Bob Longatti

The management of cherished US forest lands has been mired in a complex web of regulations and legal battles, often driven by well-intentioned but misguided efforts to protect endangered species. It’s time to address this issue by amending the Endangered Species Act to prevent litigious groups from unnecessarily delaying or canceling vital forest management plans. …Citizens for Sensible Forest Management, a nonpartisan citizens group formed during the Creek Fire, has partnered with the Property and Environment Research Center of Montana. Research conducted by PERC sheds light on the need for amending the ESA in the context of forest management. PERC’s work highlights how the act’s implementation has frequently obstructed responsible forest practices that are essential for maintaining ecological health, reducing wildfire risk and safeguarding human communities. …By reforming the ESA, we can strike a better balance between conservation efforts and responsible forest management.

Artificial intelligence tools are helping Oregon wildlife researchers study hard-to-reach threatened species like the marbled murrelet. Researchers with Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service collected millions of hours of audio from federal forests in Washington and Oregon between 2018 and 2022. “We cannot physically review all the audio data that we collect,” said OSU College of Forestry doctoral student Matthew Weldy. “So we are reliant on computational tools to filter this data set and find sounds of interest.” To comb through that colossal amount of data, Weldy and other researchers developed a machine learning algorithm to identify the call patterns of marbled murrelets. Their findings — published this month in the Ecological Indicators journal — could help biologists understand which areas are most important to these enigmatic seabirds, thereby improving habitat conservation efforts.

CASPAR, California — With one exception, all the usual sounds of spring have returned to the Jackson Demonstration State Forest in Caspar. …But there is no sound of chainsaws and falling trees, and there is no chance of more tree-cutting for profit until 2025, possibly even later. A timber harvest plan that uses pre-burning and other environmentally favored techniques will be on the agenda of the Jackson Advisory Group (JAG) on May 8. Even if approved, that harvest would not begin before 2025. …The meeting will feature a new chairperson, Amy Wynn, and several members who have been reappointed. …The agenda includes a discussion of revamping the JAG charter, which could result in restructuring the JAG to solve the most vexing problem the advisory group faces, that of co-management. California Governor Gavin Newsom has pushed for Tribes to be part of managing the forest resources. 

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – Above Matchless Court in the First Creek drainage, new technology is chipping away at the vegetation and trees ecologically, efficiently, and safely. Two remote-controlled BurnBots RCU75s showcased precision mastication Wednesday as part of a demonstration hosted at the Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation by the Tahoe Fund and regional partners including the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District, Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, and the Martis Fund. “This thing can do 10 times what hand crews can do,” said BurnBot CEO Anukool Lakhina. “BurnBots mission is to make destructive wildfires a thing of the past.” …The $50,000 project will remove 75% of the vegetation on 22 acres in 2 to 3 days. This would have taken 1 hand crew or 20 firefighters 15 days. …BurnBot was created to complement human efforts and address the needed scale of fuels reduction and management, according to BurnBot’s website. 

Land management in the United States will need a paradigm shift to survive climate change and a legacy of mismanagement. A team experts from four tribes, 10 universities, the Forest Service and a handful of environmental firms across North America are calling for a “two-eyed seeing” approach to land management. This means genuine collaboration between Indigenous and Western governments. The policy recommendations were outlined in a report released April 10. The report was co-led by Oregon State University professors Cristina Eisenberg and Michael Paul Nelson, and fire ecologists Susan Prichard of the University of Washington and Paul Hessburg of the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. Forest management in the United States is at a crucial juncture, and agencies such as the Forest Service are more open to integrating Indigenous knowledge and practices of land stewardship. …In the Pacific Northwest, two-eyed seeing in part addresses misconceptions about fire and conservation.