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.

by Scott Sonner, Associated Press

More than 200 biologists, ecologists and other scientists are urging Congress to defeat legislation they say would destroy critical wildlife habitat by setting aside U.S. environmental laws to speed logging of burned trees at Yosemite National Park and other national forests and wilderness areas across the West. 

Click here for the full text of the scientists’ letter to Congress.

The experts say two measures pushed by pro-logging interests ignore a growing scientific consensus that the burned landscape plays a critical role in forest regeneration and is home to many birds, bats and other species found nowhere else.   Read More>

MEDIA ADVISORY – October 31, 2013

Contact: Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist, Geos Institute  541/482-4459 x305 or 541/621-7223

In an open letter to the U.S. Congress, 250 scientists request that Congress show restraint in speeding up logging in the wake of this year’s wildfires, most notably the Rim fire in the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park.

The scientists raised concerns that currently proposed legislation (HR1526, which passed in the House in September, and HR3188, now before the House) would seriously undermine the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems, setting back their ability to regenerate after wildfires.

The letter also pointed to the numerous ecosystem benefits from wildfires and how post-fire landscapes are as rich in plants and wildlife as old-growth ecosystems.

Click here to see the full text of the scientists’ letter to Congress.

Click here for a Nov. 2, 2013 Associated Press article about the scientists’ letter.

[Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net 202/628-6500]

Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest could transition completely to second-growth logging within the next five years, according to a new report from an Oregon-based consulting firm.

The report by Mater Engineering Ltd. said sufficient trees are available in previously logged, roaded stands in areas the Forest Service has already designated for logging.

But the transition would require the area’s logging and manufacturing infrastructure to be upgraded to process small-diameter logs. It would also require changes to Forest Service rules to allow trees to be harvested at an earlier age.

The report was commissioned by the Geos Institute, an Ashland, Ore.-based nonprofit that aims to protect forests in the face of climate change.

“We were surprised by how much 55-year-old second-growth volume could be obtained to offset old-growth logs in the Prince of Wales region and that the transition could be notably accelerated if the administration adopts policy changes on when younger forests can be re-harvested,” said Mater Engineering consultant Catherine Mater.

Quickly phasing out old-growth logging on the 17-million-acre Tongass, one of the world’s few remaining intact temperate rainforests, could also provide a market for private landowners including the Sealaska Corp. to harvest more young growth, the report said.

The report comes as debate rages over Forest Service plans to allow limited old-growth logging to sustain local mills while it transitions to young growth. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in July issued a memo saying that within 15 years, the “vast majority” of timber harvested on the nation’s largest national forest will be young growth (Greenwire, July 5).

Conservationists argue the transition must happen more quickly, but a logging official suggested it will take roughly twice as much time for second-growth trees to be old enough to cut.

“There is clear potential to stimulate a new economic model in southeast Alaska where a viable wood products industry works side by side with ecologically sustainable tourism and fishing,” said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist of the Geos Institute.

The report found a base-line volume of 15 million board feet per year is needed to establish and sustain the processing of second-growth logs in an existing, but upgraded, medium-sized sawmill in the Prince of Wales region.

The Forest Service would have to lift the so-called cumulative mean annual increment (CMAI) — which requires most trees to grow until they are 90 years old before being cut — in order to allow the harvest of 55-year stands, the report said.

Vilsack’s plan endorsed a bill by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would allow the Forest Service to change CMAI, allowing it to harvest second-growth timber sooner. But the bill, S. 340, is strongly opposed by conservation groups since it would convey public forests to a private corporation.

Vilsack’s plan calls for allocating more Forest Service staff and resources into planning second-growth timber sales, considering amending the forest plan to speed the transition, and supporting research into second-growth management and wood markets.

It encourages the Agriculture Department to offer financial assistance to retool mill equipment to more efficiently process younger timber and to establish a federal advisory committee to provide stakeholder input.

