Dan Botkin on Earth Day 2013: How is Earth doing after 40 years of Earth Days?

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Dan Botkin at Three Forks, MT
Dan Botkin at Three Forks, MT

Somehow I missed this on Earth Day, but here it is…note what Dan Botkin says about “drowning in information” but “sometimes the most basic information has not been gathered.”

Here’s a link and below are excerpts:

This year we will celebrate Earth Day for the 43rd time. Where have we come in those years in dealing with the environment, and how has Earth’s environment fared? I have been an ecological scientist since 1965, five years before the first Earth day. Many improvements have taken place in how the major nations deal with the environment. People the world over are much more aware of the environment, but ironically, some of the ways people think about it have not changed. There are still major gaps, concerns, confusions, and misunderstandings about ecology and the environment.

On the positive side, today in the United States we have strong environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency was created, and all the federal agencies that deal with land and water have major programs for environmental protection and improvement. Most states too have environmental protection departments under a variety of names. Non-governmental organizations, most of them small and little known in 1970, have grown into billion dollar enterprises, taken seriously by governments.

So why is it that after all this progress we have difficulty solving so many environmental problems? And why is there so much controversy about them? How could something that seems basically a set of scientific questions have been politicized and made into ideologies, to the point that each side in the environmental debates views the other side as immoral and worse? Why can’t we just engineer our planet like we do airplanes, cell phones, televisions, and automobiles? Why can’t the planet run as steadily and smoothly as the spinning blades of a hydroturbine as it produces electricity from one of our major dams?

….

We have lost touch with nature in a direct, personal sense: many of us are no longer deeply aware of nature, alert with all our senses. Although the word “environment” may be on our lips daily, few of us have the deep connection to nature that moved Cicero two millennia ago. Without that, environmental issues become abstracted, appearing as just another special interest with a backing politician, like Al Gore, telling us what to believe and whom to disapprove of.

Yes, environmental issues are so popular and affect so much of our lives and economy that many spokesmen have come forward. But some of those who claim to know the truth about it have no training or experience about it. They are today’s snake oil salesmen, feeding us phrases that capture our attention on whichever environmental position they champion. As a result, we ignore many of the key issues we should be thinking about. At the moment, we are captured by climate change, our current morality play. Meanwhile, our forests and fisheries suffer from too little attention and care. Invasive species hitch rides on our commercial jets, but we ignore these dangerous traveling companions.

..

Perversely, although our information about nature has increased greatly, we hold on to the dominant fundamental myth that nature is perfect, fixed, constant, unchanging, except when we tinker with it. Our major laws and policies and even many of our scientific premises assume this constancy. Meanwhile, nature in all its forms—climate, oceans, forests, individual species—has gone on changing, has always changed.

In every environmental issue I have worked on, I have been shocked to discover that although we are drowning in environmental information, some of the most basic and essential information has never been gathered. For instance, the state of Oregon passed a special bill to fund a study of the relative effects of forestry on salmon. I was asked to direct it and quickly discovered that the basic facts we needed in order to answer the question were unknown. Of the 23 rivers we were asked to study, salmon had been counted on only two. The state did not have a map of its forests. Logging permits were given by counties, which did not record the logging methods, area to be cut, or any other information necessary for an ecological assessment. All the blame for the decline in salmon was attributed to human actions though salmon live in perhaps the most changeable series of environments of any animal.

…

Does this matter? Such mistakes cost big money and lead to endless political and ideological debates without solving problems. As the leader of an environmental group in Oregon told me, “When the government said they could manage salmon, we thought that meant we could manage to have salmon.”

Unless we deepen our personal connection with nature, unless we get away from the folktales that dominate our beliefs about nature, unless we get involved and monitor what is around us, we will continue to see each environmental issue as just another political special interest and not know how to judge what is said, nor care deeply about it.

Wise words from Dan.. IMHO.

The bottom line: contact nature, think about it, feel it; seek facts, not slogans; understand science’s methods, not the catchphrases of its pseudo-spokespersons.

