making an environmental assessment “legally bombproof” was virtually impossible. She said her organization worked more to show where broad arrays of support existed for a project, in order to convince a judge that lots of different perspectives had been fairly considered.

“Collaboration is making a lot of progress in Washington, Oregon and California,” Birzell said. “That’s true across the west, except in Montana where it’s bogged down.”

E&E News: Bipartisan bill would help feds, states exchange tracts

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“Some environmental groups agree” — including the Wilderness Society — but the article doesn’t mention opposition from anyone….

The bill applies to state trust lands, but it would be very helpful if other state and private land exchanges were easier. In my neck of the woods, some county-owned parcels surrounded by USFS and BLM lands could be exchanged in the same way.

Bipartisan bill would help feds, states exchange tracts

Scott Streater, E&E News reporter

A bipartisan group of lawmakers yesterday introduced legislation aiming to make it easier for Western states to exchange state trust lands for federal tracts that could be developed.

The dual goals of the identical 27-page bills — S. 2078, sponsored by Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and H.R. 4257, sponsored by Reps. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) — are to protect sensitive landscapes while helping states generate more revenue from trust lands.

The “Advancing Conservation and Education Act,” or “ACE Act,” calls for establishing a system allowing Western states to apply to the Interior secretary to exchange state trust lands that cannot be developed because they are surrounded by national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges and other landscapes for federal tracts with “multiple use” designations within their boundaries.

State trust lands are tracts that were given by Congress at statehood to be developed to help generate revenue to fund public schools and hospitals, as well as infrastructure projects.

The legislation would apply to 12 Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming — and Alaska.

The inability to develop state trust lands near sensitive federal parcels has been a source of frustration for lawmakers in states like Utah, where two-thirds of the Beehive State is federally owned land.

“This legislation is a win for Utah, a win for school kids, and a win for conservation,” Stewart said in a statement.

Some environmental groups agree and have signed on in support.

“This legislation will better secure America’s parks and wilderness while supporting rural economies and providing revenue for schools. Through this bill, our public lands will be better protected and school kids will come out ahead,” Paul Spitler, director of wilderness policy at the Wilderness Society, said in a statement.

Also supporting the bill is Harry Birdwell, president of the Western States Land Commissioners Association.

“The ability of our state land commissioners to utilize state trust lands to raise revenue for education is made more difficult when these trust lands are surrounded by federal conservation areas,” he said in a statement.

“The ACE Act is a win-win solution that will help our land commissioners better generate badly needed funds for schoolchildren while completing federal conservation areas so that they can be properly protected.”

The text of the bill states that “statehood land grant land owned by the western States are typically scattered across the public land.”

As a result, national parks, wilderness areas and other federal conservation areas “often include State land grant parcels with substantially different management mandates, making land and resource management more difficult, expensive, and controversial for both Federal land managers and the western States.”

But by “allowing the western States” to exchange state trust land “within Federal conservation areas and to select replacement land from the public land within the respective” state boundaries, sensitive landscapes are protected, and state revenues “for the support of public schools and other worthy public purposes” increase, the text says.

In addition to national parks, wilderness areas and wildlife refuges, eligible federal lands would include national monuments and other parcels within the National Landscape Conservation System managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

They would also include Forest Service lands within designated national monuments, national recreation areas, wilderness study areas and inventoried roadless areas, among others, the text says.

State trust lands cannot be exchanged for federal lands within an area of critical environmental concern, or a different federal tract with a conservation designation, the bill text says. State lands also cannot be exchanged for parcels acquired under the Land and Water Conservation Fund, it adds.

The legislation would require the Interior Department to conduct an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement before finalizing any land exchange.

The Interior secretary would have to issue a final determination on any proposed exchange no later than three years after a state submits an application, the bill says.

The secretary could reject any application if, among other things, it is determined that the exchange would “create significant management conflicts” or is deemed “not in the public interest.”

The costs for all land appraisals, surveys and other expenses would be split evenly between the Interior Department and the state, the bill says.

