Limber Pine Restoration and “Ghost Forest” Story

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Interesting if true, about the Pawnee Buttes.

We’re missing many of our currently employed crew, both FS and not, due to the holidays.  So I’m saving up some topics until they return.  For now I thought I’d post about some recent forest health pieces in the Southern Rockies.

This piece in Cowboy State Daily is headlined:

Up To 35% Of Wyoming’s High Country Is Dead ‘Ghost Forest’ — And It’s Spreading

It’s estimated 25% to 35% of Wyoming’s forests are now dominated by “ghost forests” — standing dead timber from beetle epidemics and disease. Researchers say it’s time to start paying attention to limber pine before it follows the whitebark into crisis.

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The study calls for a change in strategy: “Confirmed emergence of vcr4 highlights the need to focus on quantitative disease resistance more intensely for limber pine” — basically, stacking multiple genetic defenses rather than relying on just one.

Tomback explained why the single-gene approach is risky.

“Limber and southwestern white pine have what’s called major gene resistance. A single gene confers resistance to the white pine blister rust pathogen,” she said. “The problem is, the gene is present at a fairly low frequency in populations.

You can’t depend on it to save populations. We worry that the blister rust pathogen can mutate and overcome a single gene.”

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Side note about sugar pine:

In the 90’s this was an area of disagreement with sugar pine rust resistance breeding… the researchers at the Institute of Forest Genetics were all for using a major gene, and the national forest scientists at Dorena were for developing multiple gene resistance.  Of course, in the limber case, it appears that the single gene is native to the populations.  Not many people plant limber pine, so  it might follow its cousins sugar pine and western white pine with some planted resistant and the populations otherwise dying off or developing their own genetic resistance.  In fact, as I recall, in the 90’s(?) there was an effort to say sugar pine was endangered due to WPBR and Region 5.  I couldn’t find this on the internet (maybe too old) but I did find a recent study (2024)

Fire has strong negative effects on survival, resulting in a strongly negative population trajectory on burned sites. Conversely, lower than average forest density (plot-level basal area) results in a positive population growth rate via beneficial effects on individual growth. These results highlight the value of fire hazard mitigation, particularly where it also reduces forest density, in the conservation of this important species.

Yes, being burned can be bad for SP (and many other species) and it likes growing in the open- from Silvics (1965):

Sugar pine tolerates shade better than ponderosa pine but is slightly less tolerant than incense-cedar and Douglas-fir and much less so than white fir (14). A seral species, it becomes less tolerant with age, and overtopped trees decline unless released (11). Thus, dominant sugar pines in old-growth stands were probably dominant from the start, or released by natural causes early in life.

I am not criticizing the 2024 scientists, they were asking important questions. Still there are tendencies of our current scientific institutions to not incorporate directly/rediscover mechanisms by looking at large datasets.  More on that in the next few weeks.  I mean it’s great that we can quote a peer- reviewed article, better than person experiences of many silviculturists.

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Anyway, back to limber pine.

University of Wyoming botanist Daniel Laughlin is testing whether humans can help trees outrun climate change.

His Medicine Bow Mountain Experimental Garden Array project, planted in a burn scar from the 2020 Mullen Fire, tracks how tree species perform when moved outside their normal comfort zones.

Good news for limber pine: it’s one of the survivors.

Douglas fir, lodgepole pine, ponderosa, bristlecone and limber pines, and desert juniper all showed over 50% survival when transplanted outside their typical zones in fall 2025 monitoring.

What we learned in the past was that these kinds of trends can change over time.   It seems kind of ironic that we think the climate is changing, and we also think we can do better at guessing the future of trees than when we thought it wasn’t changing.

A key finding emerging from long-term trials is that poorly adapted seed sources typically were not maladapted because they could not tolerate the average conditions of a site, but rather because they did not tolerate the rare climatic events that occurred every 10 or more years. Although this may sound long, it is only a fraction of the life of many forest trees. For example, in a Douglas-fir provenance plantation (Munger and Morris 1937) established in the Oregon Coast Range (Hebo Ranger District, Siuslaw National Forest), all seed sources performed relatively well from 1915 until 1955. In mid-November 1955, the area had an unusual and prolonged cold spell (Duffield 1956). The frost damaged off-site seed sources, killing some trees and causing serious damage to others. In contrast, the local stand suffered damage but continued to grow well (Silen 1995).

And back to the story:

We’re not at the point where there’s a mandate,” Tomback said. “I think national forests are aware that limber pine is important and that it’s being impacted, but we have a ways to go to actually devise restoration strategies like with whitebark.”

She added: “BLM is an important advocate for limber pine.”

Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado planted 1,769 limber pine seedlings in October 2024 in areas burned by the East Troublesome Fire.

About 20% of the park’s limber pines show rust resistance, according to the National Park Service.

For those of you not familiar, this is what a restoration plan looks like for whitebark.

The Park Service used BIL and IRA funding to support whitebark restoration (climate resilience).

Here’s a 2012 Forest Service range-wide restoration strategy for whitebark.

Anyway, if you are out hiking these vacation days, enjoy all your  sugar pines, western white pines, limbers and whitebarks and eastern white pines. WPBR was introduced to North America in approximately 1900 and here we are in 2026 with these species prevalent throughout the country.

Let’s Discuss: PERC’s “Next Era of Conservation”

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As the year draws to a close, let’s take our eyes from the day-to-day and look at the bigger picture.  Turns out that PERC has given us a template for that discussion.

 

Note: PERC had a good year in 2025. One of the ideas they championed . charging international visitors more for access to the National Parks with the funding going to the Park, has been adopted by the Feds and is beginning January 1.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, international visitors will pay a $100 surcharge at the 11 most visited national parks. PERC CEO Brian Yablonski shared this statement in response to the announcement from the Department of the Interior:

“This is a big win for everyone who loves America’s national parks. A $100 international visitor surcharge could generate $55 million annually at Yellowstone National Park alone, more than quadrupling that park’s revenue to address deteriorating trails, failing wastewater systems, and crumbling bridges.

PERC has long led an effort to adopt this smart pricing approach, already common abroad, as a way to steward America’s best idea. Thank you Secretary Burgum and the Department of the Interior for your leadership and working with us on this monumental investment in our parks.”

For a deeper dive, read PERC’s report exploring pricing options at Yellowstone, The Economics of Awe.

There was also a NY Times story on their virtual fencing efforts, and they added Robert Bonnie (in USDA political leadership from Obama to Biden) to their board.

PERC held a workshop at which they discussed “the Next Era of American Conservation.” The entire piece is linked here.. I thought it might be interesting for us to discuss some of their ideas.

Bryan Yablonski wrote down some of their ideas..in the piece, there are a few paragraphs on each one of these.

Private lands are the next frontier of conservation
Conservation must be bottom up, not top down
Speed up proactive conservation efforts, rather than slowing things down
Incentives and markets will need to play a more prominent role in the next era

Finally, a handful of other innovations—in technology, ambition, and philanthropy—will likely shape the next era of conservation.

Today, thanks to GPS tracking and remote sensing, we know that many species of wildlife migrate through corridors that transect a tapestry of public and private landownership boundaries.  A focus on conserving the fluidity and messiness of corridors, connectivity, and cross-boundary solutions will be just as relevant in our time as the creation of more geometric national parks and forests were in the time of T.R.

