SOS Forests

Green-Eyed Wolf Gets An Itch

by Bob Zybach

Note: this essay is in reply to a recent mass-media propaganda release about “timber-itch” written by Jim Furnish [here, for instance].

I think Jim Furnish’s analogy of a green-eyed wolf is a good one. His 1990 benchmark was 21 years ago and the forests he helped “protect” from logging have since become overrun with green-eyed wolves, bugs, dead trees, and wildfires. Recreational opportunities on USFS lands have become further limited, rather than expanded, during this time due to road and trail closures, reduced numbers of game animals, elimination of campgrounds and toilet facilities, fees, and other means of discouraging visitors to these increasingly degraded and decimated landscapes.

If Furnish’s mythical “timber itch” actually ever existed, maybe the blame should be placed on Gifford Pinchot, Theodor Roosevelt, and other founders of the Forest Service in the early 1900s — THEIR obligation (and promise) was: “National Forests are made for and owned by the people. They should also be managed by the people. The are made, not to give the officers in charge of them a chance to work out theories, but to give the people who use them, and those affected by their use, a chance to work out their own best profit” (Pinchot 1905: 25).

Did Pinchot secretly suffer from Furnish’s mysterious “timber itch?” If so, wasn’t that problem addressed in 1960 with the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (MU-SY) There it was stated:

No national forest shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States; but it is not the purpose or intent of these provisions, or of said section, to authorize the inclusion therein of lands more valuable for the mineral therein, or for agricultural purposes, than for forest.

And:

It is the policy of the Congress that the national forests are established and shall be administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes. The purposes of sections 528 to 531 of this title are declared to be supplemental to, but not in derogation of, the purposes for which the national forests were established as set forth in section 475 of this title. Nothing herein shall be construed as affecting the jurisdiction or responsibilities of the several States with respect to wildlife and fish on the national forests.

The current sad states of our federal lands were both predictable and preventable. The related degradation and decimation of many of our rural counties, communities, and industries as a direct consequence of the adoption of multiple passive management actions of our federal government since 1960, were also predicted and should have been prevented.

It is the “vision” and management actions of former USFS employees such as Jim Furnish that have directly led us to the current sorry state of affairs. Personally, I would much rather listen to — and follow –the common sense conservation ideas of Pinchot, as refined by MU-SY in 1960, than the misguided nonsense of destructive “visions” and “itches” that the Furnishes of our world seem privy to.

Oregon’s Timber Supply: Steward It or Lose It

by Mike Dubrasich, Exec Dir W.I.S.E.

A talk given to the 912 Project Salem – Focus on Forestry Convention, Salem OR, May 21 2011

Good afternoon.

Thank you all very much for inviting me to join with you. My topic today is Oregon’s timber supply, and I will be sharing with you some facts and figures on timber.

For the sake of precision, timber refers to trees larger enough to be sawn into boards, and is also known as saw timber or round wood. There are numerous categories of forest products and resources in Oregon –- timber is just one of those, albeit a very important one to our economy.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a professional forester. I have been a private consulting forester in Oregon for 30 years. I am also executive director of the Western Institute for Study of the Environment, a non-profit think tank and a collaboration of environmental scientists, resource professionals and practitioners, and the interested public. Our mission is to further advancements in environmental stewardship across a spectrum of related environmental disciplines and professions. We are ready, willing, and able to teach good stewardship and caring for the land.

Technically then, as a forester I am in the forest management industry, which is intimately associated with the forest products industry, which in turn encompasses the timber industry but also a lot more. So while I am not a timber beast, or beauty, per se, I am knowledgeable about timber and that aspect of forest management.

First let us examine some statistics regarding Oregon’s timber supply. We begin with land ownership.

There are nearly 30 million acres of forestland in Oregon (about half the state). Nearly two-thirds (64.6 percent) of Oregon’s forestland is owned by the government, principally the Feds (60.9 percent). Private industrialists own nearly 6 million acres, or about 20 percent of the total. Private non-industrial landowners (small woodland owners, family tree farmers, rural residents) own four and a half million acres or about 16 percent of the total forestland in the state.

