Community Sourced, Shared and Supported
Rainy day, so I’m cleaning out my office — I do so every decade or so. Found a flier for a 2004 conference in Medord, OR, sponsored by OSU’s College of Forestry: “Creating Fire-resilient Landscapes: Improving Our Understanding and Application.” A decade later, we’re still working on it….
Thanks to Nick Smith of Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities for including this item from The Missoulian in today’s email list….
I applaud the Missoulian for publishing various views on forest management and the role of citizen-driven forest collaborative groups in decisions regarding public lands.
With the wide-ranging disruptions of climate change, forward looking, science-based management of our forests will be critical in sustaining social and environmental health. Yet too often characterizations of collaborative groups by Missoulian contributors miss the mark, erroneously claiming that these voluntary associations are captured by profit-driven representatives of timber industry to advance exploitation of forests at the expense of other values.
For the past 13 years, I have been a participant in the Lolo Restoration Committee and the Southwest Crown of the Continent Collaborative. I have found them to be steadfastly independent, thoughtful, and focused on outcomes that will benefit forests for the long term. Each of these groups has a written charter that identifies principles of inclusion, diverse representation, deliberation, and fairness.
In each, federal or state land management agency representatives are encouraged to join our meetings but are enjoined from voting on the group’s recommendations, which are typically generated through consensus. These and other collaborative groups convene their own meetings, design their own agendas, and are beholden to no one other than themselves.
The power of these groups is their creativity, as the collision of different points of view and respectful deliberation leads to original ideas and approaches to highly complex, contextually dependent problems within the forest. There has never been an occasion where timber industry has possessed singular influence.
Collaborative groups contain people expressing powerful conservation ideals as well as advocates for environmental protection. A large proportion of participants are retired natural resource management professionals with ample experience in wildlife management, recreation, wilderness management, and public lands administration.
In fact, on multiple occasions the two groups with which I have been involved have struggled to sustain representation from timber industry, since the demands on industry staff can be extreme.
Put simply, the assertion that collaborative groups are captured by timber industry is false.
Sadly, there are individuals and organizations that prefer complaining about collaborative groups rather than joining a group and doing the difficult work of examining potential forest management decisions or resource protection measures.
Along with my fellow collaborative group participants, I have tried to encourage diverse voices to join groups so we can listen to their ideas and incorporate their views. I believe that those who criticize collaborative groups have legitimate concerns and have an honest desire, like the members of collaborative groups, to protect forests so they can provide the remarkable environmental services on which we all depend.
I hope these critics have a change of heart, join a group, and use their influence to help shape better decisions.
The energy behind collaborative groups emerges from a strong American tradition that allows voices with local knowledge to reflect and consider how public issues within their everyday lives might be addressed. This does not mean that these local voices will carry the day, but only that they be heard. There may be larger scale interests or other critical factors that lead to decisions that may not adhere to local demands. Every collaborative group recognizes that their recommendations are simply one set of suggestions across the spectrum of public engagement.
In the case of national forests, the responsible officials rightly make the final decisions on these forests. The significant contributions made by collaborative groups are the original, often well-grounded thoughts and observations that can lead to better plans and actions.
In a world where we feel like we are often victims of forces beyond our control, collaborative groups offer a refreshing opportunity to work together for the common good.
First thing.. this RMP covers more subsurface mineral estate than surface
The Eastern Colorado RMP planning area consists of approximately 35 million acres of land under various jurisdictions in eastern Colorado, including 7,177,100 acres of federal mineral estate, which may lie beneath other surface ownership. The BLM actions considered in the Approved Eastern Colorado RMP would only apply to those areas for which the BLM has the authority to make management decisions (the decision area), which comprise 658,200 acres of BLM-administered surface land and 3,311,900 acres of BLM-administered mineral estate.
If you’re interested, I posted some maps below.
According to TRCP, the fact that there was a South Park Coalition made the difference.
Before the formal planning process began, Park County, Colorado Wildlife Federation, TRCP, several other conservation organizations, and water providers came together as the South Park Coalition and began identifying areas suitable for development and areas key to conserve.
“I think the work we did well before the formal process made a big difference to enable the really good outcome for the unique resources of the South Park area,” said Suzanne O’Neill, executive director of the Colorado Wildlife Federation. “We applaud BLM’s recognition throughout the process of this iconic basin’s distinctive and largely unfragmented wildlife habitats, prized trout streams, water quality, and spectacular vistas. In addition, the plan’s treatment of the areas managed by BLM in eastern Colorado outside of South Park has been much improved.”
This is a good story from the Colorado Sun. Apparently CBD is not a fan.
“Unfortunately, the BLM maintains the status quo, which is basically the oil and gas industry can have whatever it wants, whenever it wants, and however it wants,” said Nichols, whose group estimates the plan allows for a doubling of oil production on public lands over 20 years. “And that is not a solution to both the climate crisis or the clean air crisis that is affecting the Denver Metro area and the Northern Front Range.”
And many wildlife groups and the energy folks are satisfied.
“BLM chose a balanced alternative, not the most extreme conservation-only alternative,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance. Of course some environmental advocates are not happy, she said, because they are “never happy unless a decision is made that shuts off all oil and natural gas, but that would be unlawful. BLM has a duty to balance energy development with environmental protection.”
I thought what the Royal Gorge District Manager had to say was interesting:
The BLM’s Royal Gorge district office, which guided the resource plan, said the draft process included a long schedule of community meetings for input. The BLM’s call for public involvement included a first-time effort to divide the broad swath of Colorado into four geographic regions with a unique sense of geography and culture. South Park community advocates had a big impact on the plans, Royal Gorge district manager Keith Berger said.
The early 2019 draft of the now-final plan had only about 1,300 acres set aside for land with wilderness characteristics, Berger said, and public calls for more eventually pushed the BLM to set aside more than 114,000 acres in that protected category.
