Wyoming’s fractious by nature? Experience tells me otherwise

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Dr. Jessica Western, standing, guides the 30-plus members of the Chronic Wasting Disease Working Group through crafting final recommendations in September 2019. (Katie Klingsporn/WyoFile)

I really liked this op-ed  by Dr. Jessica Western of the University of Wyoming published in WyoFile.

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We who work in the field of conflict resolution have seen this process work repeatedly. In my 30 years of experience, recent examples include the Wyoming Game and Fish Department tackling the “wicked” (complex and controversial) topic of chronic wasting disease, Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources convening an Outdoor Recreation Taskforce that resulted in numerous recommendations and federal agencies and non-governmental organizations taking on collaborative problem-solving initiatives.

How do we make these collaboration processes as successful as possible? I often hear past “failures” cited as “evidence” that collaborative problem solving doesn’t work. We’ve had our struggles, yet in every case, having the conversation was laudable.

For example, the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative gave interested parties a chance to learn the level of agreement that can be reached regarding Wilderness Study Areas.  In some cases we learned that the available common ground is considerable, in others not. This effort reminds us that when a topic is very controversial, it can be better to frame it as “let’s explore the topic and related interests” first. If participants find such a learning process to be productive, then they can progress into agreement-making.

Another reason I’ve heard a process termed “unsuccessful” or worse, a “sham” is that the decision had already been made. In other words, the process was to meet the requirement of public engagement and did not influence the decision one way or another. No disagreement there: that is a sham process. Successful collaborative problem solving is based on the acronym FOTE: full, open and transparent exchange. An insincere public-engagement effort is not that. Fortunately, I hardly ever feel this is the case in Wyoming.

Collaborative process regarding the Teton Range bighorn sheep herd, convened by the Teton Range Bighorn Sheep Working Group. This resulted in the Teton Range Bighorn Sheep and Winter Recreation Strategy. (Jessica Western)

A process will founder with positional participants, i.e. when stakeholders have an outcome in mind and cannot/will not engage in a deliberation based on others’ interests or explore the reasons behind positions. And if participants can find a better alternative and find their needs met outside the collaborative process, this can also render the effort moot.

One component of Wyoming’s collaborative capacity is that we have strong conflict resolution expertise, including in the fields of natural resources, education and community health. Colleagues at the Ruckelshaus have worked with outdoor recreation collaboratives, facilitated the Wyoming Renewable Energy Siting Collaborative and the Pole Mountain Gateways project with the US Forest Service. There is more expertise in Jackson, Cody, Cheyenne, Gillette and other parts of Wyoming. These consultants and the Ruckelshaus Institute also offer a variety of training and education opportunities in collaborative skills and leadership.

Our federal land management partners are becoming increasingly adept at collaborative problem-solving. Challenges remain, however. Many of us believe federal agency leaders need to do more to make collaboration the way of doing business across all federal agencies. Nevertheless, our federal partners are another resource to value and use in collaborative problem-solving. Additionally, numerous state agencies and non-governmental organizations have demonstrated their value as excellent partners in collaborative processes.

Ultimately, Wyoming people are our biggest asset. They have clearly demonstrated willingness and ability to do the hard work to explore complex issues and find solutions. Now is the time to recognize this capacity, invest in it and use it. Now that the pandemic is subsiding, let’s get ready to go back into the room and work on our future together.

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A Round-Up of Current Pest Threats to Conifers: Guest Post by Faith Campbell

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Dead Port-Orford cedars in Redwoods National Park; photo by Richard Sniezko, USFS

 

 

dead eastern hemlocks in Linville Gorge, Pisgah NF, North Carolina; photo by Steven Norman, USFS

Many thanks to Faith Campbell for these guest posts!

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As I pointed out in my previous blog, insects and diseases (native and introduced) have decreased carbon sequestration by live trees on U.S. forest land by 12.83 teragrams carbon per year. This equals ~ 9% of the contiguous states’ total annual forest carbon sequestration. This figure is probably an under estimate (Quirion et al. 2021).