An estimate of the standing timber volume on that land.

This estimate is based on a variety of not very reliable tallies, but it is in the ballpark. Approximately 700 billion board feet. Note that 75 to 80 percent of the standing timber in Oregon is on Federal land.

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Decline in Anthropogenic Fire (Not Fire Suppression) Responsible For Forest Changes in Finland and Canada

A recent paper [here], by Tuomo Wallenius of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, Vantaa Research Unit, Vantaa, Finland, puts the fire suppression theory to bed.

Wallenius, T. 2011. Major decline in fires in coniferous forests – reconstructing the phenomenon and seeking for the cause. Silva Fennica 45(1): 139–155.

Abstract:

Steep decline in forest fires about a century ago occurred in coniferous forests over large areas in North America and Fennoscandia. This poorly understood phenomenon has been explained by different factors in different regions. The objective of this study is to evaluate the validity of the four most commonly suggested causes of the decrease in forest fires: fire fighting, over-grazing, climate change and human influence. I compiled the available dendrochronological data and estimated the annually burned proportions of Pinus-dominated forests in four subcontinental regions during the past 500 years.

These data were compared to the development of fire suppression, grazing pressure, climate and human livelihoods. The annually burned proportions declined over 90% in all studied regions. In three out of the four regions fires decreased decades before fire suppression began (emph added).

Available drought data are annually well correlated with fires but could not explain the decrease of the level in annually burned areas. A rapid increase in the number of livestock occurred at the same time with the decrease in fires in the Western US but not in Fennoscandia. Hence, fire suppression in Central Fennoscandia and over-grazing in the Western US may have locally contributed to the reduction of burned areas.

More general explanation is offered by human influence hypothesis: the majority of the past forest fires were probably caused by humans and the decrease in the annually burned areas was because of a decrease in human caused fires (emph added). This is in accordance with the old written records and forest fire statistics. The decrease in annually burned areas, both in Fennoscandia and the United States coincides with an economic and cultural transition from traditional livelihoods that are associated with high fire use to modern agriculture and forestry.

Keywords: human influence, fire-history, fire suppression, forest dynamics, Pinus

See also:

Wallenius, Tuomo H., Juho Pennanen, and Philip J. Burton. 2011. Long-term decreasing trend in forest fires in northwestern Canada. Ecosphere 2:art53. [here]

Abstract:

The annual area of forest burned has decreased in recent centuries over large areas of Fennoscandia, Siberia and temperate North America. To determine if this same trend extends to a sparsely populated region of northern Canada, fire scars on living and dead trees, forest stand ages and charred wood were systematically sampled in 85 study plots in an area of 564,000 km2 in northwestern Canada. A significant negative trend in the occurrence of forest fires was observed: average area burned per year decreased from 2.0% in the first half of the 19th century to 0.33% in the later half of the 20th century. Annually burned areas correlated significantly with a local tree ring based index, July monthly drought code and the Pacific decadal oscillation but not with June-August mean temperature, distance to the nearest road, or the year of road building. None of the climatic indicators or access history (indicative of the start of local fire suppression) could explain the long-term negative trend in fires. Earlier interpretations that humans dominated the causes of forest fires in the past, even in sparsely populated regions, deserve further attention as a possible explanation for the decreasing trend in fires (emph added).

Key words: annually burned area, boreal forest, Canada, climate, fire cycle, fire suppression, forest fire, human influence

See also:

White, C.A., D.D.B. Perrakis, V.G. Kafka, and T. Ennis. 2011. Burning at the edge: integrating biophysical and eco-cultural fire processes in Canada’s parks and protected areas. Fire Ecology 7(1): 74-106 [here]

Abstract:

