Author: Jessica

Guest View: Nature’s climate solution

Written by Jessica on December 18, 2019. Posted in General.

Originally printed in Register Guard on December 14, 2019 by Dominick DellaSala, John Talberth and Ernie Niemi

Every fall, raging hurricanes and urban-wildfires remind us of the inconvenient truth: the climate is getting increasingly weird and dangerous.

Scientists have made it clear that if we hope to avoid escalating climate disruptions, we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground while simultaneously drawing down carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere primarily from burning fossil fuels and global forest destruction.

In fact, experts have determined that the most effective strategy to remove carbon from the atmosphere at a meaningful scale is to protect the world’s remaining unlogged forests and replenish what has been lost by replanting trees and letting them grow to maturity. One study estimates that natural carbon solutions can provide more than one-third of the carbon reduction the world needs to meet the Paris Climate Agreements.

Tongass National Forest roadless areas hold keys to Alaska’s climate future

Written by Jessica on December 16, 2019. Posted in Tongass.

For immediate release December 16, 2019

Contacts: Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala, Chief Scientist, Geos Institute, Ashland, OR; dominick@geosinstitute.org; 541-621-7223; Dr. Brian Buma, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado, Denver; brian.buma@ucdenver.edu; 303-315-7677

Ashland, OR – A new analysis of roadless area values on the Tongass National Forest, southeast Alaska, documents the enormous amount of carbon stored in the Tongass old-growth rainforest as key to Alaska’s climate future but at-risk to development by the Trump Administration’s proposed rollback of 9.2 million acres of roadless protections.

With mapping help from Audubon Alaska and funding from The Wilderness Society, researchers mapped carbon data obtained from the Forest Inventory and Analysis program of the US Forest Service, the USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station, and other published sources across the Tongass. The team then distilled that information for areas currently conserved by the Roadless Rule the Trump Administration is seeking to overturn in Alaska. Researchers report exceptionally high carbon density for the Tongass rainforest on par with temperate rainforests in Chile and Tasmania, the world’s most carbon dense terrestrial carbon sinks.

“At a time when thousands of scientists have sounded the alarm that the world is in a state of emergency from escalating climate disruptions and mass global extinctions of both plants and animals, the Trump Administration is opening up America’s carbon-version of Amazonia,” said lead author, Dr. Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist, Geos Institute.

Dr. Brian Buma, University of Colorado, added “The Tongass is a unique national environmental treasure, integral to our national carbon balance. It is far more valuable as a carbon storehouse and on carbon markets than in its timber, which is slow growing, remote, and expensive to access relative to other parts of the country. It is irreplaceable and takes centuries to recover when harvested. Extraction is short sighted and economic development should take more creative lines, like carbon marketing and tourism.”

The report was sent to the Forest Service – along with a letter signed by 234 prominent scientists – requesting that the agency suspend efforts to lift roadless protections.

The report summarized unique national and global values at risk, including:

The Tongass is part of a global network of temperate rainforests that make up ~2.5% of the world’s total forest coverage but that store a disproportionate amount of carbon critically important in climate regulation.
The Tongass is one of only 4 other temperate rainforests world-wide that is still largely intact, which is crucial for hundreds of fish and wildlife species seeking refuge from Alaska’s extreme climate impacts.
The Tongass occurs within the Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest bioregion (Coast Redwoods to Alaska) that collectively comprise over one-third of the world’s entire temperate rainforest biome.
Carbon stored in Tongass roadless areas has an estimated value of $234 million to $2.2 billion depending on offset markets and amount of logging in the next 100 years. Notably, Sealaska Native Corporation in southeast Alaska recently sold >$100 million of carbon offset credits to help BP offset 11 million metric tons of carbon emissions ($12 per ton of carbon; equivalent to offsetting 2.4 million car emissions in a year).
The Tongass may function as a climate refuge for species facing more extreme climatic conditions in the interior of Alaska and coastal rainforests further south if managed to protect old-growth forests and roadless areas.