Oil and gas development was taken off the table for 93% of the Eastern Colorado land, he added. (Nearly all the mineral rights BLM deals with in Eastern Colorado are oil and gas, rather than coal rights the agency controls in other districts.) BLM decided to allow new oil and gas development in northeast Colorado, for example, in part because those areas already have oil and gas as a common land use, he said. Much of the BLM-controlled mineral right is interspersed with private lands where oil and gas drilling is already dominant.
If BLM stops new leasing, the technology of fracking allows a private well nearby to reach underground and take federal resources without compensating the U.S. taxpayer through royalties, Berger noted.
“It sets up a scenario where the federal mineral estate would still be drained by that adjacent development going on on private lands,” he said.
If that’s true, then can what Ramey says here be equally true?
“While we celebrate the new lands protections, it’s confounding that the final plan will increase climate-damaging emissions,” said Jim Ramey, Colorado State Director for The Wilderness Society. “
Do Ramey and CBD disagree that the gas will be extracted either way? I would have asked, since both of their statements would not be true if that is the case (increase emissions). Aside from the whole “reducing emissions by keeping fossils in the ground in the US is the best way to reduce global emissions” argument which I don’t agree with.
Anyway, check it out. It does make you wonder whether there might be a partisan subtext to choosing the preferred alternative in Wyoming.
It’s a little confusing, because to Coloradans, “eastern Colorado” is not in the mountains, whereas most of the BLM surface in this RMP is. Here’s the surface estate:
If I used the eplanning site correctly, here’s the subsurface estate. I haven’t figured out the red vs. black. Maybe someone can help?
Photo is from AP story on SunZia transmission line (see last story below).
Utes Supports Rail Transport of Crude Oil. These Utes seem fairly invisible in the media reports on the Forest Service permit for the oil train. I looked at several news stories about the Forest Service decision on the railroad. The AP story did not mention the Utes. All of the Colorado stories I reviewed did not mention them. Only the Salt Lake City Tribune, in my review, mentioned them.
The Ute Indian Tribe, whose reservation is in the Uinta Basin, and Utah’s elected officials support the railway, arguing that it would boost struggling local economies and aid domestic energy production.
Here’s a link to an op-ed I think I posted before. Title: “Opinion: Blocking the Uinta Basin Railway is another injustice to the Ute Indian Tribe Hickenlooper, Bennet and Polis are wrong to oppose this project needed for the reservations.” It’s one thing for your opinions to be ignored; it’s another to be mostly invisible to the media, at least compared to the examples below.
Tribes Against Uranium Mine.
Grand Canyon -Guardian Article
“There are so many reasons why this mine doesn’t belong where it is,” said Amber Reimondo, the energy director with the Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental group focused on protecting the region. “And the fact that it is allowed to operate is a stark example of the weaknesses in our regulatory system.”
Across the south-west, local communities and tribes have been pushing back against uranium mining proposals, including in Utah, where the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is concerned about air pollution from a nearby Energy Fuels mill facility. Similar tensions have arisen around lithium mining in the west, as a need for the metal in clean energy components grows.
Tribe Against Wind Turbines.
Federal Judge Sides With Osage Nation, Orders Removal Of 84 Wind Turbines
Tribes Against Transmission Lines
From the AP yesterday.
Pattern Energy officials said Tuesday that the time has passed to reconsider the route, which was approved in 2015 following a review process.
“It is unfortunate and regrettable that after a lengthy consultation process, where certain parties did not participate repeatedly since 2009, this is the path chosen at this late stage,” Pattern Energy spokesperson Matt Dallas said in an email.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Tohono O’odham Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the nonprofit organizations Center for Biological Diversity and Archaeology Southwest.
“The case for protecting this landscape is clear,” Archaeology Southwest said in a statement that calls the San Pedro Arizona’s last free-flowing river and the valley the embodiment of a “unique and timely story of social and ecological sustainability across more than 12,000 years of cultural and environmental change.”
The valley represents a 50-mile (80-kilometer) stretch of the planned 550-mile (885-kilometer) conduit expected to carry electricity from new wind farms in central New Mexico to existing transmission lines in Arizona to serve populated areas as far away as California. The project has been called an important part of President Joe Biden’s goal for a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.
Work started in September in New Mexico after negotiations that spanned years and resulted in the approval from the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency with authority over vast parts of the U.S. West.
The route in New Mexico was modified after the U.S. Defense Department raised concerns about the effects of high-voltage lines on radar systems and military training operations.
Work halted briefly in November amid pleas by tribes to review environmental approvals for the San Pedro Valley, and resumed weeks later in what Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon M. Jose characterized as “a punch to the gut.”
SunZia expects the transmission line to begin commercial service in 2026, carrying more than 3,500 megawatts of wind power to 3 million people. Project officials say they conducted surveys and worked with tribes over the years to identify cultural resources in the area.
A photo included in the court filing shows an aerial view in November of ridgetop access roads and tower sites being built west of the San Pedro River near Redrock Canyon. Tribal officials and environmentalists say the region is otherwise relatively untouched.
Yakama Tribe and Washington State Land and Solar
First of all, let me say that there are probably people in the Forest Service who have thought all this through. I’m hoping that they will help out with their explanations in the comments.
If old growth is old growth, and mature forests are on their way to old growth, and young forests are on their way to mature forests.. then it seems like there is no ceiling on the amount of old-growth needed, and no reason to ever have openings other than “natural” ones. This can be problematic, conceptually, as some groups believe that today’s wildfires and wind events are all unnatural or caused or “supercharged by” the anthropogenic part of climate change.
And if you believe that, then does any ecosystem have “integrity”? Or is the key thing to promote resilience (including biodiversity) in the face of climate change and protect key values of ecosystems and people from these and other dangers? To keep diverse living trees alive on the landscape, and to protect water, wildlife and other values? Perhaps some will say “it’s the same thing” and if it is, then perhaps the use of plain English would save time and misunderstanding.
