Region Archives: US West

CALIFORNIA — Much like forests on land, kelp forests are a bonanza for biodiversity. …But kelp forests are fickle. They can boom and bust under the influence of marine heat waves, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), or storms. New research shows that forest fires in coastal watersheds also play a role. By comparing two data sets in an unexpected way, a team of researchers is exploring how forest fire size relates to kelp beds downstream. The team presented some of their findings at AGU’s Annual Meeting 2023 in San Francisco. …Preliminary research shows there’s an impact. The Woolsey Fire, for example, burned nearly 940 million square meters in November 2018, sending sediment into Malibu Creek. Before the fire, the spring 2018 kelp canopy covered 46,606 square meters near Malibu. The following spring, kelp covered only 9,543 square meters and has yet to recover to prefire levels.

Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz on Monday released the locations of 2,000 acres of structurally complex state forestland proposed to be set aside for conservation as funded by the Climate Commitment Act. The land will join the more than 900,000 acres of forestland that the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) already manages for conservation in western Washington. The parcels are spread across five counties – Clallam, Jefferson, King, Snohomish, and Whatcom. The Department of Natural Resources worked with the counties to identify parcels that are most valuable to protecting fish and wildlife habitat and natural and cultural values. These parcels are adjacent to existing conserved high-value habitat areas, improving fish and wildlife habitat connectivity and avoiding isolated small fragments of fish and wildlife conservation. In addition to these 2,000 acres, DNR will be closing on the purchase of more than 9,000 acres of working forests in Wahkiakum County.

While there is some disagreement between the Oregon Board of Forestry and the Forest Trust Land Advisory Committee on how to proceed with a proposed habitat conservation plan, there is consensus that new timber revenue projections over the life of the plan will pose challenges for some counties and the state. The 70-year plan would designate protected habitat areas across nearly 640,000 acres of state forests — mostly in Clatsop and Tillamook counties — to keep the state in compliance with the federal Endangered Species Act. During a special meeting on Dec. 14, the Board of Forestry reviewed the results of new modeling of the plan. The Forest Trust Land Advisory Committee, which participated in a facilitated discussion with the board about the results, reviewed the modeling last week. …Jim Kelly, the chairman of the Board of Forestry, said the question about whether the plan gives away too much land to conservation has been a challenge.

ALASKA — “Landless” legislation passed a new milestone on December 14 after winning approval of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee. The bill still has a long way to go to become law. But if it does, it would return land to the original occupants of five Alaska Native communities in Southeast Alaska. Those communities were left out of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. Senator Lisa Murkowski, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement that the omission was “hampering their ability to support development and opportunity while protecting their traditional ways of life. Alaskans have been trying to right this wrong for 51 years.” ANCSA put millions of acres of land in the control of more than 200 newly formed local and regional Alaska Native corporations. …Opponents have voiced concerns that the new corporations would log their land, clearcutting swaths of what had been the Tongass National Forest.

Following a devastating 2020 wildfire in California’s Big Basin Redwood State Park, the renowned trees initially seemed doomed. However, a remarkable occurrence unfolded as small sprouts emerged from the scorched remnants. A recent study, titled “Old Reserves and Ancient Buds Fuel Regrowth of Coast Redwood after Catastrophic Fire” published in Nature Plants, reveals the trees’ revival mechanism: drawing upon ancient carbon reserves and bud tissues formed centuries ago. The wildfires left some of the oldest trees in Big Basin badly burned, revealing the age of their energy reserves. Researchers studying severely burned old-growth redwoods discovered some buds that are 2,000 years old. Coastal redwoods typically experience mild fires every decade, and their fire resistance is attributed to thick bark containing fire-resistant tannic acids. However, in the 2020 fires, even the uppermost branches burned, compromising their ability to photosynthesize.

