Category Archives: Forestry

The expansive national forests of the Pacific Northwest hold significant ecological, cultural, and economic value for the American people. …Pew commissioned analyses, conducted by research nonprofit Conservation Science Partners, of the 17 national forests within the NWFP area to identify critical conservation areas for biodiversity, carbon storage, and climate resilience. These “high ecological value areas” (HEVAs) are currently unprotected places that contain the top 10% of ecologically valuable lands within a given forest. The data contained in these analyses can help the agency understand how to ensure the ecological health of the forests while balancing the multiple-use mandate to coordinate outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, wildlife and fish, and wilderness for the benefit of people and nature. Here are some highlights from the Conservation Science Partners reports.

The high heat and low water conditions produced by global warming weaken pine trees’ resistance to disease by hindering their ability to mount an effective defense at the same time that pathogenic fungi in their tissues become more aggressive, new research suggests. The study is the first to simultaneously examine metabolic gene expression in both host trees and the pathogens attacking them under normal and climate-change conditions. The findings help explain the mechanisms behind what has become a well-known fact: The warming world makes trees more susceptible to disease. The study was conducted on Austrian pines, which are native to southern Europe and used ornamentally in the United States. Researchers tested climate change conditions’ effects on the trees after infection by two related fungi that have killed large swaths of these pines over time. …[The trees] showed decreased capacity to carry out photosynthesis… While, both strains of the fungus … became significantly more pathogenic…

Juneau, Alaska – A state-planned timber sale on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska has residents concerned. In the May 2022 Best Interest Finding and Decision report from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, it is proposed that the Division of Forestry will offer approximately 290 acres of mature old-growth timber for sale. They said the sale will be composed of western hemlock, Sitka spruce, western red cedar and Alaska yellow cedar. The timber will come from state lands on Prince of Wales Island, adjacent to the City of Whale Pass. The volume to be offered totals approximately 7,100 thousand board feet. …A public information meeting was held via Zoom on August 27th, 2020, and was hosted by the City of Whale Pass. “I feel our voice was not heard,” said Jimmy Greeley, a member of the group Friends of Whale Pass. “I feel like we’re basically told to just shut up and just take it.” Friends of Whale Pass, a group of residents in the city, formed in response to the timber sale.

Unlike the spotted owl who is a specialist and concentrates feeding on small boreal rodents in old growth forests for prey — with an occasional gopher or two for variety — its close cousin, the barred, will gobble up just about anything it can find, maybe even a chicken or two. And, because they are close relatives, the fear they will mate with their cousins, the spotted owls, may be real, and produce some kind of half-breed that will eventually destroy the original Northern spotted owl as a species. …What is for certain is that we humans have played a big role in allowing the barred owl to migrate from the East to the West. It’s our logging practices that opened the gate. …So we have created a forested freeway for the owls to travel from East to West.

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to restore land on an island in the Tongass National Forest that has been logged in past decades. The federal agency wants this 23,000 acres of developed land to match the wilderness area that surrounds it. Cube Cove is on the northwest side of Admiralty Island. The area was heavily logged – mostly by clear cut – in the 1980s and 90s by Shee Atiká, Sitka’s Native Corporation. The U.S. Forest Service bought the land for just over $18 million, completing the deal in 2020. Shee Atiká had done some reclamation work after the logging, but the Forest Service wants to finish it up. “Admiralty Island is a special and unique place, every inch of it anyways,” said Marci Johnson, a wildlife and fisheries biologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “Certainly some unique characteristics with the concentration of brown bears, eagle nests and a lot of intact, old growth forests throughout the island.”

Chad Hanson

Once again The Bee has attacked the John Muir Project, this time inaccurately claiming that we oppose prescribed fires, in the course of discussing the current Washburn Fire, which is miles from the area subject to the current lawsuit against illegal logging in Yosemite. The fire is partially burning in the famed Mariposa giant sequoia grove in Yosemite National Park. Though The Bee’s editorial was later changed, the inaccurate statement, which circulated for most of a day before it was modified, nevertheless needs to be addressed. The John Muir Project supports prescribed fire in some circumstances, and not in others, which is true of just about everyone in my scientific field of forest and fire ecology. For example, we support prescribed fire as an additional buffer around communities, after fire-safe measures like home hardening and defensible space pruning have occurred.

Four companies on a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources committee developing new logging rules purchased timber from lakes in Northern Wisconsin in which local residents have alleged that those rules are frequently being broken, documents obtained by the Wisconsin Examiner show.   For nearly two years, a group of residents who live and work near the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest have alleged that the DNR is authorizing the logging of trees too close to lakes.  …The DNR has disputed the allegations and several audits of logging in the region have come to differing conclusions. Berghoff and Schwarzmann, who is the former forest supervisor for the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, have completed their own survey of 15 lakes in the region and found that at nine of them, DNR-approved logging operations violate the BMPs. 