Moreover, setting big goals that can be achieved in an era’s-worth of time is a worthy priority. Where are the conservation moonshots? Why can’t we set a goal of recovering 10 percent of endangered wildlife rather than the dismal 3 percent of the last 50 years? Why can’t we “de-fence the West” of 625,000 miles of barbed wire in a way that makes better economic sense for ranchers through virtual fencing?

What are your ideas for conservation “moonshots”?

Similarly, private philanthropy is a marketplace that must become more entrepreneurial in backing new tools, experiments, and innovations. Conservation philanthropists tend to circle the wagons around the safe, older tools of the past or the politically popular issues of the day. But such safe thinking perpetuates the disconnect between challenges and solutions, rather than encouraging invention. With more tolerance for risk, the philanthropic community can act as a player in conservation markets to catalyze conservation innovation.

My own experience with philanthropies moving into the wildfire space, as they recently have, is that they seem to be more about strategizing, convening, collaborating and partnering and maybe funding some research (which often sounds duplicative with other research).  I don’t know if that’s from the lack of new ideas coming in from local folks, or from the difficulty of entering a new space and understanding what is truly helpful by the philanthropy staff.  Or maybe better linkages need to be made between people currently working in an area and philanthropic organizations. Or maybe they haven’t hired folks with market backgrounds or aren’t interested in market solutions?

Finally,

From Static to Dynamic

The story of conservation in this country has never been static, but it feels static at this moment. Perhaps our reliance on federal, top-down problem solving for more than a century has run its course. Perhaps our feet are stuck in the cement of the previous eras. That said, there are signs of vitality.

The window of what is socially and politically possible is shifting. As the wildfire crisis in our forests explodes, there is growing bipartisan support to accelerate mechanical thinning and prescribed burning by cutting red tape and limiting litigation. Some conservation organizations are beginning to soften hardline stances on endangered species policy, enabling quiet conversations about how to improve actual recovery rates. Likewise, wildlife migration policy became a priority for the first Trump administration, then bucked the trend by continuing to be championed by the Biden administration rather than being unwound as many other policies were.

Finally, conservation groups once seen as regulatory and litigious adversaries of private landowners like ranchers and farmers are recognizing that development has become an even greater threat than extractive industries. Many of these groups have recalibrated and now seek to work with private landowners by harnessing incentives that enable these ranches and farms to operate in an economically viable way. Trust still needs to be built to bridge to more landowners, but many conservationists now see working lands as integral to their efforts.

These are all paradigm shifts that would make conservation more dynamic. For those of us who recently sat on the hallowed ground that is Mardy Murie’s front porch, the message could not have been clearer: We stand at a hinge point in America’s conservation story.

As inaugural participants in an ongoing dialogue about the next era of conservation, we may not have all the answers. But a good place to start would be an environmental reboot with several aims: 1) double down on private land stewardship with newer creative tools, 2) pivot from using evermore regulation to harnessing incentives, innovation, and markets that reward conservation, 3) lean into the local by bringing a bottom-up, rather than top-down, mentality to the challenges of today, and 4) recognize the need for reforms that deliver action and speed, especially when it comes to improving the management of our public lands and imperiled wildlife.

These approaches are not so much a departure from our heritage as they are a natural extension of it.

What do you all think?

The focus on private lands does remind me of the 2005 Forest Service report “Forests on the Edge“and previous FS efforts on forests and private lands.  It seems to me that the current connections of the Forest Service with its State Tribal and Private programs are key to keep.  Also the linkage to  USDA and its existing landowner grant programs and local offices will be key in maintaining and strengthening those linkages.  In fact, perhaps the BLM should move to USDA?

Could the federal government improve coordination and delivery of its  private conservation programs?

If all conservation is ultimately local, what is appropriate role of the federal government  (we already have LWCF and various other programs, but this question is more “what should it be?”). Block grants to states? What other kinds of help could the federal government give?

If you were a large foundation, what kinds of projects would you fund to further Bryan’s goals 1, 2 3 and 4? What are the gaps that you see that are filled neither by current philanthropy, NGOs, nor governments?

Laguna Fire: The Wildfire the Forest Service Ignited

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This piece is from Sarah Hyden. The Wildfire the Forest Service Ignited with some excerpts below. She has more maps and photos in the piece.

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In the early summer of last year, a fire escaped control in the Jemez Mountains of the Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) near the rural village of Gallinas, New Mexico, and west of the Chama River Canyon Wilderness. The escape occurred during “management” of a small lightning-strike wildfire, first reported on June 25 when it was a tenth of an acre in size. It was named the Laguna Fire.

By June 30, the lightning-strike fire had only grown to 176 acres and appeared to be burning out against cliffs known as the Rincon Colorado – steep, largely barren stone cliffs. The prevailing northeast winds blew the fire up against the edge of the cliffs, which created a natural fire break. At that point, the U.S. Forest Service made the decision to “contain” the fire within a 13,000-acre planned containment perimeter. This meant that they would expand the small 176-acre fire to fill an area 74 times larger. The burn would be intentionally ignited over a dry landscape of oak brush, ponderosa pine, and pinyon-juniper.

The Forest Service announced in their June 30th press release – “Fire managers will start firing operations as early as this week with the aim of restoring the ecological process of fire across approximately 13,000 acres of forest land.” They further explained, “We manage fire-adapted landscapes, and the Laguna Wildfire is an opportunity to create a resilient ecosystem that reduces the future risk of catastrophic severe wildfire to communities.” In other words, the agency was implementing a burn for landscape resource benefit — which is by definition an intentional burn, not a wildfire. That is, until it went out of control and became a real wildfire. This follows a history of escaped prescribed burns in the SFNF, including New Mexico’s largest wildfire, the 341,000 acre Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire of 2022, ignited by two escaped prescribed burns. The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burned out entire communities, changing locals’ lives forever. In the past 25 years, more acres have been burned in the SFNF due to land management agency escaped intentional burns than by any other cause.

In the same press release, the Forest Service described firing operations – “To conduct a firing operation, firefighters cut away vegetation to make a line of bare soil ahead of a fire and then using aerial and hand ignitions burn the vegetation between that line and the actively burning fire front.” On July 1, the Forest Service commenced firing operations precisely along the planned containment perimeter of the fire. By July 4, the Forest Service had ignited a large area of the southeast section of the planned perimeter, over two miles south of the original fire, which was cooling off at that point. This burn was so far away from the original lightning-strike fire that it was effectively a separate fire ignited by the Forest Service.

A few small spot fires developed to the east of the planned perimeter due to increasing winds, but the agency continued carrying out its firing operations. The July 6 Laguna Fire briefing weather report warned that over the next few days – “There may be downburst winds, with gusts potentially exceeding 40 mph.” The agency continued lighting along the containment perimeter to the north of the original lightning-strike fire. On the eastern side of the planned perimeter, crews began connecting the original fire footprint to the north with the newly ignited fire to the south. Then they expanded the fire from east to west, against the prevailing winds, steadily filling the 13,000-acre perimeter.

On July 12, the Forest Service announced that a major spot fire was developing to the east of the Laguna Fire planned perimeter near Laguna Peak. In their press release, the Forest Service stated, “Fire crews are actively engaged in full suppression efforts using hotshot crews, engines, and helicopters to drop water.” At this point, the fire began to be managed as an actual wildfire.

