Community Sourced, Shared and Supported
I ran across this from Bob Berwyn the other day..below is an excerpt. Here are a couple of thoughts from me.
First, according to DellaSalla (not really an objective person, but…) “proposed logging on the Klamath National Forest across 40,000 acres could adversely impact 70 spotted owl activity centers.” Yet info I have from people working in the woods in Oregon suggests that there are many, many protections in pace for actual activity centers. So how would that actually work? Are the protections not thought to be effective in some specific way by DellaSalla?
Second, in my opinion, because a species is outcompeted does not mean that the “older forests” are in danger.. they are just one species. You could argue that the American Chestnut was certainly more of a “flagship species” and more important to a variety of species, and the Appalachian forests are still going strong.. they are just different.
Third, if we follow “habitat loss” as being always a problem, regardless of the importance of other factors, then should Oregon put a moratorium on any housebuilding or other forms of loss? Or is it only timber sales? (this reminds me a bit of Indiana bat). My concern is just about the logic and utility of, if something difficult to stop is the problem (say a disease, or a competitor), stopping everything else just because you can stop the other things. It seems to me like the policy equivalent of the “streetlight effect.”
Fourth, and relating to the title of this post, it seems to me that the NW Forest Plan was a great experiment (by “great” I mean with extremely significant impacts over broad acreages, not necessarily successful in terms of meeting any specific stated objectives) and if the fire folks can do “lessons learned” on fires that clearly impact folks and ecosystems less than the NW Forest Plan, shouldn’t someone do it on this effort?
We could get public involvement on the questions to ask. Some that have occurred to me are: could we have predicted the barred owl? Why did we think habitat management would take care of the owl when clearly it hasn’t?
Was the degree of monitoring necessary? Could it have been done at lower cost?
How much are the Feds and State (all branches) spending on: monitoring, studying, shooting barred owls? Could these efforts be better coordinated across agencies and the level of info improved? What info do we really need today, given all that we have learned?
Could the Plan in general have met more of the objectives at a lower social and economic cost? Could it have been more successful biologically?
When the President was there, it seemed like there was political compromise and interaction with the public and elected officials. How did that interact with the history since and the use of ESA as a policy instrument?
What about the whole interagency management group? How much money did that cost? If coordinating among agencies was successful there, is it a model that should be replicated?
Maybe all of this is known, and of course, I haven’t been watching it very closely as I haven’t been working in the NW for a while. But it seems like something that deserves some serious formal attention.
According to the USFWS, the two main threats to the survival of the northern spotted owl are habitat loss and competition from barred owls. Barred owls have spread westward, encroaching on spotted owl territories and out-competing them.
Conservation advocates said the USFWS must acknowledge the role of habitat loss as a key factor in the continued decline of the species.
“The spotted owl is a flagship species that symbolizes the plight of older forests in the Pacific Northwest,” said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist with the Geos Institute. “The owl and older forests share a common plight, each hanging on to what little remains under the auspices of the Northwest Forest Plan,” said DellaSala, who was on the US Fish & Wildlife Service recovery team for the owl from 2006-2008.
The old-growth forests of the region, stretching from California’s redwoods to the Olympic Peninsula’s majestic spruce-hemlock forests, are critical for other imperiled species, including the marbled murrelet, Pacific fisher, red-tree vole (southern Oregon coast), as well as Pacific salmon runs. Today only about 20 percent of these ancient forests remain, primarily on federal lands.
“Tthe best way to save the spotted owl and hundreds of species that depend on similar old forest habitat is to protect more habitat from logging so spotted owls can eventually co-exist with invading barred owls.”
The Northwest Forest Plan has helped reduce habitat loss on federal lands since 1994, but the threat from barred owls has intensified. Preliminary results from an experiment testing the effects of removing barred owls from select areas of northern spotted owl habitat show promise in benefitting northern spotted owls and will help inform this review.
“The best tools we have to prevent spotted owls from going extinct are continued habitat protection and barred owl management, both of which are recommended in the recovery plan,” said Paul Henson, Oregon supervisor for the USFWS.
“On a positive note, the experimental removal of barred owls is showing real promise, with early reports indicating that spotted owl populations rebound when barred owl populations are reduced. Our review of the spotted owl will tell us whether current efforts to address threats are sufficient.”
