Category Archives: Forestry

MONTANA — Concerns that public lands proposed for trade to landowners along the east side of the Crazy Mountains will be developed were raised during an objection resolution meeting hosted by the Forest Service. Sweet Grass Creek zigs and zags through a valley that’s now difficult for the public to access because of the checkerboard private land ownership in the Crazy Mountains. Twelve individuals, half of which represented state or regional conservation groups, aired their grievances regarding the land exchange tentatively approved last year. In an attempt to consolidate public and private lands in the mountain range and near Big Sky, the exchange offers 3,855 acres of federal land for 6,110 acres of private property owned by six different parties. …Although the Forest Service did add restrictions to protect some of its exchanged parcels following public concerns, objectors said the agency didn’t go far enough.

Nick Smith

In December, Biden announced policy to conserve old growth forests on federal lands. The policy caps a nearly two-year process … including defining, inventorying and assessing the greatest threats to the nation’s old growth. … The threat of commercial logging was determined to be negligible. …This assessment could have provided momentum to implement a 10-year wildfire strategy… Instead, the Forest Service was directed to amend all 128 forest land management plans to “conserve and steward” old-growth forest conditions nationwide. The agency will attempt to amend these disparate plans through a single Environmental Impact Statement before Biden’s first term is over. …Rather than giving our public lands managers the policy tools and support they need to sustain our forests and all the values they provide, such “paperwork protection” of old growth forests forces public lands managers to focus on more government bureaucracy that does little to address the real risks on the ground. 

Land managers in northwest Montana this week approved a salvage timber project near Olney in hopes of recovering some economic value from timber stands that burned in last summer’s East Fork Fire, which torched more than 5,000 forested acres. According to a decision memo submitted by the Flathead National Forest’s Tally Lake District Ranger Bill Mulholland, who has jurisdiction over about 1,080 acres of the wildfire’s footprint, the East Fork Salvage Project will help recover valuable fire-killed species before they depreciate, as well as promote forest health and create new jobs. It is located in the Martin Creek and Blessed Pass areas, approximately six miles west of Olney.

Karl Brauneis

Mountain pine beetles are always in the forest ecosystem in an endemic state. The key that triggers an epidemic build up is the age of the surrounding trees. When lodgepole pine reach on or about the year 100 they send out the message to “kill me.” It’s time to regenerate. This is their life cycle. Mountain pine beetle require a “robust” timber industry to control. This is because the pine beetle is on a one year life cycle. As a forester I have had great success in controlling both pine and spruce beetle when we had a “robust” timber industry and multiple use timber management of the National Forests. Both of those attributes are seriously lacking today. …Environmentalists used federal acts, attorneys and judges to shut down forest management on the National Forests and the US Congress simply stood by as an absentee landlord and watched the destruction from afar.

Maui County Arborist Committee chairman and Treecovery founder Duane Sparkman said Thursday that about 50% of the tree is not expected to survive, which is up from the 40% estimate that was made in Dec. 2023. There is good news; Sparkman said small sections of the tree that are still alive can be transplanted into the areas where dead sections need to be cut out.

When the temperature drops and an extended freeze comes to our Webster Forest Nursery, we actually welcome the ice (by saying “ice to see you“). By irrigating our planted seedlings (also known as forbidden popsicles), we can protect them from the bitter cold. Our nursery staff gently showers the seedlings with a mist of water, and – after multiple applications – several layers of light ice build up to protect the seedlings from a freeze. These little seedlings play a big role in our sustainable forestry practices. During winter and spring, DNR crews replant state trust lands where timber has been harvested… There are 2.1 million acres of state trust forests statewide, so it takes millions of seedlings each year — with 14 species custom-grown for numerous different growing zones across the state. Hey, you winterize your pipes. We winterize our lil precious baby trees.