A primary concern of the Forest Service is the low availability of second-growth trees in a forest where industrial harvests did not begin in earnest until the 1950s.

For Immediate Release – October 28, 2013

Contacts:
Dominick A. DellaSala, Geos Institute – (541) 482-4459 x 302, (541)-621-7223 (cell)
Catherine Mater, Mater Ltd. – (541) 753-7335

Ashland, OR – A new report prepared by Oregon-based Mater Ltd., using updated Forest Service timber acreage and age class distribution data, shows that the agency could complete transition to supplying a second growth logging economy in Southeast Alaska within 5 years.

In May 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a framework to transition away from old growth logging on the Tongass National Forest, something the Forest Service said it believed could be done “quickly.” Early this month, Forest Service officials announced their “focus on identifying the timber base suitable to support a transition to young-growth management, in a way that supports the continued viability of the forest industry in Southeast Alaska.”

The Mater report shows such a transition could take place in as little as 5 years, shifting exclusively to previously logged stands of second growth, in the current land base already designated for logging and close to existing roads. Along with logging and manufacturing infrastructure adapted to work with small diameter logs, the transition would require changes to rules about how soon second growth stands can be cut. The report also recommends an aggressive regime to research and identify new value-added lumber grades and products to meet existing market demand.

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.

Sometimes there’s no more passionate form of advocacy than sound and rigorous science. Dominick Dellasala explains to Matt Kettman why.

Though he got his start working on the ground with some of the most headline-grabbing endangered species battles of the past quarter-century, Dominick Dellasala admits that today he is an “armchair biologist,” having been out of field work for years. The chief scientist of the climate change-focused Geos Institute grew up in Brooklyn, where he admits there weren’t many trees. Trips to the Catskills with his parents sparked his passion for the outdoors.

“My whole background is very improbable in terms of where I wound up,” Dellasala told me over the phone from his office in Ashland. “I wasn’t raised in an outdoor environment, but it became my passion because, once I got out there, I knew how special it was.” Teachers in high school and college recognized that passion early on, and pushed him to study nature while at Adelphi University on Long Island and then Wayne State in Detroit, where he got his Masters. He then went to University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for his Ph.D.

Once a professional, he ran headfirst into the northern spotted owl, the most challenging species he’s ever had the opportunity to study and, eventually, protect. “It’s just become the symbol for the battles over the forests of the Pacific Northwest,” said Dellasala. “That species has shouldered all of the conservation burdens, and you either hate it or you love it, depending on your approach to the issue.”

Many scientists try to straddle the divide between strict observation and passionate activism, but Dellasala has set a strong mold for how to do both without undermining one’s career and respect. 

Read the entire interview

by Dominick DellaSala and Chad Hanson

This year, as in every year, fires are occurring in the forests of the western United States. And, as always, we read the predictable headlines about how many acres of forest were “destroyed,” whether in Yellowstone National Park in the famous 1988 fires or today’s Rim fire in the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park.  Some claim more logging is needed to “salvage” dead and dying trees and “rehabilitate” burned landscapes, and many complain about the smoke. But the central questions remain: Does fire harm forests and what remedial actions are needed, if any?  <read more>

By Dominick DellaSala

Originally published in Island Press Notes: an Island Press blog on September 13, 2013.

Having jump-started my career as a conservation biologist riding the 1980s explosion of scientific and public interest in biodiversity, I have progressively witnessed how biophilia has given way to climate change concerns with the public, decision makers, scientists, and philanthropists (who have increasingly moved funding out of biodiversity and into climate change). In the meantime, we have lost sight of why biodiversity is critical to solving climate chaos. In fact, our biodiversity roots are indeed needed to solve climate chaos as the natural world holds the keys for reaching both a safe climate and living planet. After all, the planet’s life-given atmosphere is a byproduct of billions of years of atmospheric and biological forces in synch with one another and balanced by life on earth. We are poised to change that balance through unprecedented human-caused extinctions interacting with greenhouse gas pollutants, both byproducts of runaway population growth and unsustainable consumption levels.