The fire grew much further out of the planned perimeter to the east and northeast, due to intense downdraft winds from a storm. Such weather is relatively common in the area during the July and August monsoon season. Thunderstorms were forecast for the next week, increasing the chances of the fire entering into the Chama River Canyon Wilderness.

Two firefighters were entrapped due to the rapid fire growth and had to deploy their emergency shelters. They were fortunate to make it out without serious injuries. Rio Arriba County issued a potential evacuation status of “set” for the Monastery of Christ in the Desert and a status of “go”for Gallinas Ranch. A number of cows in a forest grazing allotment were killed by the fire, and others were injured. Some of the surviving cows had burned hooves and udders. The family who owned the cows claimed to a local news source that they found fire accelerant balls that the Forest Service had dropped from aircraft in the forest while they were looking for their missing cows. A family member stated, “This was not a wildfire. It doesn’t matter what they say. This was not a wildfire. This was intentionally spread by them.”

The Forest Service repeatedly stated that “the health and safety of firefighters and the public are always the highest priority.” However, converting a small lightning-strike wildfire into a large intentional burn during potentially dry, windy and unpredictable weather exposed both firefighters and the public to increased risk.

A Region 3 Complex Incident Management Team (CIMT) arrived on July 13. Up to this point, the progress on managing the fire had been quantified as percent completed – that’s how much of the planned firing operations the Forest Service had completed. After this point, fire management was quantified as percent contained, because they were now attempting to genuinely contain and suppress an actual wildfire. Despite igniting up to 99% of the fire themselves, the Forest Service still classifies the entire incident as a wildfire.

During a July 16 briefing, a CIMT operations section officer acknowledged that their efforts were limited by a shortage of Type 1 firefighting resources, particularly hotshot crews. Local sentiment became a combination of appreciation for the CIMT’s challenging work, and outrage that the fire had been mostly ignited by the Forest Service. One post on the SFNF Facebook page, under a CIMT Laguna Fire briefing, summarized the mixed local perspective well:

“I am grateful for the men and women who are fighting this fire, risking their lives for a fire that could have been put out or controlled rather than fueled. What was once under 200 acres around June 25 has grown to over 16,000 acres, how much wildlife and cattle have been killed? You are not showing pictures of the land burned beyond recognition, stripped of any vegetation nor the livestock burned to death that couldn’t escape. The command decision made by you to fuel a fire during a drought and windy season, just blows my mind.”

Another post summed up the impacts on the local population, landscape and economy:

“The impacts of this fire are widespread. Ranchers lost livestock, and still continue to do so. Grazing allotments have mostly been reduced to ash. Wildlife, including elk calves and deer fawns, were caught during their most vulnerable season. Smoke settled into the valleys for days, worsening health issues for people who had no way to escape the air or cool their homes with air conditioning. Some families were stuck indoors during the hottest part of the year.

Water used to fight the fire was pulled from the Rio Chama and Abiquiu Lake at a time when farmers in the Abiquiu Valley were already under water curtailment.Tourism has taken a hit. Outdoor recreation was shut down. And the insurance consequences are just beginning. Classifying this as a wildfire instead of a fuels treatment opens the door for cancellations and premium increases, with long-term effects on our local economy.”

We’ve discussed the MF issue many times, but I had never heard of the difference for insurance purposes.

Is there a forest-wide fire management amendment?  According to Sarah:

The SFNF justifies converting small lightning-strike fires into large intentional burns with this guideline from the SFNF Land Management Plan — “Naturally occurring fires should be allowed to perform their natural ecological role to meet multiple resource objectives and facilitate progress toward desired conditions.” But this guideline does not instruct, nor does it allow, for the Forest Service to greatly expand wildfires with large-scale firing operations. Fire management policy must be developed in a national process, and analyzed through a comprehensive NEPA process.

As I’ve said before, I think the FS should stand down plan revisions for a time and focus on wildfire use and management amendments on those forests where people want to use MF.

Merry Christmas! Peace on Earth and a Gift from the Colorado Healthcare Folks

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The Captiol Christmas Tree is a red fir from the HT in Nevada.

The Architect of the Capitol has an interactive site with the Capitol Christmas Tree including 3D versions of some of the ornaments!
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Tradition of gift-giving. Not to be a pest, but next week is the new year and we are only halfway to what it takes to keep TSW operating. Please consider a donation to this site. The donation widget can be found on the right. You can donate via paper check or Paypal.

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“Peace on earth, good will towards people”..

What we do here is seek peace or (try to) reduce (unnecessary) conflict by hearing and sharing different perspectives. So I was surprised to see how this effort in a completely different policy arena was similar. Thanks to Colorado Politics, which gives us a reduced subscription despite not being an official 501(c)(3).

These words are from folks in the Colorado healthcare world.. but they apply to our issues.. e.g., perhaps most in need, recreation, wildfire prevention, management and suppression.

And yet, for all this urgency, Colorado’s health care system suffers from one of its most debilitating flaws: no one owns the whole system. Decisions are made in silos — hospitals over here, insurers over there, state agencies somewhere in between. Policymakers often craft solutions without genuine input from the people who deliver or rely on care. And far too often, our debates start from clashing assumptions instead of shared facts.

That fragmented approach is pushing us toward the edge of the cliff. It’s also why a broad coalition of hospitals, physicians, health plans, behavioral-health providers, rural leaders and consumer advocates came together earlier this year. In a political environment defined by polarization, this group did something unusual: we sat down, challenged one another openly and confronted the uncomfortable truth Colorado is on an unsustainable trajectory.

Across hours of candid discussions, one theme kept resurfacing: if we don’t change how we solve problems, no big or small policy changes will fix what’s broken. We need real accountability for system-wide outcomes. We need policymaking that begins with community voices, not performative “consultations.” And we need decisions rooted in shared, validated data rather than ideology or assumptions.

This isn’t about blaming state leaders or pointing fingers among sectors. It’s about acknowledging health care is simply too large and complex for anyone to fix alone. Challenges such as workforce shortages, affordability pressures, dwindling rural access and regulatory overload are interconnected. They demand a coordinated response.

That is why our coalition has put forward a clear message to the governor, legislators and candidates: Colorado cannot afford another year of fragmented policymaking. We must move toward a model built on collaboration, transparency and shared responsibility. That means engaging the communities most affected by policy decisions before choices are made. It means being honest about both what is working and what is failing. And it means grounding decisions in common data so we can actually measure effect rather than guess at it.

The challenges ahead are enormous: protecting access as Medicaid funding shrinks, stabilizing the individual insurance market before thousands more lose coverage, strengthening support for the providers who serve low-income and rural Coloradans, streamlining the regulatory thicket driving up costs and addressing workforce shortages leaving entire communities without timely care.

But enormous does not mean impossible. With shared values and collective ownership, this moment offers Colorado a rare opportunity to reset. If we choose collaboration over turf battles and evidence over ideology, we can rebuild a system worthy of the people who depend on it. Our coalition stands ready to meet this moment. And we’re asking others to join us, before the cracks in our system become consequences too big to reverse.

Note how foundational the need for shared data (in our world, the long-awaited Peoples’ Database) is, and joint work across silos among people of good will. In our world, this is a dream we can all share and have a piece, in each of our own zone of influence, of moving toward that future.

Merry Christmas! And Whatever Other Winter Light Returning Holiday you celebrate!
See you back here on Monday.