Currently, high intensity, large-area lightning fires that burn during droughts dominate Canada’s fire regimes. However, studies from several disciplines clearly show that humans historically ignited burns within this matrix of large fires. Two approaches for fire research and management have arisen from this pattern: a “large-fire biophysical paradigm” related to lightning-ignited fires, and an “eco-cultural paradigm” related to human-caused burning. Working at the edge between biophysically driven fires and eco-cultural burns, and their associated management and research paradigms, presents unique challenges to land managers. We proceed by describing fire frequency trends across Canada, and how an interaction between changing climatic and cultural factors may provide better causal explanations for observed patterns than either group of factors alone. We then describe four case histories of fire restoration into Canadian landscapes moving through evolution, or deliberate intent, towards increasing emphasis on an eco-cultural paradigm. We show that use of cultural burns maintains this facet of the long-term regime while providing greater capacity for larger, higher intensity fires to occur with fewer negative ecological and socio-economic implications. Key lessons learned by practitioners restoring fire to landscapes include: 1) fire is only one process in ecosystems that also include other complex interactions, and thus restoration of fire alone could have unintended consequences in some ecosystems; 2) recognizing long-term human roles of not only fire managers, but also hunters and gatherers is critical in restoration programs; and 3) this diversity of past, present, and future ecological and cultural interactions with fire can link managers to a broad constituency of stakeholders. Bringing this variety of people and interests into the decision-making processes is a necessary pre-requisite to successful fire management at the edge.

Eco-Obsessives Gone Hinky With Your Money

by bear bait

In the Polk County News today is a story about the Columbia Helicopter Chinook that logged the fir out from the canopy of 40 acres of oak savanna under restoration at the Basket Slough NWR… using a chopper to haul the fir logs away in order have a place to under burn and restore native prairie.

And the logs? Why, the USFWS “partnered” with the City of Portland, and the logs were hauled to the Bull Run Watershed where they were placed in creeks for fish habitat!

Hmmmm. There are right now several billion (with a “b”) board feet of logs in the Bull Run watershed, all on USFS land. Like the USFS doesn’t have enough logs to “create stream structure” in Bull Run?

So the logs were hauled a hundred or more miles, burning diesel and tax dollars all the way, NOT to produce money, or raw materials for mills, but to place in streams ABOVE a dam without a fish ladder. Like Portland wants salmon copulating and releasing clouds of sperm into their drinking water??? That is why there is no fish passage on the Bull Run. No fish ladders on the dams. Purposefully. To keep the fish out of it. Dead salmon carcasses are not amenable to potable water in the short term.

So $millions were spent to haul logs hundreds of miles to a heavily forested watershed to place in streams for salmon where salmon do not (cannot) access.

This whole deal AFTER the killing of the doug fir weed in the oak patch is so hinky. I understand the helipopper and great expense to hide evidence of access and allegedly prevent soil erosion (in a slough — the terrain is flat). I understand, sort of. But then to haul the damned things off site, to a protected “wilderness” super duper watershed with all the touchy-feely regs against logging???? To introduce EXOTIC logs into their SALMON-LESS streams??? “Partnered”??? WTF does that mean?? Is that what partnering is: two groups of stoopid people doing something together in the hopes that since both are a part of it, the act will not be seen as stooopid??? A regular dunce dance…

I read the story and could not stop giggling for an hour. Our country is broke. Busted. We BORROWED the money to hire the helipopper and the log loader and the log trucks. And did not sell the logs into commerce, but spent even more money to put them in a creek in a watershed that has tens of thousands of trees falling down each year… Just cut logs, mind you, not the root wads. Root wads impart [spawning] gravels and introduce new substrate minerals into creeks. The major value to salmon of a tree fallen into a creek is the root wad full of rocks and dirt. Besides spawning gravels, root wads make hidey holes for the tiny fish in the stream. But then, there are no salmon the Bull Run anyway.

There is no end to the stooopiddititty that goes into this kind of environmental mind fart and brain misfire. There is no shame or sense in the world of eco-obsessives.

- bear bait

Too Busy

I apologize for the temporary reduction in blog posts. Been very busy with family, farm, and other tasks. Also trying to earn a living. (They say that the best way to lose money in a hurry is to go farming. They might be right).

Will be back in the blog saddle soon. Just a few more cubic yards of manure to fling around first. Come to think of it, farming is a lot like blogging in that respect.

Coldest Pacific Northwest April in 36 Years

by Steve Pierce, Vice President, Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society

Disclaimer: The following information is not endorsed by any organization. Permission granted to reuse with courtesy given to author and quoted directly.