…Due to climate change, fires are now hotter, bigger, and more devastating, especially in California. To stave off the worst damage, should the focus be on putting out existing fires or preventing them in the first place?  “The Washburn Fire is a great example of how long-term efforts at using fire as a tool … can provide real benefits. There’s a grove of giant sequoia that were potentially threatened by this fire. But for the last 50 years or so, the park has been really actively managing fuels in the sequoia grove,” explains Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. He continues, “They’re using prescribed fire, so that firefighters are able to really stay in the grove, protect the trees. They don’t need to take elaborate measures to do that, like wrapping the trunks in foil blankets. ”

One lightning strike. One unattended campfire. One drought season. That’s how far away Colorado is from the next megafire, warned Dan Gibbs, executive director of the Department of Natural Resources. Gibbs, a certified wildland firefighter, was on the front lines of the Cameron Peak fire two years ago. “The 2020 fire season taught us that the status quo of our forest health and wildfire mitigation programs are no longer cutting it,” he said. Gibbs, along with other state and local officials, joined Gov. Jared Polis on Monday, visiting one of the 49 state-funded projects intended to address wildfire mitigation, touring a private property in Jefferson County, which faces the highest wildfire risk in the state. “We need to up our game on fire preparedness,” Polis said… Colorado has committed around $145 million in state funds and leveraged millions in federal funds for forest health and wildfire mitigation work to protect infrastructure from future wildfires.

A group of 13 rural counties and some 150 taxing districts is asking the Oregon Supreme Court to reinstate a $1.1 billion award against the state for failing to maximize timber harvests on state forests and resulting payments to those local governments.  The Oregon Court of Appeals this spring ruled that the Oregon Department of Forestry and its policy-setting board are not obligated to maximize timber harvests and associated payments to counties where the forests are located.  That opinion overturned a 2019 decision by a jury in Linn County that concluded the state breached a statutory contract with the counties and shortchanged them on harvest revenues for two decades.  The latest appeal had been expected, given the huge sum at stake. The Supreme Court is not obligated to review the case, but its previous involvement and precedent in related cases make it more likely. There is no established timeline for a decision.

Wondering why the trees in Southeast Alaska are looking reddish-brown again this year? It’s because of an insect that feeds on treetops in the Tongass National Forest. The western blackheaded budworm starts its life as a caterpillar, boring through the new growth of hemlock and spruce trees. And if you look closely, you’ll see them.  “They will tie some of the needles together and create a nice little shelter so they can feed safely,” said Elizabeth Graham, an entomologist with the U.S.Forest Service. “But then once they’ve moved down and are ready to find a new spot to feed, they may drop down on silk threads.”  The budworms show up in a natural, recurring cycle every 30-40 years, and are part of the temperate rainforest’s ecosystem. The last major outbreak was from 1992 to 1995.

The day after the nation celebrated its independence, the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildland Center (KS Wild) continued the fireworks by notifying the Bureau of Land Management it was going to sue the agency.  What drew the ire of KS Wild? Public lands managers at the BLM are seeking to implement its Integrated Vegetation Management for Resilient Lands Environmental Assessment. Projects from this plan will encourage healthier forests that are more resilient to wildfire and drought, protect adjacent communities from large-scale wildland fires, and improve habitat for vulnerable wildlife species and plants. …To accomplish its goals, the BLM may remove some commercial timber from the treatment areas.   …Commercial harvest is sometimes the most efficient way to accomplish the agency’s conservation goals. That’s because the timber industry provides the people, equipment and markets to remove and process the materials that need to come off fire-prone public lands. 

Oregon activists have come far… from protecting federal public forest, to protecting state public forests. What, I wondered, was the next step? Wouldn’t it be to protect public interest against private property itself, not just against logging/development on public lands? The private property most in question would be the 10.2 million acres of private logging lands in the state. What impact does private land use on about one-third of all forests in the state have on the public interest, specifically municipal watersheds, air and water quality and community fire resilience? Oregon is uniquely qualified to answer this question through the application of what legal scholars call “public trust doctrine.” …Its primary principle is that the “sovereign,” or state, holds resources in trust for public use regardless of private property ownership. …Private logging land is often sprayed with herbicide and commonly clear-cut. 

OREGON — Four environmental groups are threatening to sue federal agencies over a new forest treatment plan. The activists say the Bureau of Land Management isn’t doing enough to protect two threatened species in Southern Oregon. A proposed lawsuit… seeks to protect the marbled murrelet and coastal marten, which are both threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The BLM’s Integrated Vegetation Management forest management plan outlines 150,000 acres of prescribed fires, small diameter tree thinning, and commercial thinning in late successional reserves over the next 10 years. They argue the new decadelong forest management plan will be ineffective. …But Regional Fire Specialist Chris Adlam with Oregon State University says the plan will help reintroduce beneficial fire. …Adlam says the 2020 Slater Fire wiped out huge portions of northern spotted owl habitat.

Jay Smith is the forest restoration director for Coconino County, which includes the city of Flagstaff and was hit by a particularly brutal start to this year’s fire season. …But as bad as this may seem, Smith knows that things could get much worse. The forest overall has six times more trees than it did historically, Smith said, which adds up to much more fuel for wildfires. …“We’re so far behind on getting these forests thinned”. …The city, county and state have all taken on projects to improve the health and lower the flammability of the forest in recent years. …Experts attribute the delayed work in large part to Flagstaff’s lack of a logging industry.  “It used to be here. It’s no longer here.” …Flagstaff had a profitable logging industry through the 1980s, but a push to protect Mexican spotted owl habitat [meant] loggers could no longer cut the older, larger trees.