treesource

Forest Journalism for a Sustainable Future

Study: Spotted owls prefer tallest trees, opening door to thinning undergrowth

by 1 Comment

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the northern spotted owl as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. In 1994, the Northwest Forest Plan provided protections for the spotted owl and other species inhabiting late-successional forests in Washington, Oregon, and California. Photo: USFWS

Remote sensing technology has detected what could be a win for both spotted owls and forest management, according to a study led by the University of California, Davis, the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station and the University of Washington.

For 25 years, many forests in the western United States have been managed to protect habitat for endangered and threatened spotted owls. A central tenet of that management has been to promote and retain more than 70 percent of the forest canopy cover.

However, dense levels of canopy cover leave forests prone to wildfires and can lead to large tree mortality during droughts. Thus, the disconnect between two significant land management goals.

In the study, published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, scientists found that cover in tall trees is the key habitat requirement for spotted owls — not total canopy cover. It indicated that spotted owls largely avoid cover created by stands of shorter trees. [Read more…]

Former Forest Service leaders call for Western wildfire commission

by 2 Comments

The Thomas fire in and around Ventura, California, burned about 282,000 acres in late 2017. (InciWeb.gov)

It’s not the way we fight wildfires in the West that’s the problem. The problem is the way we manage our fire-dependent forests.

Since 2000, 154 wildfires in the region have cost over $20 million each to control. Many of them cost several times more. Together, these costliest fires, which were less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all Western wildfires in the period, cost more than $9 billion to fight. If you factor in property losses, natural resource damage and environmental impacts, the true costs skyrocket, but they are rarely measured or accounted for. What can’t be ignored is that these unprecedented wildfires tell us we need a much better land-management strategy. [Read more…]

Flagstaff’s $10M watershed restoration fund won’t cover needed forest thinning

by 1 Comment

Flagstaff, Arizona’s wakeup call came in the summer of 2010. Its leaders and citizens haven’t taken public safety or clean drinking water for granted ever since.

That was the year when June’s Schultz wildfire raced across 15,000 acres northeast of Flagstaff on the eastern slopes of the San Francisco Peaks. Remarkably, the fire stayed entirely within the Coconino National Forest boundaries and burned no homes.

Then came northern Arizona’s monsoon season, and a seemingly endless series of floods carried torrents of water out of the burned area and into Flagstaff subdivisions, taking the life of a 12-year-old girl and damaging hundreds of homes.

[Read more…]

Southern California: Solutions complex, elusive as region struggles to live with fire

by 2 Comments

In December, the Thomas fire burned to the edge of Page Hall, a freshman dorm at Westmont College. Photo: Matt Blois

Yellow fire hoses still snaked through Westmont College’s campus in Santa Barbara, California, more than a week after the Thomas fire nearly burned through the campus.

The flames came within a few feet of Page Hall, one of the freshman dorms, and burn patches dotted the surrounding vegetation. Lines of fire retardant stained the ridges overlooking the school red, and behind lines of yellow caution tape cleanup crews used cranes and chainsaws to remove trees and shrubs from the burn area.

On the night it started, Westmont students could see the glow of the Thomas fire from 40 miles away. Soon thereafter, the school sent students home, conducting final exams remotely.

By the time the fire reached campus two weeks later, most everyone had already left. [Read more…]

Time to overhaul the National Environmental Policy Act

by 1 Comment

National Environmental Policy ActThe National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which was signed into law on January 1, 1970, was enacted to “declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment.”  Unfortunately,the National Environmental Policy Act has not only become a roadblock to getting critical work done on the ground, but is taking years longer than ever intended and costing way more than is necessary.  That is why the Forest Service is currently seeking to modernize their NEPA regulations for the first time in a quarter century; which, with over 100 million acres of FS lands at some risk of catastrophic wildfire, the modernization can’t come quick enough. 

Simply put,the National Environmental Policy Act needs to be more responsive to the needs of our forests and communities.  Guidance from the Council on Environmental Quality recommends that Environmental Impact Statements (EIS’s) should only be used for projects that will have significant environmental impacts, and they should be completed in 1 year or less, and should generally be less than 300 pages.  But, a report by the Government Accountability Office has showcased that it now takes the FS an average of 1,300 days and over 1,000 pages to complete an EIS.  So instead of getting work done on the ground, FS employees spend significant amounts of time and funding writing documents.  This does not benefit the resource, or the communities that surround National Forest land. 

In order to reduce the “analysis paralysis” that has plagued the Forest Service NEPA process, things needs to change.  For instance, the Forest Service should have streamlined procedures for any projects that have been identified for timber harvesting.  They should also develop a restoration Categorical Exclusion (CE) as recommended by the Western Governor’s Association recent report on Forest and Rangeland Management.  Also, No-Action alternatives should fully address the environmental effects of NOT doing work.  Finally, the FS should declare an emergency on all Federal lands designated as condition class 2 or 3 on wildfire risk maps, as well as lands identified as priorities for treatment in Community Wildfire Protection Plans, and adopt streamlined NEPA compliance strategies for all such lands. 

I encourage all of you who are frustrated with the lack of work getting done on federal lands to submit comments to the FS by February 2nd using the following link: https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public/CommentInput?project=ORMS-1797

Molly Pitts
Rocky Mountain States Director
Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities