A presidential executive order expected to appear in the Federal Register on Monday calls on the Interior and Agriculture departments to move aggressively to reduce fuel loads on public lands/NPS photo of last year's Howe Ridge Fire in Glacier National Park
An executive order expected to be posted Monday in the Federal Register is somewhat open-ended in directing the Interior and Agriculture departments to actively manage forests to reduce the risk of wildfires. Conservationists are concerned how the order could either directly or indirectly affect lands within the National Park System.
"Active management of vegetation is needed to treat these dangerous conditions on Federal lands but is often delayed due to challenges associated with regulatory analysis and current consultation requirements," reads the order. "In addition, land designations and policies can reduce emergency responder access to Federal land and restrict management practices that can promote wildfire resistant landscapes. With the same vigor and commitment that characterizes our efforts to fight wildfires, we must actively manage our forests, rangelands, and other Federal lands to improve conditions and reduce wildfire risk."
Specific to the Interior Department, the presidential order directs it to reduce fuel loads on 750,000 acres of DOI lands, address another 500,000 acres "to protect water quality and mitigate severe flooding and erosion risks arising from forest fires," and treat 750,000 more acres for native and invasive species. It also directs the department to maintain "public roads needed to provide access for emergency services and restoration work..."
The order specifically directs the two departments to use "minimum statutory and regulatory time periods" as much as possible to move forward with the work. And it tells them to use "all applicable categorical exclusions set forth in law or regulation for fire management, restoration, and other management projects in forests, rangelands, and other Federal lands when implementing the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act."
While the order does not specifically mention National Park System lands, Erik Molvar, the executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, told the Traveler on Friday that, "I don’t think anyone can afford to be complacent. The Trump administration has already shown its willingness to open up national monuments to drilling and mining."
At the National Parks and Conservation Association's Washington, D.C., headquarters, Ani Kame’enui, the group's legislative director, noted that there are at least 15 national parks that border national forests, and actions taken in those forests could impact the parks. Fast-tracking the order without appropriate scientific input and public comment would be a mistake, she said.
"From the Grand Canyon to Shenandoah National Parks, these landscapes play an integral role in our parks. In addition to the lands, water, and wildlife within our national parks, these natural resources adjacent to parks remain critical to ensuring our park ecosystems remain dynamic and healthy," she said. "As such, NPCA takes great interest in the administration’s efforts to increase the cut in our national forests and undermine public engagement, recognizing that threats to the lands, water, and wildlife that surround and flow through national parks and the federal laws that protect them, directly impact the resources within their borders."
She also noted that while the order calls for a 4 billion board-foot increase in logging in a bid to reduce fire danger on public lands, "(W)e’ve been increasing the board feet cut on USFS lands for several years now, and yet fires have not decreased at all. To suggest that this EO would properly address the growing fire problem in our national forests denies the role of climate, appropriate forest management, and the multiple use mandate of the USFS."
In recent years, some members of Congress from California have sought ways to salvage log parts of Yosemite National Park that burned during the Rim Fire back in 2013. More recently, departed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was a fan of actively managing forests on Interior lands to protect them against catastrophic wildfires. In the aftermath of the Rim Fire, then-NPS Director Jon Jarvis said the federal government needed more resources to reduce the risks of wildfires.
"To be very blunt about it, it has been a struggle in here for the big fire management agencies, the Forest Service, the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], the Park Service, and Fish [Fish and Wildlife Service], to make our case to OMB [Office of Management and Budget] and to the appropriators about fire," Jarvis told NPS employees in a "National Webchat." "As a consequence, our fire program presuppression, really, fuels control, and all those kinds of things have been in decline. This is what you get. You get an incredible fire year."
At NPCA, Kame’enui said Friday that while National Park System forests were not directly cited in the president's order, "they are subject to fires in our national forests that often start beyond park borders but significantly impact our park landscapes."
"For years, NPS has taken a wise approach to fire management—using it as a tool and managing disaster appropriately," she added. "As we’ve seen on some national park lands and as a result of proper forest plans in USFS, thinning and other science-based forest management activities designed to remove hazardous fuels can sometimes change fire behavior and mitigate fire impacts, but such activities must be science-driven."
President Trump's order, which allows Interior and Agriculture to enter into 20-year contracts for fuel reduction work, gives the two departments until March 31 to "identify salvage and log recovery options from lands damaged by fire during the 2017 and 2018 fire seasons, insects, or disease."
In the National Park System, fires last year burned through parts of Glacier, Yosemite, Crater Lake, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone national parks, as well as Whiskeytown and Santa Monica Mountains national recreation areas.
Comments
I agree that public lands management should be based on the best available science. Unfortunately, this EO -- and most "multiple-use" forest management by the U.S. Forest Service -- is not based on current science.
Here are a few examples of what current science is actually telling us -- that logging is not the answer to promote forest "health."
--Curtis M. Bradley, Chad T. Hanson, and Dominick A. DellaSala. 2016. Does Increased Forest Protection Correspond to Higher Fire Severity in Frequent-Fire Forests of the Western United States? Ecosphere 7(10):e01492. 10.1002/ecs2.1492 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1492
"There is a widespread view among land managers and others that the protected status of many forestlands in the western United States corresponds with higher fire severity levels due to historical restrictions on logging that contribute to greater amounts of biomass and fuel loading in less intensively managed areas, particularly after decades of fire suppression. This view has led to recent proposals--both administrative and legislative--to reduce or eliminate forest protections and increase some forms of logging based on the belief that restrictions on active management have increased fire severity.... We found forests with higher levels of protection had lower severity values even though they are generally identified as having the highest overall levels of biomass and fuel loading. Our results suggest a need to reconsider current overly simplistic assumptions about the relationship between forest protection and fire severity in fire management and policy."