Federal Lands Litigation – update through December 19, 2025

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A little stocking stuffer … (especially the last one)

FOREST SERVICE

Court decision in Clinch Coalition v. U. S. Forest Service (W.D. Virginia)

On December 3, the district court dismissed for lack of standing a challenge to a 2020 Trump Administration Forest Service rule that expanded the Service’s NEPA categorical exclusions (CEs) for community wildfire protection for:

  • Commercial logging projects up to 2,800 acres and construction of up to three miles of logging roads.
  • Construction of up to two miles of permanent road for any purpose.
  • “Special use” authorizations for private uses affecting up to 20 acres of national forest lands.

The court found that a facial challenge, without reference to specific projects, did not demonstrate that plaintiffs would be affected.  (You’ll have to trust AI for this summary – since apparently it subscribes to the pay sites that have provided the only coverage of this story.)

Injunction granted in Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Forest Service (D. Montana)

On December 11, the district court granted summary judgment on the Center’s claims of violations of NEPA, NFMA and ESA, and it vacated and remanded the South Plateau Project decision by the Custer Gallatin National Forest.  The project was planned for nearly 16,500 acres north of and adjacent to Yellowstone National Park, including over 5,000 acres of clearcuts.

The judge noted that the “primary challenge concerns the project’s conditions-based management approach,” which “conflates a promise of future statutory compliance with actual compliance.”  The South Plateau project anticipated a need for 56.8 miles of temporary roads over 15 years, but didn’t specify where they would be, which would be relevant to how they might affect grizzly bear-secure habitat.  The Forest Service could also not show that actions would not violate forest plan standards related to grizzly bears and Canada lynx, the court explaining that “The Forest Service avowing that future activities will comply with NFMA falls far short of showing that those activities do so.”  The Project violated ESA because the Fish and Wildlife Service reliance on 10-acre patches of secure grizzly bear habitat was not supported by the best available science.  The court did uphold the EA’s treatment of climate change.

This article discusses condition-based management in more depth.  Both articles include links to the court’s opinion.

Voluntary dismissal in MountainTrue v. U. S. Forest Service (W.D. North Carolina)

On December 15, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed this case involving salvage logging in a North Carolina Natural Heritage Natural Area on the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest containing rare plants and sitting above the Nolichucky River — a popular whitewater rafting destination.  The notice is here; the case was originally discussed here.

  • Shasta-Trinity NF logging project

Preliminary injunction denied in Klamath Forest Alliance v. Jones (E.D. California)

On November 25, a coalition of environmental groups sued the Forest Service over what they call the misuse of “emergency” powers to fast-track logging in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest – using the possibility of a future wildfire instead of an ongoing emergency as justification.  Their lawsuit will also address “alternative arrangements” to proceed with logging in occupied spotted owl sites without first completing NEPA analysis.  This case was introduced here (with an incorrect heading labeling it the Klamath National Forest).

On December 15, the district court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against two pending commercial logging operations (430 acres) undertaken in conjunction with this North Trinity Project.  While the court agreed plaintiffs had raised serious questions about the merits and had shown irreparable harm, the court concluded that the balance of equities tipped toward the federal government completing wildfire fuel and risk reduction before the next wildfire season.  The court’s decision is here.

Since we discussed “emergency” procedures here, here is how the court interpreted 7 C.F.R. § 1b.9(w) in this case to provide Plaintiffs with “a fair chance of success upon further deliberative investigation:”

“For example, if a wildfire in 2021 illuminated for USFS the need for action, why was such action only implemented on an emergency basis late in 2025 after new regulations were promulgated in July 2025?  And how does the agency’s citation to topography, which has not been shown to have changed, justify an emergency?  Additionally, as Plaintiffs maintain, the USFS current interpretation of § 1b.9(w) would seem to allow for an emergency response which avoids NEPA requirements in almost any situation the agency deems presents a wildfire danger and could allow for emergency activities anywhere within the National Forest System absent NEPA review.  Such an interpretation of the regulation would render NEPA meaningless and allow an Executive Branch agency to undertake almost any activity it wants without environmental review protections mandated by Congress.”

In finding the equities favor the Forest Service in denying the injunction, the court pointed out contract language that should protect spotted owls and could be enforced as the lawsuit continues:

“That said, the Court has been presented with evidence that these two commercial logging contracts carry with them very specific restrictions as to the trees permitted to be cut, including limitations associated with tree size, species, location, and proximity to other trees.  The Court expects the logging operations to continue subject to strict compliance with these restrictions and would accept further motions should Plaintiffs have evidence to the contrary.”

BLM

New lawsuit:  Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center v. Burgum (D. Oregon)

On December 9, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands sued the BLM over its Last Chance Forest Management Project: commercial thinning, timber harvest and hazardous fuels reduction across nearly 57,000 acres within northern spotted owl habitat in southwestern Oregon, including 8,240 acres of commercial timber harvest.  “The project authorizes extensive logging in fire-resilient old-growth forests and serpentine ecosystems that provide essential habitat for imperiled species, and will increase wildfire risk in portions of the project area for the next two decades,” the groups say in the complaint.

The Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinion allegedly violates the Endangered Species Act because it understates the effects on spotted owls, and improperly concludes there would be no incidental take of individuals.  The complaint also alleges BLM violations of FLPMA and NEPA.  The 2016 Southwestern Oregon Resource Management Plan, requires conservation measures to reduce risks to “Bureau sensitive species,” but the BLM declined to protect the northwestern pond turtle, a sensitive species proposed for listing as a threatened species under the ESA.  Plaintiffs also allege that an EIS should have been prepared.  The article includes a link to the complaint.

New lawsuit:  Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic v. Burgum (D. Alaska)

On December 11, Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, Center for Biological Diversity, and The Wilderness Society challenged the BLM’s approval of ConocoPhillips Alaska Incorporated’s seismic and exploration drilling program in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.  According to the complaint, “BLM’s decision violates the Reserves Act because it fails to rationally explain how approving the exploration program, which the record shows will result in significant adverse impacts, is consistent with BLM’s obligation to protect surface resources from such impacts.”  It also asserts that the public did not have enough time to weigh in on the BLM’s approval.  The 23-million-acre reserve is the nation’s largest tract of public land, and has seen limited development. The authorization came on the heels of Interior finalizing a new rule in November that opened up half of the reserve to oil and gas development, reversing ecological protections for the reserve instituted under the Biden administration in 2024.  The article includes a link to the complaint.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Department of the Interior (N.D. California)

On December 15, the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club sued the Department of the Interior and seven of its agencies challenging its interim final rule to implement NEPA procedures.  The rule responded to President Trump’s Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy.”  It rescinded most of the Department’s NEPA regulations, including its procedures on public involvement in the preparation of EISs and EAs.  Plaintiffs allege the rule was “finalized and made effective without advanced public notice of, or an opportunity to comment on, the rule, and which provided no explanation for Interior’s major change in its longstanding public participation procedures.”  Plaintiffs seek a return to prior NEPA procedures.  The article includes a link to the complaint.

