Northwest Forest Plan provides co-benefits to people and wildlife in coastal rainforests
Contacts:
Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D. Geos Institute, 541-482-4459 x 302
Patric Brandt, Ph.D. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch
Partenkirchen, Germany; Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany;
+49 4131 677 1571; patricbrandt@gmx.de
Ashland, Oregon and Lüneburg, Germany – Scientists from the Pacific Northwest and Germany released new findings in the journal Biological Conservation documenting linkages between the richness of rainforest plants and wildlife and the provisioning of key ecosystem services in coastal rainforests of North America, particularly those managed under the landmark Northwest Forest Plan.
Wyden Gets Pushback On His O&C Timber Bill
By Liam Moriarty, Jefferson Public Radio
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden pledges to do everything he can to get his proposed timber plan passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama this year. He’s gathered support from key players in both the timber industry and the environmental community, and he’s painting opponents as uncompromising extremists. But, hold-outs on both sides say splitting the baby in half isn’t the wisest choice. Read more
Scientists Question Wyden’s O&C Logging Plan
Contacts: Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D. (541-482-4459 x 302; 541-621-7223)
Robert Hughes, Ph.D. (208-354-2632)
Two preeminent scientific societies believe plan increases extinction risks for salmon, other threatened wildlife
Washington, DC —Two international scientific organizations, the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) and the American Fisheries Society (AFS), are questioning the assumptions behind Senator Ron Wyden’s plan to double logging levels on publicly owned Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in Western Oregon. In testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the organizations raised serious concerns that the Oregon and California Lands Act of 2013 (S. 1784) abandons science-based management of public lands.
Statement of the Geos Institute on O&C lands
Contact: Dominick DellaSala, Geos Institute, 541/482-4459 x302
Oregon’s O&C BLM lands provide drinking water for over 1.5 million people, contain the region’s last mature and old-growth forests, and provide habitat for endangered wildlife and salmon. These BLM lands are managed under the guidelines of the Northwest Forest Plan, a global model of ecosystem management and conservation on 25 million acres of public lands from northern California to Washington.
Geos Institute stands ready to work with Senator Wyden to find a common sense solution to O&C lands that provides timber and jobs from appropriate thinning of small trees for fuels reduction and restoration purposes in tree plantations. We urge Senator Wyden not to unravel the Northwest Forest Plan to increase clearcut logging for timber volume because hundreds of scientists have supported the plan’s protection of salmon, drinking water, and mature forests.
New Report to Solve the Western Oregon County Payments Impasse
Shared Responsibility: The Conservation Community’s Recommendations to Equitably Resolve the O&C County Funding Controversy
Reports and Info:
- Report and Executive Summary
- Feb. 1, 2012 Press Release from local, state, and national groups, describing their new plan to replace federal subsidies without resorting to clear-cutting public lands.
- Critique of Active Management in Spotted Owl Habitat
- 4-page summary and critique of their proposed “O&C Trust, Conservation, and Jobs Act.
As Oregon county governments receive their last checks from federal taxpayers under the expired county payments program, a coalition of seven local, state, and national conservation organizations has unveiled a balanced strategy to resolve the county funding conundrum. Given the growing trend in Congress to end Oregon’s county payments program, the groups are promoting a shared responsibility approach, where county governments, the State of Oregon, and the federal government would each take responsibility for resolving a portion of the problem.
A 21st Century Blueprint for Saving Oregon Species from Climate Change
Guest Opinion by Bill Bradbury
OregonLive.com click here
You don’t have to leave western Oregon to witness the escalating impacts of climate change .
On Mount Hood, river-feeding glaciers thousands of years old have shrunk by as much as 60 percent in the past 100 years.
In the often water-starved Klamath Basin, average summer temperatures are projected to increase by more than 10 degrees by 2075, with surrounding snowpack levels expected to decrease by as much as 90 percent.
In the Columbia River, average August and September water temperatures are already pushing levels that disrupt salmon migration, and they’re projected to rise another 4 degrees by midcentury.
