Region 1’s No-Bid Sales- Numbers Differ From Garrity’s Letter in Helena Independent Record

by

UPDATE: Matthew pointed out in a comment that Garrity was referring to the Forest Service as a whole, not Region 1.   Now whether the no-bids of the entire US, from Alaska to National Forests of Florida is relevant to the discussion of what is going on in Montana,  is up to each reader to decide for hizzerself. BUT if you are interested in Region 1’s no-bid, here it is, plus some additional explanation from Region 1.

 

2016 Outlier Explanation: 42 million board feet of the volume is attributed to one sale that went no bid twice (so it counted twice). That one was on the Lolo. Because it was so abnormally large and complex a contract, it took several months to fix the contract problems, hence the reason it sold in Fiscal Year 2017 while the no bids occurred in Fiscal Year 2016. In short, the abnormal size of that one sale is skewing the data and could be considered an outlier. Of more imporance in FY16: the majority of the remaining volume that went no bid to be sold in later fiscal years (12 million board feet total) was on two separate sales subject to litigation.

1) Tower Fire Salvage on the IPNF and 2) Stonewall Project on Helena-Lewis & Clark. The litigation caused further time needed to re-offer and design the sales, and particularly in the case of #2 resulted in delays significant enough to no longer make portions of the sale economically viable. The original message stated that only 11.3 million board feet of all the volume offered in the past five years was not sold. 45% of that was contained in these same two sales, linked to litigation and associated delays.

So litigation itself can lead to delays and no bids.  IMHO, this additional information doesn’t support Garrity’s argument/implication that the industry doesn’t really want/won’t bid on the timber.

***************************************

Below is the original post.

*****************************************

In May of this year, Steve Wilent asked this question in this post.

In Garrity’s letter, he says, “Last year the Forest Service [Region 1] received no bids on 17.5% of the timber offered, up from 15.6% that received no bids in 2018. That’s 615 million board feet that weren’t cut in 2019 because the timber industry did not bid on it.”

Altemus replies that “This is a gross distortion of the facts.”

Anyone know the facts?

Also, timber sales may get zero bids for many reasons — too far from a mill, poor or undesirable species, unfavorable terms, and so on — that have little to do with a region’s overall timber supply.

So I asked the folks in Region 1 this question and received the answer last week. I suspect the reason Altemus didn’t provide these data is that they were not available under the timeframe she had for the latter. Thank you Region 1!

What stands out is that in the past five years, Region 1 has:

  1. Offered a total of 1.8 Billion Board Feet
  2. Of that 1.8 Billion, only 83 Million Board Feet received No Bids (5%)
  3. All but 11.3 Million Board Feet offered over the past 5 years was sold either by the end of the same fiscal year initially receiving no bids, or in the next fiscal.  That means less than 1% of all the volume offered in the Region over the past 5 years was not sold.

We did not separate out sales that went no bid twice, so there is some double counting of the same volume.  The largest example was a 21 MMBF sale on the Lolo that went no bid twice in 2016, selling on the third offer in 2017.  Accounting for these multi-offers would further reduce the total volume that went no bid in the Region.

Here’s the table that they provided.  As you see, some can originally go no-bid and be reoffered either in the same or a later fiscal year.  I can see that for 2019, 16.9 is fairly close to the 17.5 that Garrity claimed. However, his statement that “they weren’t cut because industry didn’t bid on it” doesn’t really fit with the fact that they (industry) ultimately did (2.2 no bid at the end of the fiscal year).  Unless I’m misunderstanding, if industry buys it, even later in the FY, they will ultimately cut it.  And the 15.6 for 2018 that Garrity cites in his letter is difficult to relate to the 2.4 in this table. Puzzling. (Region 1 sent another table and I’m having trouble fitting it in a post, and I’d also like to graph it. Would someone in the TSW community be willing to help me out? Thanks in advance.)