When we consider conifers, the pests currently having the greatest impact are native beetles, especially the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and – in some years and places – southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). Still, among the 15 high-damage introduced pests causing a tree mortality rate of 5.53 Terragrams of carbon per year above background level are six pests of conifers: red pine scale (Matsucoccus matsumura), hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae),  balsam woolly adelgid (Adelges piceae), white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola),  green spruce aphid (Elatobium abietinum), and Port-Orford cedar root disease  (Phytophthora lateralis). Mortality of eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) caused by the hemlock woolly adelgid ranks as one of the four species with the highest elevation in biomass loss as measured by FIA plot data (Fei et al. 2019).

Another study – Mech et al. (2019) – found that of 58 introduced insects attacking conifers, six are causing high impacts. These include the insects listed above plus European spruce sawfly (Gilpinia hercyniae) and larch sawfly (Pristiphora erichsonii). I add larch casebearer (Coleophora laricella) and larch canker (Lachnellula willkommii).

So clearly introduced pests have had serious impacts on conifers … and there is the potential for even wider impacts in the future.

Introduced pests attacking conifers differ from those attacking hardwoods in that the great majority of insets are in the orders Hymenoptera (i.e., sawflies) and Hemiptera (i.e., adelgids, aphids, and scales) rather than Coleoptera (Mech et al. 2019); most were introduced on imported plants rather than on wood; and most were introduced a century ago. (I will write more about introductory pathways in the next blog post.)

The few woodborers that attack conifers (introduced via wood packaging) have so far had limited impact. However, some are spreading toward areas that might be more vulnerable. For example, Orthotomicus erosus  can attack native pines and has spread from central California to Arizona.  A Eurasian woodwasp, Sirex noctilio, is widespread in the Northeast – in nine states and two provinces. So far it has caused little impact but it probably continues to spread toward the south. There is no official surveillance program so information is scant. No one knows how Sirex will affect the many North American pine species it is known to attack when it reaches regions where they are dominant. These hosts include loblolly (P. taeda) and slash pines (P. elliottii) in the Southeast and lodgepole (P. contorta) and ponderosa pines (P. ponderosa) in the West (Hajek, Haavik and Stephen 2021). Of course, reductions in carbon sequestration are not the only kinds of impacts that matter. Several of the conifers hammered by introduced pests are keystone species in unique ecosystems, so their loss has cascading effects on entire biomes or microhabitats.

The best known example is high elevation forests in the West. Many of these ecosystems have already lost whitebark (P. albicaulis) and limber pines (P. flexilis) to white pine blister rust – losses exacerbated in recent years by the mountain pine beetle. Whitebark and limber pines are considered endangered in Canada (Allison et al. 2021); whitebark pine is a candidate for listing as threatened in the U.S.  Another tree of the high-elevation forests – subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) – has also been severely damaged in some areas by the balsam woolly adelgid (BWA). There is an eastern counterpart: mature Fraser fir (Abies fraseri) on high elevation peaks of the central and southern Appalachians has been virtually eliminated by BWA. It is not yet clear whether the dense regeneration will survive or be attacked as the saplings age. Opening of the canopy has led to listing of two endemic species, a  lichen and a spider, under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Also in the Appalachians, eastern hemlocks create unique riparian communities that provide habitat for dozens of species – birds, salamanders, fish, and shade-loving plants. Loss of hemlocks to HWA  results in changes to water flows and temperatures and open the understory to new plant species.

In Southwest Oregon, half of the total basal area of western white pine (Pinus monticola), 30% of the total basal area of sugar pines (Pinus lambertiana) is comprised of dead trees. This situation results from the combined attacks of WPBR and MPB. Originally trees towering more up to 200 feet high, with dbh of 30 inches, western and sugar pines provided habitat for many species, especially cavity-dwellers (Goheen and Goheen 2014).

What can you do?