Let’s go back to the 2012 Planning Rule Handbook:
Assessing the status of ecosystems—their level of ecological integrity—is difficult. There is no guide that provides a comprehensive protocol, and each ecosystem has a unique body of scientific information relevant to the ecological assessment. The planning rule and supporting handbook identify departure from the natural range of variation as a criterion to assess ecological integrity. The natural range of variation refers to the variation in key ecosystem characteristics produced by dominant natural disturbance regimes, usually in a pre-European influenced reference period. This method works well for ecosystems that are relatively well-studied and their natural range of variation can be estimated through ecological modeling or other methodology.
(my bold). Now, as most readers know, I wasn’t a fan of this approach at the time. At that time, my thinking went along these lines… (1) there’s a great deal of pre-European time and yet a certain time has to be selected, humans have been around since glaciation; (2) animals and plants move around and hybridize- and evolution is part of Nature, after all; (3) time’s arrow only goes one way, at least genetically; and (4) if climate is changing faster than usual, then there is no reason to think that the past is well adapted to the future. And don’t we want forests that are adapted to the future? As described in the Handbook, it unintentionally downplays the role of Indigenous fire management and the idea “natural= pre-European” only fits if Indigenous folks are part of Nature, which some now consider to be racist. It would perhaps be clearer and more accurate to say “we want to go back to Indigenous ways of managing the landscape,” if that’s really the case, but again we’d need more Indigenous people and give them authority over federal forests plus make them do not what they think best but what they think their ancestors did. And the importance of Indigenous management and climate have only become clearer or perhaps “supercharged” in more recent discourse.
Many forests have done vegetation modeling and historic research, and came up with desired conditions of say, certain amounts of habitat with certain characteristics. For example, x acres of early successional habitat, or y acres of western white pine or oaks, or even the historic densities of some species. So logically, to recreate these conditions, we may need to thin trees for density reduction and create openings for some pine and oak species to regenerate. There are different ways of getting openings. Depending on where you are, openings could occur due to wildfire, wind events, volcanoes, floods, trees dying from old age and/or native or introduced diseases and pests, and so on. With or without attribution to anthropogenic factors of climate change, some of these are more natural than others (fire suppression and non-native species obviously not).
Generally, the only other way is to manage is via prescribed fire or some combo of mechanical treatments (aka “logging” or “tree-cutting”) and prescribed fire. So do we still want those carefully arrived at NRV distributions or not? According to some, if the opening-treatments would occur in currently mature or old-growth forests, then not. So that leaves “natural” disturbances (affected by AGW, so then unnatural, except for volcanos?) and hoping that they get to the desired ratios; or alternatively, doing openings over and over in younger forests but not mature ones, so that they don’t go through their successional stages, which seems also unnatural. Look who wrote about the importance of early successional ecosystems in this 2011 paper (abstract)
Different disturbances contrast markedly in terms of biological legacies, and this will influence the resultant physical and biological conditions, thus affecting successional pathways. Management activities, such as post-disturbance logging and dense tree planting, can reduce the richness within and the duration of early-successional ecosystems . Where maintenance of biodiversity is an objective, the importance and value of these natural early-successional ecosystems are underappreciated.
So will the new OG amendment effectively replace the concept of “pre-European conditions” with “creating as much old growth as possible”? Because we can imagine quite a possible tension between “maximizing old growth” and “ensuring diversity of tree species”, and the latter would be important to fulfill certain requirements of NFMA, specifically.
“provide for diversity of plant and animal communities based on the suitability and capability of the specific land area in order to meet overall multiple-use objectives, and within the multiple-use objectives of a land management plan adopted pursuant to this section, provide, where appropriate, to the degree practicable, for steps to be taken to preserve the diversity of tree species similar to that existing in the region controlled by the plan;”
My bold, Of course, trees and bark beetles, do their own things, unbothered by humans’ desire for shade or carbon credits, or even plan amendments, forest-specific or national. From the Fire Effects website:
The average lifespan of Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine is 150 to 200 years [37,170], though some Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine trees live more than 400 years
The WaPo had an interesting article last week on PM2.5 regulations. I wouldn’t be following this if it weren’t for the wildfire/prescribed fire angle on PM 2.5. There seems to be a discussion that since wildfires and prescribed burning emit particulates, that therefore industrial sources should reduce even more. Then there are studies that say different PM2.5 sources can have different health effects, with wildfire particulates being more harmful. From that study:
PM2.5 in the United States has decreased in past decades due to environmental regulations5,8, with the exception of wildfire-prone areas5. Wildfire PM2.5 in the US is projected to increase with climate change along with the associated burden on human health9. Levels of wildfire PM2.5 can greatly exceed those of ambient PM2.5, spiking episodically within a short period of time (e.g., hours after the onset of a wildfire),
It also seems to me that wildfire and prescribed fire are different than industrial, as exposure is more due to kinds of work than to where a person lives. It is true that industries tend to be in poorer areas. But maybe the solution is to focus on those industries, rather than a broad brush across all sources. Note how quickly the world as we might see it, complex and full of different particles and different effects, becomes framed as good guys versus bad guys. And the paradox that “bad guy” industries also provide living-wage jobs for lower-income people can be transformed into a crude political calculus. This may give EPA even more authority over wildfire and prescribed fire than it has with fire retardant permitting. In fact, wildfire and prescribed fire may become wholly owned subsidiaries of EPA decisionmakers. As would all areas transferred, by a stroke of the regulation pen, into non-attainment. I see this quite a bit, what we might think are complex issues are reframed as simple (the less PM 2.5 the better, regardless of other needs and concerns) and then translated into good guys and bad guys.
So look how the reporter frames the issue:
The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to significantly strengthen limits on fine particle matter, one of the nation’s most widespread deadly air pollutants, even as industry groups warn that the standard could erase manufacturing jobs across the country.
So it’s industry folks (bad) vs. the EPA (good):
Public health advocates strongly disagree with the industry’s assertions. They say strengthening the soot standard would yield significant medical and economic benefits by preventing thousands of hospitalizations, lost workdays and lost lives, particularly in communities of color that are disproportionately exposed to unhealthy air.