REGION 1 PAST FIVE YEARS NO BID DATA (MMBF)
Fiscal YearTotal Volume OfferedTotal Volume – No BidsTotal Volume – Reoffered and SoldTotal Volume – Reoffered and SoldNo Bids – End of FiscalNo Bids – Net% of Total Offer Going No Bid% of Total Offer No Bid – Net
Same FiscalLater Fiscal
2019437.716.914.722.072.20.14%0.03%
2018377.62.40.011.762.40.61%0.17%
2017359.51.00.010.951.00.00%0.01%
2016302.059.34.7844.0754.510.520%3.46%
2015310.73.43.310.050.10.01%0.01%

Supreme Court Upholds Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Forest Service Under-Trail Authority

by

We’ve discussed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline before here and possibly elsewhere. Here’s a Hill story from today.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a permit for a controversial $8 billion gas pipeline that would tunnel below the famed Appalachian Trail.

The 7-2 opinion handed a defeat to environmental groups who challenged the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, (ACP) which would carry natural gas some 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina.

The decision to uphold the permit resolves a complex bureaucratic dispute involving multiple U.S. environmental agencies and overlapping legal authorities.

The justices held that the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) had been duly authorized to greenlight the project, rejecting the challengers’ claim that power over the affected land lay elsewhere.

The dispute stemmed from the Department of the Interior’s decision to make the National Park Service (NPS) responsible for the Appalachian Trail. Prior to the court’s Monday decision, the question of whether this move also transferred authority of lands underneath the trail had been an open one.

But Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said the administrative arrangement did not remove the USFS’s power to permit construction under the trail.

“Accordingly, the Forest Service had the authority to issue the permit here,” wrote Thomas, whose majority opinion cut across ideological lines.

Thomas was joined by fellow conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, as well as liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Two of the court’s liberals, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented.

“For decades, more than 50 other pipelines have safely crossed the trail without disturbing its public use. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline will be no different,” ACP spokeswoman Ann Nallo said by email, reiterating the company’s plans to be in operation by 2022.

“To avoid impacts to the trail, the pipeline will be installed hundreds of feet below the surface and emerge more than a half-mile from each side of the trail. There will be no construction activity on or near the trail itself, and the public will be able to continue enjoying the trail as they always have.”

Here’s a quote of interest. The plaintiffs just don’t want the project, and will move on to the next permit. Though I’m not sure what environmental law has language about how much something is needed and by whom.

While today’s decision was not what we hoped for, it addresses only one of the many problems faced by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. This is not a viable project. It is still missing many required authorizations, including the Forest Service permit at issue in today’s case, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will soon consider the mounting evidence that we never needed this pipeline to supply power,” DJ Gerken, with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which sued over the pipeline, said in a statement.

Secretarial Memorandum to the Chief of the Forest Service

by

The memo below was the subject of a June 12 Bloomberg article, “Oil, Logging, Mining Ordered as Forest Service Focus.”

 

Secretarial Memorandum to the Chief of the Forest Service

June 12, 2020 –

Purpose:  Establish vision, priorities, and direction on:

  • Increasing the productivity of National Forests and Grasslands
  • Valuing our Nation’s grazing heritage and the National Grasslands
  • Increasing access to our National Forests
  • Expediting environmental reviews to support active management

 

As Secretary of Agriculture, it is my duty to ensure our National Forests and Grasslands are on a path to health and productivity so they can continue to meet the needs of citizens and communities, both now and into the future.

It is the first priority of the Forest Service to serve the American people and work in ways that exemplify the values of Shared Stewardship.  We need modern systems and approaches and less complicated regulations to serve our customers and improve our delivery of the goods and services that the American people want and need from the Nation’s Forest System.

The 193 million acres of public lands managed by the Forest Service provide important resources and recreational opportunities to the people of this great Nation.  These lands are critical for the prosperity of rural communities, sustaining jobs and livelihoods in grazing, mining, oil and gas development, recreation and forestry — sectors that support our American way of life.  These lands also furnish food and water that all life depends on.

While I am proud of the progress to promote active management, reduce hazardous fuels, work across boundaries and increase the resiliency of our Nation’s forests and grasslands, I believe more can be done.  Today, I am announcing a blueprint for reforms to further provide relief from burdensome regulations, improve customer service, and boost the productivity of our National Forests and Grasslands.