The Oregon Board of Forestry and members of the Forest Trust Lands Advisory Committee met on December 14 to discuss recently released modeling results and their impacts on the counties that rely on state forest revenues and the department of forestry. Members of both groups quickly homed in on excess habitat protections for the northern spotted owl as an area of concern and signaled their intention to work together to dampen the economic impacts of the new plans. …A presentation by Oregon Department of Forestry staffers on the new modeling that largely mirrored the one given the week before to the FTLAC. The presentation showed that across all state forests revenue would drop somewhere between $21 and $28 million dollars annually and that the department had taken a conservative approach to species protection, with different planned scenarios protecting between 15% and 30% excess acreage of northern spotted owl habitat. 

MONTANA — Elk hunting is big business in Montana. …While there are a number of reasons for the elk population decline, the writings list the decline primarily on the declining amount of high-quality summer and early fall elk habitat. …During the 1980s and 1990s… extensive logging road construction was necessary to access the timber resource. This allowed the continued growth, for a decade or two, of ground cover that included the ideal late spring, summer and early fall food sources for deer and elk. Deer and elk grew fat. With this layer of fat, deer and elk could easily survive Montana’s cold snowy winters. …But in the 1960s, Congress passed a number of new environmental laws that environmental groups used to halt most new timber sales on public land. What was surprising to me is that the new elk plan seemed to imply that the need for nutritious summer habitat is a new biological discovery.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

Southwest Washington Democrat U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez joined U.S. Reps. Barry Moore, R-Alabama, and Andrea Salinas, D-Oregon, as lead letter-writers asking the General Services Administration to expand mass timber use in federal construction. The letter was signed by 10 members of Congress to express concern that as the administration “recently awarded $2 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding for 150 projects, none of the funds were awarded to projects using sustainable wood products, including mass timber,” according to a news release from Gluesenkamp Perez’s office. The letter claims that nations around the globe have made building with wood a “top priority” in climate change mitigation, but that the United States “continues to lag” in its adoption of wood product buildings. …The letter was also signed by U.S. Reps. Sanford Bishop D-Georgia, Jim Costa, D-California, Don Davis, D-North Carolina, John Garamendi, D-California, Derek Kilmer D-Washington, Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and Glenn Thompson, R-Pennsylvania.

Perhaps no single Christmas custom is more ubiquitous than putting up the Christmas tree. …Today, that ancient tradition harvests 25 to 30 million natural Christmas trees annually. Artificial trees have drawn criticism for the chemicals used in their manufacturing. But live trees have drawbacks, too. One in particular — the agricultural chemicals and insecticides, fungicides and herbicides used in tree farming — has drawn remarkably little attention, partly owing to a lack of research on the risk to consumers or farmworkers. …Among the most common chemicals used by the industry are chlorothalonil, atrazine, glyphosate and dimethoate, all of which have known impacts on human health. …According to the Food and Drug Administration, Christmas trees are unlikely to impact the average home. In fact, assuming the tree is not ingested, the risk is considered so low that no testing is even done before trees are sold. Still, without testing, there’s really no way to be sure.

WASHINGTON — Are your evergreens turning yellow or brown? The symptoms could indicate a problem, but chances are they’re just part of the trees’ seasonal aging process. Close examination will reveal the cause – and whether any action is needed. Many healthy evergreens regularly experience yellowing and browning of older branch parts during autumn. The trees will drop affected needles later in the season. But if the symptoms present only on the innermost branches and on both the upper and lower sections of the tree, there’s probably nothing to worry about. It’s a normal part of the aging process. …If the yellowed branches are stunted, however, that could be indicative of a nitrogen deficiency. Similarly, if yellowed branch tips turn reddish-brown as the season progresses, the tree might have a potassium deficiency. …Some insect infestations may present similar symptoms, however, so close inspection is warranted, according to entomologist Dan Gilrein.