According to DellaSala, federal agencies may actually be hindering the recovery of the spotted owl by permitting more logging activities in the region.
For example, proposed logging on the Klamath National Forest across 40,000 acres could adversely impact 70 spotted owl activity centers.
Agency press release from yesterday….
Release No. 0087.15
Contact:
Office of Communications (202)720-4623
WASHINGTON, April 7, 2015 — The U.S. Forest Service announced today that 1.45 million acres of America’s forests and watersheds – an area larger than Delaware – are healthier as a result of collaborative partnerships to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
Authorized for 10 years through the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act, the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) was created to emphasize partnerships between government and local forest workers, sawmill owners, conservationists, businesses, sportsmen, outdoor recreationists and others to improve forest health and promote the well-being of local communities.
“Collaboration is working. CFLRP demonstrates that we can bring together forest industry, environmentalists, local communities and others to produce healthier forests while producing a sustainable timber supply for local mills,” said Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Robert Bonnie. “This long-term investment gives our partners the confidence to fully engage in restoration activities. The collaboratives expand Forest Service resources – generating over $76.1 million in matching funding from partners in the past five years, and with continued support we expect this number to grow over the next five years.”
“The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program is a groundbreaking approach to improving our nation’s forests, making communities safer and bolstering local economies,” said Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “The Forest Service is anchoring projects across the country with more than 200 local partners to restore our forests and support our local economies.”
Since 2010, the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program has brought local communities and timber companies together to improve forests conditions across 23 high-priority project sites, from Florida, to Missouri, to Washington State and places in-between. The coordination with local partner organizations is essential to getting substantial work done.
The program’s restoration activities have resulted in part:
Under Secretary Bonnie said the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program is improving the health of forests and rural communities by exceeding five-year targets for production of forest products. The Forest Service set a five-year goal for CFLRP projects of 1 billion board feet of timber sold and has exceeded that by nearly 25 percent.
“The restoration challenge is significant. We are making a difference in the forests and in surrounding communities,” said Chief Tidwell.
“This program demonstrates the value the Forest Service places on collaboration and on-the-ground achievements,” said Steering Committee member Dylan Kruse of Sustainable Northwest. “The last five years have proven that listening to diverse interests and providing smart investments pays off for measurable improvements across the landscape.”
More information on the five-year report and links to project factsheets can be found athttp://www.fs.fed.us/restoration/CFLRP/index.shtml.
The mission of the Forest Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.
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A commentary in the form of an article in High Country News:
Will the Northwest Forest Plan come undone?
The Forest Service and BLM embark on revising the iconic plan and may allow more logging.
Excerpt:
“On a March evening in Portland, Oregon, Forest Service officials met with about 150 members of the public for a “listening session” as the agency begins the process of crafting a replacement for the plan. It expects to finish that work by 2019.
“Many of those in attendance at the Portland session were members of the environmental group Bark, which insists that the current plan is allowing too many trees to be cut down, especially near rivers. Conspicuously absent from the meeting were the timber workers. The scene was a major contrast to the 1993 Clinton summit, when workers protested the loss of timber jobs by loudly rolling big log trucks through downtown Portland.”
Too many trees to be cut down, especially near rivers? Where? I haven’t seen any trees cut along rivers on USFS ground in a long time.
I agree that the USFS ought to hold listening sessions in rural areas, rather than near airports in Portland, Redding, and Seattle.
Thanks to Bob Berwyn for this interesting post! here is a link to it and below is an excerpt.
“This amount of warming could be the difference between pests surviving in areas that were historically unfavorable and could permit more severe and prolonged pest outbreaks in regions where historical outbreaks were halted by more frequent cold bouts,” said Aaron Weed, a former postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth and now an ecologist with the National Park Service.
Despite the trend for warming winters across western U.S. forests, not all beetle populations between 1997 and 2010 have responded to winter warming. In the 11 coldest ecoregions, winter temperatures lethal to the mountain pine beetle have become less frequent since the 1980s and beetle-caused tree mortality has increased significantly in these regions.
But in the 12 warmer ecoregions, recent beetle epidemics cannot be attributed to warming winters because earlier winters were rarely cold enough to kill the beetles.