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EPA lawyers have said in court filings that the soot rule could be finalized by the end of this month. As soon as next week, the agencyis expected to lower the annual soot standard to 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from the current standard of 12 micrograms, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
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We are reassured by EPA that there are no trade-offs. Maybe EPA needs more economists? As Thomas Sowell said, “there are no solutions, only trade-offs.” Anyway, our own forest folks show up in this article.
A limit of 9 micrograms could sharply increase the number of counties that are in violation of the soot standard or just below the threshold, according to a map produced by the American Forest & Paper Association, a trade group. Companies would then have a harder time getting permits to build or expand their industrial plants, potentially prompting them to move to other countries with weaker environmental rules, the group says.
“Our average ambient level of PM2.5 in this country is 8; in China and India, it’s about 5 to 6 times that level,” said Heidi Brock, the American Forest & Paper Association’s president and chief executive. “What sense does it make to offshore jobs from this country, where we have some of the cleanest air on the planet?”
So the Post analyzes it from a political point of view… is this the time to stop building manufacturing in the red areas?
“Detroit is red. Philadelphia is red,” he added. “Why would the White House effectively redline new manufacturing facilities in urban Democratic strongholds where young workers need high-paying, frequently unionized manufacturing jobs?”
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“Lowering the standard to 8 micrograms per cubic meter, in terms of long-term exposure, would benefit vulnerable communities the most,” said Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a co-author of the study.
Research has also found that wildfire smoke, a major nonindustrial source of soot, has slowed or reversed air quality improvements in much of the country. Industry groups have seized on these findings to argue that their soot emissions are a small part of the problem. But public health experts counter that wildfires are exacerbated by climate change, which in turn is exacerbated by industrial pollution.
“We know that these wildfires are getting worse and more intense due to climate change,” said Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “And it’s the same industries that emit PM2.5 that also emit a lot of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.”
It’s great to be against industrial pollution. It’s great to be in public health. But this is kind of a weird conflation (and the expert neither an expert in climate nor wildfires) kind of statement, unless the point is to export 2.5-emitting manufacturing to countries likely to be poorer (with lower wages) where they would be emitting the same or more greenhouse gases.
By Les Joslin
On May 10, 2000, about the time I began my eleventh Three Sisters Wilderness season—my first in that temporary seasonal GS-5 forestry technician position to serve as a wilderness ranger-wilderness educator—I accepted a quarter-time Oregon State University position in the Department of Distance & Continuing Education as OSU Statewide Central Oregon Area Advisor in Bend for the period July 1, 2000, to June 30, 2001. Through creative scheduling I was able to discharge those OSU advisor duties and my Forest Service duties in the Three Sisters Wilderness as well as teach the summer iteration of my Central Oregon field geography course. Yep, I was one busy guy! And about to get busier!
I’d never thought seriously about being a university instructor. I lacked that Ph.D. that seemed the necessary prerequisite. Then, in the autumn of 2000, Assistant Professor Bob Ehrhart, assigned to Bend to coordinate and teach in the distance education version of OSU’s bachelor of science degree program in natural resources, asked me if I’d be interested in developing and teaching “an upper division course on amenity uses of natural resources” he’d more specifically define later. A hardworking guy, Bob’s idea of time off that summer had been auditing my Geography 198: Field Geography of Central Oregon course. That’s the only time I recall a Ph.D. enrolled in that freshman-level course.
Apparently he’d liked what he saw. By summer 2001, when Bob got down to brass tacks about the “amenity uses of natural resources” course I would teach for OSU, the topic had morphed into a distance education version of the College of Forestry’s three-credit wilderness management course. I had fall quarter of 2001 to develop the course and winter quarter of 2002 to produce it for online presentation that spring quarter. Production included writing and recording 28 video modules at the Corvallis campus studio as well as developing course materials.
The course, Forestry 352: Wilderness Management, addressed the evolution and application of wilderness as a land use concept from historical, philosophical, political, preservation, planning, and management perspectives. I designed it to provide the potential wilderness manager—or potential natural resource manager who would work with wilderness managers—a comprehensive introduction to the theories and techniques of managing wilderness lands set aside by Congress under the Wilderness Act of 1964 as units of the National Wilderness Preservation System that act established. Wilderness management, I emphasized, is as much social science as natural science. It focuses on minimizing visitor impacts to the wilderness resource and experience through a combination of educational and engineering means and, only when absolutely necessary, through enforcement.
I presented the ten-week course through those 28 video modules—initially on VHS cassettes, later on DVD, and finally via online video streaming—supported by reading assignments in three textbooks. One of these was Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the American Mind about America’s changing attitude toward wilderness that led to its preservation. A second was John C. Hendee’s and Chad P. Dawson’s Wilderness Management, the definitive textbook and reference. The third was my The Wilderness Concept and the Three Sisters Wilderness which interpreted that National Wilderness Preservation System unit as sort of a “lab rat” for the course.
My approach to teaching this course made it a labor-intensive and time-consuming enterprise. Students wrote six papers—three journal article reviews, two graded review exercises, and a management problem analysis—before taking a comprehensive final exam. This was an upper division university course, and in my mind that meant writing clear, complete, concise responses to questions which required analytical thought and appropriate exposition. Given the state of writing instruction in some high schools and colleges along with some professors’ preference for time-saving objective measurements, some students were not ready for this challenge and taken aback by this approach. “Les, you’re so ‘old school!’” one faculty colleague chided me. “Yes, and proud of it!” I replied.
As an adjunct instructor, not a full-time faculty member, I was able to focus on teaching free of other academic duties such as serving on committees and was not subject to the publish-or-perish syndrome. I did, however, publish three relevant articles in the International Journal of Wilderness.
During the ten years in which I taught the course a dozen times—twice in person in Bend and ten times online—I had some outstanding students, many good ones, and some who should not have been in college. Among the more memorable who performed brilliantly were a medical doctor—an internal medicine specialist in Alameda, California, who told me she was interested in wilderness management as a prospective career—and a national park ranger at Glacier National Park from whose different perspectives I learned.