GE Eucalyptus Petition by APHIS on Regulations.gov

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ArborGen_Transgenic_Hybrid_Eucalyptus_by_GIT_Forestry

Some readers have written asking for more east coast stories.. I ran into this while looking for comments on the Planning Rule Directives. This is a petition for non-regulated status for GE freeze-tolerant eucalyptus lines. This morning there were 475 comments received (and 0 for the Planning Directives).

You can read the docket as well as the public comments:
Here’s one I excerpted:

The US Forest Service opposes GE eucalyptus plantations due to their impact on ground water and streams. Many regions of the country have been plagued by droughts in recent years. Developing plantations of an invasive, water-greedy and fire-prone tree is foolhardy and dangerous.

The forests of the Southeast, which would be most impacted by GE trees, are some of the most biodiverse in the world.
They contain species found nowhere else. Species like the Louisiana Black Bear, the golden-cheeked warbler and the red-cockaded woodpecker are already endangered. Eucalyptus plantations could push these and other species over the edge. For these reasons, the Georgia Department of Wildlife opposes GE eucalyptus trees due to these impacts.
Please give this serious thought and do not approve GE trees!

Does anyone know where the FS position or letter is available?

What struck me about these comments is that they are mostly arguments against eucalyptus plantations, not genetically engineered eucs per se.. although conceivably if the engineering worked as advertised, you could plant them more places. It’s interesting that folks can convert to ag crops (perhaps hemp?) or loblolly plantation, or subdivisions, but eucalyptus?

Now if you go to a this site, they say:

Tree biotechnology company ArborGen is requesting an unprecedented USDA approval: “freeze tolerant” GMO Eucalyptus Trees to be grown in seven southeastern states, and possibly the Pacific Northwest. If approved, this will be the first GE forest tree to be commercially grown in the U.S. Paper and biofuel companies are planning on growing these trees on intensively managed monoculture tree plantations.

The problem with economically-motivated proposals like this is that they have no consideration or understanding of the natural systems at work in the world. If we upset nature’s balance, there will be consequences that were not taken into account in the short-term rush for profit.

Eucalyptus trees are not native to North America, are harmful to native wildlife, and they’ve already become invasive in California. Industry plans to plant millions of these GE eucalyptus in ecosystems and climates that have never supported eucalyptus in the past. Fragile ecosystems and a host of endangered plant and animal species could be threatened by such large scale GE eucalyptus plantations.

A couple of thoughts.. if you go here, you see the folks who have been working on plain old tree breeding for eucs (the hardy Eucalyptus discussion board). Note that planting non-GE eucs, like other tree species, is not regulated.

I wonder if “paper companies” are actually planning to do this. IP just announced that they are working with Dogwood Alliance.. it makes me wonder. TIMO’s and REITs seem to be fairly conservative, and no one wants to plant trees that wait a while and then die in some future winter. Maybe folks are getting concerned based on ArborGen’s marketing, rather than real world plans. Just wondering..

Spotted Owls & Ecological Integrity

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I was just getting ready to respond to Sharon’s public database idea (I’m all for it) and to the HRV modeling crowd (they are NOT historical ecologists — but that’s what is really needed) after checking my email, but came across the following news release first.

My pet peeves are the insistent references to “principles of ecological forestry” (which all of the agencies have apparently bought into, or been required to adopt, whatever they might be) and to the claim that these efforts are “science-driven” and represent the “latest science,” apparently based on “new scientific information.”

These are social value problems, and the scientists who need to be involved are cultural anthropologists and historical ecologists — both sadly underrepresented in the literature and in funding. Once common values and objectives can be established, then experienced resource managers need to become involved. So far, it looks like the whole thing is continuing to degenerate in closed door meetings at the hands of high-level bureaucrats, lawyers, and ivory tower theorists — not locals, and not skilled managers. And certainly not the public.

Have these “principles of ecological forestry” ever been independently peer reviewed, or is it just more in-house stuff? How did they change, given the recent influx of “new scientific information?” And — most importantly — where can American taxpayers review these documents?

Other thoughts?

