The Smokey Wire : National Forest News and Views

Here’s a Forest Service and public lands policy issue that has been in the news more and more: Wilderness and mountain bikes.

Personally, I own a mountain bike, but I wouldn’t consider myself a hard-core mountain biker. Then again, I’ve been known to use my mountain bike to haul deer and elk 12+ miles out of a U.S. Forest Service National Recreation Area from time to time.

I was also more than happy to put on my WildWest Institute hat and sign us onto this letter to Congress signed by a total of 116 conservation groups from around the country with one simple message: Please continue to keep bikes out of our protected Wilderness areas. Below is a press release from the organizations.

MISSOULA, MONTANA – This week 116 conservation organizations from across America have asked Congress to oppose attempts to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act and Wilderness protections by allowing bicycles in designated Wilderness.

“For over a half century, the Wilderness Act has protected wilderness areas designated by Congress from mechanization and mechanical transport, even if no motors were involved with such activities. This has meant, as Congress intended, that Wildernesses have been kept free from bicycles and other types of mechanization and mechanical transport,” the 116 organizations wrote Congress.

A copy of the letter to Congress signed by 116 conservation groups is here: http://bit.ly/1VFoL1U

The letter to Congress comes as some mountain bikers and a mountain biking organization – the Sustainable Trails Coalition – have announced the intention to have legislation introduced in Congress to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes in units of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

“These mountain bikers erroneously claim that mountain bikes were allowed in Wilderness until 1984, but then banned administratively by the U.S. Forest Service. This claim is simply not true,” pointed out the 116 conservation organizations.

“At a time when wilderness and wildlife are under increasing pressures from increasing populations, growing mechanization, and a rapidly changing climate, the last thing Wilderness needs is to be invaded by mountain bikes and other machines,” said George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch.

“Mountain bikes are exactly the kind of mechanical devices and mechanical transport that Congress intended to keep out of Wilderness in passing the Wilderness Act.  Mountain bikes have their place, but that place is not inside Wilderness areas,” explained Kevin Proescholdt, Conservation Director of Wilderness Watch.

“We believe that this protection has served our nation well, and that the ‘benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness’ would be forever lost by allowing mechanized transport in these areas. Please oppose attempts to weaken the Wilderness Act and wilderness protections by allowing bicycles in Wilderness,” the 116 organizations wrote Congress.

From the Bozeman (Montana) Daily Chronicle

Funding cuts begin to hit Forest Service

An op-ed from a New Jersey newspaper, by a NJ forester (and SAF member):

Modern management needed to keep our forests thriving

This does not involve federal land, but the The Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area, where the “forest stewardship plan has been subject to acrimonious debate.” The idea is to provide a diversity of forest structure and thus a diversity of wildlife habitat on the 3,500-acre WMA. The same argument made by Professors Franklin and Johnson regarding the need for “ecological forestry” in the PNW.

Read the comments below the article for opposing views and a link to a 36-page critique of the plan.

Both of these companies say a shortage of logs from federal land (in Oregon and Calif., respectively) is a main reason for closing:

Mary’s River Lumber Co. closes

Sierra Pacific Announces Permanent Closure of Arcata Sawmill; More than 100 Jobs Lost

But the demand for lumber will not change, of course, so lumber will come from other places.

Imagine that.

Read the full article from Jonathan Romeo at the Durango Herald here. Below are some interesting snips from the article.

The Forest Service has long maintained such timber sales benefit the health of the ecosystem as it transitions from an old-growth to new-growth forest, but research from the University of Montana, as well as several conservation groups, challenges that idea.

“These areas where beetles killed trees is a really important habitat, ecologically,” said Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project, a nonprofit group opposed to salvage logging.

“It sounds counterintuitive, but for wildlife species, those areas are a bonanza,” he said. “Science is telling us these habitats are every bit as important as the forest before the kill-off.”

An infestation begins when a female spruce beetle finds a weak tree and signals to more beetles to attack. The insects chew through the bark and then enter a layer of the tree where they lay eggs in a network of tunnels. The eggs hatch, the beetles grow up and fly away. Before leaving, the mature beetles spread a special fungus in the center of the tree that ultimately kills it.

But it’s what happens after that Hanson says is so important for the ecosystem.

After the beetle moves on, woodpeckers feed on the larvae left behind, which creates nest cavities in dead trees for other species – such as bluebirds, chickadees and even squirrels – who are unable to make the safe havens themselves.

Then come the wildflowers, which thrive on the exposed understory of the forest, typically covered in shade. Flies and other insects arrive to feed on the flowers, and in turn bring birds, bats and other small mammals, which attract larger predators.

“What you end up with is a very rich and biodiverse ecosystem,” Hanson said.

Clark University associate professor Dominik Kulakowski agreed. He said the result, a “snag forest,” is a favorable habitat for many invertebrates and vertebrates because of the creation of canopy gaps and enhanced growth of understory plants.

“Outbreaks create snags that may be used by various birds and mammals, including woodpeckers, owls, hawks, wrens, warblers, bats, squirrels, American marten and lynx,” Kulakowski said.