Several students who completed Forestry 352 signed up for and completed an additional three-credit upper division wilderness field service course during which they worked alongside mounted ranger and packer Jim Leep and me within the Three Sisters Wilderness as well as independently at the Green Lakes Trailhead Information Station to experience a wider spectrum of wilderness management tasks.
I am very pleased to have had this positive university teaching experience.
Apologies for this long post, but it took awhile to research this proposal. We don’t even have a category in TSW for “financial instruments.”
Well, as most of us can’t help but know, this year is a Presidential election year. For our friends currently in the federal government, we are well in to the “silly season,” characterized by random flounderings of the current Administration seeking to placate or enthuse various groups whom they consider to be Important, and to avoid doing anything that they might be upset about, or that the Opposition might highlight. It’s hard to thread that needle and actually accomplish anything, and when in doubt.. don’t is the word of the season.
The image that comes to mind is of a loose hose. As a career fed, my goal was to stay out of the way and not get blasted.
It seems to me that the “natural asset companies” idea of the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) exhibits some silly season attributes. Just when I felt I had done enough research to come to an opinion on it, the proposal was cancelled. I try to stay away from partisan politics, but perhaps the best thing we can do this year is to show that many policy issues in our area of forests and federal lands do not fit neatly into the R/D divide. It seems like some folks are trying to shoehorn complex political views and ideologies into the “us or them” box prior to the election. This shoehorning can cut off consideration of obvious policy choices that people of various views agree on, obfuscates honest rendering of within-party disagreements, and makes people seem more divided than we really are. Yes, we disagree, but not neatly along party lines. After all, political parties are somewhat artificial constructs.
Anyway, back to an E&E News article on the effort being cancelled.
The NYSE withdrew a proposal pending before the Securities and Exchange Commission that would have allowed it to offer the new kind of investment known as “natural asset companies,” or NACs. The investment concept centered on the creation of companies geared toward improving ecosystems, including those on state or federal public lands, in the United States or abroad, as well as privately owned acreage. The companies would then put a dollar figure on the resulting improvements, such as clean air, wildlife habitat and even “sensory benefits” like a nice view.
But the idea, first unveiled in 2021 by the financial services firm Intrinsic Exchange Group and supported by the NYSE and groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, has faced significant opposition from Republican officials and property rights advocates since the SEC began reviewing it last fall. Critics asserted the companies could become a backdoor for stricter management of public lands and waters by limiting extractive industry, as well as uses like grazing. They also asserted it could create an avenue for foreign governments to gain operational control of U.S. public lands. In a statement, the NYSE pointed to “feedback from regulators, market participants and others” for its decision to withdraw the proposal but did not address any specific criticisms.
To be fair, critics included recreationists who were concerned about access. We can also wonder about how Tribes might be involved.
Earlier this month, a coalition of 25 Republican state attorneys general inked a letter opposing the investment scheme, and the House Natural Resources Committee’s Republican members opened an inquiry on the development of the proposal.
“Innovation is the lifeblood of our economy and we are always open to ideas in the area of sustainable finance and elsewhere that have the potential to further strengthen our U.S. capital markets,” an NYSE spokesperson said. IEG Chair Douglas Eger said the firm does not intend to abandon its idea, noting the investments could still be pursued through private equity or another public exchange.
“We’re moving ahead. This is just too important for conservation, sustainability, for the farm economy,” Eger said. “These are fundamental things that need to be addressed at a capital market scale. IEG is committed to bringing this to the markets, private and eventually public.”
Ah.. private equity. They did so well with nursing homes.. not.
Anyway, this got my political spidey sense tingling.. a NY financial fellow proclaiming what is important to the “farm economy.” Farmers are often Republicans. Republicans, by and large, were not fans of this proposal. Maybe farmers are not fans of novel capital markets; maybe they’re happy with the current USDA structure that has been built and working for over one hundred years. The old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” IMHO, it takes some hubris for people in one sector to simply claim we need them involved in our sectors. Perhaps this is the sectoral equivalent (sectoral encroachment) of scientific disciplinary encroachment that I posted about on Monday.
Then there are a few issues around trust and the Wall Street folks. Not that long ago, it was a progressive thing to mistrust Wall Street. Remember Matt Taibbi’s reporting in Rolling Stone.. not on Fox News? It wasn’t that long ago that our financial friends and their regulators caused the Great Recession. In fact, many progressive Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, have questioned various things about Wall Street’s behavior patterns.
Since irritating Republicans seems a feature, not a bug, of many current Admin policies (think Monumentizing in R States), my hypothesis is that this was ultimately a D vs. D decision; that the former Bernie-ites were not thrilled by handing conservation and food over to a sector which notably screwed up the entire world not that long ago. And who can blame them? Maybe that’s something we can agree on. Perhaps this switcheroo is due to the flailing firehose effect.
On the other hand, at least some of our libertarian friends, usually considered to be right-wing and Republican-adjacent, see this as another example of “willing buyer and willing seller.” So I don’t see people lining up in any traditional R/D lines here.
Then there’s your average citizen who reads newspapers, who may have internalize the lesson “if a financial instrument is developed that is really difficult to understand, the people involved probably doesn’t have your best interests at heart.” If only.. we had a Good Governance Party, one of the principles would be: “we don’t give regulatory agencies any more responsibilities until they have proven accountable for the regulations they already enforce.” And..SEC would not be on that list.
If I were in the business of building trust for new ideas, I’d be really clear on what the needs is and why current solutions aren’t working. Also, I’d give people time to understand it, including public meetings and so on. From Federal Newswire
After SEC issued their proposed rule to approve NACs, they initially allowed only 21 days for comment and 45 days for review. After major concerns were raised by ASL and its partners, the decision-making time was extended to January 2.
To paraphrase the expression “great claims require great evidence’, I’d say “novel interventions require great explanation and public involvement.”