“Carbon dioxide emissions are insidious and cumulative – we cannot see their immediate effects – but everyone on the planet – especially future generations – will eventually be affected severely by the unprecedented accumulation of fossil fuel emissions globally, deforestation in the tropics, and development of Tongass roadless areas unless we cut all emissions drastically,” said DellaSala. “This is Alaska’s best and final shot at preparing for climate change but the Forest Service has completely undervalued the climate importance of Tongass roadless areas and is squandering it away to developers.”

Here are the values provided to the Forest Service by Audubon Alaska mapping and US Forest Service datasets.

Experts claim admin used ‘misinformation’ to justify logging

Written by Jessica on October 22, 2019. Posted in Tongass.

By Adam Aton, Originally published by E&E News Tuesday, October 22, 2019

The Trump administration says the Tongass National Forest is America’s best carbon warehouse — so it’s fine to increase logging there.

The Forest Service last week released a draft environmental impact statement for building new roads through the Tongass, a precondition for feeding more old-growth trees into southeastern Alaska’s struggling timber mills. Every 21st-century president has fought over whether to expand or curtail logging in the massive forest. Trump has gone the furthest; his Forest Service last week said the time had come for a final resolution and recommended opening almost the entire area to development.

At stake is the country’s largest forest. The Tongass is among the world’s best carbon sinks, and it’s one of the largest unfragmented ecosystems in North America. Its trees hold about 650 million tons of carbon, which roughly converts to half of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2017.

Island Press book sale

Written by Jessica on October 21, 2019. Posted in General.

Save some green & inspire change with a book by our chief scientist, Dominick DellaSala, from the Island Press #simplyeverything sale. All print books are 50% off.

Purchase Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology and Conservation, edited by Dominick DellaSala

‘Hundreds of hectares of moonscape’: B.C. spruce beetle infestation used to accelerate clear cuts

Written by Jessica on October 17, 2019. Posted in Temperate Rainforests.

The largest spruce beetle epidemic in decades is attacking B.C.’s rain-rich interior, intensifying logging in forests that provide habitat for imperilled species like mountain caribou. But scientists and ecologists say resilient trees will survive and the forest will recover if we only give it a chance

By Sarah Cox, Originally published on October 16, 2019 at The Narwhal

Retired B.C. government forester Judy Thomas bushwhacks down a steep incline in B.C.’s Anzac River valley, north of Prince George, in search of a spruce beetle the size of a mouse turd.

To find one of the marauding insects Thomas has to chop through the coarse bark of an old-growth spruce to its soft inner layer, where a single beetle lays as many as 1,200 eggs. Extended ‘galleries’ of beetle larvae feed on the sapwood, killing the tree in tandem with an associated blue stain fungi.

“Let’s see if they’ve flown the coop,” says Thomas.

She points to telltale signs that the tree, still green and healthy-looking, has been under siege as part of the largest spruce beetle infestation B.C. has witnessed in 30 years.

Frass — a reddish brown sawdust-like substance that is a mixture of beetle poop and chewed tree debris — is sprinkled in bark crevices. The bark also has pitch tubes, appearing as tiny blobs of sap, that form as the tree tries to expel its miniature attackers.

Continue reading at The Narwhal

Sierra Club Forests and Climate Webinar

Written by Jessica on September 30, 2019. Posted in Pacific Northwest.

Sierra Club Forests and Climate Webinar by Dominick DellaSala and Jason Grant.

View the presentation- https://www.dropbox.com/s/56zrp1j3ea5615u/Forests%20&%20Climate_092519%20copy.pptx?dl=0

View the recording- https://zoom.us/recording/share/M03C_q4FuYzAtJjJ7AFIS8ZXvpY0Qozff4qO194zqJewIumekTziMw

Chief Scientist Dr. Dominick DellaSala’s letter to Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s Wildfire Council on how the state can best prepare communities for wildfires

Written by Jessica on September 30, 2019. Posted in Fire Ecology.

I am a conservation scientist with over 200 peer-reviewed publications including books on forest-fire ecology, climate change, and forest management globally and in Oregon. I also served on the Oregon Global Warming Commission Task Force on Carbon, and the Governor’s Forest Carbon Stakeholder Group. I have reviewed the report from the mitigation subcommittee and I write to provide input and a summary of the scientific literature on wildfires in a changing climate to help with your deliberations.