Court decision in Montana Wildlife Federation v. Burgum (D. Montana)

On December 17, the district court denied a motion by the government to voluntarily remand its decisions on six Montana and Wyoming oil and gas lease sales in sage-grouse habitat.  Their attorneys had argued that significant changes in the law and certain changes in the facts warrant remand.  The evidence before the court instead indicated they would use the remand “as means to provide a new rationale for reaffirming the prior leasing decisions” as opposed to demonstrating “an intent to seriously reconsider or re-review [their] decision” – the standard for a voluntary remand (compare to the Red Rocks case below).  The court also found that a judicial decision on the merits was in the public interest because this case has been going on for seven years and is near a final decision.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Court decision in San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper v. County of San Luis Obispo (9th Circuit)

On December 3, the circuit court reversed a decision by a district court requiring the release of more water from Lopez Lake into Arroyo Grande Creek in order to protect threatened steelhead trout.  The circuit held that the district court’s mandatory preliminary injunction failed to take into account the effects on the California redlegged frog and the tidewater goby, species also listed under the Endangered Species Act.  The preliminary injunction was reversed and remanded, and the case will continue.  The article includes a link to the opinion.  (Los Padres Forestwatch was one of the plaintiffs.)

“The Trump administration’s pending deletion of the Endangered Species Act’s definition of “harm” will have an outsize impact on imperiled species in Northwest forests targeted for logging, especially the northern spotted owl, environmental attorneys say… Once the repeal is finalized, logging will be considered harmful to the marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl only if they’re roosting in trees at the moment they’re being cut.”  While the article is focused on incidental take permits needed for private land actions, it also cites implications for the update of the Northwest Forest Plan as an example of effects on federal land management.

OTHER

Maestri Ranch Company, LLC v. Ten Braak (Wyoming Sixth Judicial District)

This lawsuit by ranch owners was filed in July (the article includes a link to the complaint).  They seek to stop a holder of an easement (Defendant) across their ranch to Defendant’s property from using it to access and hunt on otherwise “landlocked” public lands that are also traversed.  The question is whether the terms of the easement are for “ingress and egress” only and whether access to public lands “cannot be curtailed by private parties absent statutory authority or ownership interest.”  A hearing was held this month.

New lawsuit:  American Federation of Government Employees v. Kupor (D. Massachusetts)

On November 6, the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO; the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO; and the National Association of Government Employees, Inc. sued the U. S. Office of Personnel Management over its “merit hiring plan” because of this employment essay question (purportedly made optional after the public reaction):

“How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

The unions claim the question creates an “unconstitutional” and discriminatory system in which job-seekers are rewarded or punished for their political views.  Their claims include violation of the First Amendment, the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.  The article includes a link to the complaint.

Court decision in State of New York v. Trump (D. Massachusetts)

On December 8, the district court granted summary judgment to seventeen states and Alliance for Clean Energy New York, and vacated what the court referred to as the federal agencies’ “Wind Order,” which halted all permitting for wind energy projects.  The court rejected the government’s argument that agency action is not subject to the arbitrary and capricious standard whenever the agency is acting pursuant to executive order, and held that the federal agencies failed to provide a reasoned basis for the decision, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.  Because the district court did not limit its application to the parties in the proceeding, its reasoning applies to analogous circumstances involving other parties and projects.  The article includes a link to the opinion.

Court decision in WildEarth Guardians v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D. Montana)

On December 15, the district court granted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s request for a voluntary remand in a case challenging five grazing permits issued on the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.  After the parties made three unsuccessful attempts to reach a settlement, the Fish and Wildlife Service asked the court for permission to go back and do a new analysis of grazing effects as long as the grazing permits could remain active.  In its remand request, the Fish and Wildlife Service said it will factor in staffing and resource shortages to see whether grazing can even be allowed on the Refuge under the requirements of the existing plan.  The court declined to vacate the decision and terminate the grazing permits as environmental plaintiffs had sought.  The article has a link to the opinion.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum (D. D.C.)

On December 10, the Center sued to prevent the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior from placing a closeup photograph of President Trump’s face on the America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Annual Pass.  Plaintiffs claim that the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004 requires the main America the Beautiful Pass to feature the winning photo of the National Parks Foundation’s annual public lands photo contest, which for the 2026 pass is an image of Glacier National Park.  They also argue that the administration violated the law by “creating new ‘Resident’ and ‘Nonresident’ passes expressly prohibited by the law.”  The article includes a link to the complaint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Side: Response to Fresnoland Story on Sierra National Forest Fuel Treatment Priorities and Teakettle Experimental Forest

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Fuel treatment activities in part of the Sierra Forest from Cal Fire Dashboard
https://interagencytrackingsystem.org/ Would be interesting to see overlay with wildfires.

There are at least two sides to every story. Often, though, reporting is not “what happened” but “people are upset about.” When this happens with the Forest Service, often the FS does not respond (due to the litigation cone of silence, or difficulty in getting answers approved by Admins, or ….). I used to tell my staff “nothing good ever came from talking to the press” which may or may not be true, but if you know you are working on something that the outlet doesn’t like (in our case, Colorado Roadless), the risks often outweigh the potential advantages. I have also heard from different public affairs people that responding keeps controversies alive and not responding helps them blow over. Both of these are true. For us in the public, though, the result tends to be we don’t have both sides.

Sometimes I will dive into “the FS side” by looking at objection responses or NEPA docs and infer the FS point of view.. but how many people have the time or the inclination to do that. Fortunately, we can be assisted by unofficial knowledgeable people.

Let’s go back to an example.. remember the story on the Garnet Fire we covered last month?

A Fresnoland investigation into a stalled prescribed burn project exposes systemic dysfunction at the Forest Service. Even with full state funding, political backing, and exemptions from environmental review, the Forest Service didn’t act.

Systemic dysfunction? “Exemption from environmental review”.. this sounded a bit suspicious to me. There is no “exemption” – there is just “possible streamlining.” Also “full state funding”- does California fund specific projects on NF land? Then do they also do the NEPA and the work? Like shared stewardship agreements in MT and ID?

America’s founding environmental historian – an expert on how failed agricultural policy instigated the Dust Bowl in the 1930s – wonders if this trail of devastation is a sign that California is entering something like a 21st century Dust Bowl.

“Are we creating another Dust Bowl in the forests of the West?” asked Donald Worster, emeritus professor at University of Kansas.

The clouds of dust which menaced the Texan panhandle 90 years ago, Worster says, certainly do bear a stark resemblance to the county-spanning clouds of smoke that are now routine occurrences across the West.

To be sure, the collapse of the Sierra Nevada is not unique to Gould’s area, most of which is being transformed from a forest into a glorified weed patch by the unprecedented flame of mega fire. Forests are not adapted to fires this hot, said Stephens, and as a result the old ecosystems are not growing back.

I don’t think Scott probably said this in so many words, but it wasn’t that long ago when we recognized that burned areas without trees needed help (reforestation and brush control) in the Sierra for trees to grow back. Will they be the “old ecosystems”? I don’t know, but they could be forested with the same tree and plant species composition, hence wildlife. I do recall when Sierra (Range) forests became unable to use herbicides. At the time, we worried about their potentially becoming brushfields due to seedlings being overtaken by brush species. That was probably 40 or so years ago.

“Logging and thinning by themselves may only aggravate the fireshed,” said Stephen Pyne, America’s pre-eminent fire historian.

I think “prescribed fire” is a bit confusing here (and maybe elsewhere). It can mean (not thinning plus broadcast) or (thinning plus broadcast) or (thinning handpiling and burning) or (thinning mechanical piling and burning). Who would do thinning (as we’ve talked about, there doesn’t seem to be a physical definition for “logging”) and not remove the fuel by burning (piles or broadcast)? It wouldn’t be much of a fuel treatment prescription. Is this a straw person argument? Or is the Pyne quote missing important context?

