445 - World Wide Tree News

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--Today for you 26 news articles about earth's trees! (445th edition) http://forestpolicyresearch.org --To Subscribe / to email format send blank email to:

earthtreenews- OR earthtreenews-Index: --Western North America: 1) White Bark pine files for ESA status,

--Alaska: 2) Big new timber to sale to comment on --British

Columbia: 3) Bear your soul photo campaign to save the GBR, 4)

ForestEthics' wild horse slaughter 4 bait 2 kill wolves so loggers can

keep logging Caribou habitat, 5) --Canada: 6) Oil Sand may kill as many as 166 million birds, 7) Developers win new rights to destroy forests, --Washington: 8) Reporter for Seattle Times on Wilderness--Oregon:

9) Tropical Salvage is based in Portland, 10) Road removal for millions

of family-wage jobs, 11) Inventory shows Wildfires not as damaging as

first thought, 12) History of Cascadia Wildlands Project, 13) Wizard

fire report released, 14) Another 10 year, 10,000 acre restoration

agreement in Southern Oregon, 15) Governor rejectsWOPR.--California:

16) Report on state of state's forests, 17) Central Coast Regional

water board becomes less powerful, 18) More logging planned in most at

risk region for endangered Marbled Murrelet habitat, 19) UCSC "begins"

negotiations with treesitters, 20) Wildland-urban interface account for

most of decade's housing growth, 21) Treesitters back up in Humboldt

county, 22) So Many Tan oak, so few conifers, too much logging, 23)

Concerned citizen's on Northern Cal. Wild fires, 24) What Save the

Redwoods league saved this year, 25) Eastern Sierra Land Trust protects

1,600 acres, 26) Another 400 acres of logging finished, more

destruction planned, Western North America: 1)

Whitebark pine, a tree found in the high elevations of the western U.S.

and Canada, is being killed as a consequence of global warming and

should be protected as an endangered species, an environmental group

formally told the Interior Department Tuesday. If the federal

government accepts the scientific arguments in a petition by the

Natural Resources Defense Council, it would be the first time a

wide-ranging tree has been added to the list. The NRDC also sees an

endangered designation as a warning about worsening climate change. The

listing would require the government to look at a variety of options

that scientists have suggested might help preserve the tree, choose

what might work and spend enough money to put those ideas into

practice. Mature whitebark pines are often gnarled and twisted because

they grow slowly in the tough terrain of the high mountains of

California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada, and

in British Columbia and Alberta. It's typically found at the treeline

or at somewhat lower elevations mixed with other conifers. The

whitebark pine has declined dramatically due to a triple threat - a

disease called the white pine blister rust; the mountain pine beetle,

which thrives in the warmer high-altitude conditions produced by the

burning of fossil fuels; and forest management practices that have

allowed other trees to crowd it out, the NRDC's petition said. Warming

also will limit the range of the whitebark pine, the petition said.

Many live more than 500 years. " It's kind of a wakeup call about the

scope of the problems we're going to be facing, " said NRDC scientist

Sylvia Fallon, an ecologist who was one of the authors of the petition.

" All of the pieces of the ecosystem it holds together will also be

affected by its loss. " The whitebark pine stabilizes the soil and

shades the snow, providing water over longer periods for other plants.

Grizzly bears, smaller mammals and birds eat its seeds, and elk, grouse

and other mountain wildlife find shelter beneath it. The tree has been

declining in numbers for 50 years. In recent years, climate change has

started to make the threats worse, due to shorter periods of cold that

kill the beetle and extended periods in which the trees are exposed to

spores from the blister rust, Fallon said. Different forms of fire

management might help the tree. The petition argued that the current

extent of the losses of whitebark pines and the future threat of

continued global warming put the tree at risk. Under the law, a species

is considered endangered if it is in danger of extinction in all or a

significant portion of its range. http://www.thestate.com/nationalpolitics/story/615482.html Alaska: 2)