Researchers have sequenced the whitebark pine genome, presenting new opportunities to help the threatened, high-altitude tree endure environmental challenges. “Sequencing the whitebark pine reference genome is an important scientific contribution,” said project lead David Neale, professor emeritus in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis. “It is the first step in creating genomic tools that can rapidly screen trees for disease resistance and climate adaptation. With this information, researchers can expedite the supply of resistant seedlings for cost-effective restoration.” The sequence is now accessible at TreeGenes, a Forest Tree Genome Database. A pre-print version of the scientific paper is available on bioRxiv, and it is undergoing the peer-review process. …With the whitebark pine genome sequencing completed, forest managers are now one step closer to developing cost-effective genomic screening tools that identify genetic traits important for whitebark pine survival.

Scott Stephens

A 20-year experiment in the Sierra Nevada confirms that different forest management techniques—prescribed burning, restoration thinning or a combination of both—are effective at reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire in California. These treatments also improve forest health, making trees more resilient to stressors like drought and bark beetles, and they do not negatively impact plant or wildlife biodiversity within individual tree stands, the research found. Published in the journal Ecological Applications, “the research is pretty darn clear that these treatments are effective—very effective,” said study lead author Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science at the University of California, Berkeley. “I hope this lets people know that there is great hope in doing these treatments at scale, without any negative consequences.” …This study shows that restoration thinning is also a viable option for forest management and can be used in tandem with beneficial fire without harming forest health or biodiversity.

PORTLAND, Oregon — This is the first chapter of “Endangered Northwest,” a four-part series on the impact of the Endangered Species Act. It was 50 years ago this month that President Richard Nixon signed what would become one of the nation’s most far-reaching environmental laws: the Endangered Species Act. The act was intended to identify species at risk of extinction and implement plans for their recovery. In some cases, it has done just that. In others, though, the act has proven divisive and contentious, with the people impacted by conservation plans bristling at new regulations that could impact their livelihoods. …Five decades after it was signed into law, with all the rancor and consternation that it’s brought about, has the Endangered Species Act been effective?

WASHINGTON — Along the ridgeline of Mount Index, 102 acres of forestland with pockets of old growth groves sat unprotected — until last month. The nonprofit Forterra recently acquired the land, filled with fir trees and hanging moss, and promised to preserve the area for wildlife. This has been the goal for Forterra staff who have spent the past two years gathering money for this specific portion. It was part of the nonprofit’s larger goal: to gradually acquire land near Mount Index and Lake Serene. …With $220,000 from the Snohomish County Conservation Futures program, Forterra now manages hundreds of acres in the area. Over 45,000 people hike the Lake Serene Trail every year, which crosses over land previously owned by lumber company Weyerhaeuser.

OREGON — Forest modeling by Oregon State University scientists shows that a site’s productivity – an indicator of how fast trees grow and how much biomass they accumulate – is the main factor that determines which time period between timber harvests allows for maximum above-ground carbon sequestration. The findings, published in the journal Forests, are important for Pacific Northwest forest managers seeking to strike an optimal balance between harvesting and carbon sequestration, an important tool in the fight against climate change. The study by Catherine Carlisle, Temesgen Hailemariam and Stephen Fitzgerald of the OSU College of Forestry notes that the carbon trapped in the woody biomass of U.S. forests offsets 13% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. …Forests in the Northwest stretch across nearly 25 million acres and are among the most productive in the world, the authors say.

Oregon State University researchers have received $750,000 in grants to study wildfire resilience. The funds, from the U.S. Forest Service and the National Science Foundation, will create a new doctoral program and research center. Erica Fischer of OSU’s College of Engineering will serve as principal investigator on the grant. She said a team of researchers and a doctoral student will use forestry and civil engineering to understand how wildfire interacts with the built environment, and how to prepare for it. …Fischer said the research could also improve preparedness, identifying key points where fire trucks should be stationed, what homes and infrastructure are most at risk, and modeling evacuation routes and economic recovery. …Researchers from University of Oregon, University of Washington, the U.K. and Australia, will also collaborate on the project.

