Progress on forests comes through cooperation: Brian Sybert in the Missoulian

Hoping that this is the same Brian Sybert who wrote the op-ed. SF

Progress on forests comes through cooperation

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/progress-on-forests-comes-through-cooperation/article_5631042e-b3cd-11e1-b45e-0019bb2963f4.html

36 minutes ago • Guest column by BRIAN SYBERT

In the Missoulian, on May 30, Michael Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies compared several local timber companies to Nazis and compared Montanans who partner with them to Nazi collaborators. As extreme as his views may be, he’s done a public service by clarifying how he truly feels about Montanans who are working together to better manage our forests.
Some of his scorn was heaped on the Montana Wilderness Association, the Wilderness Society and other mainstream conservation organizations. And no wonder: We take an entirely different approach.
We don’t see Montana as a place where good and evil fight each other for dominance. We don’t regard people with whom we disagree as enemies to be vanquished. Rather, our Montana is a state blessed with expansive forests, abundant wildlife and diverse resources. We see ample opportunity for most Montanans if we manage our resources well. Montanans have differing, sometimes conflicting interests, but many of our interests overlap.
For example, many people are legitimately interested in increasing timber harvest and forest restoration activities to create jobs in our timber mills and restore fish and wildlife habitat. Most people also think there’s plenty of room for all forms of recreation on our public lands.
In our experience, when conservationists, loggers, business owners, hunters, anglers and other interest groups got together in groups small and large – from Lincoln to Choteau and points between – they discover plenty of common ground. Here are just a few examples of common ground that the Montana Wilderness Association has found with diverse interests.
In May 2005, following 14 months of dialogue and collaboration, members of the Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Snowmobile Association and Lincoln Ponderosa Snow Warriors gathered at the Lincoln Community Hall to sign an agreement on winter recreation covering the Lincoln Ranger District and parts of the Rocky Mountain Ranger District. This landmark agreement gained the support of state and forest biologists by protecting key winter ranges for mountain goats, elk and bighorn sheep as well as grizzly and wolverine denning areas along the Continental Divide and bordering the Scapegoat Wilderness, while protecting popular snowmobiling areas such as Copper Bowls and 250 miles of snowmobile trails maintained by the local club. Helena Forest Supervisor Kevin Riordan is expected to sign a final winter recreation plan based on this agreement later this month, and local skiers and snowmobilers have pledged to work together to help the U.S. Forest Service make this plan a success.
That’s just one example of progress through cooperation. Another is the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, introduced last fall by Sen. Max Baucus. That popular bill is the product of collaborative efforts involving a broad coalition of conservationists, ranchers, hunters, outfitters, businesses and others that began almost 10 years ago. These folks have united to protect some of Montana’s best big-game habitat, combat invasive weeds, protect grazing and all existing land uses, and make modest but important additions to the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat wildernesses.
Another noteworthy example of former adversaries working together is the Colt Summit Restoration and Fuel Reduction Project near Seeley Lake. Conservationists, loggers, wildlife advocates and others sat down with the Forest Service to design a project that will help reduce wildfire risks while improving forest health, water quality and wildlife habitat – putting people to work to boot. Colt Summit involves a spirit of partnership that extends beyond the forest. Conservation and timber interests have joined the Forest Service in federal court, defending Colt Summit from a lawsuit filed by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, among others.
Montanans fought for decades over all-or-nothing forest management. We fought to stalemate. We can do better. We can do better by recognizing the direct connection between strong, sustainable local economies and conservation. We gain ground when we reject the false paradox of jobs vs. a healthy environment. The fact is, here in Montana, we have both.
And we can have more of both – more jobs and an even healthier landscape with greater benefit for everyone. But we can’t do that with name-calling and obstruction. We stand to gain more by working together, constructively and collaboratively.

Brian Sybert is executive director of the Montana Wilderness Association.

Note from Sharon:
Couldn’t have said it better myself…

We don’t see Montana as a place where good and evil fight each other for dominance. We don’t regard people with whom we disagree as enemies to be vanquished. Rather, our Montana is a state blessed with expansive forests, abundant wildlife and diverse resources. We see ample opportunity for most Montanans if we manage our resources well. Montanans have differing, sometimes conflicting interests, but many of our interests overlap.

It’s too bad we couldn’t hear from Mr. Garrity himself as to why he thinks that Montanans with whom he disagrees are like Nazis, (and if he really does) and if the over-the-top rhetoric is just some kind of habit, or writing convenience to make his writing more punchy. Also, I find any Holocaust analogies in this context offensive, as I’ve said before.

Here’s more background info on Sybert.

Let it burn: Prescribed fires pose little danger to forest ecology, study says

A prescribed fire in the central Sierra Nevada is set to reduce fuel that could otherwise feed a catastrophic wildfire. (Jason Moghaddas photo)

Note that this is a press release…

Let it burn: Prescribed fires pose little danger to forest ecology, study says

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/06/11/fire-fuel-reduction-treatments/

By Sarah Yang, Media Relations | June 11, 2012
BERKELEY —
Fighting fire with fire has been given the green light by a new study of techniques used to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. And with a rise in wildfires predicted in many parts of the country, researchers say controlled burns and other treatments to manage this risk should be stepped up.

