Region Archives: US West

Don Brunell

As climate change concerns grow, researchers are turning to family tree farmers for assistance. …The American Tree Farm program has emphasized sustainability and managing lands for water quality, wildlife, wood, and recreation. In recent years, it has included climate change. According to the American Forest Foundation, families and individuals collectively care for the largest portion of forests in the U.S., more than the government or corporations and an area larger than California and Texas combined. …Well-managed working forests improve the environment by absorbing carbon dioxide — the primary greenhouse gas —and discharging oxygen. That CO2 is locked in the trees and surrounding soil — a so-called “carbon sink.” Researchers have found that younger, faster growing trees and trees in thinned forests metabolize CO2 rapidly. …What is needed is fair and workable federal, state, and local laws and regulations by which they are governed — and reasonable and affordable taxes and permit fees.

A 2023 University of Idaho study found that the forest products business sector contributed $2.5 billion to Idaho’s gross state product in 2022. …While vital to Idaho’s economy, the forest products sector faces uncertainty due to workforce challenges. Twenty-four percent of the log truck drivers are over the age of 60 and the logging contractor owner/operators have on average 29 years of business experience. Like many Idaho businesses, without a stable workforce, forestry’s tremendous impact on our state’s economy is at risk. But there’s reason for optimism. Recent investments through Idaho’s new Career Ready Students program represent an infusion of both energy and capital in cultivating new pipelines of young talent into Idaho’s forest products sector. In March 2023, Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, with the help of the Idaho Legislature, secured $45 million to create a new program that would invest in career technical education and career training around our state.

Amidst protests and heated debate, the Oregon Department of Forestry Board (ODF) made a divisive decision on March 7, voting 4-3 to advance a contentious proposal aimed at curbing logging across 640,000 acres of state forests while prioritizing the protection of endangered wildlife. The Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) seeks to align western Oregon’s forests with the federal Endangered Species Act, safeguarding habitats crucial for at least 17 imperiled species. However, the plan also involves reducing timber harvests on state forests, which could lead to diminished revenue for local county services and a decline in employment opportunities in rural areas. It was a day of betrayals and high injustices to the loggers who lined the streets of Salem in protest of the decision that would, in their eyes, seal their fate. Despite fervent appeals from the public and unsuccessful attempts to postpone the decision through three separate motions, the board forged ahead with its vote.

Timber sales in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest often spark conflict between environmental groups, the timber industry, and the U.S. Forest Service which is making the sale. …But a new sale near Petersburg focusing on second-growth trees has all those groups on board. The sale design is the result of the Forest Service changing its public process over the years. …The initial Thomas Bay timber sale proposal was for about 22 million board feet, mostly clear-cut. After a few years of public process, they shrunk the harvest to 12.6 million board feet to be harvested through a patchwork of areas over several years….Harvesting smaller areas over time could be better for wildlife and it could allow small sawmills more opportunities. Those are comments the Forest Service has heard during the public process leading up to the sale.

Oregon lawmakers spent much of the short 2024 legislative session focused on housing regulations and drug criminalization. That often left environmental policies around wildfires, farms and climate change on the back burner. Most efforts to beef up the state’s wildfire resiliency died this session — although a measure limiting the financial pinch for people recovering from wildfires made it through. State worker pension funds will stop investing in coal companies, but a push to get state agencies to buy from clean tech companies failed. Housing legislation that passed included support for immigrant Oregonians, including agricultural farmworkers, but a program helping workers who lose work due to extreme heat or smoke did not get funded. Two bills aimed at guiding the state’s transition to green energy through offshore wind and battery storage did win approval. Here’s a look at some of the top environmental bills that were introduced this session, and where they stand.

Kelly Norris and Senator Barrasso

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator John Barrasso, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (ENR), welcomed Ms. Kelly Norris, Wyoming State Forester, to the committee. Ms. Norris testified at a legislative hearing to examine the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission’s report. Ms. Norris previously testified before the committee in 2023.  “Kelly Norris has testified previously before this committee. She is Wyoming State Forester,” said Senator Barrasso. “She has worked for the Wyoming State Forestry Division for fourteen years. We’re very fortunate to have her because she had experience working as a forester for both the state of Wyoming as well as the U.S. Forest Service. She has a year’s worth of critical on the ground knowledge and is a valuable resource to the community and to this committee.” During the hearing, Barrasso highlighted how Wyoming and other western states are bracing for another devastating wildfire season.  

A Webinar Series by the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement and the Washington Chapter of The Wildlife Society.