To avoid major lawsuits under the federal Endangered Species Act, state and federal agencies have crafted a plan to reduce the amount of timber logged from Oregon’s western state-owned forests annually by up to 40%. Officials in some counties that have relied on those timber revenues for the past 80 years are angry and worried about the impact that could have on their budgets and social services. …The plan awaits approval from the Oregon Board of Forestry and the federal government. .If the habitat plan passes as expected next year, total annual timber revenues to eight counties could decline by as much as $18 million compared to the past decade’s averages, according to the forestry department’s latest figures. Six counties stand to earn thousands of dollars more in annual revenue under the plan, but eight could lose up to several hundred thousand dollars each year.

A new study from Oregon State University estimates that wildfire and drought caused $11.2 billion in economic losses to privately owned timberland in California, Oregon and Washington over the past two decades. The study, which analyzed sales of private timberland over 17 years along with wildfire and drought data, found that most of the losses were not due to forests burning directly but the perception that forests could burn due to neighboring fires. “This study shows that climate change is already reducing the value of western forests,” said Oregon State economist and study co-author David Lewis. “This isn’t a hypothetical future effect. These are damages that have already happened because it is riskier to hold assets like timberland.” …The study found that drought stresses have reduced the economic value of timberland by 1% on average while large wildfires have reduced values by an additional 8.7% over the past two decades.

IDAHO – The Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest supervisor trumpeted her new forest plan as the best compromise for all, but when it comes to proposed wilderness, both advocates and opponents disagree. When the final draft of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest Plan was released at the end of November, wilderness advocates immediately noticed that the Hoodoo Recommended Wilderness Area on the Idaho side of the Great Burn Proposed Wilderness had shrunk by thousands of acres from what was proposed in 1987. Land extending from Fish Lake to Hoodoo Pass was gone, along with a large lobe on the southeastern edge near U.S. Highway 12 and Blacklead Mountain. Hayley Newman, Great Burn Conservation Alliance executive director, said the loss of the Blacklead area was a likely loss for winter wildlife. Research, including a 2018 Rocky Mountain Research Station study, has shown that wolverines, elk and lynx avoid areas frequented by both motorized and non-motorized winter recreationists.

MENDOCINO COUNTY, California — For four hours on Wednesday in Sacramento, California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) Chairman J. Keith Gilless and board directors deliberated under changing images of critters and forest scenes from the Jackson Demonstration State Forest playing on an overhead projector. The Save Jackson State Forest Coalition provided the spectacular imagery from their beloved forest in Caspar to show the board what is actually at stake in their decisions about future timber harvests. Gilless and the rest of the board got harsh criticism on several fronts, including the contradiction between the state’s climate change promise to preserve 30 percent of its land and 30 percent of its ocean from production by 2030. …The board oversees Cal Fire’s administration of all timber harvest plans (THPs), most of which occur on private lands, both by landowners and timber companies.

OREGON — To avoid major lawsuits under the federal Endangered Species Act, state and federal agencies have crafted a plan to reduce the amount of timber logged from Oregon’s western state-owned forests annually by up to 40%. Officials in some counties that have relied on those timber revenues for the past 80 years are angry and worried about the impact that could have on their budgets and social services. On Monday, the Oregon Department of Forestry released its long-awaited projections showing how much timber revenue each of 14 western Oregon counties would get a year for the next 70 years following the adoption of a landmark proposal that’s expected to be adopted next year. The Western Oregon State Forest Habitat Conservation Plan would govern logging and conservation on about 630,000 thousand acres of state forests to protect 17 threatened or endangered species. The plan awaits approval from the Oregon Board of Forestry and the federal government.

In November, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed shooting over 400,000 barred owls over the next 30 years in order to save endangered spotted owls. The agency has experimented with shooting barred owls in the past. Now, they are proposing to do it on a much larger scale. Kessina Lee, supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Oregon, pointed out that the agency has a legal responsibility to protect the endangered spotted owl. “This is about conserving two species,” Lee said. “Spotted owls are fighting for their existence right now. Whereas, even if the service was able to remove that number of barred owls over the next 30 years, that would represent less than 1% of the global population of barred owls.” Barred owls migrated to the Pacific Northwest from the Eastern U.S. and they’ve essentially outcompeted their smaller cousins. 