Heinrich said in a statement that he’s “proud” to co-sponsor a bill “that will increase revenues for our public schools and improve access to the outdoor places Westerners hold dear.”

Flake added, “These are two worthwhile goals that when combined represent a genuine opportunity for those in the West.”

Study: Spotted owls compatible with managing forests for fire, drought

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Just came across this item from the PSW Research Station…. Key point: Owls look for tall trees, not dense canopies.

Study: Supporting owls compatible with managing forests for fire, drought

For Immediate Release: October 5, 2017

ALBANY, Calif. — In what is believed to be the largest spotted owl study in terms of area analyzed, remote sensing technology is providing a more precise look at habitat preferences for the sensitive species with implications for greater flexibility in forest management.

“For the last 25 years, forests in the western United States have been managed to protect habitat for spotted owls based on ground surveys that were limited by plots with a small sample area and what could be seen from the forest floor,” said Malcolm North, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station and lead author of the study. “We’re employing relatively new technology to get a new vantage point into the forest canopy – across an unprecedented amount of terrain – to better understand what that means for spotted owls.”

Using Light Detection and Ranging imaging, or LiDAR, North and colleagues from partnering organizations studied forest attributes across 1.2 million acres, encompassing 316 documented owl territories, along California’s Sierra Nevada. LiDAR uses laser pulses shot from an instrument mounted in an airplane that can measure a forest’s canopy, including tree height, distribution of tree foliage and any forest gaps.

Whereas previous research led to the assumption that spotted owls needed dense canopy cover (generally estimated at 70 percent or greater) across a broad landscape, LiDAR data revealed it’s more the height of the canopy, as opposed to the expanse of it, that matters most to owls.

“Cover of tall trees best predicts California spotted owl habitat,” recently published online by the journal of “Forest Ecology and Management,” reports spotted owls typically were found in forests with high concentrations of tall trees measuring at least 105 feet in height, but preferably taller than 157 feet. Meanwhile, dense stands of trees measuring 52 feet or shorter were generally avoided by the owls.

“We rarely found owls in high canopy cover without tall trees. We also found owls in areas with tall trees but low surrounding density,” North said. “It’s really the big trees that the owls are selecting for.”

The study’s findings could have implications for land management strategies to improve forest resilience to wildfires, drought, insects and diseases. Forests with tree densities greater than historical ranges – especially with high densities of smaller trees – are more susceptible to extreme wildfire behavior or vulnerable to the effects of drought, insect infestations and disease.

“While land managers may have felt compelled to maintain these abnormally high densities to adhere to the 70 percent canopy cover threshold, it might also have placed forests and owls at risk,” North said. “The large trees favored by spotted owls can typically withstand low to moderate wildfires and other disturbances. But when exposed to extreme wildfires from high fuel loads or when their vigor is compromised by too many trees competing on the landscape, these tall trees can become vulnerable.”

Researchers also studied how large openings in the canopy or gaps in the forested landscape, ranging from 0.03 to greater than 2.5 acres, impacted owl use or nest site selection.

“Land managers may have been leery of creating gaps in the landscape because of the reduction in canopy over,” North said. “But other than avoiding placing their nests directly adjacent to a gap, owls showed no difference in the areas they used compared to the surrounding landscape with regard to gaps.”

North and his colleagues’ study comes on the heels of a newly available report synthesizing the last two decades of research pertaining to spotted owls. “The California Spotted Owl: Current State of Knowledge” was made available online by the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station. The report represents a comprehensive review by scientists of the ecology, habitat use, population dynamics and current threats to the viability of the California spotted owl.

 

Resilient Federal Forests Act Section-by-Section Summary

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The American Forest Resource Council has a section-by-section summary of the Resilient Federal Forests Act. This is a complex bill with much to discuss and debate. Here are three provisions that you may have not heard about — yet:

Sec. 301. Establishes a Pilot Program for Utilizing Arbitration for Resolving Legal Challenges to Projects Carried Out Under this Act.

Sec. 905. Prohibits the Application of the 21″ “East side Screens” Requirements on National Forests east of the Cascades in Region Six.

