GREENVILLE, Calif.  — A burn scar in Northern California offers an unsettling glimpse into what forests across the Sierra Nevada could become. …Two massive wildfires have torn through here over the last 15 years, burning with such intensity through so large an area that the conifer forest will likely be unable to regenerate on its own, experts say. It’s a pattern that threatens to repeat across California’s most extensive and iconic mountain range as wildfires have increased in both size and severity over the last two decades. …“The concern is the amount of conifer forest that we’ve lost won’t recover,” said Ryan Bauer, fuels and prescribed fire program manager for the Plumas National Forest. “The patches of high-severity fire are so big that there’s not a seed source near enough to get conifer forest reestablished naturally in these large patch sizes.” 

The impacts of a decision to reduce timber sales in the Black Hills National Forest will go far beyond the region’s economy, according to a state senator and a timber resource advocate. The limited timber sales — and the resulting reduced hours at two Black Hills area sawmills — will have environmental impacts on the Ponderosa Pine forests as well. With reduced forest management will increase the frequency of beetle infestations and severity of wildfires as well, said Ben Wudtke, executive director of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association. “We’ve had tremendous success with reducing mountain pine beetle mortality and making forested stands resistant and resilient to wildfire impacts all through the timber harvest program for over 100 years,” he said. “With these reductions in sawmill capacity, these reductions in the capacity for timber harvest, those really equate to reductions in our capacity to care for the forest.”

About two hours north of Los Angeles, stands an ancient grove of big-cone Douglas fir trees. The telltale signs of decades-long droughts from centuries past lie deep within the trunks of its oldest trees. But inscribed just beneath the bark are traces of the worst drought these trees have ever withstood. …The rings inside the Douglas firs record a continuous climate history stretching back 500 years, nearly five times farther than rain-gauge records. But even though these trees are well adapted to this rugged landscape, they cannot survive without sufficient rainfall and moisture. For some of the trees, their unbroken story may be coming to an end. As a dendrochronologist, I examine tree rings to study climate. A recent study published in Nature Climate Change… concluded that there was probably not a drought as severe as today’s in the past 1,200 years. [to access the full story a NYT subscription may be required]

State revenue from logging public land would no longer be used for building and remodeling schools in urban areas under a new set of recommendations from Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal. Instead, the money generated by timber sales and leasing on public school trust lands would go toward school construction in rural districts and be used for sustaining healthy forests. …Reykdal outlined several proposals for the Legislature to decouple the state’s K-12 Common School Trust revenue from statewide school construction funding support and ensure dollars generated in rural areas go toward supporting schools there. At times, Reykdal sounded more like an environmental leader than a superintendent as he talked up the need for healthy forests to capture carbon and efforts to help natural resources withstand climate change. …Currently, revenue from timber sales and leasing on roughly 1.8 million acres of public land goes toward the trust fund.