Given those pressing realities, I read with great interest the plan just released by the Obama administration to help America’s wildlife adapt to the rapid habitat changes caused by global warming. Much of the plan’s focus is on plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act . The act, which turns 40 this year, is not without its critics, and I can be frustrated by how long it can take to get protection for critically imperiled species and, once they’re listed, how long it can take to get a recovery plan in place.
Yet, when we use it as intended, the law can have a tremendous impact. More than 90 percent of the species it protects have been saved from extinction, and hundreds are on the road to recovery. Here in Oregon, some of our most cherished species — from coho salmon to gray whales and bald eagles — owe their existence to the Endangered Species Act.
But as we move through the climate-fueled challenges of the 21st century, we’re entering uncharted waters in the battle to preserve the broad diversity of life critical to our planet’s future.
The Obama administration’s new plan includes a series of mitigation measures for wildlife, including protecting corridors that allow animals to move to more suitable habitat as climate change alters ecosystems. It’s an intriguing idea, but will it be enough? Or is it simply an incremental step in a much longer journey we’ve yet to commit to?
We’re entering uncharted waters in the battle to preserve the broad diversity of life critical to our planet’s future.
What “corridor,” for example, can help coho salmon escape the ever more heated Columbia River? And consider the plight of Oregon’s fast-disappearing wolverines. Scientists have known for some time now that wolverines require at least 5 feet of spring snowpack in the high-mountain terrain where they dig protective dens.
So it was hardly surprising that when proposing Endangered Species Act protections for wolverines earlier this year, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists cited climate change as the greatest threat to the 300 or so of the solitary predators that remain from Oregon and Washington to the northern Rockies. Unchecked, temperature increases could very likely wipe out wolverines in the Lower 48 before the end of this century.
Yet, just as was the case when polar bears were listed as “threatened” in 2008, federal wildlife managers declared that any protections extended to the wolverine would not include regulation of greenhouse gas pollution — the leading driver of rising global temperatures that are threatening wolverines and degrading the planet we all share. That troubling dichotomy reflects the need for a dramatic change in our current political climate, one in which elected officials can be far too quick to trade critically important long-term conservation and economic benefits for the exaggerated benefits of short-term economic gain.
Whenever we’re ready, even the most challenging policy solutions are within reach. We need only glance back at the confident steps taken to preserve the national bird we now routinely see soaring above the Willamette River for a model of how to move forward. We not only used the Endangered Species Act to protect bald eagles from being killed and captured — much as we’re proposing to do with the wolverine — but we also banned pesticides such as DDT. In the process of protecting the eagle’s habitat, as required by the Endangered Species Act, we cleaned up the waterways critical to our own health and economic stability.
The sooner we realize that protecting our environment and our economy is not an “either-or” proposition, the more quickly we can get down to the work of building a sustainable bridge to the future that’s anchored in the reality of our times.
Only then will we have a real shot at protecting Oregon’s irreplaceable ecosystems, from the high-mountain home of wolverines and our winter sports industries to the rivers critical to the future of our salmon runs, as well as our commercial and recreational fishing interests.
Bill Bradbury, former Oregon Secretary of State, is a member of the NW Power and Conservation Council and is on the board of the Oregon Environmental Council and Geos Institute.
Defazio Logging Trust Proposal – More Harm than Good
CONTACT: Randi Spivak, Vice President of Government Affairs, Geos Institute (310) 779-4894
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Three proposals to address payments to counties were considered today at a hearing of the Public Lands and Environmental Regulation Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee, including H.R. ____, “Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act” (Hastings); and H.R. ____, “O&C Trust, Conservation, and Jobs Act” (DeFazio, Walden, Schrader); and H.R. 1294, “Self-Sufficient Community Lands Act of 2013” (Labrador).
All three would effectively privatize federal public forestlands by creating legally binding fiduciary trusts for the sole purpose of providing revenues to counties, resulting in industrialized clearcuts across the landscape. The DeFazio-Walden-Schrader proposal would effectively privatize 1.5 million acres of public forests Western Oregon.