NEWS RELEASE

U.S. Department of the Interior Contacts:
BLM, Jody Weil, (503) 808-6287
U.S. Department of Agriculture
USFWS, Jason Holm, (503) 231-2264
USFS, Larry Chambers, (202) 205-1005

For release: April 26, 2013

USFWS, BLM, USFS Leadership Travel to Pacific Northwest to Discuss Northern Spotted Owl Recovery, Forest Health

Washington, D.C.

As part of the Administration’s on-going commitment to improving forest health in the Pacific Northwest, recovering the northern spotted owl, and supporting sustainable economic opportunities for local communities, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe, Bureau of Land Management Principal Deputy Director Neil Kornze, and U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell this week travelled to California, Oregon and Washington to meet with employees from both the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Department of Agriculture in an effort to underscore what they see as an historic opportunity for forest ecosystem progress.

“In the past two years, the Service has used the principles of ecological forestry and the latest scientific information to revise and update the recovery plan and identify habitat essential to the survival and recovery of the spotted owl,” said USFWS Director Dan Ashe. “With all three agencies aligned around these principles, we have an historic opportunity to accelerate the protection and restoration of healthy forest ecosystems that will support owl recovery and sustainable timber supplies.”

The USFWS , BLM and USFS have been working together for two decades on recovery of the northern spotted owl, protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The four employee meetings held in Olympia, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Eugene, Oregon; and Redding, California provided an important opportunity for agency leaders to articulate a common vision and intent, and address questions from the people who will play a key role in achieving that vision. The visit emphasizes the importance that sustainable forest health plays in the social, cultural and economic viability of communities in the Pacific Northwest.

“Balance is the key to our success,” said BLM Principal Deputy Director Kornze. “We are
working collaboratively with our partners to develop a sustainable path forward and a long-term solution to the complex forest management challenges in western Oregon and throughout the Pacific Northwest.”

In December 2012, the USFWS finalized a science-driven proposal identifying lands in the Pacific Northwest that are essential to the survival and recovery of the northern spotted owl. The USFWS identified 9.29 million acres of critical habitat on Federal land and 291,570 acres on state land.

“Our National Forests in the Pacific Northwest are a great national treasure, not least for all of the values they provide to local communities,” USFS Chief Tidwell said. “We are working with partners and communities to apply the latest science in maintaining and restoring habitat for spotted owl and other wildlife.”

The agencies have worked closely in developing the revised critical habitat designation and recovery plan. The plan embraces active forest management by applying principles of ecological forestry to target and achieve forest health. This will allow forests within the range of the northern spotted owl to be managed for conservation of the species, ecosystem health and economic opportunities for local communities.

The BLM is revising its resource management plans for 2.5 million acres of forest lands across six BLM Districts in western Oregon in order to address new scientific information related to forest health, the USFWS’s recovery plan and proposed critical habitat designations for the northern spotted owl. The plans will supersede those completed in 1995.

Needed: Coalition for Public Access to Information on National Forests (AKA The People’s Database)

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FIA(formerly known as “the People’s Database”)

Volunteering for SAF gives me many opportunities for insight and opportunities to compare private and public forests, and regions of the country.

Recently, SAF signed on to an effort to get funding for FIA- forest inventory and analysis- which collects information about forests across the US. A couple of times I served on two “Blue Ribbon Panel” of users of the information who (excerpted from this):

The American Forest and Paper Association has organized two Blue Ribbon Panels (1991 and 1997) to review the national FIA program and provide recommendations to the Forest Service on needed changes to the content and capabilities of the program. The most recent panel recommended that the Forest Service should 1) elevate the priority of FIA in the Forest Service program, 2) convert the FIA program from a periodic inventory to an annual inventory, 3) fulfill the congressional mandate of reporting on all lands regardless of ownership, 4) concentrate on the core ecological and timber data, and 5) develop a strategic plan to implement the full FIA program.

FIA also has regular meetings with user groups to help guide their activities and generate support.

It seems to me that we are missing a group (Coalition) that can reach across different interest groups and ask for information that we might agree that we all need about National Forests. We don’t have an AF&PA to speak for us and get things started, so perhaps we have to organize ourselves.