Log rolling, uphill: That could sum up the efforts to use a struggling, rebuilt timber industry to protect watersheds, reduce wildfire risks and stimulate rural economies, all at the same time. Case in point: The discussions of expiring state incentives for thinning projects and the long, vital struggle to thin the watershed of the C.C. Cragin Reservoir at the last meeting of the Natural Resources Working Group. The gathering of local officials, loggers and Forest Service timber administrators illustrated the economic and bureaucratic complications as well as the high stakes. Start with the long-suffering effort to thin the 64,000-acre watershed of the C.C. Cragin Reservoir. The 15,000 acre-foot reservoir holds the key to Payson’s long-term water future. …In the meantime, the group of local officials and loggers is focused on convincing the state to extend vital tax credits for forest industries, despite the forthcoming state budget crisis.

OREGON — Forests are an essential part of Earth’s operating system. They reduce the buildup of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and land degradation by 30% each year. This slows global temperature increases and the resulting changes to the climate. …As scientists who have spent decades studying forest ecosystems and the effects of climate change, we believe that it is essential to start protecting carbon storage in these forests. In our view, there is ample scientific evidence to justify an immediate moratorium on logging mature and old-growth forests on federal lands. … Conserving forests is one of the most effective and lowest-cost options for managing atmospheric carbon dioxide, and mature and old-growth forests do this job most effectively. Allowing mature and old-growth forests to continue growing will remove from the air and store the largest amount of atmospheric carbon in the critical decades ahead.

Nature effectively “managed” forests through millennia of major climate changes and episodes of natural disturbances (e.g., wildfires, droughts, bark-beetle outbreaks), so why would nature not now be best able to restore and adapt forests to climate change? We focused on this question while investigating lower-elevation dry forests of the western U.S. dominated by ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) or similar pines and dry mixed-conifer forests, in addition to other trees. Dry forests cover 25.5 million ha (63 million acres) of the western U.S. These forests have altered structure (e.g., tree density) from extensive logging, livestock grazing, and fire suppression. Dry forests are also recently experiencing more natural disturbances. Wildfires have at times become almost unstoppable, overwhelming firefighters and spilling over into the built environment. These trends continue in spite of billions of dollars spent annually to reduce fuels (e.g., thinning) and suppress fires and other disturbances in federal forests.

A wildfire funding proposal that would charge Oregon property owners $10 a year to offset rising fees that timber and ranch landowners pay to the state for fire protection has gone through major changes in recent days. The draft proposal …no longer includes the $10 fee on Oregon’s 2 million property holders. Such a fee would have raised an estimated $20 million a year, about 15% of the projected total cost for wildfire protection in 2024. The shift came two days after reporting by the Capital Chronicle on the proposal… The draft proposal still includes cuts to the per-acre fees that timber and ranch landowners pay to the Oregon Department of Forestry for fire protection, potentially saving them up to $12 million per year. The proposal would create a new State Forestry Department Large Wildfire Fund, but does not include details about where money for that would come from, only that it would be appropriated by the Legislature.

A Chinese billionaire and a California timber family have become among the largest private landowners in the U.S. following major purchases of Oregon forests, according to The Land Report, a magazine that details the top 100 private landowners in the U.S. The researchers found that Sierra Pacific Industries’ 2021 acquisition of 175,000 acres of forestland …in Douglas County, made the Redding, California based Emmerson Family the largest private landowner in the U.S. The family has 2.4 million acres of forests logged for timber in Oregon, California and Washington.  A Chinese billionaire, Tianqiao Chen, became the second largest foreign owner of U.S. land following the purchase of nearly 200,000 acres in Klamath and Deschutes counties nearly a decade ago. The Irving family of Canada is the largest foreign landowner, with more than 1.2 million acres of timberland in Maine. …Chen’s stake in Oregon has drawn the ire of U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer over Chen’s membership in the Chinese Communist Party. 

Michael Hoyt

According to its website, the Montana Forest Collaboration Network (MFCN) has twenty-six participating groups. Their website states that this network was formed in “August 2016, to assist collaborative groups across Montana in forest and grassland restoration, conservation, and resource utilization for the benefit of all.” Does that claim hold up? Are the Network and individual collaboratives actually helping restore and conserve forests and grasslands or improve resource utilization for everyone’s benefit? …The lists of members of MFCN and individual collaboratives reveal many are, or were, closely associated with the timber industry. In short, members of MFCN and individual collaboratives represent activities the Forest Service is supposed to regulate and constrain. That is unreasonable. …The fact that people representing activities the Forest Service is expected to regulate are not only allowed but asked to participate in collaboratives, is an indication the agency is a victim of regulatory capture.

