Forest health crisis ends with a whimper
by Bob Berwyn in the Colorado Independent
‘We may be cutting down the very trees we need to save the forest’
FRISCO — Even here, in a cool forest hollow near Tenmile Creek, you can feel the tom-toms. It’s a distant beat, born in the marbled halls of Congress, where political forces blow an ill wind across Colorado’s forests. Nearly every Western elected official with a clump of shrubby cottonwoods in his or her jurisdiction claims to be a forest expert. And when senators and congress members make forest policy, rhetoric usually trumps science — as is the case with laws requiring new logging projects that may wipe out some of the very trees needed to replenish forests in the global warming era.
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Opinion: Tongass officials should look to the future
Juneau Empire Opinion Piece by Jim Furnish
Big changes are coming for the Tongass National Forest. Agency officials should seize the opportunity to make a clean break with their turbulent past, and do this as quickly as possible. Much good will come for all concerned by swiftly ceasing clearcut logging of old-growth forests.
Phase Out of Tongass Old-Growth Logging Can Begin Immediately
For Immediate Release on June 25, 2014
Contacts: Catherine Mater, President, Mater Engineering (541-753-7335); Dominick DellaSala, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, Geos Institute (541-482-4459 x 302, 541-621-7223); Nathaniel Lawrence, Natural Resources Defense Council (360-534-9900); Jim Furnish, Retired Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor (240-271-1650)
A recently released study of second growth availability on the Tongass National Forest shows that the U.S. Forest Service can end industrial old growth logging there within 5 years while, if it chooses, still increasing the total volume of trees harvested. The Forest Service announced in May that it was considering transitioning timber sales from old growth to second growth but within 10 to 15 years. The new study shows that transition can begin immediately and finish in no more than 5 years, shifting logging to second growth in previously logged and roaded areas outside of sensitive resource lands.
A 2014 study update commissioned by Geos Institute and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) conclusively shows that there is immediate access to supplies of second growth trees that could be harvested in southeast Alaska as an alternative to harvesting old growth trees. The original study conducted by Oregon-based Mater Ltd. released in 2013 used Forest Service and Tongass Futures Roundtable data to estimate the number of second growth acres already pre-commercially thinned that could be harvested at 55-years of age. Prior research financed by The Nature Conservancy determined the desired log characteristics for a dedicated small log processing operation on Prince of Wales Island could be obtained from 55-year old hemlock and spruce stands.
Scientists take aim at Wyden’s logging bill in new study, citing climate concerns
Elizabeth Harball, E&E reporter
Reprinted from ClimateWire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net 202/628-6500
A bill proposed in Congress that would increase logging activities in Oregon jeopardizes the Pacific Northwest’s forests’ ability to capture and store carbon dioxide, scientists argue in a new study.
U.S. Forests Are Pivotal in Efforts to Slow Climate Change
For Immediate Release on June 18, 2014
Contacts: Dr. Dominick DellaSala, Geos Institute (541-482-4459 x 302; 541-621-7223); Dr. Olga Krankina, Oregon State University (541-737-1780)
Ashland, OR – Scientists today called on the Obama Administration to do more to protect the nation’s mature “high-biomass” forests because of their unique climate change benefits. While the President has taken bold steps to reduce carbon dioxide pollution from coal and other fossil fuels, he has sidestepped efforts to protect productive older forests that store massive amounts of carbon and are key to helping stabilize runaway climate change. The study of high-biomass forests was published in the July 2014 issue of Environmental Management.
Older forests (mature and old growth) are a critical part of the global biological carbon cycle that contribute to climate stabilization by uptake and storage of atmospheric carbon in live and dead trees, foliage and soils. The oldest and most productive forests are where the trees are providing a long-term “sink” for atmospheric carbon, absorbing and holding on to it like a sponge for centuries. Those forests are the primary target for logging and when they are cut down up to half of their stored carbon is released into the atmosphere as a carbon dioxide pollutant within just a few years. This loss is not made up for by planting trees or storing carbon in wood products as forest products have a short “shelf life” compared to mature forest that sequesters (absorbs) and stores carbon for centuries.
Let the forests burn; the ecology depends on it
Ecologist
by Monica L. Bond, Chad T. Hansen & Dominick A. Dellasala
Forest fires are invariably portrayed as fiercely destructive environmental calamities. But for the native forests of the American West, large fires are essential to ecological renewal. Contrary to the mantras of logging companies and forest service officials, we suppress them at our peril.