Quirion et al. (2021) outline several actions that would help protect the ability of America’s forests to sequester carbon. Concerning native pests, the authors call for improved forest management – with measures tailored to particular species and environmental context. Concerning introduced insects and pathogens, Quirion et al. (2021) echo many others’ call for strengthening international trade policies and phytosanitary standards governing the principal pathways – wood packaging and imported plants. These policies must be supported by enhanced enforcement and early detection tools and strategies and reliable funding for strategic rapid responses to newly detected incursions. I will discuss this in greater detail in my next blog post.

To reduce impacts of pests established on the continent, Quirion et al. (2021) recommend increasing and stabilizing dedicated funding for classical biocontrol, research into technologies such as sterile-insect release and gene drive, and host resistance breeding.

Faith Campbell is president of the Center for Invasive Species Prevention. She has spent 30 years advocating for more effective policies to prevent introduction and spread of tree-killing insects and pathogens. She posts blogs on these issues at www.cisp.us

SOURCES
Allison JD, Marcotte M, Noseworthy M and Ramsfield T (2021) Forest Biosecurity in Canada – An Integrated Multi-Agency Approach. Front. For. Glob. Change 4:700825. doi:
10.3389/ffgc.2021.700825 Frontiers in Forests and Global Change July 2021 | Volume 4 | Article 700825
Fei, S., R.S. Morin, C.M. Oswalt, and A.M. 2019. Biomass losses resulting from insect and disease invasions in United States forests. PNAS Vol. 116 No. 35 pp. 17371-17376
Goheen, E.M. and D.J. Goheen. 2014. Status of Sugar and Western White Pines on Federal Forest Lands in SW OR: Inventory Query and Natural Stand Survey Results. USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest
Region. SWOFIDSC-14-01 January 2014
Hajek, A. E., L. J. Haavik and F. M. Stephen, eds. 2021. Biology and Ecology of Sirex noctilio in No Am. FHAAST-2019-01. USDA Forest Service, Morgantown, West Virginia.
Mech,  A.M., K.A. Thomas, T.D. Marsico, D.A. Herms, C.R. Allen, M.P. Ayres, K.J. K. Gandhi, J.
Gurevitch, N.P. Havill, R.A. Hufbauer, A.M. Liebhold, K.F. Raffa, A.N. Schulz, D.R. Uden, & P.C. Tobin. 2019.  Evolutionary history predicts high-impact invasions by herbivorous insects. Ecol Evol. 2019 Nov; 9(21): 12216–12230.
Quirion BR, Domke GM, Walters BF, Lovett GM, Fargione JE, Greenwood L, Serbesoff-King K, Randall JM & Fei S (2021) P&P Disturbances Correlate With Reduced Carbon Sequestration in Forests of the Contiguous US. Front. For. Glob. Change 4:716582. [Volume 4 | Article 716582] doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2021.716582

 

 

CFLRP Advisory Committee Looking for Members

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FWIW I think it’s pronounced C Flurp with the accent on the C, but I could be wrong.. if so, please let me know in comments.
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The USDA Forest Service has announced a call for nominations for individuals to serve on the CFLRP Federal Advisory Committee, charged with evaluating CFLRP proposals and providing recommendations to the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture on proposal selection. Please see the Federal Register Notice for process and submission details – the announcement was posted on February 3 and will be open for 30 days.
Congress created CFLRP in 2009 to invest in landscape-scale restoration to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, enhance forest health, and support rural economies. CFLRP project proposals are developed collaboratively with USDA Forest Service staff and partners and are selected through a competitive process. Program funding supports up to 50% of the costs of implementing and monitoring the proposal on National Forest System lands.
 
What does the CFLRP Advisory Committee do?
  • The purpose of the Committee is to evaluate, support, and provide recommendations on each nominated CFLRP project to the Secretary of Agriculture for final selections. It is solely advisory in nature.
  • To this end, the advisory Committee is required to meet annually and may meet as often as is necessary to review and evaluate CFLRP proposals and make recommendations.
 
