The Biden administration and industry groups pledged Thursday to promote logging practices and research intended to protect imperiled species on private forest lands. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and two forest products organizations signed a memorandum promising cooperation on projects that could boost struggling populations of pollinating insects, birds, fish and mammals. “It underscores the importance of the contributions private forest owners make to wildlife and natural resource conservation,” service Director Martha Williams said.” It was among several initiatives President Joe Biden announced this week to prevent loss of wildlife habitat. …The agreement between the government, the National Alliance of Forest Owners and the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement aims to halt a “historical pattern of costly litigation and counterproductive conflict” between industry and regulators, said Eric Breitling.

If we thin it – can we save it? That’s the high-stakes question at the heart of a $600,000 grant that will help a team of Northern Arizona University researchers conclusively demonstrate the value of controlled burns and thinning projects in the new era of megafires. The NASA grant will allow the Flagstaff team of scientists to meticulously monitor the effect of thinning projects in northern Arizona. The team will use the new thermal sensor ECOSTRESS aboard the International Space Station to measure soil moisture and evapotranspiration by plants. They can measure the moisture balance in thinned forests to similar, unthinned areas. This will help determine the impact of thinning and controlled burns on watersheds, tree growth and survival, drought resistance and a host of other questions. Cyber systems professor Temuulen Sankey will lead the team.

The Oregon Department of Forestry settled a lawsuit with an environmental group on Thursday that will mean larger buffers between logging roads and streams.  The Center for Biological Diversity sued the department in 2018 alleging it was endangering federally protected coho salmon by building logging roads that caused sediment to spill into streams in Tillamook and Clatsop state forests.  The lawsuit says state crews would carve roads through forested areas for clear-cutting and timber sales, and those roads were on steep slopes above streams crucial to Oregon Coast coho salmon. It says a lack of adequate buffers caused sediment to spill into streams, and sometimes triggered landslides.  …As part of the agreement, ODF will expand stream buffers from 25 feet to 120 feet — meaning the department can’t conduct logging or thinning within those zones. These protections apply to all fish-bearing streams, as well as large and medium streams that don’t typically bear fish.