Simply put, the path we are on today – some call it the “Great Acceleration” – or “Anthropocene” (Age of Humanity) – is triggering the sixth great extinction spasm (aka E.O. Wilson) through unprecedented species losses and a build up of heat-trapping gasses. The path ahead must recognize that we need nature to survive and overcome these dangerous times, lest we live in a world where wild things are pushed to the brink and climate disruptions worsen loses to both nature and people. Here are my top 10 reasons for why reinvigorating biodiversity conservation is critical to both a stable climate and a living planet.

Massive trees like New Zealand’s Kauri (Agathis australis) not only support unique temperate rainforest communities but are vital in the effort to find a solution to global warming. Bio-diverse temperate rainforests globally absorb the equivalent of over 60 times the world’s annual greenhouse gas pollutants. 

1. Areas of high ecological integrity (generally intact systems) with full complement of species and processes (biodiverse) are more resilient (capable of rebounding from disturbance) and resistant (capable of withstanding disturbance) to climate change and human disturbances.
2. High levels of biodiversity are associated with productive ecosystem services, including pollination (in major decline in agriculturally simplified systems), carbon sequestration and long-term storage (highest in old-growth biodiverse forests), nutrient cycling, soil formation, predator-prey dynamics (complex food webs), and provisioning services such as clean air and water, food, timber, and fiber. All of these services are at risk in a changing climate and from their exploitation.
3. High levels of biodiversity tend to be associated with human-well being (quality of life) and human health, which are at risk from increased air pollution, reduced quality and quantity of clean water, respiratory ailments, and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change. Natural systems and their inherent biodiversity can ameliorate at least some of these ailments as nearly 1 of every 4 medicines was originally synthesized from the world’s tropical rainforests that we also desperately need for a stable climate.
4. A diverse coastal environment with intact and functional wetlands is best at absorbing increasing storm surges and sea-level rise caused by global warming.
5. A diverse streamside channel with fully functional and intact riparian areas and wetlands are more capable of ameliorating flood damages and storing water especially if keystone species such as beaver are present.
6. Biodiversity is a kind of climate change insurance – we humans know very little about how natural systems work and how tipping points can trigger cascading ecological effects. Examples from marine fisheries abound where entire systems have collapsed due to over-fishing of a few commercially valuable fish that limit options for climate change adaptation.
7. There is magic in wild places; climate change removes that magic as a product of an ever-increasing human footprint – a dangerous feedback loop is being set up where biodiversity is hammered, resulting in diminished ecosystem services, concomitant impacts to humans that then put more pressure on those systems until they are extinguished. Numerous studies have linked poverty to decline in natural capital and this will only worsen as the poor feel climate impacts disproportionately.
8. Diversity in nature allows for more adaptation options in the future –biodiverse prairies with their full complement of wildflowers, for instance, are more capable of rebounding after disturbance than mega-farms.
9. Intact and connected landscapes are better able to provide refugia for climate-forced wildlife migrations than fragmented areas with low levels of diversity and artificial barriers to migration.
10. High levels of genetic diversity allow for greater phenotypic plasticity (i.e., more adaptive responses) than low levels of genetic diversity. Similarly, genetically modified organisms may be maladaptive in a changing climate due to their simplified genetic structure.

All species have a right to exist and are a product of eons of evolution at work (many believe a Creator is also at work). We should not have to choose between climate change or biodiversity nor justify biodiversity investments based mainly on Anthropentric views. We owe it to our children to leave both a living planet and a safe climate: the two are woven together like strands in the great web of life and all the strands are important for their own sake as well as ours.  

Contact: Dominick DellaSala, Geos Institute, 541/482-4459 x302

Last July in Baltimore, representatives of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) participated in a Roadless Area Symposium at the biennial International Congress for Conservation Biology 2013. Scientists described their research about global and regional perspectives on conserving roadless areas and shared preliminary results from the first global assessment of roadless areas.