Flathead NF wants to cut down 270 of the biggest, best larch for seeds

Forest activists at Montana’s Swan View Coalition are calling BS on the FS over the Flathead National Forest’s plans to cut down 270 of the biggest, genetically best western larch trees remaining on the forest in order to, get this, collect seed cones.  Yep, that right, while the federal government could put a man on the moon 43 years ago, apparently the only way to collect western larch cones in 2012 is to chop down large diameter western larch trees up to 28″ in diameter and up to 200 years old.

Of course, as the Swan View Coalition points out, the Forest Service in Oregon seems to have no problem collecting western larch cones through the use of a crane to easily and safely pick larch cones, while letting the big, old larch trees live to see another day…or another century or two.   Heck, the Forest Service even has this nice little slideshow showing larch cone collection on Oregon’s Ochoco National Forest.

You can learn more about this proposed project by visiting the Swan View Coalition’s website, where you’ll find links to the Flathead National Forest’s press release, as well as a copy of Swan View Coalition’s comment letter to the Forest Service.   SVC is encouraging people to send their own comments into the Flathead National Forest through email or by writing: Flathead National Forest, 650 Wolfpack Way, Kalispell, MT 59901.

Chief on Collaboration

Collaboration on forest restoration projects key to sustainability (Go here to see all the hyperlinks.)
Agency Chief testifies before House Committee on Agriculture

WASHINGTON, March 27, 2012 —In testimony on Capitol Hill today, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell emphasized the importance of collaboration in developing restoration projects on national forests and grasslands.

“The aim of these efforts is to move beyond the conflicts which have characterized forest policy in the past and toward a shared vision that allows environmentalists, forest industry, local communities, and other stakeholders to work collaboratively toward healthier forests and watersheds, safer communities and more vibrant local economies,” Tidwell said.

Tidwell emphasized that such collaboration not only results in better projects, but will also create jobs.

His remarks were made before the House Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy, and Forestry.

“The Forest Service recognizes the need for a strong forest industry to help accomplish forest restoration work,” Tidwell remarked. “Forest industry involvement also lowers the cost of restoration to the taxpayer by providing markets for forest products.”

Tidwell presented a list of programs already in place at the Forest Service that will enhance the restoration and management efforts on the nation’s forests and grasslands:

– Implementation of the new forest Planning Rule that emphasizes restoration, public involvement, and sustainable management to provide benefits and services both today and for future generations.

– Investing in restoration projects with partners though the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program. These projects have demonstrated that collaboration among stakeholders can facilitate large landscape scale restoration, thereby improving forest health, reducing wildfire risk, restoring fire-adapted ecosystems, and increasing timber and biomass production from the national forests.

– The Watershed Condition Framework which provides a consistent and comprehensive approach for classifying the condition of the 15,000 watersheds that comprise the National Forests and Grasslands and for prioritizing restoration needs.

– Integrated Resource Restoration which allows the agency to align its budgeting to focus on landscape scale restoration projects across resource areas and, with partners, combine the restorative focus of several line items into a single item.

– The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy which is a collaborative process with active involvement of all levels of government, non-governmental organizations and the public working for an all-lands solution to wildland fire management issues.

– The Forest Service bark beetle strategy which focuses management efforts on priority treatment areas to ensure human health and safety and to reduce hazardous fuel conditions on more than 17 million acres of National Forest System lands impacted by bark beetles.

– Use of stewardship contracting which allows the Forest Service to offset the value of the services received with the value of forest products removed. This authority is crucial to collaboratively restore landscapes at a reduced cost to the government.

– Expanding markets for forest products through the development of new markets for woody biomass utilization and green building materials by providing a reliable and predictable supply of biomass for potential investors.

– Research using new technologies and cutting-edge science to help better understand impacts of forest disturbance on natural and cultural resources.

– Use of a new objections process prior to a decision, rather than using an appeals process after a decision. The process tends to increase direct dialogue between the agency and stakeholders and often results in resolution of concerns before a decision is made.

– Improved efficiency of the National Environmental Policy Act process by learning from and sharing the lessons of successful implementation of streamlined NEPA analyses.
“Today, people understand that forests provide a broad range of values and benefits, including biodiversity, recreation, clean air and water, forest products, erosion control and soil renewal, and more. Our goal is to sustain and restore ecosystems that can deliver all the benefits that Americans want and need,” Tidwell concluded.