By removing the trees, you remove this process, both Hanson and Kulakowski said.

In her 2014 report for the University of Montana, entomologist Diana Six said the long-standing method of thinning and salvaging does little to reduce to risk of beetles spreading and forest fires.

Instead, underlying conditions – warmer temperatures and drought – are the main drivers of those threats by allowing longer seasons for beetles to thrive and weakening trees to fight infestation. What has resulted is the largest outbreak of beetle kill recorded in human history.

“During an outbreak, these treatments are doomed to failure,” Six told The Durango Herald. “If warm temperatures and drought are driving an outbreak, by cutting trees you can’t reduce the outbreak because it doesn’t change the conditions.”

Six said it’s human nature to want to do something to address the problem, so methods like logging gain traction. The forests look devastated, and our gut feeling is ‘My God this has been terrible,’” she said. “But if we step back and look at forest processes, sometimes just standing back and not doing anything might be the best approach.”

[The following is a press release from the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council.  No word yet if the Beaverhead Partnership ‘collaborators’ (ie Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Trout Unlimited, National Wildlife Federation and some timber mill owners) knew about this alleged secret clearcut logging that apparently was conducted without any public involvement or legally-required environmental analysis. – mk]

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council filed a lawsuit against Leann Marten, the Regional Forester of the Forest Service in Federal District Court in Missoula, after discovering a secret logging project, named Moosehorn Ditch Timber Sale, that logged an unknown number of acres of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest near Wisdom, MT, without any public involvement or legally-required environmental analysis.

“When I happened upon this, I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Dr. Sara Jane Johnson, Director of Native Ecosystems Council explained.  “I was visiting the area to monitor some aspen livestock fencing projects when I came across the massive clearcut. The area looked like it had been hit by a nuclear bomb.”

SEE PHOTOS HERE.

Dr. Johnson has a Ph.D. in wildlife biology from Montana State University and was a wildlife biologist for the Forest Service for 14 years.  “Lynx are listed as ‘protected’ under the Endangered Species Act and the Forest Service has documented at least seven lynx sightings within 15 miles of this clearcut.  Even the agency’s own studies show that logging destroys habitat for lynx,” Johnson continued. “Yet, despite clear legal requirements to consider the effects of logging projects on National Forest lands, the Forest Service arbitrarily decided to ignore the requirements of our nation’s environmental laws.  The only thing they did was give this secret clearcut a name, Moosehorn Ditch Timber Sale.”

“This logging is particularly egregious because of the numerous other sensitive species that have been sighted within a 15-mile radius of the timber sale,” Johnson explained. “Goshawks and a nest, wolverines, sage grouse and a lek, Northern Rockies fishers, gray wolves, black-backed woodpeckers, pileated woodpeckers, northern bog lemmings, Brewer’s sparrows, and great gray owls have all been documented in the area.”

“The shocking thing is to see what the Forest Service will do if they think no one is watching,” Johnson concluded. “It was just pure luck that we found this illegal timber sale.”

Apparently the Forest Service got so tired of losing court cases on their timber sales that they now are pretending that our nation’s laws don’t apply to them,” added Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.  “When we asked the Forest Service for a copy of the legally-required environmental analysis for this secret timber sale and documentation of how the public was involved, the agency responded that there was neither.”

“Fortunately for the American public, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act and the Endangered Species Act are still on the books,” Garrity continued. “We are a democracy and only Congress can change laws, not federal agencies.”

“Congress passed these laws because the Forest Service was destroying our public lands by putting clearcutting ahead of preserving habitat for biodiversity, preservation of species, hunting, fishing and the clean, vital watersheds national forests provide,” Garrity concluded. “Bureaucrats can’t just pretend laws don’t exist when they get in the way of clearcutting the National Forests that belong to all Americans.  In our nation everybody has to follow the law and that certainly includes the taxpayer-funded Forest Service.”

Copy of the complaint is here.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has announced it’s logging agreement with Plum Creek Timber Co (now Weyerhaeuser) on 111,740 acres of national forest land in Montana has been terminated after a Federal Court ruled the logging done by TNC on Forest Service lands was illegal.

The public was notified of this in the Flathead National Forest’s draft Decision Notice and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the Chilly James Project in Montana’s Swan Valley.  The Chilly James Draft Decision Notice stated that on January 5, 2016, The Nature Conservancy notified the Forest Service that their logging agreement with Plum Creek was terminated and that they have no future logging  plans on Montana Legacy acquisition lands.

Last summer, the federal district court in Montana reaffirmed and clarified its September 2014 ruling that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it approved logging procedures for 111,740 acres of newly-acquired national forest lands.  The Court’s ruling requires the Forest Service to halt logging until it complies with both the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act requirements to analyze “potential environmental effects, reasonable alternatives, and cumulative impacts on those lands” and “comply with the consultation requirements of Section 7 of the ESA with respect to those protected species affected on the lands.”