Who can serve on CFLRP Advisory Committee?
  • The Committee consists of officials from academia; tribal, state, county, or similar agencies; non-government organizations; and related industries. Committee membership is fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented.
  • Committee members will be appointed based on their expertise and knowledge in the following areas:
  • Ecological restoration,
  • Fire ecology,
  • Fire management,
  • Rural economic development,
  • Strategies for ecological adaptation to climate change,
  • Fish and wildlife ecology, and/or
  • Woody biomass and small-diameter tree utilization
Equal opportunity practices, in line with USDA policies, will be followed. Individuals who may be directly involved in developing a future CFLRP proposal are advised not to apply due to potential conflicts of interest.
What else do I need to know?
  • Committee members will be selected by the Secretary of Agriculture.
  • Members serve without compensation, but with reimbursement of travel expenses for any in-person travel.
  • Committee members will be subject to appropriate conflict of interest statutes and standards of ethical conduct as well as a Financial Disclosure Report.
  • This Committee will expire in 2 years from the date of filing unless renewed.
  • Please see the CFLRP Advisory Committee webpage for additional details, including current Committee members.
 
How can I apply?
 
Application packets and any additional questions may be emailed to Lindsay Buchanan, CFLR Program Coordinator at [email protected].

Oregon legislation to define “climate-smart” forestry?

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I’ve been keeping my eyes open for how anyone is defining the management practices or outcomes that should qualify as contributions to carbon sequestration.  They usually seem to stop short of that level of detail.  This does, too.  However, it sounds like they are going to try to get there.  This is a 1/11/22 draft of LC 240, to be addressed at the legislative session beginning now. We would have an answer “no later than April 30, 2023.”

(2) The Institute for Natural Resources, in coordination with the Oregon Global Warming Commission, shall jointly with the State Forestry Department, the State Department of Agriculture, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, the Department of State Lands and the Department of Land Conservation and Development, and in consultation with federal land management partners, develop:

(b) Recommendations for activity-based impact metrics …

(3) Activity-based metrics must be designed to evaluate progress toward increasing carbon sequestration in natural and working lands and waters, as measured against the 2010 to 2019 carbon sequestration baseline. Activity-based metrics may include, but need not be limited to, acres of lands or waters for which certain management practices have been adopted or acres of lands or waters that represent an increase in natural and working lands and waters.

SECTION 8. (1) As used in this section: (a) “Climate-smart agriculture, forestry and conservation practices” means practices that protect and restore resilient carbon stocks in native ecosystems and increase resilient carbon stocks in vegetation and soils in natural and working lands and waters.

Conservation groups should be able to lease land to protect it

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(I figured this from High Country News originally came from the Property and Environment Research Center, “the home of free market environmentalism,” and I wanted to make that clear.)

In much of the rural West, environmental groups have a reputation for suing to stop natural resource development. But some, like the Wyoming group, are attempting a new strategy: purchasing what they want to protect. The approach, sometimes called conservation leasing, could bolster “30 by 30,” the Biden administration’s ambitious conservation plan to conserve 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030, without ending the leasing revenue that state governments have long derived from resource extraction.

The only problem: It’s often illegal.

These century-old “use it or lose it” requirements were designed to deter speculation and encourage white settlement. But today, they can bias resource management in favor of extraction.

We may have discussed this before, but not in the context of “American the Beautiful.”  (Note: they seem to assume that not all federal lands would automatically qualify, and that at least those committed to energy or grazing would not.)  Why not change the rules to allow non-consumptive/preservation interests to pay to prevent development (for a contractual time period that would count towards 30 x 30) on publicly owned lands?  I suppose a couple of answers are that 1) they shouldn’t have to pay, and 2) that money could be better used for something else.  But would just removing the legal barriers to allow that option to be considered in lieu of energy or grazing for areas where environmental protection is more valuable be that bad of a thing?