What this reminds me of is the “conservation lease” idea in the proposed BLM Rule- retirees and common sense tell us we can already restore degraded landscapes and we don’t need new financial arrangements. If there were policy referees, they might give a penalty for “inadequate need for change.”
As always, in the absence of rational arguments, we must consider- partisan politics. From CNBC:
“Year in and year out, this torrent of money gives Wall Street an outsized role in how we are governed, while driving and protecting policies that help this industry’s super wealthy amass even greater fortunes at the expense of the rest of us,” Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, told CNBC in a statement.
The report says that individuals and campaign entities linked to the financial sector contributed just more than $1.9 billion toward backing candidates running for federal office, including over $74 million that went to supporting President Joe Biden’s run for president.
Of the $1.9 billion, 47% went to Republicans and 53% went to Democrats. In fact, this report notes that more than $250 million from those working in the FIRE sector went toward supporting Biden, the most out of all the contenders for president. Those contributions were a mix of donations to his campaign and outside groups supporting him.
But back to the proposal from the E&E news story:
Eger also emphasized that the decision to withdraw the rule change pending before the SEC came from the NYSE and not his firm. “They made the decision that they wanted to pull the filing because of the opposition,” Eger said. “They felt there were a number of concerns that had been raised, and they felt it was better to pull it. We were disappointed in that.” Eger also lamented “misinformation” that targeted the proposal, pointing to arguments that the NACs would allow foreign governments to control federal or state lands, and allegations that the firm collaborated with the Biden proposal to further its own conservation agenda.
“It got tied up with a lot of other political agendas,” Eger said. “And unfortunately that got a lot of people upset, and they never were willing to dig down or even have conversations with us about what NACs are intended to do, what they can do, what they can’t do.”
Now even the humble career civil servants at the FS and BLM know that presenting new ideas to the public is their responsibility, and it is the work of the proposer to start the conversations. Transparency and accountability build trust in institutions.
But what is the link between the NACs and the BLM conservation rule? The Center for Western Priorities tells us that there is no connection, and gives some history of the idea. People who are legitimately concerned about access.. like RV folks and others, are accused of being “conservation opponents,” or are concerned about Wall Street taking over more of our lives are now “conspiracy theorists.” For those of you not familar with CWP, it is a project of the Resources Legacy Fund funded by the usual philanthropic suspects, who have ties to D politics.
The BLM’s proposed conservation rule has nothing to do with this theoretical accounting future. It just happens to be moving through the regulatory process at the same time that Wall Street is considering letting some companies voluntarily account for the value of nature. But that alone is enough of a threat to the status quo that conservation opponents are willing to invent new conspiracy theories to try to stop it.
In my experience, “conspiracy theory” has been used by some to discourage people from doing more research and analysis (think Covid origins).
Here’s a link to the SEC proposed rule:
NACs will be corporations that hold the rights to the ecological performance ( i.e., the value of natural assets and production of ecosystem services) produced by natural or working areas, such as national reserves or large-scale farmlands, and have the authority to manage the areas for conservation, restoration, or sustainable management. These rights can be licensed like other rights, including “run with the land” rights (such as mineral rights, water rights, or air rights), and NACs are expected to license these rights from sovereign nations or private landowners.
So the proposal includes “national reserves,” and the BLM proposed rule says conservation leases, and yet from CWP we are to believe that for there to be a connection it must be a conspiracy theory. So I guess the answer is that agencies are going in random directions that, through happenstance, line up. Not sure that that’s a better argument for the managerial excellence of this Admin.
I don’t know about you, but it sounds to me like a lot of money will be changing hands.. but the more direct method would be “funder or group of funders to willing landowner to manage for specific values.” Maybe we need a “poor people’s instrument to combine to pay for ecosystem services” that is not publicly traded, without all the regulatory (transaction) costs on both the landowner and SEC sides. More money for conservation, less for counting and watching and paying counters and watchers and possibly investors.
The Exchange and IEG have entered into an agreement pursuant to which IEG has granted the Exchange an exclusive license in the United States to use the Reporting Framework in connection with the listing of NACs on the Exchange (although the Reporting Framework will remain proprietary to IEG). Under the terms of the agreement, the Exchange has acquired a small minority interest in IEG and one seat on IEG’s board of directors. IEG has agreed to seek to identify and develop NACs for listing on the Exchange, in addition to marketing the listing and trading of NACs on the Exchange and providing training with respect to the NAC structure and the Reporting Framework to NYSE personnel and currently listed and potential listed NACs. IEG will be entitled to a share of the revenues generated by the Exchange from the listing and trading of NACs on the NYSE.
So NYSE makes money from NACs, IEG makes money (from license) to NYSE. It all sounds very cozy.
Who is IEG? Here’s some information I could find.
The company’s asset’s primary purpose is to maximize ecological performance and the production of ecosystem services and provide a platform to list these companies for trading, enabling companies to convert natural assets into financial capital.
This sounds very free-market-y indeed to me.
Related news I just saw thanks to PERCs TwitX feed: More jaguars coming back to Arizona.
Here’s a link to the study.
By treating meat with high doses of deworming medication and wrapping it in the skin of domestic animals, scientists may have successfully thwarted attacks on livestock and pets – and hence lethal repercussions on the wild cats, says Ivonne Cassaigne at Primero Conservation in Mexico City.
In 1974, researchers reported trying to prevent coyote attacks on sheep by taking advantage of the “food poisoning” effect that occurs in people when we experience nausea and abdominal pains after a bad meal and then find the same food disgusting later. This reaction, called conditioned taste aversion, evolved in most animals as a way to avoid toxic food, says Cassaigne. Unfortunately, early taste-aversion studies in wild predators generally failed because the animals could smell the poison in the meat, she says.
In 2009, Ron Thompson at Primero Conservation in Pinetop, Arizona, found that thiabendazole – an odourless, tasteless deworming medication – gave two captive pumas a safe but serious stomach ache when injected into the skin-wrapped meat of desert bighorn sheep. The cats later refused to eat any desert bighorn sheep meat, he says.