West Braces for Active Fire Season as Scientists View Most Fires as Ecologically Beneficial
Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientist; Geos Institute
541.482.4459 x302; 541.621.7223 (cell)
dominick@geosinstitute.org; www.geosinstitute.org
Ashland, Oregon, USA; May 7, 2014
Fire scientists released a new synthesis on the ecological benefits of large wildfires, including those that kill most vegetation in fire-adapted forests, grasslands, and shrublands of the western U.S.
Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist of Geos Institute, stated “Contrary to popular belief, most large wildfires are not catastrophes of nature as many plant and wildlife species depend on them to restore habitat in short supply and to replenish soil nutrients. We can co-exist with wildfires by thinning vegetation nearest homes and in fire-prone tree plantations, and allowing large fires to burn unimpeded in the backcountry under safe conditions as they are ecologically beneficial.”
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, California, southern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, southern Alaska, and Oregon could experience large fires this year given dry conditions. However, dry fire-adapted regions generally have experienced substantially less fires compared to historical times due to ongoing fire suppression. Suppression costs in some years have approached $5 billion with limited effects on slowing large fires that are mostly driven by weather events. The Forest Service already has signaled that it is likely to run out of wildfire suppression funds long before the end of the fire season.
Fireside Chat presents the latest science on wildfire’s ecosystem benefits, including 9 key findings, impacts of climate change, post-fire logging, and fire suppression, and ways to help homeowners prepare for fires. It includes links to fire videos and fire researchers. Its main purpose is to serve as an information tool for the press, decision makers, and land managers interested in the ecosystem benefits of large fires that have been under-appreciated. Related to the release of Fireside Chat is an article on the ecological benefits of large wildfires posted on “Counter Punch.”
Proposed mine by wild Smith River roils Del Norte County folks
By Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle
The clear, flowing Smith River is a life force in the northern corner of California, where the locals keep a sharp eye out for threats to the pristine water and thriving fish. That would explain why the folk who live along the river in Del Norte County nearly jumped out of their britches when they learned about a proposed nickel mine along a major tributary of the Smith, the last major river without a dam left in the state.
A London mining company has applied to the U.S. Forest Service to begin exploratory drilling over thousands of acres of forest lands, including Baldface Creek, in Curry County, Ore., which flows into the Smith and helps maintain one of the most abundant natural salmon runs in California. <read more>
Why Large Fires are an Ecological Necessity
by Monica L. Bond, Chad T. Hanson and Dominick A. DellaSala in CounterPunch
This winter California suffered its most severe drought in decades, with record-low rainfall and meager mountain snowpack. Drought, high summer temperatures, and wind together make the perfect storm for what some have termed “mega” forest fires that, in spite of fire suppression activities, sweep across the landscape and end only when winds die down and weather cools off. The western U.S. may be facing another year of large fires, as these typically follow drought. So why aren’t we, as wildlife and forest scientists, worried?
Celebrating Earth Day, an intergenerational guide to the future
Guest Opinion in the Medford Mail Tribune
by Dominick A. DellaSala, Camila Thorndike, and Jim Furnish
One of us is a scientist, the next a young climate activist, and the third the former Siuslaw National Forest supervisor and Evangelical Environmental Network board member. What do we share in common?
Across three generations, we deeply respect nature, love our families, and are gravely concerned by the dramatic impact of carbon dioxide pollution that is triggering climate disruptions. We have each committed our lives to common-sense solutions for climate stability.
Our lives are enriched by the natural world. Yet no matter where we go, from the magnificent temperate rainforests of Oregon’s coast to the distant reaches of the polar ice caps, we see the world changing dangerously fast. We read the chaotic signature of deforestation in Amazonia and the view above our own Rogue Valley, where clearcuts greatly outnumber the remaining mature forests.
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Robert Macnee, Ph.D. is Deputy Director of Resilience Services at Climate Resilience Consulting, where he helps governments, institutions, and communities reduce climate risk in equitable and practical ways. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Management focused on climate change impacts on health and communities, and brings over a decade of experience spanning economic development, resilience planning, and implementation.
Samantha Medlock is President of Climate Risk Advisors, helping communities and organizations advance equity, sustainability, and resilience. Her career began chasing floods as a local official in Texas Flash Flood Alley—a hands-on experience that still shapes her approach to climate and disaster risk management.
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.