 

Increasing the productivity of National Forests and Grasslands

The American people rely on our National Forests and Grasslands for a variety of products and services that sustain jobs and livelihoods in rural communities, feed America, and supply the clean water that sustains life.  I am directing the Forest Service to focus resources on activities that support the productive use of these lands to deliver goods and services efficiently and effectively to meet the needs of our citizens.  The Forest Service will:

  • streamline processes and identify new opportunities to increase America’s energy dominance and reduce reliance on foreign countries for critical minerals;
  • modernize management practices and reduce regulatory burdens to promote active management on Forest Service lands to support and protect rural communities, critical watersheds, and species habitat; and
  • expedite broadband development on Forest Service lands to increase internet connectivity in rural America.

 

Valuing our Nation’s grazing heritage and the National Grasslands

The Forest Service manages 3.8 million acres of National Grasslands across 12 Western States.  These lands are managed for a variety of sustainable multiple-use goods and services for the American people.  The National Grasslands are a conservation success story; abandoned and infertile after the Dust Bowl in the early 20th century, they now support a thriving agricultural industry and provide important wildlife habitat.  They are a symbol of pride for many Americans.

The National Grasslands play a vital role in the fabric of rural communities, supporting thousands of jobs, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the economy, and producing food for America and the entire world.  They are managed sustainably with the help of ranching families, who pride themselves as conservationists, ensuring that these lands will remain productive for generations to come.  To this end, the Forest Service will:

  • establish in forest plans that grazing and support for grazing on the National Grasslands is essential for their management within the framework of their governing statutes;
  • streamline renewal of range permits and range improvements on the National Forests and Grasslands; and
  • enhance flexibility for Forest Service employees to work with ranching families and communities.

 

Increasing access to National Forest System Lands

It is imperative for the Forest Service to manage the National Forests and Grasslands for the benefit of the American people.  These lands provide a multitude of public benefits, including diverse recreational opportunities, access to world-class hunting and fishing, and forest products that support America’s traditions and way of life.  Accordingly, the Forest Service will:

  • increase access to Forest Service lands by streamlining the permit process for recreational activities and embracing new technologies and recreation opportunities;
  • open public access to National Forest System lands with currently limited access where feasible in cooperation with States, counties, and partners; and
  • improve customer service by modernizing and simplifying forest products permitting and the Forest Service land exchange process.

 

Expediting environmental reviews to support active management

Management activities on National Forest System lands require compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and other applicable laws and regulations. Under this administration, the Forest Service has worked to streamline the corresponding processes while conserving public lands and ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources.  I am directing the agency to further emphasize this effort through greater accountability for efficient decision making, succinct and understandable documentation of compliance, and focused and effective public engagement.  The Forest Service will:

  • set time and page limits on the completion of environmental documents, including categorical exclusions, environmental assessments, and environmental impact statements;
  • streamline policy to ensure environmental reviews focus on analysis that is required by law and regulation;
  • work across the government to initiate the development of policies for alternative procedures to streamline consultation processes and environmental reviews; and expedite compliance with State Historic Preservation Offices for vegetation management and facility and infrastructure improvements.

Forest Service Stories: Some History of the Williamette National Forest

by
Big Prairie Ranger Station with Addie Morris, GLO forest ranger, and his family, c. 1899.

This is more history than story, but here goes…

From: Steven W. Coady:R06F18A

Date: ## 02/28/97 10:57 ##

A lot of this information came from our forest history book, written by Lawrence and Mary Rakestraw in the late 1980’s, including the last two sections. What has changed this, I feel, is mobilization, cars.  In 1909, when McFarland first came to this forest, one of the rangers from McKenzie area wrote that it took two days of hard riding with a pack animal to reach Eugene, OR. Today, you can make that journey in an hour. McKenzie R.D. and Oakridge R.D. are about the same distance.

