Region Archives: United States

A group of environmental organizations has submitted a petition to the federal government to ban wolf killing by shooting from helicopters, calling the practice “barbaric.” The Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project and International Wildlife Coexistence Network in Tuesday news releases said they were prompted by Idaho’s Wolf Depredation Control Board’s October decision to approve the scope of proposed lethal wolf control plans at two Wood River Valley ranches. The proposals, which included plans for aerial gunning, were submitted by Trevor Walch, the owner of a predator control corporation, without the knowledge of the ranches involved. The petition, which cited the Idaho Statesman’s reporting on the decision, asks the U.S. Forest Service to prohibit aerial gunning on national forest land. The petition noted that five proposals submitted to the wolf board included control efforts in Idaho Fish and Game management units that overlap five of the seven national forests in Idaho.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon lawmakers reintroduced a bill that would create a partnership between the United States Forest Service and the Confederated Tribes of The Warm Springs to co-manage designated areas in the Mt. Hood National Forest. The Wy’east Tribal Resources Restoration Act would direct the United States Forest Service to work with the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs to create Treaty Resource Emphasis Zones that would be co-managed by the federal agency and the tribes. The bill would establish one of the first place-based co-management models in the nation. The legislation would create a co-management plan in the Mt. Hood National Forest that aims to “enhance Tribal Treaty resources and protect the Reservation from wildfire,” including a wildfire risk assessment and retaining large trees for historic forest structure and fire resiliency.

NEW MEXICO — Lawmakers will be asked to give $47.5M more during 2024 session to help replant New Mexico forests. Agencies and universities selected a site in Mora to host a new multimillion-dollar center to replant millions of trees across the state. A board in charge of siting the New Mexico Reforestation Center determined last week that the center will be built at the current John T. Harrington (JTH) Forestry Research Center in the northern New Mexico community. The center is jointly operated by an agreement between the state’s forestry agency and three universities: New Mexico State University, New Mexico Highlands University and the University of New Mexico. …The program has $8.5 million to spend on land and engineering fees for the new center, which was appropriated by state lawmakers during the 2023 session. The New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department oversees the forestry division. 

PORT ANGELES, Washington — Wood products and managed forests are necessary for climate mitigation, a 20-year forest management researcher told the Clallam County commissioners. Dr. Edie Sonne Hall of Three Trees Consulting in Seattle gave a presentation on the role of forest management in climate mitigation. She was invited by Commissioner Randy Johnson. …Hall said 74% of annual resource extraction is of non-renewable resources. Since 1970, the Earth’s population has doubled while global extraction of materials has more than tripled and is expected to double again by 2050, she said. Hall has a Ph.D. in forestry from the University of Washington, where she specialized in forest carbon accounting and life cycle assessment. …Several wood products could replace existing fossil fuel-based materials, Hall said, giving the following examples: Engineered wood… Wood foam… Textiles made from wood pulp… Bioplastics made from pulp byproducts… and Composites made from wood chips. 

CALIFORNIA — The National Park Service wants to replant sequoia groves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, where wildfires in 2020 and 2021 inflicted lasting damage on the iconic sequoia forests. Environmentalists in California say it’s a huge mistake. Four groups filed suit against the NPS on November 17, saying the agency’s effort violates the law as it includes planting in designated wilderness areas, where human involvement in the ecosystem is explicitly prohibited. The NPS announced the seedling-planting project earlier this fall, saying it was “concerned that natural regeneration may not be sufficient to support self-sustaining groves into the future, particularly as the fires killed an unprecedented number of reproductive sequoia trees in the groves themselves.” …Chad Hanson, the director of the John Muir Project, said “Nature doesn’t need our help”. “We are not supposed to be getting involved with tending it like a garden.”

A forest modeling study has revealed important insights into how harvest rotations can be optimized for maximum carbon sequestration, a critical factor in the fight against climate change. The study was led by Catherine Carlisle as a graduate student, alongside Temesgen Hailemariam and Stephen Fitzgerald from the OSU College of Forestry. The researchers determined that a site’s productivity, reflecting the rate of tree growth and biomass accumulation, is a key determinant in establishing the ideal time period between timber harvests for maximizing above-ground carbon storage. …The researchers utilized the Forest Vegetation Simulator, a software suite, to predict vegetation changes in response to different management activities or natural disturbances. …The study revealed that for highly productive stands, 60-year rotations with a low-intensity thinning at 40 years maximized carbon storage.

Anusha Mathur’s Nov. 1 Flathead Beacon essay [The Yaak Valley is Ground Zero for Montana’s Environmental Future] was a jarring reminder that the timber wars of the 1980s are still with us. The interchangeable anti-forestry narratives haven’t changed much since 1985: the old growth is almost gone, save charismatic megafauna, save endangered species, stop clearcutting, loggers are logging without laws and, more recently, climate change is real, climate deniers are wrong, the science is settled and where is the climate justice? The Yaak Valley is one of many ground zeros is the long running and exceptionally well-funded political war to end all forms of science-based management on public forestlands in the United States. Who provided the airplane that flew Mathur over the Kootenai National Forest? …There is an entirely different narrative that could have gone with the Yaak Valley flight. Had I been in charge … those on board could have also spent some time on the ground.

OREGON — Deep inside a forest in Oregon’s Willamette Valley stands a dead “Tree of Life.” Its foliage, normally soft and green, is tough and brown or missing altogether. Nonetheless, the tree’s reddish bark identify it as the iconic western red cedar. Christine Buhl, a forest health specialist for the Oregon Department of Forestry,  extracts sample of the tree’s inner growth rings. The rings become thinner over time, indicating the tree’s growth slowed before the tree finally died, a sign that this red cedar, like thousands of others in Oregon and Washington, died from drought. …Last year, Buhl and colleagues reported that red cedars were dying throughout the tree’s growing range not because of a fungus or insect attack, but due to the region’s “climate change-induced drought.” Red cedars aren’t alone… at least 15 native Pacific Northwest tree species have experienced growth declines and die-offs.