Bridger-Teton National Forest’s staff is proposing to authorize another 20 years of use by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department of two elk winter feedgrounds south of Grand Teton National Park. In its recently released draft environmental impact statement, the Forest Service considered other options for the Dell Creek (35 acres) and Forest Park (100 acres) feedgrounds, including phasing them out over three years, ending the authorization immediately, or only allowing emergency feeding of elk in winter at the two sites. Each alternative was weighed while considering the effects of chronic wasting disease transmission (CWD), effects on neighboring ranchers, the state’s hunting economy and the environment. In calculating how closing the Dell and Forest Park feedgrounds would affect elk populations and transmission of chronic wasting disease, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey said that under all of the alternatives elk populations would significantly decline. The public has until Jan. 16 to comment.

The Oregon Department of Forestry has announced that Roseburg-based logging firm Plikat Logging Inc. has been chosen as the forest Operator of the Year for Southwest Oregon. An ODF release said a regional advisory committee to the Oregon Board of Forestry selected Plikat earlier this fall. The company will be recognized in Salem at the January meeting of the Board. The award recognizes forest operators who, while harvesting timber or doing other forestry work, protect natural resources at a level that consistently meets or goes above and beyond requirements of the Oregon Forest Practices Act. That law requires people to manage forests responsibly and protect streams and water quality, protect and enhance habitat and reduce landslide risks. The law also requires landowners to replant forests after harvesting. [See You Tube Video]

ARIZONA — Forests and the carbon they capture play a pivotal role in combating climate change, and a new study co-authored by NAU researchers is set to transform forest conservation efforts nationwide by providing new, more accurate models for calculating and predicting how much carbon they hold. The U.S. Forest Service, along with an impressive list of research partners including those at Northern Arizona University, has introduced new National Scale Volume Biomass (NSVB) models that provide a consistent and scientifically accurate method to predict tree volume, biomass and carbon content nationwide. …A key finding from the study is that newly developed models produce substantially higher values in biomass and carbon estimates when compared with previous models. The NSVB produces an estimated 34.71 billion tons of biomass in U.S. forests, compared with 30.28 billion tons using previous methods, indicating a potential increase of 14.6% in aboveground tree biomass.

COOS BAY, Ore. – …local Native American officials are calling on the State Land Board to postpone plans for the Elliott State Research Forest that they said would damage the environment. The Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians asked the State Land Board to postpone finalizing plans for the forest on December 5. Tribal officials expressed concerns about the ecological sustainability of the proposed plans, saying they take an extreme approach that lacks millennia of Indigenous Knowledge about the management of the land. The letter also asks the land board to halt a carbon sale on the forest, which tribal officials said would cause significant harm to the environment. “We are concerned the proposed approach would divide the forest into extreme management regimes where the forest would either be managed intensively for timber production or would be placed into reserves where human stewardship would not be allowed,” said Brad Kneaper, Tribal Chair. 

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Wildfire researchers from Oregon State University have received $750,000 for multiple projects to bridge a knowledge gap between forestry and engineering regarding how communities are affected by major fire events. The projects aim to advance the science of wildfire risk and resilience while training a new generation of scientists better able to translate research findings into tangible outcomes for communities with a high likelihood of wildfire impact. The strategies include embedding a doctoral student in Ashland, Oregon, the site in 2020 of the largest primarily urban blaze in Oregon history; planning a global center for transdisciplinary wildfire research on community resilience; and creating a wildfire risk and resilience graduate program jointly advised by faculty in OSU’s colleges of Engineering and Forestry.

A writer who has penned a new history of Northwest logging will team up with a filmmaker for a presentation this month. “Logging Oregon’s Coastal Forests” is part of the Manzanita Writers’ Series. The event will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday, hosted by Hoffman Center for the Arts in Manzanita. Mark Beach moved to Tillamook County from Portland in 1992, after a career teaching history at universities on the East Coast. His latest book was published by Arcadia in October. In it, he describes the ways logging and lumber mills used to dominate the physical, economic and social landscape of the Oregon Coast. It has been described as a boom-bust-boom industry, in which enhanced technology — and the Northwest’s demand for lumber — led to shrinking forest resources. …“Most of the quotes come from transcriptions from oral history interviews also at the local historical society,” he noted. 