Lower North Fork Fire Started as Prescribed Burn

From ABC News, Denver:

How The Fire Started

On Tuesday, the Colorado State Forest Service admitted to 7NEWS that the Lower North Fork Fire started as a result of a prescribed burn it was conducting late last week. …

Last Wednesday, the Colorado Forest Service initiated a prescribed burn on Denver Water Board property. The purpose was to reduce woody fuel from past forest restoration activity.

Prescribed fires sometimes have unintended consequences, and sometimes the consequences are tragic. We all know this, but it proves useful to our extended conversation here at NCFP if we acknowledge it. Our forest management efforts play out in contexts that are quite wild, and we should be ever-mindful of that fact.

Fire Retardant Again- on the Lower North Fork Fire

Lower North Fork Fire. PHOTO COURTESY JEFFCO SHERIFF

Previously, I remember Andy saying that fire retardant doesn’t really work and only feds use it. So I have been keeping track of people who use it (when I hear about it). And of course, I hear about this fire, since evacuees are staying at my house. From Bob Berwyn here :

SUMMIT COUNTY — The Lower North Fork Fire has grown to 4,500 acres and claimed a second life, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff, which is posting its latest updates on an emergency blog and via Twitter.

The sheriff’s office confirmed the second fatality at 11:15 a.m. and also said that 16 structures have burned. As of 9:20 a.m. containment was still reported as zero, but officials said they’ve fire fighting strategy has changed from point protection to active fire suppression.

More real-time fire information is streaming via Twitter at the #LowerNorthForkFire hashtag, though the JeffCo sheriff is urging people to be cautious when retweeting posts from unofficial sources.

The fire is burning in grass, shrubs and downed pine needles, along with standing ponderosa pine forest. Heavy tree canopies combined with high temperatures and a lack of humidity are all contributing to the volatile conditions.

Hot Shot fire crews are on the way from Utah, Arizona and South Dakota and air support is also being mustered, with two National Guard helicopters en route from Buckley Air Force Base to do water drops.

As of 12 p.m., a Single Engine Air Tanker (SEAT) and a heavy P2V airplane started dropping fire retardant over the Lower North Fork Fire Zone.

Biscuit “Big Pine”

Here is a true scenic picture from the Biscuit Fire locale. This giant tree is rather famous, as John Muir, himself, marveled at the jaw-dropping majesty of such an ancient king of the forest. We measured the diameter, and one of the local District folks told us about the height. While the tree is “only” 86″ in diameter, the height is towering at 257 feet. Equally amazing is the surrounding Douglas-fir stand, with trees that aren’t really that old topping out at over 200 feet. This is in Big Pine campground, near the northeast flank of the Biscuit Fire.

Enjoy!

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Planning Rule- Missoulian

Opinions mixed on new U.S. Forest Service planning rule

Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/opinions-mixed-on-new-u-s-forest-service-planning-rule/article_6e1bbe7e-77c5-11e1-a7ae-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1qJtz8ntH

The U.S. Forest Service’s recently released planning rule could turn the agency into a more efficient decisionmaker or create a department of perpetual planning, depending on who you listen to.

“We are ready to start a new era of planning that takes less time, costs less money and provides stronger protections for our lands and water,” Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said in an email announcing the final version of the rule. “This new rule will bring 21st century thinking to a process that is sorely needed to protect and preserve our 193 million acres of amazing forests and grasslands.”

Critics have been equally expansive. Andy Stahl of the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics predicted the process “would die of its own weight.”

“Anyone who thinks this rule will make forest plans quicker to develop is naive,” Stahl said. “It requires more process than its predecessor. To somehow think it’s going to be quicker and able to anticipate the future better — we’re lousy at being able to anticipate the future. The Forest Service has become a planning agency, while the only thing it does is fight fires, which now consumes half its budget. And the irony is the one thing the forest planning rules don’t address is fire management.”

In the Forest Service way of doing business, the planning rule tells individual forest supervisors how to construct their forest plans. Those plans in turn guide what can be done, for example, in the Lolo National Forest around Missoula.

*****

A recent example in the news involved a proposed ski area below Lolo Peak. The developer wanted permission to lease Forest Service land above his private property. But the snowy basin contained a resource management area protecting some wildlife habitat. The Lolo forest plan said such areas aren’t suitable for recreation development.