Planning for Future Climate by Forest

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I just stumbled on a new (I think) storymap from the USFS, Climate by Forest. It’s “A tool for exploring climate change information on National Forest System lands.”

“Using the first version of Climate By Forest, forest planners could obtain climate change graphs and data files with just a few clicks. However, they still had to perform statistical analyses on the data to test whether projected changes would lead to a significant departure from historical conditions. This step required days to weeks of a climate specialist’s time to find, process, and reformat data files. To resolve this, developers incorporated the relevant statistical methods into the tool, enabling managers for every unit in the lower 48 states to access projections and the relevant statistical documentation for their plans from Climate By Forest in a matter of minutes.”

Here’s an example using the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area:

 

Best available mature science

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This paper on ocean acidification has an element that is relevant for forest planning and litigation, and specifically the definition of “best available science.”

Ocean acidification has received much attention in the press, such as in a 2009 NT Times article, “Rising Acidity Is Threatening Food Web of Oceans, Science Panel Says.” The Times wrote that, “Now an international panel of marine scientists says this acidity is accelerating so fast it threatens the survival of coral reefs, shellfish and the marine food web generally.”

This month a study reported that a “Meta-analysis reveals an extreme “decline effect” in the impacts of ocean acidification on fish behavior.” PLoS Biol 20(2): e3001511. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001511

A press release says the paper “demonstrates that the apparent severity of ocean acidification impacts on fish behaviour, as reported in the scientific literature, has declined dramatically over the past decade.”

The press release includes this passage (emphasis added]:

The researchers used meta-analysis to analyse trends in reported effects of ocean acidification on fish behaviour in studies published from 2009-2019. While early studies reported extremely clear and strong effects, the magnitude of those impacts has decreased over time and have been negligible for the past five years.

“A textbook example of the decline effect”, explains Dr. Clements, lead author of the study. “The decline effect is the tendency for the strength of scientific findings to decrease in magnitude over time. While relatively well-recognized in fields like psychology and medicine, it is lesser known in ecology—our study provides perhaps the most striking example of it in this field to date.”

To determine what might have caused the decline effect in their meta-analysis, the authors explored numerous biological factors, but found that biological differences between studies through time could not explain the results. Instead, common scientific biases largely explained the decline effect.

“Science often suffers from publication bias, where strong effects are selectively published by authors and prestigious journals”, says co-author Prof. Jutfelt. “It’s only after others try to replicate initial results and publish less-striking findings that true effects become known. Our analysis shows that strong effects in this field are favorably published in high impact journals.”

Maybe forest planners, litigants, and courts ought to use the “best available mature science,” not necessarily the latest science.

Our Joint NEPA Study III: Introducing the “Index of Annoyance”

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We had a number of good ideas for research topics discussed earlier this week.  I’m going to post some research that’s been done, and some of my own ideas and experiences. TSW readers are encouraged to submit posts either with your own ideas or research you consider relevant.  These may serve to generate more ideas and/or to hone the ones you already have.

Unusually enough, we actually had a question by a journalist Ryan Sabelow, reporter for the Sacramento Bee on Twitter. I removed some language.

As to Ryan’s point, there have been some studies along the lines he suggests, including budget and staffing, and I’ll talk about one in the next post on this.

Still, Ryan’s friend was expressing something… litigation has an impact, that is commonly believed among many Forest Service folks,  but has not been shown in the relevant literature. So there’s a gap between academia (and others) and practitioners. It’s not the academics’ fault.. it’s our own fault, in my view,  for not explaining our point of view better. Of course, it’s awkward or impossible to do that in public without being retired (except if you’re anonymous), so there’s that.

The tweet from Ryan’s friend reminded me of a conversation I had about 10-15 years ago with Denise Keele, who had co-authored a NEPA litigation paper, which also concluded … everything is fine. I was joking when I said “let’s develop an index of annoyance..talk to practitioners about what factors about litigation they find irritating, and develop a score for each project. Perhaps people could get extra pay for working on projects with a high projected annoyance score?”  Now I think perhaps even describing annoyance factors will help to bridge the gap.  I have some that I have written about, and more that I will add, and others are welcome to add theirs via post or comment.