Read the rest of the letter

Not Just Brazil: Troubles In Temperate Rainforests

Written by Jessica on September 30, 2019. Posted in Temperate Rainforests.

The world took notice of the summer’s fires in the Amazon region of Brazil. The tropical rainforests are often called “the Earth’s lungs” for the oxygen they supply.

Far less notice is taken of the fate of rainforests in temperate zones, including in the Pacific Northwest. Logging continues on both sides of the US/Canada border, and that concerns a pair of scientists well-versed in the workings of those forests.

Jens Wieting is with Sierra Club BC and Dominick DellaSala is with Geos Institute based in Ashland.

They visit the studio to discuss their concerns for the temperate rainforests and the creatures that depend upon them.

Listen to the exchange: https://www.ijpr.org/post/not-just-brazil-troubles-temperate-rainforests#stream/0

Oregon Governor’s Council Projects Big Bill To Manage Wildfire

Written by Jessica on September 30, 2019. Posted in Fire Ecology.

by Cassandra Profita | OPB Sept. 27, 2019 1:54 p.m. | Portland, Ore.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown got a progress report from her Council on Wildfire Response on Thursday, and it came with a hefty price tag.

The board is advising the governor on how to change the state’s wildfire policy in response to growing wildfire risks from overstocked forests, population growth and climate change.

Council Chair Matt Donegan told the governor that one of the major changes the board is recommending is increased investment in wildfire suppression.

“It just stands to reason that in an era of climate change, in an era of fuel buildup and in an era of population growth and increased wildfire activity that we’re going to have to spend more resources suppressing fire,” he said.

He said the state will need an estimated $4 billion in “a multi-decade initiative that will involve significant state, federal and private investment” to reduce wildfire risks through actions such as logging overstocked forestland.

“That number feels a bit overwhelming,” Brown said in response. “But I think it’s critically imperative that we bite off a significant chunk right now — immediately.”

The governor said she wants to spend more to improve wildland firefighting capabilities, increase controlled burning and help communities live with more wildfire smoke.

“There isn’t really a fire season anymore. It’s year-round. It’s increasing in Oregon and frankly around the entire globe,” she said. “I obviously know we need to do things differently and we need different tools and we clearly need additional resources.”

Megafires Not Increasing: New Research Shows Large High-Severity Fires are Natural in Western Forests (Press Release)

Written by Jessica on September 10, 2019. Posted in Fire Ecology.

For Immediate Release, September 10, 2019

From Geos Institute and The John Muir Project

Contact: Eric Podolsky, eric@pikeandcompany.com, (415)585-2100, photos available via e-mail

“MEGAFIRES” NOT INCREASING: NEW RESEARCH SHOWS LARGE HIGH-SEVERITY FIRES ARE NATURAL IN WESTERN FORESTS

Case Study Rebukes U.S. Forest Service’s Post-Fire Clearcut Methods

ASHLAND, OR – SEPTEMBER 10, 2019 – A peer-reviewed study by leading experts of forest and fire ecology recently published in the science journal Diversity disputes the widely held belief that “megafires” in our national forests are increasing, preventing forests from re-growing, and that logging is necessary to prevent these wildfires. While many policy and management decisions in U.S. national forests are based on these assumptions, research shows that large patches of trees killed by wildfires—known as high-severity burn patches—have not been increasing. These findings thus show that taxpayer-funded logging projects on public lands are not only unnecessary, they are also counter-productive, as related research shows that such logging often increases fire severity.

Researchers analyzed the most extensive contemporary and historical datasets ever collected on large (over 1,000 acres) high-severity burn patches across 11 western dry pine and mixed-conifer forests over three decades. The findings dispute the prevailing belief that increasing “megafires” are setting back post-fire forest regeneration.

“This is the most extensive study ever conducted on the high-severity fire component of large fires, and our results demonstrate that there is no need for massive forest thinning and salvage logging before or after a forest fire,” says Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala, lead author of the study and Chief Scientist at the Geos Institute. “The perceived ‘megafire’ problem is being overblown. After a fire, conditions are ideal for forest re-establishment, even in the interior of the largest severely burned patches. We found conditions for forest growth in interior patches were possible over 1000 feet from the nearest low/moderately burned patch where seed sources are most likely.”