Petersburg - The Tongass National Forest Supervisor has released the

Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Central Kupreanof

Timber Harvest. The Tongass is the largest of the Forest Service's

national forests at almost 17 million acres, encompassing most of

southeast Alaska. The Central Kupreanof Timber Harvest project area is

located on central Kupreanof Island on the Petersburg Ranger District

approximately nine miles southeast of the city of Kake. The project

area is about 152,517 acres in size and located in Phase 1 lands

identified in the 2008 Forest Plan Timber Program Adaptive Management

Strategy. The Central Kupreanof Timber Harvest DEIS presents a No

Action Alternative and three action alternatives to harvest timber. The

three action alternatives propose to harvest timber ranging from

approximately 28 to 70 million board feet and building from zero to

about 25 miles of new National Forest System (NFS) roads. All new and

reconstructed NFS roads would be closed within ten years of timber sale

activity completion. All action alternatives propose use of the Little

Hamilton log transfer facility. Alternative 3 has been identified as

the preferred alternative. In addition to the proposed timber harvest,

the Central Kupreanof project has also identified potential stewardship

contracting opportunities. Funding for stewardship contracting projects

may come from a combination of timber receipts and other appropriated

dollars. These project opportunities, common to all action

alternatives, include trail and recreation facility maintenance, road

maintenance, fisheries and hydrology projects, wildlife/silviculture

thinning, and invasive plant control. Upon completing the Central

Kupreanof Timber Harvest DEIS, Petersburg District Ranger Chris Savage

commented that " the stewardship opportunities will be geared toward

Kake and could provide new jobs and services for the community. " http://www.sitnews.us/1208news/120508/120508_kupreanof.html

British Columbia: 3)

ForestEthics, Greenpeace and Sierra Club are asking you to "Bear Your

Soul". Don't worry, this will be much easier than therapy.Using a

photograph, tell the BC Government why it needs to honour its agreement

to conserve the Great Bear Rainforest. You could submit a picture of

yourself holding a sign, frolicking in the woods (er, tastefully), or

one that shows the beauty of the wilderness. The Great Bear Rainforest

is the largest tract of intact coastal temperate rainforest left on

Earth. It comprises over 30,000 square miles--about the size of

Austria. It's home to three kinds of bears (grizzly, black and the rare

spirit bear), six million migratory birds, 3000 genetically distinct

salmon stocks and many species of plants unique to the region. Two

years ago, the province of British Columbia committed to protecting

this region under a new conservancy. All the stakeholders--the

provincial government, logging companies, First Nations and

environmentalists--agreed to a new approach to resource planning

developed by an independent team of scientists, and committed to its

implementation by March 31, 2009. While some progress has been made, BC

must still initiate a regional plan to ensure conservation of these

critical ecosystems. Using a photograph, tell the BC Government why it

needs to honour its agreement to conserve the Great Bear Rainforest.

You could submit a picture of yourself holding a sign, frolicking in

the woods (yes, tastefully), or one that shows the beauty of the

wilderness. http://www.flickr.com/groups/969429@N22/4)

The Vancouver Sun newspaper has learned that the BC Ministry of

Environment has been paying aboriginal people to kill wild horses in

the Chilcotin area of BC to use as bait to trap wolves. It needs to be

remembered at every juncture that Forest Ethics is one of the ten

groups of the Mountain Caribou Project who put their seal of approval

on this scandalous mountain caribou plan. It's part of a program to

increase the population of endangered mountain caribou. In addition,

the Ministry of Forests has been paying aboriginal people to round up

wild horses alive, to be sold at auctions where they are bought by

slaughterhouses. The purpose is to clear the range for the ranchers'