Vancouver, Washington (Friday, April 29th 2011) 1:30pm PT — This month will go into the record books as Portland’s coldest April in 36 years as well as third wettest in history (1940-2011) at the Portland Airport. Many other stations across the Pacific Northwest are also challenging long standing April records.

Here is a look at regional April 2011 temperatures and rainfall at several stations around the Pacific Northwest, through 4/28. These numbers are not likely to change much in the final 36 hours of the month. Astoria, Oregon has still not reached 60 degrees this calendar year, smashing the old record of April 19th 1945.

Station / April 2011 Ave Temp / Departure From Normal / April 2011 Rainfall / Departure From Normal

Astoria 44.8 -3.6 7.94 3.27
Hillsboro 45.5 -6.1 3.42 1.10
Salem 47.3 -2.6 3.82 1.22
Seattle 45.4 -4.6 4.34 1.89
Spokane 41.4 -4.8 1.71 0.53
Eugene 46.9 -2.8 3.47 0.01
Redmond, OR. 39.1 -6.7 0.28 -0.29
Medford 48.8 -2.6 2.10 0.87
Troutdale 47.2 -4.6 4.64 1.21
Vancouver, WA. 47.9 -1.9 4.23 1.92
Portland 47.8 -3.2 5.04 2.56
McMinnville 46.0 -4.4 4.13 1.47

Average All Stations 45.7 -4.0 3.76 1.31

With 5.04″ of precipitation, Portland has now moved into the #3 position on the all-time wettest April list (1940-2011) at the Portland International Airport. But with only 36 hours left in the month and showers decreasing, the chances of overtaking the top spot are fading. Here are the top five wettest April’s in Portland Airport history, through 12 noon today (4/29)

YEAR / APR rainfall (inches)

1993 5.26
1996 5.12
2011 5.04
1955 4.72
1988 4.57

Here are the top 5 coldest April’s on record at the Portland International Airport (1940-2011).

YEAR APR
1955 46.5
1964 46.7
1967 46.9
1975 47.3
2011 47.8

Fire Cycle Regularity

I made a wrong statement the other day, and I wish to correct myself. What I said was, “there are not clockwork deterministic cycles in nature.” Of course, there are.

One example is the Ice Ages. Over the last 1.9 million years there have been 18 Ice Ages (or glaciations) each lasting ~105,000 years and 18 interglacials (like the present Holocene) each lasting ~10,000 years. The glaciations come like clockwork at long intervals which happen to correlate with perturbations in the Earth’s orbit known as Milankovitch Cycles.

Another example: human females of reproductive age have menstrual cycles of 28 to 29 days, which correlate with lunar cycles (new moon-full moon-new moon).

Not everything in nature is subject to deterministic clockwork cycles, though. The topic I was propounding on the other day was fire cycles.

Forests can burn and do burn, but not necessarily at regular intervals. Not at “natural” regular intervals, that is. Forests are not subject to pyro-menstrual cycles. There are no celestial pendulums that govern forest fires.

Forests do accumulate fuels. As fuels build-up, the likelihood of a fire increases. Eventually a fire will happen, but they do not happen at regular intervals — unless people do the fire lighting!

People are not clockwork automatons, but we sure do act like it sometimes. Witness traffic jams caused by commuters who all commute at the same time. Or take the Olympics, or elections, or leap years, or bicentennial fetes. Nothing in nature dictates those cycles; they are entirely anthropogenic.

Forest fires have been mostly anthropogenic (human set) for tens of thousands of years (perhaps for hundreds of thousands of years in Africa). Humans sometimes set fires accidentally, but most of the time there is purpose to our pyromania — humans set fires deliberately for reasons. Those reasons may or may not be rational or wise, but we have our reasons nonetheless.

Because we are human and tend to do our stuff on regular schedules, historical fire cycles do indeed display regularity. But that regularity is not something inherent to forests; it is something inherent to people.