Although winter warming has been occurring across the western United States for decades, it has only permitted mountain pine beetle outbreaks in regions where winters historically killed more than 50 percent of the beetles — primarily in the Middle Rockies (Idaho, Montana and Wyoming), the Blue Mountains in eastern Oregon and northern Colorado. In these regions, winter temperatures during the 1980s were more likely than in recent years to drop below the lower lethal temperatures for mountain pine beetles.
But in coastal and southern regions, winters dating back to 1980 were never cold enough to cause substantial beetle mortality. However, these warmer regions are undergoing sustained and, in some forests, increasing impacts from beetles.
Forest managers need to consider other factors, including forestry practices that have influenced forest composition, the study concluded.
Here is the link to the study in Landscape Ecology.
Of course, may of us thought the situation (not exactly a forestry practice since our public western forests aren’t really managed forests) that leads to “lots of contiguous old lodgepole” could be a factor, at least with MPB.
Thanks, HCN! Here’s the link. My favorite is the last sentence..
Citing budgetary shortfalls, federal agencies announced Wednesday that they had auctioned off naming rights to over 100 million acres of public lands, effective immediately.
In a joint press release, the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service said that hundreds of iconic parcels will now bear the monikers of major corporations. “We’re pleased to collaborate with our private partners in stewarding our nation’s public lands,” states the release. “It gives us great pleasure to know that future generations of Americans will be able to raft down the Grand PepsiCo Canyon, hike across the Anheuser-Busch Badlands, and gaze upon the transcendent peaks of North Cascades Presented by Citibank.”
A photo illustration shows the Nike swoosh engraved on Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
Photo Illustration by Brooke Warren, Photo by Daniel Parks/CC FlickrThe naming rights sale comes on the heels of fiscal struggles for federal land agencies. The National Park Service’s budget has been cut by $190 million compared to four years ago, and its maintenance backlog has ballooned to over $11 billion. Meanwhile, the Forest Service’s backlog is almost $5 billion, and over 40 percent of the agency’s budget goes toward fighting increasingly frequent and intense wildfires, leaving little money for other purposes.
“Our budgetary situation is approaching a state of crisis,” said Forest Service spokesman Alice Offerman. “Which is why we’re so excited about Valero Valles Caldera and Kinder Morgan Kootenai.” Adds the release: “This new source of revenue will allow us to undertake essential management activities such as trails maintenance, scientific research, and the purchase of military-grade weapons for standoffs with heavily armed Bundy acolytes.”
Not only did corporations purchase naming rights to entire tracts of land, they were also able to buy rights to individual landscape features. In Utah, the graceful curve of weathered sandstone that adorns state license plates will hereafter be known as McDonald’s Delicate Golden Arch. Further north, tourists in America’s first national park will be treated to the reliable eruptions of the Levitra Old Faithful geyser.
Ben Goldfarb April 1, 2015 Web Exclusive
A reader asked these questions and I did not know the answers..
1. when the FS loses a case, it pays EAJA fees sometimes why and not other times?
Where can a record of these be found?
2. When the plaintiffs lose must they pay legal costs to the Forest Service?
How does the FS determine this?
Where can a record of these be found?
Thanks to any who can answer… here is the news of the week. note that Big Thorne has been appealed.
Forest Management │Region 10
District Court Upholds the 2008 Amended Forest Plan and the Big Thorne Project on the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska Conservation Council v. USFS. On March 20, 2015, the United States Court for the District of Alaska ruled in favor of the Forest Service in plaintiffs, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Alaska Wilderness League, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community, Greenpeace, and the Boat Company’s challenge to the Big Thorne Project and the 2008 Amended Tongass National Forest Plan. The court found that: (1) the Forest Service conducted a reasonable assessment of timber market demand (plaintiffs alleged that the Forest Service acted arbitrarily when it relied on outdated projections of timber demand in evaluating the need for the project); (2) the Forest Service did not violate NEPA with regard to wolf population information in its SIR because incomplete and missing current wolf population estimates were identified and explained as to why the information was not considered essential to making a reasoned choice among alternatives; (3) the Forest Service considered the ability to provide sufficient deer habitat to meet both the viability and sustainability of wolf populations, and where that sustainability was not presently possible, appropriately exercised its discretion (plaintiffs argued that the Forest Service violated NFMA by providing an arbitrary explanation on how Big Thorne is consistent with the 2008 Forest Plan with regard to deer habitat); (4) the Forest Service sufficiently disclosed the Project’s impact to wolf populations, specifically that the Forest Service did address differing scientific opinions (plaintiffs claimed that the Forest Service violated NEPA for failure to do so); (5) an SEIS was not required because the Forest Service’s use of a SIR; and (6) that the 2008 Forest Plan did not violate NEPA or NFMA with regard to sustainable wolf populations. (14-00013, D. Ak.)