But back to the point I was trying to make..

Gould and his U.S. Forest Service office could not be reached for comment via email despite repeated requests both before and after the government shutdown.

So the reporter could not get the FS side of the story. Note: this is not the FS side of the story, but it’s another side of the story. Folks can imagine that reporters can’t get the FS side sometimes, and they feel the need to report anyway. While this is the way the system works, it’s definitely suboptimal for the understanding by the public of the issues at hand. Many thanks to FM and others who can tell us “what might be part of the FS side of the story”- below is his comment:

I’m familiar with the Teakettle area and project. I read Matt Hurteau’s Ecology paper. Unfortunately that write-up is full of falsehoods and is generally misleading and un-professional. Teakettle Experimental Forest: designated in 1938, 3200 acres overseen and managed by the Pacific Southwest Research Station USDA, beginning around 1995 research focused on forest thinning and prescribed fire. Despite this experimental forest area being managed by research scientists, who have numerous funding sources available to them, they sadly never actually managed their 3200 acre plot of land against the threat of wildfire. About 170 acres of planned research prescribed fire had been accomplished in Teakettle as of 2019. Over a million acres have burned in over 23 major wildfires (per IFTDSS website) since 1995 within the Sierra NF and areas immediate adjacent in Yosemite and Kings Canyon (this doesn’t include adjacent State land or the Inyo and Stanislaus National Forests). A major tree mortality forest die-off event (look that up about how many acres affected and how many trees died and fell to the ground adding to hazard fuel loads) started in 2014 and was centered in the Sierra NF just a couple of miles from Teakettle. The Sierra National Forest has been overwhelmed. Prescribed fire needs have been carefully analyzed and prioritized (silviculture, WUI, infrastructure etc) resulting in sorely needed prescribed fire implementation proposed for decades into the future. Anyone familiar with the Sierra NF (as these researchers are) or in reality the Sierra Nevada ecosystem as a whole should know this.

Matt Hurteau mishandled a proposed 870 acre Rx burn project in 2019 by not following established guidelines for notifying the Forest Service (Forest Service heard about his proposed project haphazardly through contractors a few months before Matt hoped to have it burned), presenting a project foot print that could not have prescribed fire feasibly applied to it (this showed a shocking lack of knowledge of basic prescribed fire knowledge and awareness), a confusion about who actually will implement the prescribed burn and numerous other factors affecting his proposed project. Sierra NF then proposed a much larger acre burn (while clearly stating that they had no funding or personnel to take on a project like this) that was considered the only way to get the 870 acre plot originally planned done. This is where the 3000+ acre proposed burn idea came from, not from any of the researchers. The Sierra NF had a carefully planned 5 year work schedule to meet Rx burning needs including: silviculture site prep (planting requires ordering trees from nurseries years in advance), WUI, infrastructure (Hydro-electric is not to be impacted) and numerous other inputs which again the researchers should be aware of. That Matt Hurteau fully expected a large 870 acre burn to be accomplished with a 120 day lead time is as shocking as it is ignorant and insulting. Whatever talk there is of the Forest Service ignoring NEPA requirements, promising to do an unplanned/sudden 3000+ acre research burn in lieu of every other years-ahead planned action(s), dragging their feet (same staff that does prescribed burning has been fighting the large fires listed above) or that any one individual is responsible for a century plus of management decisions is silly, grossly ignorant or has an agenda behind it.
Contact me if you’re interested in learning more. FM

We could dig into this more… like the story’s claims about the State’s role, and what NEPA they were doing exactly. But I think most of us would probably agree with FM that it’s hard (or wrong, or both) to blame Sierra employees for a “century plus of management decisions.” Also, it’s not surprising that there would be disagreements about prioritization. If the scientists had been FS, those disagreements might have been elevated to RF/SD issue resolution. But the broader point here is that 1) we only heard one side of the story (Sierra=bad) with much questionable embroidery and 2) now we realize the issue is much more complex. I don’t feel that I need to know more at this point, but the additional context leaves me with a much different impression about the Sierra.

Forest Service Internal Report on Trails: Need to Hire People Back Plus More Support

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The Crested Butte Conservation Corps — seen here last summer — builds and maintains trails around the town. With eight members working for its ninth summer, the locally funded corps this week picked up 400 pounds of trash around area campsites. Last year the corps collected 2,733 pounds of trash. (Courtesy Crested Butte Conservation Corps) From excellent Colorado Sun story on how Colorado counties stepped up after the cuts to temps (and long before) https://coloradosun.com/2025/06/04/colorado-communities-funding-backcountry-rangers/

Some news stories have come out about this report, here’s the report itself.

As a trail non-expert (but frequent user) I have some specific questions about the information in the report, and you may as well. I’m hoping that currently working TSW folks can help with some of the answers.

Some of my thoughts on recreation programs in the FS over time..

Both things are true:
1. Recreation has never received the support (financial and other internal) it deserves, given the importance to the public.

2.a At the same time, FS management can be uneven…say budgets..
For example when Scott Fitzwilliams showed up to become Forest Supervisor on the White River, he said he was shocked by how low the recreation budget was compared to the Williamette, similarly Maribeth Gustafson felt the same way coming from the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. It does make you wonder how the national and regional recreation budgets are dispersed. Is it based on miles of trails, numbers of campgrounds, usage, or “what they got last year minus or plus”?

2b. Don Amador’s thoughts on the report as a partner are:

The report fails to highlight Forests that continue to manage high quality trail opportunities largely due to their pro-recreation culture, robust partnerships with OHV and other recreation groups, participate in diverse forest health collaboratives, and take advantage of non-federal funding such as state OHV grants or monies from
Industry grants from RRAF, Polaris, Yamaha, etc. Forests that don’t have those factors are often the ones that falter.

How can the FS make sure that each Forest and District has the requisite culture, horsepower, and access to internal support from other units, to do those things? Is it as simple as a tremendous enthusiast as a Supervisor, or Rec Program Manager or ???

II.Both things are true.

1. Partners including states and counties, contractors, concessionaires, permittees (like outfitter-guides clearing trails), user groups, volunteers and grantees, and internally G&A. contracting, recreation special uses, law enforcement and engineering (roads and bridges) allcontribute to NF recreation.

2. There is inherently governmental work that FS employees need to perform. It would probably make sense for the FS to be able to articulate that, and then determine to fund Districts and their internal partners to do that work.

Anyway, back to the report.

Background: The WO Trail Program engaged 290, mostly district-level staff, from all regions to assess current challenges to sustain trail operations and public trail access. Similar challenges are present in wilderness and developed recreation programs.

Bottomline: Public access, visitor satisfaction, and recreation-based economic contributions will continue to decline in 2026 and beyond without direction to prioritize investments in recreation generally and the trails program specifically. This would include action in hiring, clearer communication, and improvements around grants and agreement (G&A) management. Without this support, the agency risks losing decades of investment in trail infrastructure.

Current Challenges & Impacts

Districts lost up to 100% of trail staff. Critical vacancies, staff reassignments, seasonal hiring restrictions, and G&A delays are impeding trail maintenance and partner support. Many AmeriCorps and YCC programs are no longer available. The agency is losing out on tangible partner and volunteer contributions without the staff to coordinate and provide technical oversight. While partners and volunteers augment capacity, they cannot entirely replace agency staff.