cattle. Aboriginal people are divided on the issue. Some say they've

always rounded up wild horses and they need the money from selling

them. But do the taxpayers of the province and the nation want to pay

them to do that? There needs to be a public outcry against killing

other species, purportedly to save the mountain caribou, because many

scientists concerned about the mountain caribou are furious about the

use of predator control to artificially pump up caribou numbers. Top

carnivores such as wolves and cougars are critical to the health of

ecosystems. They aid the survival of many plant communities and small

animal species by keeping prey species as well as mid-sized predators

in check. Areas where the top predators have been slaughtered have

experienced heavy overgrazing of wildlife habitat and the subsequent

death by starvation of thousands of deer and elk. It needs to be

understood that it was INEVITABLE that a mtn caribou plan without a

significant reduction of the AAC, Timber Harvesting Land Base, and

habitat recovery program would stoop to predator control. And predator

control has always stooped to least-cost methods. I am very much

wondering why MOE wanted horse carcasses. That they were being used for

a " study " or " live trapping, " is hard to believe. Those carcasses would

bait a heck of a lot of wolf traps. Or are they being used for poisoned

baits? It was only 20 years ago that MOE was putting poisoned carcasses

all over the place. You can do something about it. You can stop

allowing fake environmental organizations to represent you to

government and the media. We can do a lot better with government and

the forest industry but to do that we are first going to have to do a

lot better with our environmentalism. Please don't let any

environmental organization make backroom deals to greenwash stupid

environmental policy no matter what pecuniary or celebrity opportunity

inducements are offered to it. Our environment would be far better off

if the US funding foundations would simply pack up their staffed

environmental organizations and take them back to the states with them.

bcenvirowatch & wildernesswatch 5)

We critically examine the hypothesis that dry forests in southern

British Columbia evolved in the context of a low-severity

fire-dominated disturbance regime, that fire suppression has led to

ecological conditions which are radically different from the past, and

that ''restoration'' initiatives are required tore-establish former

ecological conditions. Four sources of information were used to infer

historic disturbance regimes and forest condition and to quantify the

nature of disturbance since the early 1900s: (1) patterns of annual and

seasonal weather and lightning strikes, (2) topographic variability,

(3) records of wildfire, insect attack, and timber harvesting

practices, and (4) early systematic forest surveys. Our analyses

consistently indicate that historic natural disturbances were likely

diverse and episodic at multiple spatial and temporal scales. High

seasonal and annual variability in weather and the number of lightning

strikes in complex topography suggest that a widespread low-severity

fire regime is very unlikely, with a mixed-severity disturbance regime

more consistent with our analyses. Although the nature of disturbance

has changed from one largely dominated by fire and insect attack

historically to harvesting and insect attack since 1950, the area

disturbed annually has not diminished. Several interacting factors

including climate, extensive fires coincident with European settlement,

harvesting, fire suppression and insect attack have been key drivers in

creating the conditions observed today. A complex, mixed-severity

disturbance regime creates uncertainty about what represents

''natural'' forest conditions, or what the target conditions for

restoration activities are if the objective is to ''restore natural

conditions''. We conclude that dry forest ecosystems in British

Columbia typically experienced mixed- severity disturbance regimes that

included fire, bark beetles and defoliators. Trying to ''restore''

these forests with applications of frequent, low-severity fire is not

an ecologically sound objective over large areas. Landscapemanagement

should focus onmaintaining forest heterogeneity that would have existed

historically under a mixed-severity disturbance regime. http://forestpolicy.posterous.com/wuerthner-dry-forest-restorati

Canada:6)

The coalition's groups, which include the Natural Resources Defense

Council, the Boreal Songbirds Initiative and the Pembina Institute, say

petroleum-extraction projects in the oil-rich region of northern

Alberta are a threat to migratory birds and the boreal forest they rely

on. Their study concluded that development of the oil sands, would be

fatal for 6 million to 166 million birds because of habitat loss,

shrinking wetlands, accumulation of toxins and other causes. The

solution, the groups say, is to halt new projects in the oil sands and

to clean up existing facilities. They are also calling for strengthened

regulations to protect Canada's vast boreal, or northern, forest and

for Alberta, whose government has backed oil sands developments, to

prove the resource can be exploited without serious environmental harm.

" People need to take a hard look at whether this can be mitigated or if

tar sands development is just incompatible with conservation of bird

habitat, " said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, a senior attorney with the

Natural Resources Defense Council. The report estimates about half of

North America's migratory birds nest in the boreal forest and between

22 million and 170 million birds breed in areas that could be subject

to oil sands development. The oil sands contain the biggest oil

reserves outside the Middle East but the crude is expensive and

difficult to extract. Mining projects strip large areas of land to

access the oil-laden soils below the surface. While the report has not

yet been made public, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers,

which represents the country's big oil firms, said the oil sands

industry complies with environmental regulations and dismissed calls

for a moratorium. http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B15G920081202?feedType=RSS & feedName=environmentNews

7)

London's tenuous claim to being the Forest City has taken a hit after

developers won a round in a court fight over the protection of trees,

activists say. Developers have won the right to legally challenge

changes at city hall that greatly enhanced protections for hundreds of

hectares of woodlands. " Londoners ought to be concerned -- it's a

threat, " George Sinclair of the Urban League said yesterday. " The

forest of the 'Forest City' is under continuous assault, and this would

be a major setback. " If developers win their court appeal, enough trees

to cover 1,000 football fields would become vulnerable to chainsaws and

bulldozers. " It would be a sad loss for Londoners, " said Sandy Levin, a

former city councillor who hired a lawyer to defend enhanced

protections for trees against challenges by major London developers and

the lobby group that represents them, the London Development Institute.