I’ll give an important caveat here. Of course, litigation has an important place in the public policy ecosystem. Agencies need to follow the law.  Sometimes Agencies screw up and their shortcomings need to be brought to light.  Litigation can be a way to achieve these goals outside the political process.  But with the need (not agreed to by everyone) to build renewable energy projects in certain places, and to help protect communities from fire (not agreed to by everyone) in other places,  it seems like it’s a good time to talk about how this way of achieving goals is working to all parties involved.

Even talking about the landscape of litigation, from the FS practitioner’s point of view, can be uncomfortable outside the office (thank you, Ryan’s friend, and Ryan, for sharing this).  FS folks generally don’t want to be offensive, and realize that litigation is part of the government system that we pledged to uphold.  Plus whining or complaining is not always a preferred cultural norm. At the same time, I think it’s important to hear the FS employees and stakeholders’ side of the story (as well as the perspective of litigants, of course!).

So my idea is to help others understand how different kinds and approaches to litigation may impact FS people, the NEPA process, and stakeholders involved in projects.  There may be some value in simply airing frustrations; but certainly it will help  folks like Forrest and Ryan understand some of the complexities.  Both things are true: (1) generally NEPA works well and (2) in some cases it’s frustrating.

The end result might be- besides mutual understanding- a paper that academics can cite, e.g.,  (TSW et al. 2023) “litigation of projects can have perceived negative impacts on employees and stakeholders.  These include both short-term impacts during the litigation process, and long-term adaptive impacts as litigation and agency decision-making co-evolve.”

 

NFS Litigation Weekly January 28, 2021

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The Forest Service summaries are here:  Litigation Weekly January 28 2022 Email

The links for each case from the Forest Service are to court documents.

The last “weekly” we received was for December 17, so I’ve attempted to fill in the gap in the “bonus” section with links to whatever I’ve run across.

COURT DECISIONS

On January 19, 2022, the Eastern District Court of California issued a favorable decision to the Forest Service regarding small business share allocations of 44% by the Regional Forester within the Trinity Market Area on the Shasta Trinity National Forest.

OTHER AGENCIES

On January 12, 2022, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Maricopa Audubon Society filed a complaint in the District Court of Arizona against the BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for alleged violation of the Endangered Species Act based on plaintiffs’ monitoring showing livestock grazing would impact listed species and degrade critical habitat on the Horseshoe Allotment within the Agua Fria National Monument.  More in this article (which mistakenly refers to the Forest Service).

 

BLOGGER’S BONUS

On December 8, 2021, a federal court convicted a hunting guide of guiding a bighorn sheep hunt without authorization on the Carson National Forest, and sentenced him to a year and a half of probation and a $7600 fine.

On December 13, 2021 the district court denied a motion by Intervenor-Defendant Idaho State Snowmobile Association to dissolve an injunction imposed on snowmobiling in a “caribou recovery area” on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest imposed in 2007 until a winter travel plan is consulted on and adopted.  Both plaintiffs and the federal government prevailed with their argument that, despite no documented use of the area by caribou in the last decade, it is now designated critical habitat and warrants continued protection under ESA.

On December 13, 2021, the district court reversed and remanded the Stonewall Vegetation Project on the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.  The court found the project violated the NFMA requirement to be consistent with the forest plan because it failed to determine whether road densities were “low level,” as required by a plan standard.  The It also held that the language of the forest plan obligated the project to comply with the species viability requirements of the 1982 planning regulations (which were used under the transition provisions of the 2012 Planning Rule), and the Forest Service failed to demonstrate compliance related to management indicator species.  project also violated ESA because the Forest Service failed to reinitiate consultation on grizzly bears due to concurrent project activities occurring in more than three adjacent grizzly bear subunits.  It upheld the analysis of effects on elk under NEPA.