Sec. 911. Technical Corrections to the O&C Act of 1937. Affirms the original 500 mmbf minimum timber volume requirement of the O&C Act by requiring the BLM to annually offer for sale the greater of 500 mmbf or the sustained yield.

Reviewers Needed for USFS Book

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NCFP Bloggers,

You may recall that I am editing a book, a collection of essays called 193 Million Acres: Toward a Healthier and More Resilient U.S. Forest Service. The aim is to present constructive proposals for increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the agency — solutions that would address challenges the agency faces. I have about two dozen first drafts that need reviews (constructive criticism) by folks with experience and expertise with the agency, either inside or outside of it. Topic areas include fire management policy/funding, legal/regulatory issues, collaboration, recreation, appeals and litigation, research and development, timber harvesting, leadership, agency history, etc. Essays range in length from about 2,000 words to 40,000 words. The review process is double blind: Authors will not know the identity of the reviewers, and vice versa.

If you’re interested in reviewing one or more essays in the next month or two, please let me know. Send me a brief summary of your experience and background and/or a CV, along with your contact information. I can’t pay you (or the authors, for that matter), but I’ll list you in the book, if you wish, as a reviewer. The book is scheduled to be available by August 2018.

Steve Wilent
Editor, The Forestry Source
The Society of American Foresters
503-622-3033
[email protected] or [email protected]

Op-ed: Collaborative work on Forest Service plan cost Martin his job

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Interesting look behind the scenes….

The former Southern Appalachian Regional Director for The Wilderness Society was the catalyst and key facilitator for a compromise and groundbreaking proposal for the Pisgah-Nantahala national forests that brought conservationists and recreational users together under one umbrella.

But that collaboration would eventually cost Brent Martin his job. A local activist and key donor — neither of whom had been involved in the collaboration — convinced The Wilderness Society to reverse its position and withdraw its support without even discussing the decision with Martin.

15 Minute TED Talk: “Forest Service ecologist proposes ways to help curb rising ‘Era of Megafires’”

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“Dr. Paul Hessburg, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, has traveled across the West to share the result of 30 years of research into wildfires and what might be done to prevent them.”
–> My thought: Err! Reduce them – preventing any from occurring is impossible. Other opportunities for disagreement but well worth watching none the less.

Good video presentation of how we got here and the need for changes to be “made in how national forests are managed and the how the public views certain preventative measures”

The 15 minute TEDx Talk video is about half way down in this link

“Wildfire legislation’s NEPA provisions generate divisions”

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From E&E Daily today….

“Congress risks stirring old political battles by trying to scale back environmental rules in the fight against wildfires.”

But we are not talking about the same types of forest management — thinning and fuels management, rather than clearcutting old-growth, or clearcutting at all.

 

Wildfire legislation’s NEPA provisions generate divisions

Marc Heller, E&E News reporter

Congress risks stirring old political battles by trying to scale back environmental rules in the fight against wildfires, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said yesterday.

At a hearing on wildfire legislation, Merkley urged lawmakers to concentrate on giving the Forest Service more money to manage forests — not power to thin them without extensive environmental reviews.

“Why go back to the timber wars of the past when we have the solution right in front of us?” Merkley said at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on a draft bill by Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

Yesterday’s hearing showed that rollbacks of environmental reviews through so-called categorical exclusions remain the main sticking point as Congress tries to stem the rising cost of blazes and adopt a more active approach to removing potential fuel from national forests.

Barrasso has taken a position more in line with timber interests and sportsmen’s groups, proposing to make as much as 6,000 acres at a time eligible for exclusions from the National Environmental Policy Act.

They could be used to speed projects thinning forests affected by pests, diseases and what foresters consider overgrowth that risks bigger fires.

Barrasso released the “Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation Act” in recent days (E&E News PM, Oct. 23). He told reporters he’ll seek to combine it with legislation that provides annual emergency funding for wildfires, working with Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and others.

Senators say they aim to pass wildfire legislation this year, possibly on the next hurricane relief bill in late October or early November.

Deadly wildfires in California’s Napa Valley, as well as a record fire season in Montana and Oregon, have raised the visibility of a long-brewing issue.