Hoping to put jaguars off hunting domestic animals, Cassaigne, Thompson and their colleagues recently added high but non-lethal doses of powdered thiabendazole into 2 kilograms of mutton or pork wrapped in the animals’ own skin. They fed this meat to six captive jaguars in three Mexican wildlife refuges.
Within 3 hours, the cats became lethargic and sometimes howled, says Cassaigne. Some later vomited and had diarrhoea for a few hours.
The next day, the jaguars had good appetites and eagerly ate beef. But none of them ate the pork or mutton offered to them. “[One female] grabbed it and had it in her mouth, but then she spit it away,” says Cassaigne. “She was like, ‘Oh wow, yeah, I remember now!’” Their aversion to those specific meats lasted at least a month, when the experiment ended.
Later, Cassaigne and her colleagues injected thiabendazole into the carcasses of a calf and a feral dog that had been killed and then left by two wild jaguars in Mexico. Villagers were contemplating targeting the cats due to their killing sprees. “We spoke with the locals and said, ‘Please just let us try this instead of killing them,’” she says.
In both cases, the wild males came back to continue eating the spoils. One never attacked another calf over the next seven months. The other killed one dog – but didn’t eat it – and never attacked again over the following year of monitoring, says Cassaigne. This jaguar might have been attacking dogs for years already and was used to hunting them, making it harder to stop the habit, she adds.
Jorge Tobajas at the University of Córdoba in Spain says he is relieved that researchers are finally exploring the use of conditioned taste aversion in endangered felines due to their conflicts with humans over livestock. While the tests in the wild were inconclusive, those in captive jaguars showed great promise, he says.
“It is crucial to conduct further field experiments in a more controlled manner, focusing on areas with recurring attacks that allow for before-and-after treatment comparisons,” says Tobajas. An important next step would be to follow tagged jaguars with GPS transmitters to better understand their reaction to treatment, he adds.
Training predators to learn a taste aversion before releasing them into the wild – such as in rewilding programmes – is the ideal scenario, says Cassaigne. “You don’t want to start with a problem.”
I wonder whether similar apps are being developed in the US?
“It’s a very serious problem,” says Andreas Kamilaris at the CYENS Center of Excellence in Cyprus. “The statistics show that casualties, as well as the area of land burned, around the world are increasing year by year.”
That prompted Kamilaris and his colleagues to build a mobile app that provides personalised evacuation routes to anyone caught in the path of a wildfire. The app connects over mobile networks to a web server running a fire simulation program, which uses publicly available data on geography, weather and vegetation type to predict the spread of fires at 15-minute intervals.
A fire management tool similar to those already in use lets local fire departments quickly tag when and where a fire starts, which is then used to generate real-time simulations. The app then uses the GPS location of each user to work out potential routes, selecting the best by weighing up how quickly each route gets them to safety against how close it takes them to the fire’s path. The best option is then displayed either as turn-by-turn directions or as a route overlaid on a map of the area.
In a small pilot at the Athalassa National Forest Park in Cyprus, all 17 people who took part successfully escaped a simulated fire. In questionnaires afterwards, they said the app was easy to use and that they would use it in a real wildfire.
But Ed Galea, a fire safety expert at the University of Greenwich in the UK, worries the route-planning algorithm the researchers use is too simple to deal with the complexities of a real-world evacuation, such as varying travel speeds or congestion on escape routes.
And while fire and evacuation models can help experts plan or respond to emergencies, he thinks even state-of-the-art systems have limitations that currently make them unsafe in the hands of untrained people. “That is not to say that the goal of having a personalised wildfire evacuation guidance system is not achievable,” he says. “Just not today.”
Kamilaris admits the app still needs work and says the researchers plan to add features, like the ability to tailor travel speed and monitor users to prevent congestion, before testing again in more challenging scenarios.
This story is interesting because there are two ideas here that seem a little different. First is the “intact forests” idea:
With Funga, Averill is using soil from intact forests to inoculate newly planted trees to make them grow bigger and faster, generating carbon credits the company can sell. The concept is similar to faecal transplants for gut microbiome disorders, says Averill. “But we apply it to the forest.”
In mid-February, planters started inoculating soil on 40 hectares of a commercial loblolly pine plantation near Lexington, Georgia. The planting itself is straightforward: a scoop of soil from an area of intact forest is added to a hole where a sapling is planted. Identifying precisely which soil to scoop is more complicated.
But this sounds like they figured out the best ones (like selecting trees, only microbes) and collected them from the test site (not “intact” forests).
Over the past year, Funga researchers analysed tree growth rates and sequenced the DNA of soil microbes in 500 loblolly pine forests around the south-eastern US to determine which composition of microbes is associated with the most growth. They then collected these candidate microbes from the test site in Lexington and inoculated new saplings.
Averill says they also planted trees without the added soil to establish a baseline against which to compare any additional carbon stored by the inoculated trees.
Results won’t be available until the end of 2023, but Averill says similar methods increased forest productivity between 30 and 70 per cent at a research plot where he works in Wales.
He and his colleagues also analysed 81 experiments that examined how inoculating soil with wild microbiomes affected various types of plants in different ecosystems. They found a range of effects, from a small reduction of biomass to a more than 700 per cent increase. On average, plant biomass increased 64 per cent.
“It’s going to do something,” says Jennifer Bhatnagar at Boston University, though she says how much depends on a lot of factors, such as how degraded the soil is to begin with. She also says the effects of soil restoration are better understood with saplings than with older trees. “When they get older, will that initial inoculant be enough?”
Sourcing the soil poses another challenge, says Prescott. Many species of fungi can’t be cultured, and at larger scales, soil extraction could degrade the collection sites.
Here’s an interesting article from Forbes about the company, and here is a link to their website.