Update: Plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal of the District Court’s decision on March 26, 2015.
2. Lands │Region 2
District Court Rules in Favor of the Forest Service in Lands Dispute on the San Juan National Forest in USA v. St. Clair. On March 26, 2015, the United States Court for the District of Colorado found that the United States is the owner of a disputed piece of property considered to comprise a portion of the San Juan National Forest. (11-02857, D. Colo.)
Litigation Update
1. NOI │Region 6
NOI Filed Regarding Grazing on the Malheur National Forest. On March 6, 2015, Oregon Natural Desert Association sent an NOI alleging impacts from grazing on the Malheur National Forest in violation of sections 7 and 9 of the ESA (failure to reinitiate consultation and exceeding the amount of incidental take) with regard to bull trout.
20150320OrderSoutheastAlaskaConservationCouncil_v_USFS_BigThorne
20150323NOI_ONDA_MalheurGrazing
20150326OrderUSA_v_StClair_LandsDispute2015_03_30 NFS Litigation Weekly(1)
You may remember this
project from this post, in which I asked for volunteers to learn about it. No one ever volunteered, but here we are. The project apparently treats 1100 acres in the 40K acre project area.
I still think it would be better policy if we had an open dialogue with folks like AWR about why AWR thought there were lynx and why they thought the project would hurt them with the rest of us able to read the FS documents and chime in. It would have been interesting and a learning experience for everyone. Wouldn’t it be interesting if there were a policy experiment that before any (fuels treatment?) project (less than 2000 acres?), future plaintiffs were required to engage in a public discussion about their claims? It seems like it would be a more open and transparent process… and at the end of the day the lawsuit could still be brought so no legal rights would be violated (as far as I can tell.)
Here’s the link to the Great Falls Tribune article:
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris has sided with Lewis and Clark National Forest in a lawsuit brought by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies to block a forest logging/prescribed fire project in the Little Belt Mountains to address aging stands of timber.
The Alliance alleged in the February 2014 lawsuit that the forest violated the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act when it approved the Blankenship Vegetation Treatment Project.
The lawsuit said the Forest Service’s finding of “no adverse effects” for lynx was flawed.
The Forest Service said it is possible lynx move through the area, but the habitat isn’t considered occupied.
In a decision Monday, the judge ruled in favor of the forest’s motion for summary judgment, finding the agency had complied with the law on each of the seven points raised in the lawsuit.
The court’s decision notes that “summary judgment is appropriate if no genuine issues of material fact exist and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
“This is one of those projects that has taken a couple of years and has consumed hundreds of hours of staff time to move through the appeal and litigation process,” Forest Supervisor Bill Avey said in a news release. “The court’s decision validates the hard work that those employees did to get the project to this point and now we look forward to restoring resource conditions and improving public safety by getting to work out on the ground.”
The project area encompasses about 40,700 acres in the Dry Fork of Belt Creek Drainage of the Little Belt Mountains. Within that area, roughly 1,100 acres would be treated using a mix of commercial harvesting, pre-burn slashing and thinning and prescribed fire.
The Dry Fork of Belt Creek is a popular forest recreation area and is considered to be at high risk of wildfire due to the current vegetative conditions including mortality from the mountain pine beetle, lack of defensible space adjacent to private land inholdings, and natural fuel conditions that could result in large scale wildfire, according to the Forest Service.
This article, “Federal Land Management Not a Good Deal for Americans,” has a link to a study that comes to that conclusion.
“The states examined in this study earn an average of $14.51 for every dollar spent on state trust land management. The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management generate only 73 cents in return for every dollar spent on federal land management.”