This year has indeed been favorable for Southern California firefighters. Heavy rains in winter — as well as a rare tropical storm in August — put an end to three years of punishing drought and made the landscape far less likely to burn. “It was a fairly mild year,” said Robert Garcia, fire chief of the Angeles National Forest. “The fire season started later and, throughout most of the state, ended early. That provided us some reprieve from that intensity to our workforce, but also some tremendous opportunity this year to get out there and do more treatment on the landscape.” In 2023, there were 92 confirmed fires in the Angeles National Forest, the largest of which was about 420 acres. Statewide, firefighters responded to nearly 6,900 blazes that collectively burned about 320,000 acres, according to data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“Ole” Berg

St. Helens-based logging firm Pelham Cutting, Inc. and Big O Logging of Birkenfeld have each earned an Award of Merit this year from the Oregon Board of Forestry. The two companies were honored earlier this fall by a regional advisory committee to the Oregon Board of Forestry. That committee gave top honors in the Northwest Region of Oregon to Ron Staley of Ron Staley Enterprises, Inc., of Lebanon, Ore., in Linn County. “Ole” Berg is owner of Big O Logging, Inc. His company was chosen for an Award of Merit for helping thin overcrowded forestland during ongoing road repair work, according to a release from the Oregon Board of Forestry Greg Pelham of Pelham Cutting, Inc., garnered an Award of Merit for his firm’s consistently high performance in harvesting and reforestation, with care to avoid high landslide-risk areas and identify and leave important old-growth wildlife trees.

Irene Taylor

Portland-based filmmaker Irene Taylor’s “Trees and Other Entanglements”, is coming to the screen. The documentary, premieres on HBO on Dec. 12. Taylor visits with, for example, a Canadian tree planter and reforestation advocate; and an author who recalls living on a wealthy family’s estate in Westchester, New York, and the work her parents did to manage its grounds. The issue of who owns forested land that may seem at first glance like open, rural territory, also comes up in an interview with lumber company mogul George Weyerhaeuser Sr., filmed before his death in 2022, at the age of 95. Archival films and photographs illustrate the notorious incident when Weyerhaeuser was kidnapped off a Tacoma street in 1935, and hidden in the woods. …Taylor touches on the topic of forest management, and how environmentally minded people have objected to the practice of clear-cutting. But for the most part, her focus is more intimate

BILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. officials recently proposed a $31 million recovery plan for Canada lynx in a bid to help the snow-dependent wildcat species that scientists say could be wiped out in parts of the contiguous U.S. by the end of the century. The proposal this month marks a sharp turnaround from five years ago, when officials in former Republican President Donald Trump’s administration said lynx recovered and no longer needed protection after their numbers rebounded in some areas. Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration in 2021 reached a legal settlement with environmental groups to retain threatened species protections for lynx that were first imposed in 2000….Lynx declines would be seen in boreal forests across the contiguous U.S. under even the most optimistic warming scenario that officials considered, the newly released documents show. …The recovery plan says protecting 95% of current lynx habitat in the lower 48 states in coming decades would help the species remain viable

MONTANA — Re: Jim Petersen’s Op-Ed in the the Western News. …As a professional forester [retired], I agree with much of what he has to say. I do, however, take issue with his “revisionist history” concerning the closure of the Stimson Mill in Libby. I continue to hear that the lack of Forest Service timber sales was responsible and that the Forest Service was unwilling to provide Stimson with more timber to keep the mill in operation. …I believe it is time that people understand the role of the timber industry itself in the demise of logging and saw milling in Libby and Lincoln County as a whole. Why do I say that? Let’s start in the 1980s with Champion International Corporation’s acquisition of the St. Regis Paper Company and its mill complex and timberlands in Libby.