Wildfires and fire seasons are commonly cast as good or bad based largely on the simple metric of area burned (more acres = bad). A seemingly paradoxical narrative frames large fire seasons as a symptom of a forest health problem, while simultaneously stating that fire-dependent forests lack sufficient fire to maintain system resilience. One key to resolving this paradox is placing contemporary fire years in the context of historical fire regimes. Historical regimes can also inform forest restoration efforts by illuminating how much fire area historically maintained (i.e., ‘treated’) fire-resilient landscapes. …Contrary to the common narrative of unprecedented or too-much fire in our dry forest landscapes today, modern fire years are only burning a small fraction of a typical historical year when hundreds of thousands of acres are burned annually on average.

Congress has given the president the power to create national monuments on public lands. Those monuments are overseen by the Department of the Interior. But Congress has also charged the agency with managing a wide array of other public lands, sometimes for purposes of development instead of preservation. This week,we highlight petitions that ask the court to consider whether Barack Obama had the authority to expand a national monument in the forests of Oregon into land overseen by the Interior Department. At issue in this case are two separate laws. The first law, the Antiquities Act of 1906, gives the president the power to designate areas of land as national monuments and protect them from development. …In the second law, Congress directed the Interior Department to enforce sustainable harvesting of timber in a broad swath of federally owned forest in Oregon, with instructions to ensure both a “permanent forest” and an economic benefit to residents.

Randy Schillinger

PORTLAND, Oregon —A controversial Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for State Forests that will reduce timber harvests by 34 percent and result in billions of dollars of lost revenue for the next 70 years has been narrowly approved by a divided Board of Forestry. The agency and the Board realized back in January 2023 that the draft HCP would drastically reduce harvest levels and fail to meet the agency’s own objectives. …“No alternatives were ever explored,” said Randy Schillinger, CEO of Hampton Lumber. “There was no reflection, no amendment, no compromise and no consideration for communities and jobs.” …“A few will celebrate passage of this HCP, but anything that excludes and harms this many people is not a win for Oregon,” said Schillinger. …”The amount of forestland arbitrarily set aside in “no touch” zones by ODF is too excessive and has not been well explained or defended. 

Redwoods  can host an entire food web in their crowns with plants, small animals, and more. These biodiversity hotspots are exclusively found in primary or old-growth forests in the wettest part of the redwood range. Two Cal Poly Humboldt faculty are on a mission to restore canopy ecosystems in regenerating or secondary redwood forest. A keystone species in the redwood canopy is Polypodium scouleri, or leather-leaf fern. These ferns, along with the decomposed organic matter that makes up the soil in which they grow, form fern mats. Mats can grow to be 8 feet wide and hold nearly 5,000 gallons of water per acre each year. This ability to collect and hold water may be key to redwood canopy biodiversity success and survival in a warming and drying climate. Cal Poly Humboldt Professor Stephen Sillett and Marie Antoine have embarked on a project that could help re-establish fern mats in redwood canopies.

The Oregon Board of Forestry approved finalization of a habitat conservation plan for western Oregon state forests that will regulate management of those forests for the next 70 years. Serious cuts in projected harvest levels under the plan drew intense criticism from officials from counties and special districts that rely on revenues from the state forest and timber industry representatives. But following a recommendation of approval from State Forester Cal Mukumoto, four board members voted for approval of the plan, saying they did not believe higher harvests could be achieved in compliance with federal statute, while three voted against. …The HCP will govern around 640,000 acres of state forests west of the crest of the cascades that over the past two decades have averaged around 225 million board feet (mmbf) in annual harvests. The plan will establish habitat conservation areas to protect 17 species protected under the National Endangered Species Act.

ARIZONA — Salt River Project is lining up partners for three major thinning projects to protect Payson and other Rim Country communities from wildfire. The three projects will cost almost $4 million and reduce the wildfire threat on nearly 5,000 acres, including a huge swath south of Payson. Last Tuesday, the Gila County Board of Supervisors agreed to kick in $5,000 for the 2,229-acre thinning project along Highway 87 south of Payson. The frequent fire starts along Highway 87, the prevailing summer winds and the brush-choked slopes make this area the most likely path for a megafire to burn up to and through Payson, Carl Melford said. …The U.S. Forest Service, with the help of partners like the Salt River Project, has accelerated efforts to create thinned buffer zones around endangered communities like Payson. 

