treesource

Forest Journalism for a Sustainable Future

Study: Climate change, century of fire suppression led to California megafires

by Leave a Comment

A view of the Camp Fire Tuesday Nov. 13, 2018 in Northern California. At this point, the 125,000-acre fire was only 30-percent contained after it started Nov. 8. Photo: NASA

California wildfires will become more severe in the future as warmer temperatures give way to drier summers, a decrease in the amount of snow at higher elevations despite above average rainy seasons and, possibly, because humans are too good at putting blazes out.

Improvements in suppressing forest fires, rather than letting them run their natural course, has led to forests bursting with underbrush and crowded trees, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers reconstructed 400 years of climate data to determine what causes wildfires in California and found many of the elements that would have pointed to a strong, wet winter would have led to a weaker wildfire season.

But that has not been the case recently as the last few years of insurmountable wildfires in California has been any indication.

[Read more…]

Battles over logging, funding delay wildfire mitigation projects

by Leave a Comment

Thomas Fire, Ventura, CA, Los Padres NF, 2017
Firefighters watch the approach of last fall’s Thomas Fire in Ventura, California, Los Padres National Forest. Photo: U.S. Forest Service

President Donald Trump wants the federal government to do more this year to prevent wildfires on public lands, including about 20 percent more logging on national forests.

But environmentalists argue that expanding logging could do more harm than good. And forestry experts say the president’s push in a December executive order for more “active management” of public lands — a concept most agree is a good idea — won’t get far unless Congress pays for it.

With the number of devastating fires expected to increase as the climate grows warmer and drier, experts and states want to see more federal investment in projects that could avert massive blazes.

Most forestry experts, including many environmentalists, say protecting communities from fire requires land managers to cut down problem trees, brush and saplings, and set prescribed burns that restore fire’s natural role in forest ecology.

Due to the rising costs of fighting fires, however, the U.S. Forest Service lacks money and staff necessary for projects that could make future fires less severe. [Read more…]

Collaborative effort works to restore New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains

by Leave a Comment

A long-running collaborative effort in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico is proving the potential for communication, compromise and change when diverse groups sit down together.

The Southwest Jemez Mountains Resilient Landscapes and Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project extends across 210,000 acres in the Santa Fe National Forest, Valles Caldera and Pueblo of Jemez.

Citizens, scientists, environmental leaders and timber workers are working together toward a shared goal: to return the Jemez Mountains’ forests to a more natural state.

That means overcoming the impacts of large-acreage grazing dating back to the late 1800s and a century of wildfire suppression. Both practices had disastrous consequences on the forest that burst into public consciousness when the combination of drought, global warming and overgrown forests ignited mega-fires such as 2011’s Las Conchas.

[Read more…]

Federal judges invoke ‘The Lorax’ in defense of trees over pipeline permit

by Leave a Comment

Quoting Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” the Fourth Circuit spoke for the trees this month by scrapping a key federal permit for a planned section of a natural gas pipeline crossing 21 miles of national forest in Virginia, including a section of the Appalachian Trail.

“We trust the United States Forest Service to ‘speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,’” the ruling states, citing the 1971 children’s book. “For the reasons set forth herein, we grant the petition to review the Forest Service’s record of decision and special use permit, vacate the Forest Service’s decisions, and remand to the Forest Service for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The Richmond-based appeals court said the Forest Service, which had approved a permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to snake through the George Washington and Monongahela National Forests, pulled an about-face after its technical staff’s research painted a “grim picture” of the pipeline’s potential impacts on the environment.

“A thorough review of the record leads to the necessary conclusion that the Forest Service abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources,” U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. “This conclusion is particularly informed by the Forest Service’s serious environmental concerns that were suddenly, and mysteriously, assuaged in time to meet a private pipeline company’s deadlines.” [Read more…]

Publisher’s Notebook: ‘I am concerned about saving the planet!’

by 3 Comments

Dave Atkins
Dave Atkins

My question was simple: “Why are you here?”

And so was the answer: “I am concerned about saving the planet!”

This past weekend, I was on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for the Alliance for Green Heat’s Woodstove Design Competition. As a board member of the alliance, I was supporting the effort by giving tours to people interested in what was going on inside this huge tent on the National Mall with a dozen metal chimneys poking out of the top.

That gave me the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of people from many parts of the country in a short period of time. Three of my guests captured the essence of many other conversations this past weekend and of the whole idea of using wood for energy. They revolved around renewability, sustainability and cleanliness.

[Read more…]