Yesterday was way below zero here with a wind chill, so I was cleaning my office and thought I’d share some totally random pieces I thought were interesting. Most timely and relevant:
FOR MANY AIR QUALITY regulators and advocates, tweaking wood stove emissions is missing the point. Though reducing emissions in the short term can be beneficial, a longer-term solution would phase out wood stoves altogether, said Laura Kate Bender, the national assistant vice president for healthy air at the American Lung Association.
“Right now, what the science shows us is that there’s actually no safe level of particle pollution exposure,” Bender said. “There’s no amount that’s healthy to breathe.”
It’s interesting.. in some cases it’s a trade-off so people have multiple heating sources; diversity is good for economic and survival resilience. And certainly there have to be restrictions in populated areas. But people do other unhealthy things.. most notably, perhaps, food and beverage choices. Say sugar or alcohol or marijuana?
But for most of them, the more immediate issue is getting rid of uncertified wood stoves and discouraging people from burning for recreation — an uphill battle for many who are unaware of the health impacts of woodsmoke.
“People are just sort of like, well, yeah, it stinks,” said Traviss, the Keene air pollution researcher. “But, it’s wood. How bad can it be?”
Maybe they aren’t unaware, maybe they are making different choices than some would prefer.
There’s also an interesting question of EPA’s analysis of wood stoves. In this article (titled “10 blue states are planning to sue the EPA”- and includes Alaska as a blue state), it goes into some detail, but if the author seems confused about what people use wood stoves for (and the partisan feelings of Alaska) there are probably better stories out there.
According to public health experts in the UK, a wood-burning stove is 450 times more polluting than a gas one. An electric stove is the least polluting option and often the most efficient, too.
This is from New Scientist, last September.
Rapid development of renewable energy facilities, such as solar farms and wind turbines, is necessary to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. But the industry’s demand for rural land – what Shannon Eddy, director of the Large-scale Solar Association, calls “the biggest shift in land-use patterns in modern history” – has generated intense opposition among local communities across the US. Amid this, researchers and some developers, including Ørsted, are looking for ways to make facilities that bring benefits not only to rural populations but landscapes too.
The one that has perhaps gained most traction is the idea that solar development can restore lost habitat if native flora is planted beneath panels, supporting birds and insects and improving the soil on potentially millions of hectares. This, the argument goes, could finally herald the return of the iconic prairie.
They’re kidding, right?
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Prairie rewilding
Then there are decisions about the maintenance needed to ensure seeds grow and outcompete invasive plants. Mowing is better than herbicides for pollinators. Some sites use goats or sheep to control vegetation through grazing. Prescribed burning would be ideal, says Walston: native prairie plants have deep roots adapted to withstand fire. Indeed, fire suppression by European settlers is a major reason for the loss of prairie to encroaching woody plants. However, burning hasn’t yet been tried at a solar facility to his knowledge. Beneath solar panels or not, “prairie restoration is not going to be easy”, says Harms.
Restoring habitat isn’t all expense, though. Once established, a solar prairie might actually require less maintenance than close-cut turfgrass and it may be less prone to erosion than gravel, says Walston. Prairie locks up carbon in the soil, so restoration projects could be marketed as carbon credits. Research has also found that having vegetation beneath panels improves their efficiency on hot days by cooling them. The scale of these benefits is potentially vast. In California alone, Hernandez envisions solar developments that incorporate prairie restoration happening on the hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland set to be taken out of production to prevent overuse of groundwater.
The rest of the article is also interesting albeit paywalled.
Extreme fires caused by ancient humans wiped out Californian megafauna
A series of catastrophic fires killed off many large mammals in southern California by 13,000 years ago, and they were largely due to the arrival of humans
A series of catastrophic fires was the immediate cause of the extinction of many large mammals in southern California 13,000 years ago, according to a study of fossils from the La Brea tar pits. The findings suggest these extreme fires were probably a result of humans abruptly changing the ecosystem by killing off herbivores – meaning there was more vegetation to burn – and deliberately starting fires.
“It’s a synergy of the drying climate and the humans, and the fact that they are killing herbivores and increasing fuel loads, and all of those things go together to make a feedback loop that takes the ecosystem to a chaotic state,” says Robin O’Keefe at Marshall University in West Virginia. “The fire event is really catastrophic.”
The spread of short-term rentals has pushed up rents and priced out residents. Shops that once served locals have become rarities. Lockboxes for keys sit next to the doorbells at many buildings’ entrances. On some streets in central Florence, most of the buildings have at least one lockbox, which allows visitors to access their short-term apartment without having to meet the owner. Some buildings have four or five.The telltale lockboxes have also proliferated along the canals of Venice, the small alleys of the Cinque Terre and the chaotic streets of Rome.
Florence’s historic center—a Unesco World Heritage site—has more beds listed on Airbnb than it has residents, according to the study. “Even if you have a lot of money, you can’t find a place to rent in Florence because all the apartments are on Airbnb,” said Linda Sanesi, who lives outside the city’s central area and runs a hair salon with her husband on a small street next to Florence’s cathedral.
Up until the 1990s, stores serving locals populated the downtown area. Few have survived. About 60% of Sanesi’s clients are tourists looking for a haircut.
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Florentine property owners and professional managers of short-term rentals are promising to fight the city’s restrictions in court.
Italy’s government has debated what to do about short-term rentals, but has yet to make any significant intervention. Its draft budget for 2024 would raise the tax rate on rental profits to 26% from 21%, starting with the second apartment an owner rents out. The first rental would still be taxed at 21%. Critics say it will make little difference.
Other European tourist destinations have restricted short-term rentals. Amsterdam introduced its first regulations in 2014, under which apartments generally can’t be rented out on platforms such as Airbnb for more than 30 days a year. Owners can rent out only one property, and a permit is needed for offering an entire apartment. Barcelona, Paris and Berlin have also aggressively reined in short-term rentals.
New York City began enforcing new rules in September that Airbnb called “a de facto ban on short-term rentals.” Hosts must register with the city, can’t rent out an entire property and must be present when they have paying guests.