Vancouver Audubon Society and several other environmental groups are suing the state for failing to protect habitat for the endangered western gray squirrel. “The western gray squirrel is an indicator species for the health of rare oak woodland habitat in Washington. Given the lack of protective regulations, the species’ numbers have continued to decline statewide for decades,” the lawsuit says. “Today, it is widely believed fewer than 1,500 western gray squirrels are left in Washington.” …The western gray squirrel is not to be confused with the prolific eastern gray squirrel common in urban areas. The western variety — also known as Sciurus griseus and in some areas as the Columbian squirrel, Oregon squirrel or silver-gray squirrel — is the largest tree squirrel in the Northwest. It primarily lives in forests and has a range that stretches from northern Mexico through California, Oregon and Washington.

SALEM, Ore. – The Oregon Board of Forestry voted 4-3 to approve the Habitat Conservation Plan on Thursday in Salem, moving it forward for federal approval. Before the meeting, log trucks loaded with logs from Oregon state forests, as well as loggers, legislators, mill workers and others, rallied outside the state’s Department of Forestry headquarters, calling on the board to reject the plan. They say the recommended conservation plan would shut down 57% of harvesting on the state’s forests for the next 70 years, which would lead to a loss of $35-$53 million in annual state revenue. Tasha Webb with Oregon Natural Resource Industries said that lost money would have gone to counties and smaller tax districts to pay for services like emergency response, school districts and law enforcement. …The Association Of Western Pulp And Paper Workers say the plan disregards the livelihoods of thousands of Oregonians and overlooks the sustainable forest management and economic stability in rural communities.

Additional coverage in the Oregon Capitol Chronicle, by Alex Baumhardt: Plan to reduce logging, protect habitat in Oregon’s western state forests passes on split vote

The Oregon Board of Forestry voted Thursday to move forward with a controversial plan that would scale back logging on 640,000 acres of state forests while seeking to protect endangered wildlife. Surrounded by a protest that included lines of logging trucks parked in downtown Salem, a divided board voted 4-3 to send the Western Oregon State Forests Habitat Conservation Plan to federal officials for approval.

Late last year, the Sequoia National Forest released its plans to address impacts of the 2020 Castle and 2021 Windy fires. A lawsuit filed by three environmental organizations on Feb. 22 said the plans amount to logging. A Porterville resident, Carla Cloer — who has successfully challenged Forest Service actions in the past — suggested in January the plans were influenced by the timber industry. Cloer has been a significant force behind the Sierra Club’s Giant Sequoia activism for decades. In 2001, she was awarded the club’s prestigious John Muir Award for her many efforts culminating in the 2000 presidential proclamation establishing Giant Sequoia National Monument. …But Jeff Gletne — a registered professional forester said, “the fuel remaining on site is very frightening. …they will require heavy equipment and lots of material being cut and hauled down the hill.” But he doesn’t see that the timber industry will benefit. “Very little will be going to sawmills,” he said.

The landscape of corporate environmental responsibility is evolving beyond a focus on climate issues to more holistically account for nature-related risks, such as biodiversity loss. Recognizing the threat to global economies and ecosystems posed by biodiversity loss, prominent global corporations are venturing beyond the atmosphere and into the biosphere. As one executive said, “climate action is non-negotiable, but the race to outpace biodiversity loss is even more crucial. Our planet, and our profits, hinge on it.” Corporations are starting to make pledges to fight biodiversity and nature loss, but the path forward remains murky. Metrics are hazy, and linking individual actions to broader jurisdictional biodiversity goals and commitments remains a challenge. Clearing this fog is crucial for companies to confidently take decisive steps and communicate their impact. Enter the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). In January 2024, over 300 organizations committed to nature-related disclosures based on TNFD’s recommendations.

The 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) has never addressed Native claims. ANCSA is an industrial-rooted tool of Congress, created to exterminate Indigenous land use and streamline the liquidation of “natural resources” in our ancient ancestral homelands. The word “Native” in the law is a misnomer. In December, Lisa Murkowski’s “Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act” Senate Bill S.1889 (also a misnomer) advanced out of committee. If passed by the U.S. Congress, the bill would remove 115,200 acres of public land from the Tongass National Forest and deed them to five new Native “urban” corporations. According to the Forest Service, nearly every cherry-picked parcel contains old-growth forests, and 52% contains inventoried roadless acres — areas currently protected by the 2001 Roadless Rule. If Murkowski’s bill succeeds the consequences would be catastrophic for all Tongass communities. …Our protective fierceness for this land is an asset that will benefit all Alaskans for generations to come.