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--Beverly E. Law and Mark E Harmon. 2011. Forest Sector Carbon Management, Measurement And Verification, and Discussion of Policy Related to Climate Change. Carbon Management (2011) 2(1), 73-84 http://terraweb.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/terraweb/files/lawharmon2...
"Thinning forests to reduce potential carbon losses due to wildfire is in direct conflict with carbon sequestration goals, and, if implemented, would result in a net emission of CO2 to the atmosphere because the amount of carbon removed to change fire behavior is often far larger than that saved by changing fire behavior, and more area has to be harvested than will ultimately burn over the period of effectiveness of the thinning treatment."
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--Scott Hoffman Black. 2005. Logging to Control Insects: The Science and Myths Behind Managing Forest Insect "Pests." A Synthesis of Independently Reviewed Research. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Portland, OR https://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/logging_to_control_ins...
"Although insects have been a part of the ecology of temperate forests for millennia, many in the timber industry see them only as agents of destruction. A century of fire suppression, clear-cut logging, road-building, grazing, urban encroachment, and the selective removal of large trees has upset the ecological balance in forests across North America, often making them more vulnerable to insect infestations. Some foresters believe the solution to the problem is increased logging. A review of over three hundred papers on the subject reveals that there is little or no evidence to support this assumption. There is an urgent need for federal and state agencies and land managers to reevaluate their current strategy for managing forest insects--which often relies on intensive logging--and to adopt a perspective that manages for forest ecosystem integrity."
Great news. Let more logging begin in the Forests as well as the National Forests.
Declaring land to be Parks or USFS or such is a conscious decison to remove the land from the profit-driven forestry industry. Where I live I can view NPS, USFS, and private acreage. The clear-cut acres are conspicuous in their absence from the federally protected lands. The hills around me with clear-cut swathes are ugly and unnatural appearing, and never fail to leave me unsettled.
In this discussion, one thing not to leave out is the relatively recent move to develop homes & little satellite communities outside towns & cities. The fires that often get the greatest attention, & calls for better forest or public land management are where development (and fingers could be pointed at many) has built into natural areas that have a greater potential for fire! Santa Monica, northern California, Colorado Springs, & many other places are examples of where development (I.e. .. many peoples lives) is adjacent to natural, often more rugged & harder to access areas, which often border BLM, USFS, or other federal lands. In these locations, & under bad or severe weather (strong winds w low humidity) & severe climate conditions ( drought, or years of drought conditions), a "start" (whether natural [lightening] or human) is likely to be unmanageable regardless of the prescribed treatments that had been conducted/completed. It is true ... fires in these situations may be easier to manage, but they won't stop the fire from happening or the likely loss of lives, property, & resource values. More funding from the congress & the administration would definitely help for federal agencies to better managers of the resources, to fund & support new & updated investigations (science), & to combine these in public discussions instead of demanding (I.e.,EO) agencies use skimpy existing funds to do better Forest & Resource Management. The EO is just another unfunded directive that appears ill-advised or thought out that is likely to produce few, if any improvements.
The above article said repeatedly that national parks are not included. Let's avoid another round of national hysteria. The parks we're dramatically enlarged as the last administration was heading for the exits, circumventing existing law, and enlarging national parks with EOs under the ancient Antiquities laws.
I don't fear the present administration, which employs many career forestry professionals. I fear unnecessary deaths of wildfire fighters.
Read more about the common ground between timber harvesters and ecologists. New growth timber harvesting has revitalized logging. Old growth is much safer than realized.
Senator Murkowski's committee assignments are what might bear watchdog scrutiny. Interior, EPA, etc.
The fire triangle is made up of heat ,fuel and oxygen. Management can not change 2 of the legs of that stool ,but can manage the third leg of the stool "fuel". In Northern California the forests that burned were densly stocked and poorly managed landscapes. The USFS and BLM and National Parks have reduced wildland fires in the past sucessfully by different methods of management using fuel management,understory burns and forest management education. We lose more endangered species from wildfires than by active management.
Are you all that blind to what a fire does to millions of acres of forest land every year ? And what about the wildlife that is destroyed in these fires or the devastation of vegitation thru the same means !!! Yes i say YES go in control cut clean it then replant healthy trees they do it eveywhere else and it works it does not say anything about "clear cutting " which is taking all the trees out it does however say take out the dead wood. This is helping nature regain balance not preventing it !!!
What is wrong with everybody here ?
The reason we have such unbelivable destruction of our forests because of fire is simply because of lack of management of. The fuel mismanagement eg already downed trees.
before anyone here flames this, I have a good question for you,
do you even know what day is Arbor Day ?
better yet, have you ever planted a single tree ?
now, to the meat of this post...
without clearing of fAllen trees removed and God forbid we prophylacticly cut fire lines in, we are going to watch cataclysmic fires continue. Whom pray tell is going to do this work ?
this is not a free pass for logging companies and punishments anything outside of the directIves should be swift and extreme. something something Fargo ?
Political bias needs to be checked at the door when it comes to things like this and vivid-19.