BOISE, Idaho – Idaho has more than 103,000 acres of timberland enrolled in its Forest Legacy Program, mostly in the state’s northern counties. According to officials from the Idaho Department of Lands, in the past year the state received additional grant funds to enroll another 33,000 acres in the program. “Citizens who enjoy recreation in the forests, working families and Idaho communities benefit from the Forest Legacy Program because it keeps working forests working,” Idaho State Forester Craig Foss said. “Under this voluntary program private landowners can apply to sell the development rights to their timberland at a fair market value but retain ownership of the land.” More than 90% of the private land currently enrolled in Idaho’s Forest Legacy Program is open to the public for hunting, fishing, hiking and other recreational uses. It also preserves wildlife habitat, water quality and scenic landscapes.

Those hoping to join the California National Guard’s frontline wildland firefighting corps had no time to admire the morning sky as it collided with the golden hills of California’s Central Coast. The state was already weeks into its fire season when nearly 120 soldiers and airmen entered a 10-day academy hoping to serve on Joint Task Force Rattlesnake, 14 full-time military crews that embed with California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. …The 72 soldiers and airmen who made it through might soon be put to the test in a real-world wildfire. “We emphasize how strenuous and arduous this job is,” said Cal Fire Battalion Chief Brock Redding. …Formed in 2019 by the California National Guard as a response to the growing frequency and intensity of fires, supporting Cal Fire’s efforts to clear the dense, dry vegetation… Rattlesnake crews quickly proved themselves and now deploy alongside Cal Fire to the frontlines during fire season.

More than 2,000 signatures were collected on a petition calling for Sen. Steve Daines to meet publicly with his constituents regarding legislation he introduced to remove 100,000 acres in Montana from Wilderness Study Area protection. “It’s not asking much for the senator to meet with us before he introduces a bill that would change these places forever,” said Jennifer Buszka, a recreationist and public lands advocate from East Helena, in a press release from Wild Montana announcing the petition. Daines introduced his legislation in July, asking Congress to remove three WSAs: 81,000 acres in the Middle Fork Judith in the Little Belt Mountains managed by the Forest Service; 11,580 acres in the Wales Creek WSA; and 11,380 acres in the Hoodoo Mountain WSA. …The legislation also noted the Forest Service and BLM, in planning that involved public input, have recommended removing WSA designation from the lands.

Across the American West, managers of fire-prone landscapes are increasingly using a practice that seems counterintuitive: setting small fires to prevent larger, more destructive ones. … But smoke from prescribed burns also presents health risks. Today’s forest managers must ask themselves — how much prescribed burning is too much? …An international team led by researchers at the University of Washington built a framework to help land managers assess the air quality implications of land management scenarios with different levels of prescribed burning. To apply the framework, researchers linked together a series of models that estimate the smoke effects of various levels of prescribed burning on ecosystems and nearby communities. …All tested levels of prescribed fires led to less wildfire smoke overall. But greater amounts of prescribed fires could present notable health hazards of their own.

A Tonto National Forest project will use machinery to “chew” or “grind” woody vegetation on 5,351 acres across two of the Tonto’s ranger districts beginning Jan. 17. Entitled the Payson/Pleasant Valley Maintenance Mastication project, the contracted work will take place over the next year near the towns of Mesa Del Caballo, Kohl’s Ranch, Christopher Creek, and Young in central Arizona. The project will reduce shrub and small juniper regrowth in previously treated areas, improving watersheds in Christopher, Tonto and Cherry Creeks, with the goal of lowering the risk of large-scale wildland fires. Additionally, burned watersheds are prone to increased flooding and erosion, which can negatively affect water-supply reservoirs, water quality, and drinking-water treatment processes.