We could ask the Chief to convene a panel of citizens representing different groups to ask 1) what information is important to be collected in a standard format across forests and regions? and 2) how best do we make that accessible to the public? For example, PALS has searches that internal folks can do but not external.. should it remain that way?

Stakeholders outside of the FS could lobby strongly for this information the same way that they lobby for FIA.

Some topics we’ve mentioned here are budgets and outputs, costs of environmental document developments, number of acres treated, etc., as in the “vegetation management” thread here and here. it seems to me that we could take advantage of having an Administration who promotes transparency to set such a framework of an advisory committee.

At first, I was thinking volunteers could find and enter the data, but then I thought “if the public wants this information, why doesn’t the agency just provide it?”. I’m sure that the agency could save some bucks by stopping collecting information on a variety of things that someone used to be interested in, and focus on things the public is currently interested in. The public could actually help the Forest Service prioritize information across silos, something that is problematic internally.

But we can’t ask poor Region 1 to do more work on their own.. when these are national forests, and data should be captured and made available consistently across regions. Besides, they appear to already be doing more work than some other regions, based on the GAO reports and Derek’s observations.

What do you think?

Warning: Fuzzy Concept in Regulation- “Ecological Integrity”- III- Deja Vu From 2000

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Thinking about the ecological integrity and NRV reminded me of my comments on the 2000 (yes!) planning rule. (Aren’t computer searches grand!)

Caveat: at this time of my career, I had not worked in planning or NEPA. Also I was working at OSTP at the White House when the 2000 rule was clearing, and OMB folks had some real concerns about the costs of doing the 2000 (I might have spoken with them to help clarify their concerns, but ultimately they were clearly told to stop being concerned).

Some have argued that this one (2012) has even more requirements for analysis and will hence be more expensive and time-consuming (despite intentions) than the 2000. I thought I had said that the pursuit of HRV seemed to be a “full employment program for historic vegetation ecologists”, but maybe not in this set of comments.

Here is a link to my comments.

Below are a couple of paragraphs..

4. Clear Conceptual Foundation

One of the basic concepts of land management is that while doing an activity anywhere (building a campground, using a road, fishing, cutting firewood, harvesting mushrooms) has some impact on the environment, there is a point at which the resource is being damaged, and at that level, the activity is not sustainable. Better scientific information tells us the many impacts of each activity and possible negative consequences. But somehow, someone has to draw the line between the social good of recreating, mushrooms or firewood, and potential damage to the resource that might result. Whether you call this sustainability, or something else, this is the same concept as what has been in place throughout the history of the FS. Our knowledge of effects is more sophisticated today, and the political climate is different than the heyday of timber management, but the concepts are the same. Balancing (a moving target, as conditions change) can occur through decisions at the national level (no OHV’s on national forests, for example) but in most cases, the actual effects of what people do vary by site, by elevation, by soil and by a host of other factors that cannot be summarized on a national level. That is why the local people and communities have an important role in determining that balance. If, on the other hand, like the FS’s sister agency the Park Service, the presumption is that people’s activities are generally negative and are to be kept to a minimum, then local knowledge and input is not as important. If Congress chooses the resource management philosophy, then special attention needs to be given to ensuring that local people’s balances are not overridden by outsiders, however well-intentioned, who are not familiar with the local situation. This is Congress’s prerogative, however, and not the FS’s choice to make. The tension between local and national interests is another real-life situation that must be considered in the design of the process. Like the role of an expert in a democracy, these are ongoing tensions in governance of this country, and natural resource management should acknowledge and reflect the legitimacy of these tensions.

One can read the whole history of “ecological sustainability”, “ecological integrity” and “range of historic variation” as a target, to reframe the debate so that scientists become the experts on what should be done. This gets away from the messy conflicts over policies, such as who wins and who loses. This does not build trust. “I don’t like OHV’s because they disrupt a species of wildlife on this watershed” is meaningful. “Roads disrupt ecological integrity” does not pack informational content and in effect obfuscates the terms of the tradeoffs or balancing of interests.