Despite its Forest City moniker, London trails many Ontario cities in

forest cover, with about 10 per cent cover compared to Toronto's 20 and

Ottawa's 30, says the non-profit ReForest London. Had the city not

toughened woodland protection, it was estimated London's forest cover

would have fallen to five per cent. Facing that threat and a pending

civic election in 2006, city council was nearly unanimous in passing

greater protections for trees. Under the old rules, a woodland wasn't

protected unless a city ecologist rated it high in at least three of

several categories that included size, composition, age, history and

location. That left two of every three woodlands of at least four

hectares defenceless against development. The new rules require only a

single high rating and protect an additional 800 hectares of woodlands.

Developers challenged those new rules, first to a

provincially-appointed tribunal that adjudicates how land can be used,

the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2008/12/06/7653741-sun.html Washington:

8)

Whenever I have few days to spare, I like to toss a sleeping bag and a

fly rod and a few books into the back seat of my car and drive east,

toward the mountains. It takes some time to shake free of the gravity

of Seattle's traffic, but once the strip malls start to relent and the

butterfat valley of the Skagit River begins, my arthritic Volkswagen

seems to find its youth again. As if with each mile the odometer were

turning backward -- as if it knows where we're headed. We rise through

tall mountains, through hemlocks and through rain -- Canada all blue

and misty out the left-hand window, like some dream of North -- and

then we're dropping, dropping until finally the land opens out into a

soft, hide-colored valley hemmed by rough peaks. Arriving there is like

exhaling after a long time underwater. For the last several years, I've

been a travel writer, paid to see the world and its varied cultures. My

tastes are supposed to be less parochial. Yet the place I always want

to get back to -- the place I always lean to glimpse out the porthole

as another 747 returns me from another exotic locale -- is my Methow

Valley. I still remember the day we met. It was 1995. It was, as writer

Rick Bass said of the day he found his own secret valley in Montana, a

feeling like falling in love. I began to visit the valley frequently --

often with friends, sometimes by myself. As a reporter for the Seattle

Times, I became expert at finding reasons to return, no matter that it

lay 250 miles from my assigned beat covering murders and soporific city

council meetings in the Seattle suburbs. I wrote about the winter

cross-country skiing, the summer forest fires. I described the attempts

to develop the valley and of the efforts to preserve it. And this is

where my parochialism took root. The valley began to teach me things. I

learned how the ponderosas grow redder on their south sides as they

mature, and how in a pinch a hiker might reckon his way home by their

sunburnt skin. How the wind pushing through the ponderosas must be the

most lonesome sound on earth, and the most gratifying if you like your

beauty salted with a bit of melancholy. I can now tell an arrowleaf

balsamroot from a heart-leaved arnica. The lessons are starting to

stick. And I've learned this: Hemingway was right. I have gone to my

valley with my heart seized up, only to find that even your favorite

place on earth can't console, or help you forget. But the good places,

they will be there for you when you're ready to come back to them. http://www.hcn.org/issues/40.22/methow-homecoming Oregon:

9)