Forest Service Region 1 spokesman Brandan Schulze said the new rule would require more public collaboration on how recreation or protection decisions are made in a future Lolo forest plan. That’s not to say ski areas or habitat sanctuaries would get preference at the rule-making level, but that the priorities would get set in a different way.

“Some of those designations may change based on what happened since the last time the plan was done (in 1982),” Schulze said. “The rule would guide how a new collaborative process would go forward. It’s much more working up front to building the plan, as opposed to building the plan and getting the public involved after or toward the middle.”

The new rule also requires national forests to protect watersheds and water supplies on national forests; balance multiple uses including recreation, timber-cutting, wildlife management and range use; get more people involved in outdoor recreation; and document the use of “best available science” in decisionmaking.

The rule also changes the way people fight the Forest Service. In the past, opponents of forest projects appealed a supervisor’s decision through an internal review, and then took the case to court if the outcome wasn’t satisfactory.

The new objection format requires more up-front participation by people or groups interested in a project. Those participants have the opportunity to object to a project in its planning stage and argue for changes. But those outside the process have much smaller openings to challenge a Forest Service decision, either internally or in court.

The rule has won commendations from many environmental and conservation groups, including the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Defenders of Wildlife, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club.

It’s also garnered a thumbs down from the Center for Biological Diversity, whose public lands campaign director Taylor McKinnon said it made species protection voluntary instead of necessary.

“The Forest Service today completed what it’s been trying to do for 12 years, which is to weaken wildlife protections and public accountability on our national forests,” McKinnon said in a statement. “These forests, owned by the American people, are vitally important habitat for hundreds of species now vulnerable to climate change — yet the Forest Service is weakening, rather than strengthening, the safety net that keeps them alive.”

Retired Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, a Missoula resident, said the rule was a much-needed advancement from its 1982 predecessor.

“Back in the 1980s, the Forest Service was sawing 12 billion board-feet of timber,” Bosworth said. “Today what the Forest Service is doing is focused on restoration. The rule needs to reflect the things the service is doing today.”

“There’s no question that the processes we’ve had in place have gotten so burdensome, it’s very difficult doing work on the ground,” Bosworth added. “A lot of money gets spent on planning. Spending seven or eight years to develop a 15-year forest plan doesn’t make sense. I’m sure there’s people on all sides who say this isn’t exactly what they want, but we need to move on.”

Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/opinions-mixed-on-new-u-s-forest-service-planning-rule/article_6e1bbe7e-77c5-11e1-a7ae-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1qJtJscBc

Note from Sharon:I appreciate that someone was quoted with a critique besides CBD. I’m with Dale, though, “I’m sure there’s people on all sides who say this isn’t exactly what they want, but we need to move on.”

Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit Department: Wildfires

My fun day at work included talking about which forests want to revise, the wisdom of working with BLM on broadscale assessments and other topics. Midafternoon I received a text message from the sheriff’s department telling me to evacuate, but it didn’t seem to know what subdivision I was in. After a full day of planning work, I stepped out of the office at 6:15 to a large smoke plume to the southwest and the smell of smoke.

I just received a note from a relative that they are getting out buckets and they are evacuating two miles away from their house. They ended up being evacuated and spending the night (a cat) at our house. The point of this post is that living in fire country is an experience that first, affects more than the people evacuated; it affects the broader community, and second, am perhaps cannot be adequately communicated to people in the wet West and to the east coast.

A poem..
Eyes watering red
Evacuated cat here
Must leave for work soon

On a mildly related subject, there is an interesting webinar tomorrow on this paper. Here’s the website of of the Joint Fire Science program in case these other links don’t work.

Sequoia National Forest Plan Set for Updating

The Sequoia suffers from many blockades to sensible forest management and protection. With the only mill within more than 100 miles away, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and being hamstrung by unreasonable diameters limits for harvestable timber, as well as having the Giant Sequoia National Monument to manage, they face a very long uphill battle to update their 24 year old Forest Plan.

http://www.recorderonline.com/news/usda-52174-plan-vilsack.html

Also opposing them is the Sierra Club, who continue to portray the Forest Service as loggers of ancient Giant Sequoias. They wish that all 300,000+ acres of the Giant Sequoia National Monument be free of all logging projects, despite there being only about 10,000 acres of already protected Giant Sequoia groves within the Monument. The McNally Fire nearly killed the world’s second largest tree, when it was allowed to burn for weeks. The Sierra Club is quite happy to let their followers think that the Forest Service will cut the sequoias down, and that clearcuts and the cutting  of big trees will happen. The Sierra Club wants the Monument to be “un-managed”, just like the adjacent Sequoia National Park. They also don’t realize that the Park Service doesn’t follow the same rules on prescribed fires that the Forest Service does. You cannot solely use prescribed fires to manage the fuels build-ups of 80 years, on hundreds of thousands of acres. Besides, the California Board of Air Resources don’t have enough burn days, when prescribed fires would be “in prescription”. The Park Service is well known for losing their management fires, which can be set during high temperatures and dry conditions.