If “ecological sustainability” and pre-European North America are the targets, then the planning questions are “how quickly can we afford to shut down existing roads and campgrounds, and can we afford the law enforcement to lock people out of the NF’s? “ We will ignore fire threats and fuel buildup close to adjacent landowners because there were lots of massive fires prior to European settlement (although there were not enclaves of million dollar homes). Clearly then, there are parameters within which pre-European will guide FS thinking and others where it will not. No where is it clear in exactly what kinds of decisions the authors of the document think that this criterion will be relevant.

If the FS is to reestablish trust, I think a few things need to be in the regs and the regs are an important place to carry this out. First, the concepts, steps in the process, and decision space itself need to be so clear that any FS employee can explain them to any member of the public. Anyplace where ecological science expressions such as “functioning of ecosystems” occurs in the text, it needs to be translated so that the non-technical public can understand it. Everyone knows we’re not reintroducing grizzlies to the central Sierra, or closing ski areas, or replacing all exotic grasses with natives, so clearly there are distinctions and priorities. There is no reason they can’t be clearly stated, e.g. “water quality and quantity is #1 priority and while there were massive fires and sediment flows within the range of historic variation, we acknowledge that these levels of sediment are not desirable today.”

Warning: Fuzzy Concept in Regulation- “Ecological Integrity”- II

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So what is this “ecosystem integrity” that we are now requiring in the 2012 Planning Rule?

Just looking at it, we see the word “ecosystem” with a value word “integrity”. Could this be an expression of what Bob Lackey calls “normative science”? Sure enough, several papers have been written critiquing the concept. You can do the experiment yourself, just go to Google Scholar and search on ( “ecosystem integrity” critique) . Note: I am going to equate “ecological” and “ecosystem” integrity since they seem to be the same to most authors.

One paper I found is DeLeo and Levin (italics mine) 1997. Here’s the link

Pressure for adequate answers creates a need to devise conceptual tools, such as ecological integrity, to help scientists and resource mangers grasp the complexity of biological systems (Bernstein and Goldfarb 1995). The concept of integrity is far from a panacea for any management problem. Its definition simply reflects the capability of ecosystems, however defined, to support services, including pure aesthetics, that humans value. Ecosystem integrity is not an absolute, monolithic concept, but a multidimensional, scale- dependent abstraction; there is no unequivocal way to apply it in decision making. Measures of integrity must recognize the importance of maintaining processes that support those critical services.

What are the practical implications of these discussions? How should a manager implement notions of ecosystem integrity? The first step is to recognize that this is not the domain of the manager or of the scientist alone. Integrity reflects the ability of ecosystems to sustain services to humans, and the identification of those services can best emerge from multisector partnerships, in which all stakeholders seek agreement on the uses to which an ecosystem will be put, recognizing the linkages with other ecosystems. From such agreement on uses can come the identification of a set of measures that represent the status and trends of those services. A basic research question then arises: how to characterize the relationship between structural features of ecosystems (such as biodiversity or trophic linkages) and measures of functioning? This is an inchoate and nascent area of investigation, but one that holds tremendous potential for advancing the science of management (Daily 1997, Levin 1997, Levin and Ehrlich 1997).

Hmm. The people studying it say “there’s no unequivocal way to apply it”. Should we intentionally put it into a regulation? Isn’t this handing a court a can of worms? If it’s too difficult for us resource folks to figure out, do we just give our “inchoate” ideas to judges? I wonder whom this approach empowers and whom it disempowers.

Someone who has published often on natural resource disputes and science, Bob Lackey, has this to say in his “Seven Pillars of Ecosystem Management” here .

The terms ecological health and ecological integrity are widely used in scientific and political lexicon (Rapport, 1989; Costanza, et al., 1992; Norton, 1992; Grumbine, 1994). Politicians and many political advocates widely argue for managing ecosystems to achieve a “healthy” state or to maintain ecological “integrity.” By implication their opponents are relegated to managing for “sick” ecosystems.
Scientists often speak and write about monitoring the health of ecosystems, or perhaps the integrity of the ecosystem. There is usually the assumption that there is an intrinsic state of health or integrity and other, lesser states of health or integrity for any given ecosystem (Norton, 1992). Some scientists explicitly advocate ” . . . that maintaining ecosystem integrity should take precedence over any other management goal” (Grumbine, 1994).