Something else that is inherent to people is awe and wonder. We like to be thunderstruck (figuratively, not literally). We also like to blame external agents, particularly supernatural agents (God, Mother Nature, Gaia, space aliens, etc.) for whatever happens. Blaming God for everything stems from laziness of the mind, however, and is not scientific. When scientists blame God (or Mother Nature, Gaia, space aliens, etc.), they are not really doing science — they are in fact doing superstitious nonsense.

There is a tendency to be lazy that is well-established in the human genome. I have the lazy bug; so do you. Come on now, admit the truth (maybe later, when you have more energy, after your nap). Lazy thinking in particular is commonplace.

But science is no place for lazy thinking. Forest scientists who study fire cycles need to exercise their brains a little more rigorously. Take a good hard look at those fire scars. Think to yourself, what started those fires? If your answer (to yourself) is lightning, not people, then ask yourself what evidence you have one way or the other.

Because if the fire cycle you perceive is regular, that is evidence that people were responsible, Q.E.D.

NAFSR Comments on the USFS Proposed Planning Rule

Note: NAFSR is a private, independent, non-partisan, non-profit association, whose members believe in the U.S. Forest Service and its Mission! Members dedicated their careers to protecting, developing and managing the nation’s National Forest System lands and advising and cooperating here and around the world on such matters. The NAFSR website is [here].

Note 2: Previous posts on the Proposed Planning Rule are [here, here, here, here]

Note 3: the version now posted is the Final version

NAFSR Comments on the 2011 Forest Service Proposed Rules for National Forest System Land Management Planning

On March 26, 1903 President Teddy Roosevelt spoke to the Society of American Foresters on the importance of professional management of the “Forest Reserves” now known as National Forests. In part he said ‘”your attention must be directed to the preservation of forests, not as an end in itself but all a means of preserving and increasing prosperity of the Nation.”

The members of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees (NAFSR) thank the Forest Service for the opportunity to comment on the proposed planning regulations as presented in the Federal Register Volume 76, Number 30, pages 8480-8528, published on February 14, 2011.

NAFSR is a non-profit, non-partisan, organization, dedicated to the promotion of the ideals and principles of natural resources conservation upon which the U.S. Forest Service was founded. It is committed to the science based sustainable management of the national forests for the public good.

NAFSR’s members are uniquely qualified to remember the prodigious efforts of past planning attempts under many past regulations and to bring their experience to inform the currently proposed rule. NAFSR selected a small team of its members to evaluate the proposal. Along with a combined length of service of more than 100 years and breadth of experience of former line officers, from District Ranger, Forest Supervisor, Regional Forester, Station Director and Deputy Chief spanning five Regions, an Experiment Station and the Washington Office. We also received individual comments from several of our members that have been incorporated in our response.

Our collective memory of NFS planning spans the time from Ranger District Multiple Use Plans under the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act to the latest iteration of planning under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA). The Forest Service again embarks on another round of planning. We are very concerned about the time and expense expended for planning over the course of forty years, time and expense that could have been devoted to actual management and improvement of the national forests. We do not propose to shortcut planning, but rather to constrain its effort to that necessary to meet the basic intent of the law while devoting time thus saved for beneficial treatments of the forest landscapes. In fact, in recognition of the time and cost associated with past forest planning efforts, it was our understanding that the Agency wished to develop a process that was responsive to changing conditions, including acquisition of new information, while streamlining the effort.

General Comments

First, as former Forest Service employees, we are aware of the sincere, honest, and professional effort that went into developing these proposed regulations. Clearly the Agency has tried to balance the needs of the Administration and the many comments received from the public on the previous proposal. We also note that you have incorporated some of our earlier comments in this version. For example, we are pleased that you have recognized the need to use modern tools, such as the Internet and virtual meetings, and to consider and evaluate public preferences and values in the planning process. Further, providing additional opportunities for pre-decisional collaboration and public participation combined with pre-decisional objection opportunities may improve public acceptance of forest plans developed under the new planning regulations. We also are pleased that you recognize the need to find new ways for dealing with the issue of species diversity, although we believe that the approach presented will open up new areas of controversy and litigation.