How much of Barrasso’s draft measure, and several other proposed bills, emerge in a final package remains to be seen. The committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, said the chairman’s proposal includes some bipartisan provisions, including limiting lawsuits over forest projects, but takes a more partisan approach on environmental policy.

“I am concerned about the negative implications of these proposed reforms, would be layered on top of existing, underutilized forest management authorities,” Carper said.

Witnesses at the hearing said they believe most stakeholders agree that wildfires are growing more frequent and more thinning and removal of dead trees should be part of the solution, and that wildfires should be treated as natural disasters, like hurricanes or tornadoes.

But groups still don’t completely trust each other’s motives, they said, reflected in the discord over environmental regulations.

Environmentalists believe other interests are “trying to change the rules of the game,” said Dylan Kruse, policy director for Sustainable Northwest, which opposes new categorical exclusions and other aspects of Barrasso’s bill.

“I think we all agree that what we’ve done in the past has not worked,” said Wyoming State Forester Bill Crapser. “I think our end goals are all the same.”

Kruse said Congress should concentrate on wildfire funding and encourage the Forest Service to make more use of authority it already has — including categorical exclusions and stewardship contracting.

“We already have lots of tools,” Kruse said.

Merkley is pushing legislation sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called the “Wildfire Disaster Funding Act,” S. 1842, which provides an emergency funding stream for wildfires but steers clear of more divisive forest management issues. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) has a companion bill in the House, H.R. 2862.

Those lawmakers say they agree forest thinning that clears potential fuel and provides timber should be part of the solution, but that funding is the immediate priority.

Disagreement over climate change’s impact on wildfires also provides some political charge. A wide range of scientists say global warming influenced by humans has helped lengthen the fire season by several weeks.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was unable to prod Miles Moretti, president of the Mule Deer Foundation in Salt Lake City, to pin blame there.

Moretti said poor forest management might be partly at fault for the longer fire season but added, “It’s not my area of expertise.”

Email: [email protected]

“Cutting for Health is a Scam for Wealth”

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The era of tree-sitting isn’t over yet. This article explains the latest protest:

Environmental group blocks path to timber sale
Cascadia Forest Defenders’ protest halts access near McKenzie Bridge

“Environmental activists ratcheted up their logging protest Monday about 50 miles east of Eugene, suspending a platform 80 feet in the air on a tree and tethering it by a cable to a roadblock that includes two old vehicles.”

A photo shows the group’s roadblock, which includes a pile of small logs and branches, with a large banner strung overhead that reads, “Cutting for Health is a Scam for Wealth.”

The protest is of the Goose Project, on the Willamette National Forest near the community of McKenzie Bridge, Oregon, which has been the subject of appeals and a lawsuit since 2010. It is worth noting that the Goose Project would treat about 2,400 acres (more info below), while there are currently 9 active fires burning on the Willamette totaling 85,400 acres. Some of the fires in the Horse Creek Complex are within a few miles of the community of McKenzie Bridge.

For what it’s worth, the USFS says:

1. What is the Goose Project?
The Goose Project proposes to commercially harvest and reduce fuels on approximately 2,452 acres on the Willamette National Forest near the community of McKenzie Bridge, Oregon. Harvest treatments proposed include thinning, dominant tree release, gap creation, regeneration harvest and skips. Fuels treatments include mechanical treatments, post-harvest underburn, natural fuels underburn, and hazardous fuels treatments.

2. Why is the Goose Project needed?
The Goose Project is needed to provide a sustainable supply of timber products, reduce hazardous fuels in the McKenzie Bridge Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), and actively managed stands to improve stand conditions, diversity, density and structure.

And Cascadia Forest Defenders’s view: “Since 2010, the Goose timber sale proposal has been portrayed to the public at large as a “fire fuels reduction” and “restoration” project. In reality this logging of native forest will only encourage the growth of understory vegetation thus increasing fire fuel loads in the long term. To add insult to injury, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife has given approval to “incidentally take” the lives of 5 listed “Threatened” northern spotted owls.”