Another factor is people are more global now. In the early days, communities were small and semi‑isolated if for no other reason because of roads or lack of roads. Rangers and their wives were a PART of those communties. Any anger or resentment towards the government that those residents felt were directed towards the RO or WO, not the ranger. Also, what I’ve found is that a lot of the problems we face now, such as group(s) wanting to take back government  lands for the counties, grazing issues, timber theft, wilderness issues, district consolidations, etc. Not a lot has really changed in 100 years! sc

I’ve selected some paragraphs from the document that Steven sent that I personally found interesting, and the entire document is linked here. The Rakestraw book has fortunately been uploaded in its entirety by the Forest History Society here.

Depression Ideas

In 1931, McFarland & Axel Lindh (RO), studied ways to alleviate some of the distress of the Depression. The  report stated that even though the F.S. could supply the timber sales that could potentially keep employment up, stagnation in the lumber industry would make for periods when sales were not made. A proposal of McFarland &  Lindh was that some 2,500 acres in T.21 S, R.3 E (Oakridge area), be surveyed for residential tracts. To be divided into small homesites of one‑quarter to one‑half acre each. Leased at $10 per year, larger ones at $3 per year. This program received additional endorsement from President Roosevelt in 1934. This evolved into the Resettlement Administration & in turn into the Farm Security Administration under Rexford Tugwell.

In April 1935, Regional Forester C.J. Buck wrote to the Forester recommending the proposal & suggesting that an initial 143 acres be set aside for industrial homesites.  CCC labor could be used for clearing & surveying the lots, homes built using local lumber at $2,500 per unit.  And with the increased number of WNF employees, 25 or 30 units could be leased to F.S. employees.

Roadless Areas

Beginning in the 1920’s, the Forest Service began to set aside roadless areas. By 1930, there were 52,300 acres  set aside near Mt. Jefferson, 47,500 acres around  Diamond Peak. Three Sisters was added later.

Treaty Rights

Native American treaty rights were protested in the early 1920’s due to their harvesting of huckleberries.   Native Americans traveled by horse and it was deemed by stockmen that it was unfair that they had to pay for grazing rights and Indians didn’t. C.C. Hall brought this up in 1922, but soon the dependence on the automobile soon ended this when all began to travel to the berry fields by car.

Role of Ranger and Wife

As rangers, we were key men in mobilizing support for the Forest Service, living as we did, as members of the community, and working with all kinds of local and regional‑‑Obsidians, Grangers, 4‑H groups, Boy Scouts, county grazing associations, lumbermen’s guilds, representatives from the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, and last but not least, church groups. We put in a lot of “coal oil time” working with the community‑‑locating section corners, giving talks to a variety of groups, carrying on search expeditions for lost children, arbitrating disputes over a variety of matters, listening to complaints about forest policy, and giving advice and guidance to visitors.

The role of rangers wives was no less important. They offered hospitality to visiting brass‑a gallon of hot coffee and a huckleberry pie were always on hand if the Supervisor came visiting. If he was accompanied by the fire control chief, two pies were appropriate. She counseled employees on marital problems, administered first aid to the injured, and ministered to the indiscreet, who had been overcome by hospitality at a meeting of the Stockman’s Association, or the “Concatenated Order of Hoo Hoo”; took over the telephone  system in cases of fire; and worked with a host of     community associations. Much of the strength of the Forest Service came from the fact that rangers and rangers’ wives were highly respected members of the community; and criticism of the Forest Service was more often directed to the “Swivel Chair Foresters” of the Washington Office or the “Swedes in green pants” in Portland, than to the local organization.

TIMOs and REITS- An Intro by Cliff Hickman

by

 

Many of us federal lands forest types haven’t followed how the transfer of lands from timber industry to TIMO’s and REIT’s developed.  It was discussed a bit in the recent Oregonian article on the timber industry in SW Oregon.

My intention here was to find an accessible explanation and to provide the space in the comments for others to provide their own favorite papers, memories and thoughts.  So that if someone wants to know about the topic, this post will ultimately end up being a good place to start.