Lawmakers began the short session in February hoping to fill gaps in wildfire funding, with three bills to address landowner wildfire protection fees, home hardening, wildfire prevention and response, and survivor compensation. But those proposals failed. Only one proposal, Senate Bill 1520, which ensures wildfire survivors do not need to pay state income tax on compensation and settlements from losses, passed the Legislature this week in the Senate and House. Experts say the lack of more, sustained funding means the state will continue to face larger, more expensive fires without reliable funding, including the 2024 wildfire season. …The proposals aimed at reducing landowner wildfire fees and finding new sources of wildfire funding from Oregon taxpayers or the timber industry and came in response to the Legislature in 2023 cutting funding to state fire agencies by 40%. The state’s general fund, which had been drawn on heavily for wildfire agency funding, had too many competing priorities, lawmakers said. 

Oregon is on the verge of major changes to the rules that govern how state, federal and privately owned forestlands are logged. Those changes have been years in the making, and many are coming to a head this year, all with their own complicated backstories and varying timelines for public input. Many of these policies will be compromises hard fought between conservation and timber interests, bringing more environmental protections in some places and more timber harvesting in others. “All of these things are layered on top of each other and they all have their unique consequences to communities, the timber industry, the mills, the manufacturers,” said Travis Joseph, president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber trade association based in Portland.

Cal Mukumoto

Oregon’s state forester will recommend moving forward with a controversial logging plan for 634,000 acres of state forest, but a final decision will come down to a vote from Oregon’s Board of Forestry at a meeting on Thursday in Salem. Cal Mukumoto said he would recommend the current Habitat Conservation Plan, which prioritizes protecting wildlife habitat while scaling back logging for the next 70 years. Mukumoto, who was hired in November 2021, held a series of “listening sessions” last month as officials sought to finally pass a plan that’s been worked on and debated for years. The plan, known as the HCP, has become a lightning rod for anger in rural Oregon over fears it will mean lost jobs and reduced county services. Concern has only been heightened after the closure of three sawmills in the last two months and predictions that “more pain is coming.”

A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change by scientists from CU Boulder and Tel Aviv University in Israel has revealed that deforestation combined with climate change could negatively impact 84% of North America’s lizards by the end of the century. Nearly one in five could face population decline. …Using computer simulations, the team showed that global warming can actually benefit lizards living in colder regions or at higher latitudes in North America. Warmer weather increases the animals’ activity time, meaning they have more time to look for food or mates during the day. However, deforestation would largely reverse these positive effects by reducing opportunities for shade in hotter climates that help them cool down. …The team estimated that deforestation would accelerate population declines for 18% of lizards in North America.

It’s been nearly three decades since the U.S. Forest Service released their first management plan for the Tongass National Forest. During a presentation at the Juneau Economic Development Council’s Innovation Summit last week, Southeast Alaska’s Deputy Forester Chad VanOrmer said it’s time for an update. The development of a new Tongass forest plan will inform the agency’s management decisions for the next 15 to 20 years. …The existing management plan was developed in 1997. …In many ways, it fails to keep up with the modern-day opportunities and challenges in the Tongass. …Now the tourism boom has arrived in full force, with 1.7 million cruise ship visitors last year. …VanOrmer said climate resilience planning will be a priority in the new plan. …To make a plan that works for the present day, the agency wants to strengthen relationships with community organizers and tribal governments.

Environmental groups are trying to block the Sequoia National Forest’s plan to remove thousands of trees in response to two devastating wildfires in 2020 and 2021. Last month the Sierra Club, Earth Island Institute and Sequoia ForestKeeper filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service over the plan. …In 2020 the Castle Fire burned 171,000 acres, including over 9,500 acres of giant sequoia groves – one-third of all sequoia grove area across the Sierra Nevada. …In response to the fires, the U.S. Forest Service authorized the Castle Fire Ecological Restoration Project and the Windy Fire Restoration to restore the forests. …The plans include removing over 13,000 acres of forest within Giant Sequoia National Monument. …On Feb. 22 the three environmental groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, saying the two plans constitute logging.

The forests of the Pacific Northwest, sometimes soaked in feet of rainfall each year, are known for growing some of the largest trees in the world. Together, they store thousands of tons of carbon in their trunks and support hundreds of critters. But even these lush forests can be affected by climate change. If the world continues to emit greenhouse gases at its current pace, the North Cascades, Olympic Mountains, Puget Sound lowlands and Western Oregon Cascades could see at least twice as much fire activity in the 30 years following 2035, according to new research led by Alex Dye, a faculty research associate in the Oregon State University College of Forestry. Fire seasons — the dry and hot months — are expected to get longer, in some places spanning from early spring to late fall. …The new research aims to better describe how climate change is impacting a region where fire was historically infrequent, west of the Cascade crest.