There are crucial gaps that need to be filled. I agree, and I also agree that partners shouldn’t be replacing agency staff in some areas (like inspecting timber sales). In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to look across the agency at the old idea that some work is “inherently governmental.” And maybe use similar criteria across program areas? Or is that too entirely grand of a dream?

Hundreds of years of trail expertise lost. Lost skills are weakening the agency’s ability to implement technical projects and oversee partner, volunteer, and contractor work, which is leading to unpassable trails, unsafe bridges, and negative environmental impacts. Skill gaps are in dry stone masonry, rigging, blasting, saw use, construction, mechanized equipment, project management, and partner/volunteer coordination. Animal packer positions are vacant and pack stock programs are at risk; both are critical to keeping wilderness trails open.

Just a bit of history- I sat through many Region 2 budget meetings with the topic “the Pack String and who should pay for it.” I don’t think that this is new.

Widespread burnout and declining morale. Staff report high stress, unclear priorities, poor communication, inconsistent messaging, and misalignment of priorities and resources. Public access is a department priority, but recreation and trail access programs lack support to be effective. Low morale is leading to staff departures from agency and trail program, loss of skills and capacity, and poor customer service.

What kind of support exactly? Do they mean funding? Priority in G&A, contracting or hiring queues? Does this vary by Region or Forest?

Operational Gaps
• Millions of dollars of unspent grant funds have been returned due to key vacancies, no temporary workforce, and lengthy or stalled agreement processes. Districts are forgoing out-year grant opportunities, resulting in millions of dollars of unrealized future funding.

I thought I had heard the Chief say that temps would be back next year and that would be a priority. It sounds like the districts had the bucks but couldn’t get the grants out due to a lack of G&A folks? Or the grants didn’t go out because there was no one to give advice to the grantees? It sounds like the “unrealized future funding” might be future matches that are foregone. However as we reported, match requirements were removed from some kinds of grants. A more granular explanation might be helpful.

Many districts are unable to conduct basic trail maintenance. Front-country trails are being prioritized; backcountry trails are being abandoned. Deferred maintenance is exponentially compounding.
o Compliance issues are rising (e.g., illegal motorized use, user-created routes, trash). The public reports missing trail signage, trees blocking access, bridges in disrepair, and tread erosion.
Impact: Miles maintained down 22%, miles meeting standard down 19%. Lowest accomplishments in 15 years

My observation is that many back-country trails are maintained by user groups, and the illegal use and trash may be more location-specific. I’m not sure that FS presence is required to stop compliance issues, as there have never been enough employees to be there when folks want to be bad. It might be handy to have a map app of trail problems reported, so that volunteers could go and clean up trash, downed trees, etc., or avoid the area if illegal activities have been reporte

Contracting and agreement inefficiencies. Stalled and unfunded contracts and agreements are putting contractors and partners at risk of insolvency, damaging relationships, and reducing current and future ability to leverage federal investments and partner contributions

Is this true of every program (say wildfire, or fuels), or just the trails program? Are there not enough people in contracting and G&A, or are there reasons to believe they could be working more efficiently?


Immediate Needs

Expedite temporary seasonal hiring, especially externally-funded. Allow for extensions of externally-funded and disaster-funded Permanent Seasonal Employee (PSE) positions.

Maybe someone can explain the advantages of externals funding FS positions in recreation instead of hiring their own (like many grant recipients do). It seems like there are advantages to not going through the federal processes and requirements and drama. Maybe because there are certain people already trained and knowledgeable that they are funding?

Exclude temporary seasonals from agency headcount.

Or put them in a separate column and still count them?

Increase G&A capacity to support the robust partnerships in the trail program
Provide accurate, consistent messaging from leadership to all levels of the agency. Clearly articulate that recreation and trails are an agency priority.
Consider restoring direct hire authority for Youth Conservation Corps programs.
Invest in training in technical trail skills for staff, partners, and volunteers.
Support continued maintenance of the TACOS mobile app for trail data, condition and accomplishment reporting

When the Chief attended the Retirees’ Reunion in Missoula, he did stress the importance of the recreation program. I can’t remember exactly what he said but he said something about “clean outhouses” being a measure of how the FS is serving the public.


Voices from the Field

“My trail program is suffering the worst morale setbacks of all my district programs.” -Acting District Ranger
“To be honest, I heavily lean toward quitting and reinvention if we go another summer without seasonals. I have never lacked for motivation for trail work until now…it feels like we are on the verge of not passing anything on for the future, and that feels like 24 years of trails and wilderness work rolling back to the bottom of the hill.” -District Trail Manager
“I have an org chart of 20 rec staff… I have 6 left… and one GS7 tech to cover 200+ miles of trails, Wilderness, and volunteer coordination.” -District Trail Manager
“We lost 200 years of trail experience this year.” -Forest Recreation Manager
“With the recent loss of so many key positions, we will lose trails that we won’t be able to maintain.” -Forest Recreation Program Manager
“We were able to get through the summer doing basic clearing, which kept our overall accomplishment numbers fairly the same, but the reality is the other maintenance tasks such as drainage and brushing did not get done, which maybe wasn’t an issue this year, but the cumulative effects will be worse and worse. Then we’ll have a huge backlog, even worse than what it was before.” -District Trail Employee

As I wrote in my essay for Steve’s book 193 Million Acres, there are many of us who would support the program directly if we could. For example, there’s a trail I frequent where the concessionaire requires payment with the old slots and envelopes and cash technology. While the FS is not allowed to charge, it is not disallowed from asking for donations. Seems to me as if they could try a pilot at some heavily used site with good cell reception and a simple kiosk with a QR code. There is so much energy and enthusiasm around our love of National Forest places, isn’t there a way to harness that? Many of us would like to contribute our time, talent and money to support recreation, if we could in some way without placing stress on the remaining employees.

Maybe all it takes is some kind of external leader to unite all the people who recreate on forests into a broad and effective coalition. Which is conceivably what the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable is doing, and yet…

Share Your Experience: Forest Service Learning and Training

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Anonymous raised an interesting point about how people in the FS learn.

ACES is a mixed bag. The critical thing here is to allow employees the time to develop the expertise by attending training/reading the FS manual/reading the Forest Plan, etc. If you’re on a district that gets snowed out of the woods, that may not be too hard to do. But right now folks are being pressured to produce, not learn.

It seems to me that different kinds of positions have different ways of developing expertise. First, it seems like the FS should hire people who know something about the more concrete skills (not “leadership” or “partnering”) in the first place. Perhaps some of us old folks were lucky in that universities used to teach field and planning skills, at least in silviculture. Maybe universities still do. Given that the person knows about the topic generally, similarly to the engineering field, they still have to learn “this is how we do it here,” at this firm or agency.

I’m not sure that “how we do it here” comes from formal training or reading the Manual or the Forest Plan.

A common way of learning is called:

“Watch One, Do One, Teach One”

Watch One: Watching the process helps us gather data and learn the steps through observation
Do One: In the second step we apply the data with direct feedback and support from someone who has already done the process.
Teach One: Finally our knowledge and experiences are applied in helping others develop their skills. This step helps us gain deeper insight through supporting and gaining varied perspectives and questioning.

Of course, a person might be on a unit in which there is no one to watch, nor give support or feedback.