The paper, published in the June issue of the peer-reviewed journal BioScience, and led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, synthesizes 20 years of research throughout the country on the ecological impact of reducing forest wildfire risk through controlled burns and tree thinning. It comes as California braces for a potentially bad fire season, particularly in the southern Sierra where precipitation was half its normal level.
“We need to act, because climate change is making fire season longer, temperatures are going up, and that means more fire in many regions, particularly ones with a Mediterranean environment,” said study lead author Scott Stephens, UC Berkeley associate professor of fire science.
The study authors, which included scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and six research universities in the United States and Australia, relied upon data from the U.S. Fire and Fire Surrogates Study, in addition to a wide range of other studies. Together, the studies represented a broad spectrum of ecological markers, detailing the effects of fuel-reduction treatments on wildlife, vegetation, bark beetles, soil properties and carbon sequestration.
“Some question if these fuel-reduction treatments are causing substantial harm, and this paper says no,” said Stephens. “The few effects we did see were usually transient. Based upon what we’ve found, forest managers can increase the scale and pace of necessary fuels treatments without worrying about unintended ecological consequences.”
A few of the researchers’ specific ecological findings include:

For the first five years after treatment, some birds and small mammals that prefer shady, dense habitat moved out of treated areas, while others that prefer more open environments thrived. The study authors said these changes were minor and acceptable.
When mechanical tree thinning was followed by prescribed fire, there was an increase in the overall diversity of vegetation. However, this also included non-native plant species. The researchers recommend continued monitoring of this effect.
Only 2 percent or less of the forest floor saw an increase in mineral soil exposure, which could lead to small-scale erosion. Other soil variables, such as the level of compaction, soil nitrogen and pH levels, were temporary, returning to pre-treatment levels after a year or two.
Increases in bark beetles, a pest that preys on fire-damaged trees, was short-lived and concentrated in the smaller diameter trees. Researchers noted that thinning out a too-dense forest stand improves tree vigor and ultimately increases its resilience to pests, in addition to fire.

The results of this paper may help inform an analysis of one of the larger prescribed fires in the history of the U.S. Forest Service. Called the Boulder Burn, the proposed treatment covers 6,000-9,000 acres in the Southern Sierra Nevada’s Sequoia National Forest and is tentatively set to begin by late fall.
“This paper is more comprehensive and definitive than any other article I’ve seen,” said Malcolm North, research scientist with the U.S. Forest Service and an associate professor in forest ecology at UC Davis. “In one place, it summarizes the state of the science in fuel-reduction treatments, and to my mind, it shuts the door on those who say that any type of fuels treatment is detrimental to the forest. If done properly where surface fuels are reduced, treatments work. It’s time to get on with it.”

Nearly a century of fire suppression and the preferential logging of large-diameter trees, which are better able to withstand forest fires, have left forests vulnerable to more destructive, albeit less frequent, wildfires, the researchers said. In addition, the lack of fire has hindered nutrient cycling in forests and the proliferation of certain plant species, such as the sequoia, that rely upon fire to promote seed dispersal.
This realization led to the gradual re-emergence during the past 20 years of fuel-reduction as a forest management tool. The goal is simple: Thin or remove dense stands of trees, ground vegetation and downed woody debris in a carefully controlled way before they become fuel for a raging wildfire. When low- or moderate-intensity controlled burns are not an option, fire-prone trees are mechanically removed or shredded on site.
Such techniques are an attempt to emulate the frequent fires common in California for thousands of years. Before 1800, Stephens said, an estimated 1.1 million acres of forest burned annually in California, including wildfires ignited by lightning and other natural sources, and blazes set intentionally by Native Americans as a way to manage or alter landscapes. Most were blazes of low-to-moderate intensity that more than 80 percent of the trees could survive, unlike the catastrophic wildfires of modern times.
“Today, the combination of wildfires and fuel-reducing treatments only touch 6-8 percent of the land that used to burn annually before 1800, and fuel-reducing treatments alone only affect 1 percent,” said Stephens. “That’s a pittance. At that level, it’s just triage rather than fire prevention.”
To approach levels that have a chance of reducing wildfire risk in the long term, he said, the amount of land to be treated in a year would need to increase by 2-4 percent — still low compared to historical levels.
Stephens noted that two-thirds of the fuel-reduction treatments in the western United States rely upon mechanical thinning, which would be much more costly than prescribed burns to scale up. In the southeast region, the use of prescribed fire dominates.
In the West, particularly in California, the biggest challenge to expanding controlled burns is the potential reduction in air quality during treatment, said Stephens.
“We have a choice,” he said, “of dealing with lower levels of smoke from prescribed fires that may only be needed every 15 years or so, and which can be timed for optimum wind conditions, or acute levels of smoke from catastrophic fires that can last for months when they hit.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture-U.S. Department of the Interior Joint Fire Science Program helped support this research.

RELATED INFORMATION

Prehistoric fire area and emissions from California’s forests, woodlands, shrublands, and grasslands (study in Forest Ecology and Management)
Boulder Burn (U.S. Forest Service project site)