More than $8 million will be used to plant trees in communities across Washington as the Washington State Department of Natural Resources announced the 45 recipients of the agency’s largest Urban and Community Forestry Grant Program ever. The record-shattering dollar amount is 14 times bigger than the previous single-year record of $550,000 and is nearly three times the total grants awarded by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for urban and community forestry projects since 2008. “Access to clean air, shade, and green spaces should be a basic human right, but the fact is that throughout our state, lower-income communities and communities of color more often live in neighborhoods with more concrete and asphalt, and too few trees,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz. “We need to bring the same urgency we brought to our wildfire crisis to our efforts to ensure everyone lives in neighborhoods with adequate tree canopy.”

WALNUT CREEK, California — At the one-year anniversary of CSAA Insurance Group’s announcement of a $25M investment in the California Wildfire Innovation Fund, several notable initiatives supported by the fund are underway to realize the stated goals of climate resilience and economic growth: Heartwood Biomass: The new facility in Tuolumne County will convert forest restoration byproducts, a potential wildfire fuel, into firewood bundles, wood chips and agricultural posts – reducing dependence on nonrenewable resources and stimulating the local economy through sustainable forestry practices AND Tahoe Forest Products: TFP supports regional hazardous fuels reduction goals by providing a sustainable outlet for timber sourced from local restoration projects as well as salvaged from wildfire-affected areas. As the first significant sawmill in the Sierra Nevada in several decades, it will provide employment opportunities for dozens of local citizens and Tribal members.

Montana met its forest management goals for the third consecutive year. State officials say they increased the amount of thinning, timber harvests, prescribed burns and restoration projects on forests by 16% over 2022 levels. The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation last year placed over 36,000 acres under active forest management. Gov. Greg Gianforte celebrated the work Tuesday in a tree nursery at DNRC regional headquarters in Missoula. “This accomplishment would not have been possible without our strong partnerships with local communities, federal agencies and tribal nations,” Gianforte says. Gianforte says that work reduces wildfire risk, improves forest health and is good for business.

OREGON — Significant efforts are underway across coastal privately-owned forestlands due to changes in the Private Forest Accord (PFA) of 2022.  Forest managers bear the responsibility for not only trees, but also roads, bridges, and streams. …Forest engineers start researching and designing harvest plans two years before a scheduled harvest. Foresters traverse the terrain, identify water resources, steep gradients, soil conditions, and habitat characteristics. Collaboration with wildlife biologists, hydrologists, and other specialists is commonplace in formulating these plans. …The Private Forest Accord (PFA) of 2022 announced updates to existing forest practices, including rules that related to the construction and maintenance of forest roads. Although professional foresters and logging crews are accustomed to regulation and meticulous harvest prescriptions, the revisions brought about by the PFA introduce a more intricate framework with set timelines for implementation.

SALEM, Oregon — Timber companies and some county governments are lamenting the defeat of legislation requiring Oregon officials to set and meet logging targets on state forestlands. Supporters say House Bill 4106 would have simply required transparency and accountability in state forest management without weakening environmental protections. …However, environmental groups are warning the proposal would’ve spurred court challenges against state officials for falling short of timber harvest projections, undermining their ability to adjust to shifting on-the-ground circumstances. “This bill creates a new right for the timber industry to sue the state over its timber harvest plans,” said Michael Lang, of the Wild Salmon Center. …The bill’s supporters simply want state forest officials provide an estimate of harvest levels. …Opponents allege that HB 4106 would force state forest officials to justify every conservation-oriented constraint and provide timber companies with a “back door” to challenge the HCP’s implementation.

Xochitl Torres Small & Heather Dawn Thompson

WASHINGTON — The Department of Agriculture Forest Service will distribute $20 million in grant funding to help tribes access private markets for forest resilience and climate mitigation that have emerged in the wake of climate change. Federally recognized tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, and Alaska Native villages will be eligible for the resultant competitive grant program. The grants were announced earlier today by Agriculture Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small during the winter session of the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C. …Grants may support activities such as forest management plan development, reforestation, and biodiversity protection. …“Tribal practices support resilient forests and land management for the benefit of future generations,” Torres Small said. …Carbon sequestration, in particular, has become an increasingly popular method of turning sustainability into profitability for tribes.