The project also included an amendment to exempt the project from standards related to elk habitat.  The court found that the EIS failed to consider alternatives or the cumulative impacts of the amendment with other like amendments.  It also held that the language of the forest plan obligated the amendment to comply with the species viability requirements of the 1982 planning regulations (which were used under the transition provisions of the 2012 Planning Rule), and the Forest Service failed to demonstrate compliance related to management indicator species.  Notably, it found that at least ten project-specific amendments to avoid forest plan habitat requirements for elk resulted in a significant change to the plan because, “the rejection of “cover” in favor of “population” is not a minor deviation from the Plan; it is an entirely different approach to elk management.” (More in this article.)

I’m not sure I’ve seen a court find amendments to be a significant change in a forest plan.  However, the holding here is probably less significant than it looks because the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest has since revised its forest plan, and it eliminated these standards.  “Montana Wildlife Federation is looking forward to addressing this glaring oversight with the Forest.”

  • Bitterroot Gold Butterfly Project (Follow-up)

The Bitterroot National Forest withdrew its proposed Gold Butterfly Project in November 2020 after being sued by the Friends of the Bitterroot.  On December 17, 2021, the Forest released its second draft Record of Decision for the project.  “The old-growth standards in the 1987 forest plan “were written in a time before there was a standardized way to define old growth,” said Bitterroot Forest Stevensville District Ranger Steve Brown. “They were arbitrary … we have basically adopted the regional standard for defining old growth” in the site-specific supplement for Gold Butterfly.  The Bitterroot Forest is working on a forest-wide plan amendment for defining old growth, which Brown said will probably be completed next year. (They might want to read the Stonewall opinion and think about whether changing the standard for old growth here is “significant” because it really changes how old growth is managed everywhere, and the effects of that need to be evaluated.  Or is it not arbitrary to keep using “arbitrary” standards on the rest of the forest?)

  • BLM geothermal utilization project:  Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe v. U. S. Department of the Interior (D. Nev.) (New lawsuit)

On December 15, 2021, plaintiff Tribe and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit (a link to the complaint is included in this article) against a BLM decision authorizing the Dixie Meadows Geothermal Utilization Project, which would consist of two geothermal powerplants, 18 or more geothermal wells, access roads, and 48 miles of transmission line on approximately 2,000 acres of public land in the Dixie Valley in north-central Nevada.  They allege violations of NEPA, FLPMA, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act with regard to a nearby hot springs and a toad being considered for listing under ESA.  On January 4, the district court enjoined the project, and an appeal has been filed.  The Center for Biodiversity discusses their work in Nevada here.  Another environmental challenge to a renewable energy, 80-megawatt wind turbine facility on private land at Altamont Pass in California, is described here.

  • Mount St. Helens road:  Cascade Forest Conservancy v. U. S. Forest Service (W.D. Wash.)  (Court decision)

On December 22, 2021, the district court upheld a decision by the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to build a road in the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument to replace an old intake gate at the Spirit Lake debris dam that helps protect the downstream communities from flooding.  The court found no NEPA or NFMA violations.  The NFMA issues involved meeting the long-term objectives of the Northwest Forest Plan Aquatic Conservation Strategy, and complying with procedures necessary for a project-specific amendment to allow non-compliance with visual quality requirements.  (More in this article.)

  • Boise Sage Hen Project (New lawsuit)

On December 22, 2021, the Idaho Conservation League filed the second lawsuit against the Sage Hen Project on the Boise National Forest.  As discussed here, the project involves an EA prepared for a long-term, large-scale, condition-based project, and this new complaint also alleges ESA violations concerning bull trout.

  • Flathead Badger-Two Medicine lease (Another lawsuit)

On December 23, 2021, Solenex LLC sued the Interior Department to reinstate an oil and gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine area of the Flathead National Forest, arguing that the Secretary of Interior exceeded their authority when they cancelled it in 2016.  An appeals court has previously upheld this decision (discussed here).