My own experience of project OJT was learning to do CEs. There was one expert on the NEPA staff in the WO, who had a full plate (the HFI CEs). We kept getting pressure from above to do something with the Limited Timber Harvest CE. We sat down with the expert and asked “what do you do first?” and step by step did the work, asking questions when we got stuck. So I’m thinking that for this sort of work, providing experts to assist is essential to production. It doesn’t take away from production, it reduces net floundering and flailing. On any team there is usually a good deal of interpersonal stuff that needs to be negotiated. Again, management training is good, but advice of a trusted person with experience in the FS is probably better.

Much earlier, I did learn via Tree Climbing courses at Dorena, so definitely classes have a place. So do well-designed national and regional trainings and workshops, sometimes as much for developing trusted peer networks as for the content of the workshop.

Then, for some resource experts, there are professional societies. In my experience, various members of FS leadership and Admins have blown hot and cold about these, especially, but not limited to, travel. Some of this has been due to concerns about production impacts on various individuals through time.

Back in 2021, I wrote a piece with suggestions for the Biden Admin as they were coming into office, including this quote from the Society of American Foresters:

Professional societies, like SAF, provide opportunities for federal employees to maintain professional competencies through in-person and virtual continuing educational opportunities, access to scientific journals, and engagement with professionals working in different disciplines across the country. In addition, professional societies also provide federal employees ample opportunities to test and hone leadership skills and give back to communities through service projects.

Recommendations
• We urge the Biden Administration to not only remove current barriers to attending scientific conferences and meetings, but also encourage and empower employees to actively participate in their professional societies.

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

(1) What was your experience learning to do different kinds of work in the FS? How did you learn best?

(2) If your experience of ACES was suboptimal, what are your ideas for how they could improve?

(3) Are there specific disciplines or work activities that seem to have better structures for learning than others (e.g., fire?).

(4) For those still employed, where do you see the largest training gaps (looking at you and peers, employees, your supervisors) as you go about your work? If you had a sudden influx of training funds, who would get them and why?

Region 5 Fire Folks Write Letter to Chief About Reorganization and Other Concerns

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The Hotshot Wakeup covered this letter. According to his reporting, the letter
(written by 14 Fire Chiefs, which may be the same as FMO’s or maybe not?) says:

“We are grateful for the opportunity to engage in these critical conversations as the Forest Service transitions to interim operations and prepares for restructuring. Building on our shared experiences in Washington, D.C. this past June and mindful of recent developments. including the appointment of Deputy Chief Lytle, we believe this is a pivotal moment to reconnect and contribute meaningfully to shaping the path forward.”

“President Trump’s Executive Order 14308 (June 2025) gave us renewed hope that federal fire organizations are moving toward greater unification and streamlining. The order emphasized empowering fire professionals with expanded authorities and enhanced tools to better serve the American public while more efficiently implementing our mission.

In alignment with this, Secretary’s Memorandum 1078-017 (September 2025) further directs the Forest Service to strengthen national wildfire management systems, streamline operations, and unify fire organizations. Two sections of this memorandum are especially critical to our shared priorities:

1. Restructuring of the internal wildland fire organization: Develop proposals to consolidate fire leadership that reports directly to, and is accountable to, a Forest Service Deputy Chief. Implementation of this revised structure is scheduled to begin by April 1, 2026.

2. Assessment and standardization of staffing and classifications: Evaluate wildland fire staffing, organization, position descriptions, and job classifications to ensure consistency, and develop recommendations for standardization across the agency. Implementation of these recommendations will also begin by April 1, 2026.”

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

“Engagement with the Fire Chiefs represented here is critical as the vast majority of fire employees are managed at the local unit, all emergency response, critical interactions with stakeholders, cooperators and customers take place at this level.

As fire professionals, we stand ready and available to provide on-the-ground feedback from the most complex U.S. Forest Service fire organization in the system, ensuring that organizational decisions are informed by operational realities. We look forward to further discussions and to supporting the Forest Service in achieving its goals for the future of the organization.”

I suspect that 2 won’t raise as much concern as 1.

Possibly because it’s not clear to me exactly how this would work. Certainly Law Enforcement is siloed, so there’s a precedent. I know there are many of us out there who don’t really understand ideas until we see how they might operate at a more granular level.

When we had the Retirees’ Reunion in Vail in 2012, I attended a session on fire- at the time retirees were concerned that line officers didn’t have enough experience to be delegated the wildfire authorities that came with the position. As I recall, in response to similar concerns, a mentoring program was established (I know TSW readers know more about all this than I do, so please correct or add in the comments). Since then, both pre- and post-Trump Admin there have been a host of new rangers and Supes with different kinds of experience. Even back in 2012, though, you could see that there wouldn’t be enough folks coming up with fire experience to staff all those line positions, so ultimately the same dog as the old days wouldn’t hunt.

Point being, in some sense, the idea of stovepiping would be a natural evolution in response to availability and quals of potential District Rangers and Forest Supervisors.

But if anyone out there signed or understands the intent of the letter, please explain to the rest of us..

1)What were the concerns specifically that led to the perceived need for stovepiping? Is it what I described above, or something else?
2) Under the stovepiping idea, how would fire suppression work differently? How would projects like prescribed fire or MT/PF combos be managed differently (if they would)?
3) What decisions would be made by FMO’s that are now made by line officers?
4) Who would an FMO report to? Given that there might not be Regions..

If you have other questions (or answers) please add in the comments. I will try to contact one of the authors of the letter and see if I can get answers. Again, people don’t work in a field and make statements like this without thinking it through.. so that info is out there somewhere.

With 1,000 Logs, Project Aims To Save The Nation’s Oldest Ranger Station: from Cowboy State Daily

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A riverbank improvement project West of Cody aims to save the country’s oldest ranger station from sliding into the North Fork river, while also helping Yellowstone cutthroat trout and bighorn sheep. (Courtesy: Trout Unlimited)
From the Cowboy State Daily..shout-out to the Shoshone and TU! The story is not paywalled.

Crews are dropping more than 1,000 logs along the banks of the North Fork of the Shoshone River in hopes of protecting the nation’s oldest ranger station. The massive floods of 2022 caused severe erosion and the Wapiti Ranger Station is in danger of falling in.

Oldest Ranger Station
A centerpiece of the project is the Wapiti Ranger Station. Built in 1903, it was the nation’s first U.S. Forest Service ranger station built with federal money.

The bulk of the material is 1,000 logs and 400 root wads, or huge chunks of fallen trees’ root structures. The timber was taken from the Greybull River Drainage and transported to the work site by WTL Logging of Meeteetse.

Planning for the project started in January 2023 and work began in earnest in November, along a roughly two-mile stretch of the river, alongside Highway 14/16/20, which runs between Cody and the East Gate of Yellowstone National Park.

…

Toward TU’s wider mission, the project should also improve habitat for prized native Yellowstone cutthroat trout.
Other fish species should benefit too, Swope said.
Two root wads are being placed with the “root fans” facing out into the river, she said.
“When the water hits the root fans, it will slow and create a deep-pool habitat,” she said.
Such pools are places where fish can rest and feed.
The area should also fill in with willows, cottonwoods and other “riparian vegetation,” Swope said.
“The goal is to create natural-looking log-jam structure along the banks,” she said.
Eventually, those should fill in with sediment from the river.
The trees and vegetation could provide food and shelter for white-tailed deer and moose.
“You don’t see many moose along the North Fork, maybe this will bring more of them there,” Swope said.
Bighorn sheep could benefit from better water sources in small, natural “pastures,” she said.
Those roadside pastures are a favored wintering ground for the sheep, she said.