Much of the general public seems to accept that there must be a technically defined healthy state similar to their personal human health. After all, people know how they feel when they are sick, and so, by extension, ecosystem sickness must be a similar condition, which should be avoided. “Health” is a powerful metaphor in the world of competing policy alternatives.

For example, society may wish to manage a watershed to maximize opportunities for viewing the greatest possible diversity of birds, for the greatest sustained yield of timber, or for the greatest sustained yield of agricultural products. Achieving each goal would almost assuredly result in ecosystems that were very different, but equally “healthy.”
The debate is really over defining the “desired” state of the ecosystem, and secondarily, managing the ecosystem to achieve the desired state. Phrased another way: What kind of garden does society want (Regier, 1993)? There is no intrinsic definition of health without a benchmark of the desired condition. In ecosystem management, scientists should avoid value-laden terms such as “degradation, sick, destroy, safe, exploitation, collapse, and crisis” unless they are accompanied with an explicit definition of what the desired condition of the ecosystem is as defined by society. The word “society,” as used here, includes only humans.
In philosophical terms, the problem with “health” is how one links “is” and “ought.” For example, an ecosystem has certain characteristics — these are facts on which all analysts who study the ecosystem should be able to agree. Characteristics such as species diversity, productivity, and carbon cycling are examples. If the same definitions and the same methods are used, all analysts should come to the same answer within the range of system and analytical variability. The “ought” must involve human judgement — it cannot be determined by scientific or technical analysis (Shrader-Frechette and McCoy, 1993). The concept of “health” has a compelling appeal, but it has no operational meaning unless it is defined in terms of the desired state of the ecosystem.

Again, the 2012 Planning Rule says that “plans should promote ecological integrity”, yet we learn from the literature that “ecological integrity” is a flawed concept.

So,we might ask, how does the planning rule define ecological integrity?
We find it in 219.19

“The quality or condition of an ecosystem when its dominant ecological characteristics (for example, composition, structure, function, connectivity, and species composition and diversity) occur within the natural range of variation and can withstand and recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental dynamics or human influence.”

I couldn’t find “natural range of variation” in the rule, which seems odd because plans need to promote integrity, you tell if something has integrity because it’s within NRV.. so NRV becomes pretty crucial.

Conveniently, it is now defined in the Directives, in the Zero code chapter.

Natural range of variation (NRV). Spatial and temporal variation in ecosystem characteristics under historic disturbance regimes during a reference period. The reference period considered should be sufficiently long to include the full range of variation produced by dominant natural disturbance regimes, often several centuries, for such disturbances as fire and flooding and should also include short-term variation and cycles in climate. “Natural range of variation” (NRV) is a term used synonymously with historic range of variation or range of natural variation. The NRV is a tool for assessing ecological integrity, and does not necessarily constitute a management target or desired condition. The NRV can help identify key structural, functional, compositional, and connectivity characteristics, for which plan components may be important for either maintenance or restoration of such ecological conditions.

OK, so let’s get the logic here.
Plans are required to “promote” ecosystem integrity in a regulation.
Ecosystem integrity is defined in the regulation as equal to (dominant characteristics within NRV) AND (resilient to disturbance)
Yet, being with NRV is “not a target”. But based on these definitions you can’t have EI without being within NRV. And EI is a target. If I (integrity) is a target and I= (NRV) AND (Resilience) then isn’t NRV also a target implicitly?

If I want cookies that have nuts AND chocolate chips, then aren’t I saying that they need to have nuts?

It makes my few remaining (after trying to read the directives) neurons melt. But as during the COS debate on whether ecological sustainability should be “primary”, I still don’t understand what it means in practice. During the selected historic period, you may not have had roads on the Angeles NF; you didn’t have jet aircraft flying over Weminuche Wilderness. So we just start deleting activities until we get to those of some chosen “historic period?” Is this what the public wants from its public lands?