This may be one of the most contentious new Forest Plans under the new Planning Rule. I wonder how much it will change when the only lumber mill in southern California goes bankrupt.

More Supportive Statements on Planning Rule

Here’s the link.
Broad Support for Final Planning Rule

Final rule to restore the nation’s forests through science and collaboration
WASHINGTON, Mar. 26, 2012 – On Friday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s final Planning Rule for America’s 193 million-acre National Forest System that includes stronger protections for forests, water, and wildlife while supporting the economic vitality of rural communities.

USDA and the Forest Service carefully considered more than a quarter million comments received on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement issued in February to develop today’s final rule, which emphasizes collaboration, sound science and protections for land, water and wildlife.

The final rule strengthens the role of public involvement and dialogue throughout the planning process. It also requires the use of the best available scientific information to inform decisions.

Praise for the rule and its collaborative development has been broad-based:

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, (D-NM), Chairman, Energy & Natural Resources Committee
“The new forest planning rule is good news for our National Forest watersheds, local economies and outdoor recreational opportunities. I’m pleased that the rule provides for more public engagement and lower costs for developing strong, collaborative and science-based land management plans. After many years and many attempts to reform the National Forest planning process, I believe this is a balanced and realistic approach for moving forward.”

Dale Bosworth, former Chief of the U.S. Forest Service
“This is the most collaborative Forest Service rulemaking I’ve ever seen. The Forest Service worked for over two years with the American public to develop a planning rule that will protect our natural resources, promote sustainable recreation and safeguard our precious drinking water, all while allowing for timber harvest and encouraging restoration. This new planning rule promotes collaboration and will continue to engage the American people throughout all stages of planning. The Forest Service can now move forward to implement a new planning rule for the benefit of future generations.”

Laura McCarthy, Senior Policy Advisor, The Nature Conservancy
“The Forest Service should be complimented for producing a much needed Final Forest Planning Rule. Healthy forests support the well-being of our nation, yet more than half of the national forests are operating with out-of-date plans. We are glad the Forest Service has come out with a Final Rule that will allow new plans to be developed more efficiently. It is time to roll up our sleeves and work with the agency to update these plans.”

Michael Goergen, Executive Vice President and CEO, Society of American Foresters
“The Forest Service is revising national forest plans using regulations developed in 1982 — before the development of the McIntosh or Windows. Each attempt to modernize those regulations has been litigated, usually by both environmental and development groups. The quality of the environment cannot possibly be enhanced by using outdated rules. The new rules should be given a chance to work.”

Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies

“We are pleased that the Forest Service can now begin to implement this modernized final planning rule. Through working closely and cooperatively with the respective state fish and wildlife agency, implementation of the rule will ensure sustainability of fish and wildlife resources consistent with the plan area habitat. It will also ensure that the plan area will contribute to landscape level conservation of fish, wildlife and their habitats. We support the Forest Service moving quickly to effectively implement the rule to meet these conservation objectives.”

And others you saw in the previous post.

Biscuit “Scenic” Pictures

This is an example of a “protected” nesting site for a northern spotted owl. It was never logged and will not be habitat for many decades, especially if a reburn occurs. It sure doesn’t look “natural and beneficial”, to me, OR the owls and goshawks.

Here are the kind of snags (the large orange-marked one) that were selected to be “saved”, within Biscuit cutting units. Of course, only 4% of the 500,000 acres of the Biscuit were salvaged, so there certainly is no lack of snags in the huge burn.

Here is a cutting unit where mortality was close to 100%, in unlogged old growth. Instead of thinning a green stand, we ended up “thinning” snags.

Here is some erosion, in a small gully. I wonder what the “cumulative impacts” of hundreds of similar gullies have upon salmon populations, and other aquatic organisms. Surely, some of these gullies experienced accelerated erosion in the 5+ years since I took this picture.

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