Region Archives: United States

Scientists have confirmed that—a massive forest of quaking aspen trees in Utah known as Pando—is between 16,000 and 80,000 years old, solidifying its place among the planet’s most ancient organisms. The forest, whose Latin name means “I spread,” is a single living thing: one tree that has cloned itself tens of thousands of times. Spanning 42.6 hectares of Utah’s Fishlake National Forest, Pando consists of approximately 47,000 individual stems all connected by a single, vast root system. “Pando looks like a normal forest,” said William Ratcliff, an evolutionary biologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and co-author of the study. “But while the trees last only about 200 years, they continually regenerate from the root system, which kind of lives forever.” Pando has unique genetic makeup. The tree is triploid, meaning its cells contain three copies of each chromosome instead of the usual two.

SEATTLE — As candidate for Commissioner of Public Lands, Republican Jaime Hererra-Beutler has consistently asserted that, according to “the science,” it’s necessary to log our legacy forests to keep them from “burning up.” She asserts that “too many of our forests have been undermanaged or outright neglected, and they’ve turned into crowded, diseased tinderboxes, just waiting for a spark.” They’ve “fallen into disrepair,” she says, and need “cleaning up.” But is it true? Is there really a scientific consensus saying so? And what type of forest is she talking about? Washington is a big state. Legacy forests are identified only on the west side of the state and then only below 3,500 feet. There, you have to differentiate between forests that are naturally regenerated (legacy forests) and those already converted to timber plantations (managed plantations).

Tara Umphries

PORTLAND, Ore. — Tara Umphries, a seasoned professional with over two decades of experience in the U.S. Forest Service, has been appointed as the new Forest Supervisor for the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. Umphries, who has served as Acting Forest Supervisor since July 15, will officially take over the position on December 1, following her tenure in the Rocky Mountain Region as a Special Assistant to the Regional Forester, where she concentrated on Shared Stewardship and the Wildfire Crisis Strategy. …Umphries began her career in wildland fire in 2002 as a wildland firefighter, progressively advancing to key leadership roles, including Fuels Program Manager for the Willamette National Forest and Fire Planner for the Pacific Northwest’s Region 6. She also served as District Ranger on the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, where her work further solidified her reputation for partnership building and proactive fire management strategies. 

The western U.S. has a debt to pay, one that has been piling up interest for over a hundred years. “If there’s an accumulation of fuel, it’s due for a fire. It’s a fire debt,” said Danny Whatley, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. “If you don’t pay it this year, it’s due next year. And if you forego, it’s just a bigger debt every year you put it off.” Western forests want to burn. Decades of federal fire suppression policies aimed at extinguishing all blazes have allowed forests to grow dangerously dense creating conditions for wildfires to get out of control. Many of the estimated 99 million people living near overgrown forests are now coming to accept this wildfire paradox – that more fire is how they make payment and save the place they love.

DNA samples from one of the world’s largest and oldest plants — a quaking aspen tree (Populus tremuloides) in Utah called Pando — have helped researchers to determine its age and revealed clues about its evolutionary history. By sequencing hundreds of samples from the tree, researchers confirmed that Pando is between 16,000 and 80,000 years old, verifying previous suggestions that it is among the oldest organisms on Earth. They were also able to track patterns of genetic variation spread throughout the tree that offer clues about how it has adapted and evolved over the course of its lifetime. The findings were posted on the bioRxiv preprint server on 24 October.The work has not yet been peer reviewed.

PORT ANGELES — The Elwha Legacy Forest Coalition may not be the Lorax, but they still speak for the trees. On Tuesday, the state Board of Natural Resources (BNR), which oversees the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), will vote on whether to move forward with three timber sales, totaling 725 acres, that are fully or partially located within the Elwha River Watershed. To oppose these timber sales and their potential environmental impacts, organizations and citizens bonded together to form the Elwha Legacy Forest Coalition. …These forests in questions have been labelled “legacy” forests by advocates — mature, structurally complex forests that contain a breadth of diversity. …“Whenever and wherever we find it [old growth], it is permanently conserved,” said Duane Emmons, DNR assistant deputy supervisor for State Uplands. …If the sales are postponed or canceled, many junior taxing districts are worried about the loss of timber sale revenue.

Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop a plan to kill barred owls, which is part of a federal plan to save endangered spotted owls. Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington state challenging a plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to kill a maximum of 450,000 barred owls over the next 30 years. Northern spotted owl populations have been rapidly declining due in part to competition from invasive barred owls, which originate in the eastern United States. …USFWS said it worked for years on a plan that would remove less than one-half of 1% of the North American barred owl population. …“As wildlife professionals, we approached this issue carefully and did not come to this decision lightly,” USFWS Oregon State Supervisor Kessina Lee said in announcing the decision in August.