Plus now we have climate change, so in many cases returning to HRV with any distribution of any species may be impossible. Why would we want to put into regulation impossible implicit or explicit targets?

2012 Forest Products by State Table

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timber table j_Page_2

Thanks to the folks at the Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory for this table! This shows that Georgia is the top timber-producing state in 2012 based on MCF of all products. But many things of interest are in here. Here is a link to the table. timber table

I was curious about the assertion that Oregon was the top timber-producing state.

Warning: Fuzzy Concept in Regulation- “Ecological Integrity”- I

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OK, well it's not exactly a warning about "faulty concepts" but it was the best I could find in the time available..
OK, well it’s not exactly a warning about “faulty concepts” but it was the best I could find in the time available..

It’s interesting that in procrastinating on working on reviewing the Planning Directives, I found and posted MUSYA. Let me quote it again here:

‘‘Multiple use’’ means: The management of all the various renewable surface resources of the national forests so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the needs of the American people; making the most judicious use of the land for some or all of these resources or related services over areas large enough to provide sufficient latitude for periodic adjustments in use to conform to changing needs and conditions; that some land will be used for less than all of the resources; and harmonious and coordinated management of the various resources, each with the other, without impairment of the productivity of the land, with consideration being given to the relative values of the various resources, and not necessarily the combination of uses that will give the greatest dollar return or the greatest unit output.
(b) ‘‘Sustained yield of the several products and services’’means the achievement and maintenance in perpetuity of a high-level annual or regular periodic output of the various renewable resources of the national forests without impairment of the productivity of the land.

This seems to be what Congress intended the purpose of the national forests to be. So far, they seem to have added other environmental laws (which as Andy says, are not in conflict) so we would think that the primary purpose still stands.

Well, in the 2012 planning regulations, section 219.1 b states that it is consistent with MUSYA, and then 219.1 c says that “the purpose of this part is to “guide the …land management plans that promote the ecological integrity of national forests and grasslands.” It goes on to say that lands will be managed to be “ecologically sustainable” and “contribute to” social and economic sustainability.

So it seems like we have made a regulation for implementing NFMA, that at first, seems contrary to MUSYA.

Here’s MUSYA “harmonious and coordinated management of the various resources, each with the
other, without impairment of the productivity of the land”

whereas in the new NFMA regulation the goal is to “promote the ecological integrity” and “ecological sustainability” is first and no “harmonious coordination” seems to be required.

So, for those of you who didn’t follow the Committee of Scientist dynamics.. remember Roger Sedjo, of Resources for the Future said this..in his dissent from the COS report in 1998 (15 years ago and the discussion seems to be .. rather .. stuck). Here’s the link.. worth taking a look at.

I believe that the Report recommends measures, specifically the preeminence of an ecological sustainability focus together with the stringent viability regulations, that would have the effect of having the National Forest System operating primarily as a biological reserve. These recommendations go well beyond the Secretary’s charge to the Committee, which “is to provide scientific and technical advice to the Secretary of Agriculture and to the Chief of the Forest Service on improvements that can be made in the National Forest System Land and Resource Management planning process” and that this be done “within the established framework of environmental laws and within the statutory mission of the Forest Service.” The Report, however, recommends what is clearly a new mission for the FS that is in conflict with much of the statutory mission of the FS.

In selecting the new mission the Report uses definitions of sustainability that are considerably more narrow than those commonly used, and indeed more narrow than those used by the US Government in its international negotiations on sustainable forestry in the Montreal Process and Santiago Declaration. Furthermore, the Report justifies the new sustainability mission for the FS with assertions to the effect that the NFS is in jeopardy, but these assertions are not supported by evidence. In fact, evidence available strongly supports the view that forest sustainability is not in jeopardy, generally, although area specific problems do exist.

Additionally, most fundamental defects in the forest planning process cannot be corrected by the changes recommended in this Report. The Report recognizes the difficulties of meaningful implementation of planning without a basic reform to allow the budget and planning processes to operate in concert. Additionally, under the current planning system problems are exacerbated by frequent disruptions of planning via administrative orders from above, which often render the process meaningless. Also, the Report acknowledges, but does little to address, the problem of endless appeals that has plagued the forest plans and the planning process. Without these and other fundamental reforms, the changes recommended in the planning process are unlikely to alleviate most of the more serious problems experienced with forest planning.