This is the terrain of forest economists- the folks who analyze legions of (not particularly exciting) numbers so the rest of us don’t have to.  And the Forest Service has had some excellent forest economists, including Cliff Hickman, a former colleague of mine in the Policy Analysis shop. Cliff’s work is clearly written, and goes to the heart of the questions I had Thanks, Cliff!

Here’s a link.

Reasons for Changing Ownership Pattern:

The reasons for the changes in private forestland ownership that have occurred in the US may be viewed from at least three different perspectives: 1) that of the former VIFPCs that elected to sell-off all or part of their forestland holdings,6 2) that of the TIMOs and the institutional investors they represent, and 3) that of the former VIFPCs that elected to restructure and create timber REITs.

Key motives and factors influencing the VIFPCs that elected to sell-off some or all of their forestlands included the following:7

  • Relatively weak financial performance and the need to improve returns to stockholders. – Stockholder returns over the 10-year period 1995 to 2005 averaged +6.2% for the “Forestry and Paper Group” as compared to +12.1% for the S&P 500, and +13.1% for the Dow Jones Industrial. (04) To ensure continued flow of investment capital into the industry, it was essential that stockholder returns be increased – and the sale of timber holdings was seen as a way to achieve this end.

  • Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP): – Related to the preceding factor, GAAP for “Sub-Chapter C Corporations” precludes such entities, when it comes to computing their return on investment, from recognizing any appreciation in the value of the timberland assets they hold – only profit realized from the harvesting and processing of trees may be considered. This treatment contrasts with the conventions that apply to “Sub-Chapter S” and “Limited Liability” corporations, to TIMOs, and to REITs. (01, 12)

  • Rising Forestland Values: – Related to both of the preceding factors, throughout much of the US forestland values have been rising in response to what has been characterized as “the grand tidal wave of sprawl now sweeping over the nation.” (09) As forestland values rose, so did the value of what was arguably the primary asset held by the VIFPCs. Although GAAP prevented these companies from recognizing this appreciation in value in their formal accounting, it didn’t stop them from “cashing in” through the sale of some of their lands – especially tracts with good access, proximity to urban areas, water frontage, scenic value, or outdoor recreation potential.

  • Consolidations made to enhance international competitiveness also increased debt burdens. – Over the last 10 to 15 years, the VIFPCs in the US have faced increasing competitive pressure from low cost timber suppliers and forest products manufacturers in other parts of the world. In response, the domestic industry went through a period of substantial consolidation. Oftentimes significant debt was incurred to finance these consolidations. The sale of timber holdings was seen as a way to get this debt off corporate balance sheets. (01)

  • Rethinking of the long held belief that ownership of timberlands was essential to ensure future availability of an essential raw material at reasonable cost. – Historically, as previously noted, a major rationale for the acquisition of timberlands by the VIFPCs was to gain some degree of control over the conditions of availability of an essential raw material. During the last 10 to 15 years, however, many firms came to believe they could confidently rely on open market sources of timber – both domestic and international.8 (01, 04)

  • Federal income tax policies. – While no doubt unintentional, federal income tax policies also appear to have encouraged many US forest products companies to divest themselves of their timber holdings. Of greatest importance is the fact that the traditional VIFPCs are classified as “Sub-Chapter C Corporations” for income tax purposes. For this type of entity, any profits obtained from the sale of timber are taxed twice – once at the corporate level (35%), and once at the stockholder level when dividends are disbursed (15%). The practical effect of this tax policy is that investors who own both manufacturing plants and forestland often recoup as little as 50 cents out of every dollar of profit made from cutting trees whereas investors who own just forestland can normally pocket at least 85 cents out of every dollar.9 (01, 04, 07, 14)

The Challenges of Foundation-Funded Journalism for Journalists and Readers

by

It seems sometimes as if there are people who do things (write EA’s, produce goods and services) (doers) and people who review what doers do. Those include academics, judges, reporters and so on. The Smokey Wire is full of those stories.  I think it’s also important for people familiar with doing to review what academics, judges, and reporters do in their work and how they do it- especially when it concerns topics we know about.   To do that, we need to look at their own literature and try to understand how they perceive things and how their professional systems operate.  One example is  “Practice of Science Friday” and the sociology of science.