Lawmakers like plan to revamp O & C lands
Co-authors of the O&C Trust Conservation and Jobs Act say it will help former timber receipt beneficiaries.
by Paul Fattig, Medford Mail Tribune
A trio of Oregon congressmen expressed optimism over a plan to revamp management of the O&C lands in Western Oregon, following a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. read more >
9.6 Million Acres Protected as Critical Habitat for Northern Spotted Owls
Contacts: Noah Greenwald, Center for Biological Diversity, (503) 484-7495
Joseph Vaile, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, (541) 488-5789
Dominick A. DellaSala, Geos Institute, (541) 621-7223
Decision Reverses Controversial Bush Administration Cuts to Habitat
WASHINGTON — Conservation groups today hailed protection of 9.6 million acres of critical habitat for the threatened northern spotted owl across federal lands in Washington, Oregon and Northern California, but were deeply disappointed by the exclusion of all private and most state lands, resulting in a 4.2 million cut from the proposed designation. The owl has continued to decline since being protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, in part because of continued loss of habitat on private and state lands.
Feds to Designate 9.6 Million Acres as Critical Habitat for Spotted Owl
Jeff Barnard, Associated Press
GRANTS PASS, Oregon — The last building block of the Obama administration’s strategy, to keep the northern spotted owl from extinction, nearly doubles the amount of Northwest national forest land dedicated to protecting the bird by the Bush administration four years ago.
Still, conservation groups that went to court to force the overhaul said key gaps remain, such as an exemption for private forest lands and most state forests.
The full critical habitat plan will not be published until next week, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that 9.6 million acres of Oregon, Washington and Northern California will come under its provisions, almost all of it federal lands.
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Arsum is the Senior Adaptation and Coastal Resilience Specialist for the National Wildlife Federation’s Southcentral Region. In this role, she advances climate adaptation efforts, with a focus on nature-based approaches to address the impacts of climate change and extreme events across the Gulf region. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications on climate impact assessments and adaptation solutions. Additionally, she regularly participates in state-based coastal resilience and hazard mitigation planning across the Gulf, collaborating with regional and local stakeholders.
Frank is the former President of the Reinsurance Association of America. Frank currently serves on the Advisory Board of the OECD’s International Network for the Financial Management of Large-Scale Disasters, the RAND Center on Catastrophic Risk Management and Compensation, and the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner III Center for Insurance and Risk Management Advisory Board.
Jim is a multilingual world traveler. Based in Bavaria during the 1970s, Jim spent most of this period in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, where he founded and operated a charitable medical clinic serving Tibetan Refugees. He settled in Oregon in 1983 on a forested ranch in the Umpqua National Forest.
Dr. Micah Hahn is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. She received her joint PhD in Epidemiology / Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MPH in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally-relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. Dr. Hahn is also on the Management Team of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Michael is a former Founding Principal of Resilient Cities Catalyst, a global non-profit helping cities and their partners tackle their toughest challenges. He is currently the Executive Director of Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami.
Dr. Quintus Jett is a consultant, educator, and strategist for public causes. He has a doctorate in Organizations & Management from Stanford University, and a two-decade faculty career which spans schools, departments, and programs of business, engineering, liberal studies, divinity, and public and nonprofit management. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Dr. Jett launched a volunteer project in New Orleans, which enlisted residents, students from over a dozen colleges and universities, and hundreds of others to field map the city’s Gentilly district, Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. Dr. Jett is an innovator in higher education, bridging the divide between academic research and the other priorities of the modern university, including student access and diversity, community engagement, and providing foundations for life-long learning in today’s rapidly changing world.
Scott is Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He has written about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed climate literature, is a former editor of the Journal of Climate, and served for five years as founding Science Chair of the North American Carbon Program.
Linda has many years of experience in disaster preparedness and resilience. She has been an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors, Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, the statewide Mental Health Developmental Disability and the Linn County Board of Health. Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties (2013-2014).
Ken works with families and organizations as a mediator, organizational consultant, trainer and facilitator. Along with his passion for helping people prepare for and reduce climate change, Ken also volunteers as a mediator through Mediation Works and is passionate about supporting youth through mentoring with Boys to Men of Southern Oregon.
Matthew is a retired high school teacher who was once honored as Oregon High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Before his teaching career he was in the restaurant business in Portland. He is also a lawyer who has been a member of the Oregon State Bar Association since 1980.
Andrea is the Resilience Policy Advisor for the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. She works across state agencies and with local governments to increase the state’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.