Well, I’ve run out of room. Tomorrow we’ll discuss the “ecological integrity” definition in the rule and how it’s carried forward into the directives.

New Study: Wildfires can burn hot without ruining soil

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Here’s a link to a short article (and video) about the new study, “Hot fire, cool soil,” with a brief excerpt below. The American Geophysical Union demanded that we remove a copy of the actual study, which they provided me earlier in the day, from our website….so I’ve done that.  Sorry folks.

When scientists torched an entire 22-acre watershed in Portugal in a recent experiment, their research yielded a counterintuitive result: Large, hot fires do not necessarily beget hot, scorched soil.

It’s well known that wildfires can leave surface soil burned and barren, which increases the risk of erosion and hinders a landscape’s ability to recover. But the scientists’ fiery test found that the hotter the fire—and the denser the vegetation feeding the flames—the less the underlying soil heated up, an inverse effect which runs contrary to previous studies and conventional wisdom.

Rather, the soil temperature was most affected by the fire’s speed, the direction of heat travel and the landscape’s initial moisture content.

And here’s the abstract:

Abstract

Wildfires greatly increase a landscape’s vulnerability to flooding and erosion events by removing vegetation and changing soils. Fire damage to soil increases with increasing soil temperature and, for fires where smoldering combustion is absent, the current understanding is that soil temperatures increase as fuel load and fire intensity increase. Here, however, we show that this understanding that is based on experiments under homogeneous conditions does not necessarily apply at the more relevant larger scale where soils, vegetation and fire characteristics are heterogeneous. In a catchment-scale fire experiment, soils were surprisingly cool where fuel load was high and fire was hot and, conversely, soils were hot where expected to be cooler. This indicates that the greatest fire damage to soil can occur where fuel load and fire intensity are low rather than high, and has important implications for management of fire-prone areas prior to, during and after fire events.

Tongass Timber Economics 101

by

Tongass
By Joseph R. Mehrkens (retired economist)

This paper is designed as a briefing paper.  Future revisions and additions will periodically occur.  It will be available on the Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community website.  It is the sole product of J.R. Mehrkens and is based primarily on Tongass information collected since 1977 and organized into a series of Excel Spreadsheets.

Introduction:  It is well known that the Tongass timber program is a real money loser.  The GAO (federal Government Accountability Office) found in the late 1990s that the Tongass timber program lost 80-94 cents on every dollar spent.  The loss is far worse today – especially with the new wrinkle where the Forest Service uses old-growth timber sale revenues to finance even greater money losing activities, e.g., stewardship/restoration contracts.  In essence, this means more old-growth is logged to ostensibly repair past old-growth logging and to create more potential restoration projects.

While forest restoration is a good goal, there are far superior ways to pay for it.  However, first it’s important to revisit some of the basic underlying issues of Tongass timber economics such as taxpayer losses, the steep decline in timber demand and the high costs for logging roads (the greatest contributor to taxpayer losses).

In economic analysis there are two primary tasks: (1) identifying the stream of costs and benefits over time to determine if benefits exceed costs, and (2) identifying who benefits from and who pays for the project.  To date all of the Tongass restoration projects (proposed or in-progress) have done neither.

Download the entire paper here.

NOTE: Joseph R. Mehrkens is a retired resource economist residing in Juneau, Alaska. He has B.S. in Forestry from the University of Minnesota and a M.S. in Forest Economics from Michigan State University. Since 1979 he has worked as an economist for the U.S. Forest Service, The Wilderness Society, the Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development and as a private consultant. Past work assignments include assessments of the timber trade between Alaska and the Pacific Rim countries, Congressional reports on the annual supply and demand for Southeast Alaska timber, lobbying for the passage of the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990, testifying before Congress on taxpayer subsidies for Tongass NF timber, and recommending changes to the President’s Budget for the Tongass NF for consideration by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.