Thanks to Matthew for posting this Propublica OPB Oregonian piece on timber companies in southwestern Oregon.  I’ve got some points to make about the piece, but I’ve written one of the reporters  to get more information before I dive in.  I was interested in the fact that it was funded by Propublica and the timing was interesting, since apparently the issue of reduction of severance taxes has been around for a while.

This came across today from E&E news  “A Republican who made his name fighting a suspected terrorist in France thinks he can unseat longtime incumbent Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio in southwest Oregon by channeling decades of rural anger over the decline of the timber industry.”

So I became curious about Propublica and its funders, and wondered what kind of stories they would fund and whether they might be biased in a certain way. Of course, we are all biased, and even the bias watchers themselves are biased. For example two bias sites have mildly different views of Propublica.  Media Bias/Fact Check and Influence Watch both indicate that it is left-leaning, though Media Bias says left-center.  What’s a reader to do? First, buy a subscription to your local paper!

We all know that journalism has had difficulties, and Covid has made them worse.  But it is troubling that the replacement for local people reporting on topics of interest may funding if their is a particular point of view imbedded in the selection and framing of the story. It might lead to seeing the country as more divided than it really is, and possibly lead to even more division.  Simply because we don’t get different points of view examined fairly, so it’s easier to see people who disagree as stupid, malevolent and so on.  But apparently that is only one of the issues around foundation funding and journalism that journalism scholars have found.

I did a very brief review of some literature and came up with these.

How Foundation Funding Changes the Way Journalism Gets Done

and this interesting one from scholars in the UK.

In summary, we argue that foundation funding shapes what we understand journalism to be. This is important because it suggests that foundations are changing the role that journalists play in democracy. In the case of non-profit international news, foundations direct journalism (both intentionally and unintentionally) towards outcome-oriented, explanatory journalism in a small number of niche subject areas. We do not make a normative claim about whether these changes are “good” or “bad” for journalism. However, we are concerned that such important decisions about journalism – a vital institution to democracy – are being made by a small number of generally un-transparent organisations, controlled by powerful individuals, which are rarely scrutinised or held accountable by any larger or democratic body.

Outcome-oriented sounds like “successful in changing people’s views.”  Which, in my view, is not exactly the same goal as “explaining clearly to people what’s going on.”

The last sentence particularly resonated with me. It’s good to have watchdogs, but what if no one’s watching the watchdogs?

Big Money Bought the Forests. Small Logging Communities Are Paying the Price

by

A very long and very in-depth piece by Oregon Public Broadcasting, the Oregonian and ProPublica.

Read it: https://features.propublica.org/oregon-timber/severance-tax-cut-wall-street-private-logging-companies/

“The Rise of Wall Street Forestry Leaves Oregonian’s Paying the Tab.”

“Half of the 18 counties in Oregon’s timber-dominant region lost more money from tax cuts on private forests than from the reduction of logging on federal lands, the investigation shows.”

“The singularly focused narrative, the only one most Oregonians know, masked another devastating shift for towns like Falls City.”

“Wall Street real estate trusts and investment funds began gaining control over the state’s private forestlands. They profited at the expense of rural communities….”

Paper: “Fire and climate change: conserving seasonally dry forests is still possible”

by

PR from UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources below. The article referenced, “Fire and climate change: conserving seasonally dry forests is still possible,” is behind a pay wall.

I agree with the authors, but have they gone a step too far in stating that their findings ought to translate into actions that “should be a primary focus of management”?