On December 27, 2021, the district court enjoined the Lang Dam and Hwy 46 projects on the Willamette National Forest.  This looks like the case previously summarized here without a link.

On December 28, 2021, the district court rejected claims by ranchers to ownership of rights to graze on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, and enjoined defendants from grazing cattle there without a permit.  The court found no separate grazing right had been established independent of property ownership, and ownership of water rights does not give rise to a separate right to graze on the allotment.

  • San Juan land exchange (FOIA lawsuit and follow-up)

In October, 2021, Colorado Wild Public Lands sued the San Juan National Forest for failing to provide records of a land exchange requested under the Freedom of Information Act over a year prior.  After receiving the records in December, 2021, plaintiffs requested a delay in approving the land exchange, scheduled for January 21, 2022.  On January 7, 2022, the Forest Service denied this request.

  • Point Reyes National Seashore grazing (Park Service):  Resource Renewal Institute v. National Park Service (N.D. Cal.) (New lawsuit)

On January 10, 2022, the Resource Renewal Institute, Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project sued the Park Service over its management of domestic cattle at Point Reyes National Seashore regarding the effects on native Tule elk.  This article includes a link to the complaint.

  • Bison listing:  Buffalo Field Campaign v. Williams (D. D.C.) (court decision)

On January 12, 2021, the district court determined that the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to comply with the Endangered Species Act requirements for listing species when it decided that the American bison found in Yellowstone National Park do not warrant listing.  Some of the bison spend part of their life on national forest lands.

  • Wolf hunting (new lawsuits)

Lawsuits have been filed in both Idaho and Montana against changes in state wolf-hunting regulations.  The Idaho claims relate to effects on non-target species protected by the Endangered Species Act.  The Montana claims relate to provisions not made available for public comment.

“Operational resilience” in western US forests

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Here’s a new paper that will no doubt be controversial: “Operational resilience in western US frequent-fire forests.” The full text is here. Sounds innocuous, but a Bloomberg article about the paper summarizes: “To Save Western U.S. Forests, Cut Them Way Back, Study Suggests.” This may sound radical, but the consequences of not doing this are clear, according to the authors including some well-known researchers: Malcolm P. North, Ryan E. Tompkins, Alexis A. Bernal Brandon M. Collins, Scott L. Stephens, and Robert A. York:

“The first two decades of the new century have demonstrated that disturbance complexes including drought, insect epidemics, and landscape-level, high-severity fire will be stressing and in some places, type converting dry, western U.S. conifer forests.”

USFS forest planners ought to take this into account when looking at desired future conditions.

Abstract:

With the increasing frequency and severity of altered disturbance regimes in dry, western U.S. forests, treatments promoting resilience have become a management objective but have been difficult to define or operationalize. Many reconstruction studies of these forests when they had active fire regimes have documented very low tree densities before the onset of fire suppression. Building on ecological theory and recent studies, we suggest that this historic forest structure promoted resilience by minimizing competition which in turn supported vigorous tree growth. To assess these historic conditions for management practices, we calculated a widely-used measure of competition, relative stand density index (SDI), for two extensive historical datasets and compared those to contemporary forest conditions. Between 1911 and 2011, tree densities on average increased by six to seven fold while average tree size was reduced by 50%. Relative SDI for historical forests was 23–28% of maximum, in the ranges considered ‘free of’ (<25%) to ‘low’ competition (25–34%). In contrast, most (82–95%) contemporary stands were in the range of ‘full competition’ (35–59%) or ‘imminent mortality’ (≥60%). Historical relative SDI values suggest that treatments for restoring forest resilience may need to be much more intensive then the current focus on fuels reduction. With the contemporary increase in compounding stresses such as drought, bark beetles, and high-severity wildfire, resilience in frequent-fire forests may hinge on creating stands with significantly lower densities and minimal competition. Current management practices often prescribe conditions that maintain full competition to guide development of desired forest conditions. Creating stands largely free of competition would require a fundamental rethinking of how frequent-fire forests can be managed for resilience.