However, we believe that the overall content of the proposal is overly ambitious, overly optimistic, complex, costly, and promises much more than it can deliver. Rather than providing a simplified, streamlined process for developing and amending plans, we fear that the opposite will result. This is especially troubling in what are likely to be difficult times for funding of federal programs of all kinds. Without addressing the overarching issue of the fundamental purposes of the national forests in this age of controversy, it is unlikely that any of the current controversies involving the use of the national forests will be resolved by this proposal. This issue must be addressed by Congress and is timely given that the last significant consideration of this subject occurred in 1976 with passage of the National Forest Management Act. And even this did not fundamentally address the issue of the purposes for the national forests. In the meantime, the proposed planning regulations establish new purposes for the national forests, such as dealing with climate change and providing “ecosystem services,” and management for “ecosystem restoration,” for which there are no statutory authorities.

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Tornado Folly

A severe weather phenomenon struck Alabama last week, a spate of tornadoes with tragic consequences, and the kooks came out of the woodwork like singing cockroaches blaming global warming.

First off, weather is not climate. More importantly, Midwest tornadoes are caused by cold air, not warm.

As Roy W. Spencer points out [here]

I see the inevitable blame-humanity game has been reinvigorated by the recent tornado swarm. … If there is one weather phenomenon global warming theory does NOT predict more of, it would be severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.

Tornadic thunderstorms do not require tropical-type warmth. In fact, tornadoes are almost unheard of in the tropics, despite frequent thunderstorm activity.

Instead, tornadoes require strong wind shear (wind speed and direction changing rapidly with height in the lower atmosphere), the kind which develops when cold and warm air masses “collide”. Of course, other elements must be present, such as an unstable airmass and sufficient low-level humidity, but wind shear is the key. Strong warm advection (warm air riding up and over the cooler air mass, which is also what causes the strong wind shear) in advance of a low pressure area riding along the boundary between the two air masses is where these storms form.

But contrasting air mass temperatures is the key. Active tornado seasons in the U.S. are almost always due to unusually COOL air persisting over the Midwest and Ohio Valley longer than it normally does as we transition into spring.

Yes, sports fans, tornadoes are more frequent in cold years, and this year has been record cold. April in the PNW was the coldest in 36 years, 3.1°F below average. April followed a record cold March, 1.1°F below average. February was the 8th coldest February on record (1940-2011), 2.8°F below average [here].

A new record was set for the latest “first 60 degree day of the calendar year” on March 31st. The old record was March 27th set in 1955. Snowpacks are 150%+ above average. We have had one (count ‘em one) day above 70°F in 2011. That was yesterday, for about 5 minutes when the temp climbed to a stunning 71°F, before plunging again. It’s cold and clammy today, and we’ll be lucky to hit 50°F.

Two years ago the Pacific Decadal Oscillation shifted negative. Then a La Nina set in. But our temperature downturn is not all that new. Annual average temperature in the Pacific Northwest has been trending downward (-0.42°F per decade) since 1994. Average winter temps have been trending downward even more precipitously (-1.29°F per decade).

Climate At A Glance, Northwest Region. Winter (Dec-Feb) 1994-2011 Trend = -1.29 degF / decade. Graph courtesy National Climatic Data Center [here].

Warmer is better. It would be much preferable if average temperatures would go up instead of down. But down they are going and have been going for 15 years.

The kooks have not noticed that, however. The kooks think temperatures are going up, which they are not. The kooks think colder is better, which it isn’t.

The kooks include the Pervert Elite [here] who rule Oregon. Evidently the kooks in charge are too busy raping children to notice the weather, much less the climate.

But when some really nasty weather hits, like a spate of tornadoes, the kooks come crawling out of their dark hidey holes, where they were doing God knows what, and honk “global warming, global warming” like mindless geese. Except it isn’t warming but cooling that causes tornadoes.

But don’t let the facts get in the way of your hysterical paranoia fit. If you want to think it’s getting warmer when it actually isn’t, that’s your choice. Be insane. It’s not a crime. And your Fearless Leaders will thank you for your loyalty, no matter how contrary to reality it is, in fact the more contrary the better. If they can get you to believe the opposite of the truth, make you deny even to yourself the obvious facts in front of your very eyes, then they have done their sicko job.