Abstract
The destructive wildfires that occurred recently in the western US starkly foreshadow the possible future of forest ecosystems and human communities in the region. With increases in the area burned by severe wildfire in seasonally dry forests expected to result from climate change, judicious, science‐based fire and restoration strategies will be essential for improving the resilience of forest ecosystems. We argue that fire use treatments (including prescribed fires and managed wildfires) as well as restoration thinning strategies, rather than conflicting with existing environmental objectives, will provide numerous co‐benefits, including enhanced biodiversity, increased water availability, greater long‐term and more sustainable carbon storage, improved forest resilience and adaptation to climate change, and reduced air pollution. Timber production, however, may have to be better aligned with fire management goals to achieve these co‐benefits. Taking immediate actions today to promote positive ecological outcomes in seasonally dry forests should be a primary focus of management, particularly in the western US.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Press release:

Experts advocate fire management to conserve seasonally dry forests

Fire has been a central component in California’s natural and human history for millennia. Native Americans’ use of cultural burns in landscape management, in addition to lightning-ignited fires that burned unhindered, have long impacted most of the state’s ecosystems. However in the late 1800s, California’s landscape underwent an era of Euro-American fire exclusion and suppression. As the United States began suppressing fire across western ecosystems, forests became increasingly dense with fuel which easily ignites in warm weather conditions.

In a study published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment today, environmental science, policy, and management professor Scott Stephens and co-authors investigate the role which fire and restoration thinning could play in restoring California’s forests. Stephens argues that allowing forests to burn does not necessarily conflict with the government’s environmental objectives to promote carbon storage and water availability. In the long-term, fire and restoration thinning can help forests continue to provide natural services while building ecosystem resilience to climate change.

A century of fire suppression coincided with the loss of larger, more fire-resistant trees from selective logging. With the worsening impacts of climate change, wildfires have grown increasingly destructive and high-intensity in recent years, and megafires threaten the biodiversity of many native ecosystems.

Stephens argues for the return of fire in California’s forest management techniques. “With climate change and continued ignitions from people and lightning, there is a great need to move decisively,” says Stephens. “The good news is rather than conflicting with other environmental objectives, fire and restoration thinning employed now will provide numerous co-benefits.”

The authors focus on two primary management strategies: burning and restoration thinning. Fire treatments include prescribed fires, in which managers intentionally burn an area in accordance with a site-specific plan. Prescribed burns reduce dead wood, leaf litter, and small trees, which act as hazardous fuel layers in seasonally dry forests. Additionally, forest managers can monitor wildfires that are ignited naturally by lightning and, where appropriate, allow such ignitions to burn—a technique that has improved the ecological resilience of several National Parks and forests in much of the United States.
Former graduate student lighting a prescribed burn with a torch

Restoration thinning—activities such as chipping, shredding, and whole-tree removal—can reduce fuel and mimic the effects of burning. However, mechanical thinning practices do not aid the many native species which rely on smoke and heat to germinate or on burnt habitat to thrive.

Importantly, the study describes how such management strategies can improve overall biodiversity, water quantity, and carbon sinks. Pyrodiversity, or the degree of heterogeneity in the age and size of a burned landscape, can support more diverse bird, pollinator, and flowering plant communities. The authors describe the challenge in maintaining complex tree canopy structures for threatened species, such as the California spotted owl. In addition to increasing streamflow and enhancing long-term carbon sequestration, the proposed management strategies could lower the likelihood of high-severity fires in the future.

“Even though increasing the scale of restoration is daunting, I am optimistic,” says Stephens. “Forests are just too important to the people and wildlife of California. But we need to act or severe wildfires and drought will continue to change forests right in front of us. We can and need to do better.”

Management strategies would need to account for the difficulty in controlling hazards from smoke, as well as how volatile weather conditions can cause undesired fire outcomes. To ensure the safety of the forest and nearby communities, the study finds that prescribed burn plans must integrate information on weather, topography, fuel type, ignition patterns, and other factors. The authors call for increased collaboration between Native American tribes and forest managers, highlighting the importance of longstanding indigenous knowledge and practices.

Now the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to impact fire suppression, an activity that necessarily involves groups working in close proximity. “Firefighters train, sleep, shower, eat, and fight fire in groups, and the effectiveness of firefighters depends on the ability to deploy and work closely to extinguish fires,” says Stephens. “New protocols are being developed for this summer and fall that will work to make groups smaller and to increase fire prevention. While these measures are needed this year, they do not address the fundamental fire problems in California forests that are addressed in this paper.”