These so-called “Legacy Lands” in Montana’s Swan Valley were former Plum Creek Timber Co. lands which were purchased by the federal government and are now part of the national forest and subject to federal laws that protect the environment and threatened or endangered species.  These lands are critical habitat for grizzly bears, lynx, wolverine, bull trout, and a very rare plant called water howellia.

TNC bought these lands from Plum Creek Timber in 2008. A condition of the agreement called for TNC to sell Plum Creek Timber 92 million board feet of timber off its former lands over the next 10 years, a condition carried over even though the public then purchased the lands from TNC via a $250 million tax credit to TNC.

Four conservation groups Swan View Coalition, Friends of the Wild Swan, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council filed a lawsuit in 2013 in Federal District Court challenging the logging by The Nature Conservancy on these former Plum Creek lands.

“It’s good to know The Nature Conservancy won’t be logging any more of the few trees Plum Creek left on these lands,” said Keith Hammer, Chair of Swan View Coalition. “It’s time for the Forest Service to now turn the page and begin restoring these industrial lands to a more natural state by removing a substantial number of the logging roads that came with them.”

“Since the Agreed Operating Procedures between the Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy were deemed illegal by the court it is right and appropriate that the logging agreement is terminated,” said Arlene Montgomery of Friends of the Wild Swan. “This protects what’s left of the trees in riparian areas and old cutting units on these heavily logged and roaded lands and allows wildlife habitat to be restored.”

“The U.S. Forest Service authorized logging procedures and thousands of acres of clearcutting on these lands without any analysis of how the logging might affect and harm endangered species in the area,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.  “Of particular concern to local conservationists is the lynx, a rare forest cat that requires large expanses of unlogged area for survival.  The Swan Valley is one of the best potential habitats in the Lower 48 states for lynx, but lynx are declining in the area due to logging.”

“The bottom line,” Garrity concluded, “is very good news for the threatened and endangered species that call these lands home, since all commercial logging on these ‘Legacy Lands’ by The Nature Conservancy has stopped.  The American people paid $250 million for these lands.  The Nature Conservancy should not have been allowed to continue clearcutting land they no longer owned.”

BACKGROUND: Here’s some background information, first from the Fall 2014 newsletter of the Swan View Coalition and next a previous post from this blog.

As one of the many folks who attended a “listening session” last year, I’m on the mailing list. Just received this pre-assessment phase update. I give the USFS a lot of credit for inviting and considering input from the public. But the process takes SO long — the agency says it will be “approaching the Assessment phase of plan revision in late 2017 or early 2018.” If the pre-assessment phase takes almost 3 years, and if the assessment phase takes 3 more years, and then maybe there’s a plan revision phase that takes a few years…. This process may not be completed until 2025. 2030 anyone?

Joint R5 & R6 Forest Plan Revision Status within the Northwest Forest Plan Amendment Area

Status:

The Forest Service has evaluated what we heard from our partners and the public during the 19 listening sessions held last year as well as to other feedback received since then. We have several work groups in place that are designing an analytical framework and public engagement approach with the goal to provide regional consistency while fostering and maintaining local ownership. Regional and forest level specialists from both Regions are assigned to the work groups. This work is being completed in what is called the pre-assessment phase. The tasks done by these work groups will inform and support the first phase of the revision process called the Assessment phase. Based on lessons learned, the information collected during pre-assessment will also help us to better engage with the public and stakeholders as the 2012 Planning Rule describes. In late 2016 we will evaluate the integrated products that the work groups are developing. That evaluation will shape our next steps, with the aim of approaching the Assessment phase of plan revision in late 2017 or early 2018.

Key Points and Next Steps:

We are taking the necessary time to compile work group products and information in a thorough, thoughtful, consistent way to ensure success in the Assessment phase, in how we approach public engagement, and in the overall implementation of plan revision. Our current focus is completing pre-assessment work group products and the Northwest Forest Plan science synthesis being led by the Pacific Northwest Research Station and Pacific Southwest Research Station.

Ø We have not made a decision about the sequencing, i.e., order/combination of forests revising their plans, or the timing of the plan revision process. We will not make that decision until we have more and better information gleaned from our on-going pre-assessment work groups and engagement process.

Ø There is agreement that we must engage in:

• Building relationships both internally and externally,
• Developing a contemporary and relevant engagement and communications approach,
• Adopting the lessons learned from the early adopters,
• Finding appropriate and effective ways to engage with the public around priority issues that can be addressed in the pre-assessment phase of the 2012 Planning Rule.

Ø Here are initial topics that work groups are focused on:

• Aquatic Riparian Conservation Strategy, eastside old forest conditions, Species of Conservation Concern, socio and economic conditions/values-attitudes-beliefs, and sustainable recreation.

Ø   Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) topics will be informed by the Station-led science synthesis for the NWFP area.

Forest plan revision remains a high priority for both Regions. We believe this timeline and approach will allow the Regions to prepare for revisions in the most effective way while continuing our focus on restoration objectives, fire management, and employee safety and wellness.

For more information please visit:

Region 6: www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/landmanagement/?cid=stelprd3831710

Region 5: www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r5/landmanagement/planning/?cid=STELPRD3830167