The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of California, Merced, the University of New Mexico, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Colorado State University, and the University of Western Australia. Read the full paper in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment website.

Touchless reforestation

by

Drone technology is being used for tree-planting in response to afforestation and carbon sequestration needs, including use after wildfires. How might this change national forest management?

To quickly plant around a trillion trees—a goal that some researchers have estimated could store more than 200 gigatons of carbon—Flash Forest argues that new technology is needed. In North America, trees need to grow 10-20 years before they efficiently store carbon, so to address climate change by midcentury, trees need to begin growing as quickly as possible now. “I think that drones are absolutely necessary to hit the kind of targets that we’re saying are necessary to achieve some of our carbon sequestration goals as a global society,” she says.

But to restore forests that have already been lost, the drones can work more quickly and cheaply than humans planting with shovels. Flash Forest’s tech can currently plant 10,000 to 20,000 seed pods a day; as the technology advances, a pair of pilots will be able to plant 100,000 trees in a day (by hand, someone might typically be able to plant around 1,500 trees in a day, Ahlstrom says.) The company aims to bring the cost down to 50 cents per tree, or around a fourth of the cost of some other tree restoration efforts.

This has obvious implications for tree-planting crews, but how about something like salvage logging?  Other issues?

Lawsuit Halts Border Road Construction in Key Grizzly Bear Habitat

by

The U.S. Forest Service will forego a road building project in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests this summer. Here’s the press release.

SANDPOINT, Idaho— In response to a lawsuit filed by five conservation groups, federal agencies today agreed to forego planned summer construction on the Bog Creek Road project in northern Idaho.

Earlier this year the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection received approval to reconstruct the road, located just south of the Canadian border, under the guise of border security. In addition to reconstructing this road, the project would also increase motorized traffic on other nearby roads in crucial habitat for imperiled grizzly bears, mountain caribou, wolverines and other wildlife in the Selkirk Mountains.

In their March lawsuit, conservation groups said the two federal agencies violated the National Environmental Policy Act and National Forest Management Act by failing to consider the road project’s impacts on grizzly bears and their habitat.

“We’re pleased this lawsuit has pushed the Trump administration to hit pause on reconstructing an abandoned road in this pristine area where a fragile grizzly bear population is struggling to recover,” said Andrea Zaccardi, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is a great first step, and we’ll continue to fight until this unnecessary and destructive plan is completely abandoned.”

Crossing the Selkirk Mountains near the U.S.-Canadian Border, the Bog Creek Road cuts through prime habitat for grizzly bears, Canada lynx, wolverines and other sensitive wildlife. The road has been overgrown with trees and vegetation for decades. The Forest Service closed Bog Creek Road in the late 1980s to protect Selkirk’s grizzly bears, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

“This is a step in the right direction,” said Brad Smith, the Idaho Conservation League’s North Idaho director. “In the meantime we will show the court that this project will unnecessarily undermine efforts to recover the Selkirk Mountains grizzly bear population.”

Customs and Border Protection officials contend that a restored road is necessary to monitor border security but have provided little evidence of current threats. Currently the agency is able to access the border through other avenues.

“We continue to believe that accessing the border in northern Idaho from the Kootenai side of the drainage will best serve the interests of the Border Patrol while also protecting the environment,” said James Lea of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance.

Under the decision the Forest Service would open 4.9 miles of road #1009 for unlimited motorized use from July 15 – Aug. 15, and would decommission approximately 26 miles of roads, which improves wildlife habitat and is necessary to meet grizzly bear recovery standards. Under the agreement reached today, road # 1009 will not be open for public use this summer and the Forest Service may move forward with decommissioning activities.

“Today we won a reprieve for wildlife and especially grizzly bears in the Selkirk Mountains, which is great news,” said Adam Rissien, a ReWilding advocate at WildEarth Guardians. “Shrinking the sprawling road network improves habitat and is the kind of true restoration work the Forest Service should be doing, not opening roads and expanding motorized use.”

The parties are hoping that the court will reach a decision in this case before determining whether a new agreement would be needed next summer. Briefing is likely to begin in the case this fall.