China is expected to import more than 100 million cubic meters of

industrial roundwood by 2010, much of which will go into finished

products shipped off to Europe and the United States. As much as 60

percent of this is illicitly sourced. Meanwhile in Brazil domestic

hunger for timber is fueling widespread illegal logging of the Amazon

rainforest. Armed standoffs between environmental police and people

employed by unlicensed operators are increasingly common. Tropical

Salvage, a Portland, Oregon-based producer of wood products, is

avoiding these issues altogether by taking a different approach to meet

demand for products made from high-quality tropical hardwoods. The

company salvages wood discarded from building sites, unearthed from

mudslides and volcanic sites, and dredged from rivers and reservoirs in

Indonesia and turns it into premium wood products. In the process,

Tropical Salvage is putting formers loggers to work and supporting a

conservation, education and reforestation project on Java. Tim O'Brien,

founder of Tropical Salvage (tropicalsalvage.com), says the idea for

the company came during a 1998 visit to Indonesia. In his tour of

several islands, O'Brien was struck by the volume of wood discarded as

wooden structures were being replaced by concrete and rebar ones. At

the same time he was appalled by a tract of beautiful and

biologically-rich primary rainforest laid waste by logging near Gunung

Leseur National Park. " It looked like a particularly psychotic episode

of vandalism, " he told mongabay.com. " A place that had been one of the

most biologically diverse spots on earth since time immemorial had, in

the course of a few months, been reduced to an eerie, silent ruin of

power-saw litter. It was ominous and affecting. " " The rightness and

wrongness of our management of tropical forests might be aptly

illustrated by looking down the line formed by a still standing primary

forest abutting a clear-cut forest, " he continued. " The cut side

appears exactly like what it is: reckless squander driven by

short-sighted business interests. The forest's role as an invaluable

multi-faceted resource is ended. The living side illustrates a world in

which we thoughtfully and respectfully observe, interact with, derive

pleasure from and learn to use the full spectrum of life's phenomena. " http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1204-interview_tim_brien_tropical_salvage.html

10)

When Amy Harwood, Program Director, and winner of the 2008 Skidmore

Prize was asked what she would do with $100,000, she used her answer to

highlight two of the biggest needs right now in our national forests:

restoring ecosystem health through road removal AND creating

family-wage jobs. Amy was on to something. Throughout the rural West,

communities are realizing the benefits of public lands restoration to

utilize local skills and knowledge while creating new job

opportunities. " Studies in Oregon and northern California have shown

that roadwork requiring heavy equipment tends to be more locally-based

than thinning and planting work, where crews often come from hundreds

of miles away. " 1So where do we find people who can do this road removal

and reclamation work? Just outside of Estacada along Highway 224 is the

Timber Lake Job Corps Center. The corps provides technical and job

skills to high school and college age students. If the Timber Lake Job

Corps began a training program for road removal, it would be the first

in the country to do so, leading the way in training people for the

restoration economy. Not only would students have the opportunity to

work on road removal projects in Mt. Hood National Forest, it could

serve as a model for other programs at training centers and community

colleges throughout the country.While a new restoration-based economy

for Mt. Hood would create on-the-ground jobs, it would also provide

work in areas such as planning, engineering, hydrology, and mapping

within the Forest Service. Aside from work within the national forest,

a road removal program would, " indirectly, over a 20 year period…

generate more than $600 million related to the manufacture of heavy

equipment, which could become a substantial income to a variety of

sectors and regions of the economy. " 2 With a national forest road

maintenance backlog of over $10 billion nationally, we cannot afford to

put off restoration work any longer. Rural communities in Oregon and

throughout the West have long seen a decline in forest jobs,

re-training the current workforce and preparing a new generation for

this kind of work is important to the social, cultural, and economic

conditions of Mt. Hood communities. And with over 4,000 miles of roads

in Mt. Hood's forests, restoration jobs are ensured now and well into

the future. However, we need a training program for this type of work,

and the Timber Lake Job Corps in Mt. Hood National Forest can help get

us started. http://www.bark-out.org 11)

A five-year inventory of federal, state and private forests in Oregon

from the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station shows

the amount of forest that burned in the kinds of intense fires that

move fast and cause a lot of damage was much smaller than previous

analyses had predicted Barring a prolonged drought, less than half the

forested lands in Oregon are predicted to develop crown fires, and an

even smaller fraction, 5 to 15 percent, can be expected to develop

active crown fires, a report on the inventory said. That contradicts

studies published in 1999 and 2002, which found that a century of

trying to put out every forest fire had left much of the forest with an

excessive buildup of fuels that would generate major fires, the report

said. An average of 155,000 acres of forest burned annually between

1995 and 2004, which amounts to 0.51 percent of the 30 million acres of

total forest land in Oregon. The high in the period was 2002, a drought

year, when 1.90 percent of Oregon's forest burned, about 570,000 acres.

" Increased media attention to wildfires and a perception among land

managers of the need for managing wildland fuels more actively may be

generating the impression that the area burned is increasing, " the

report said. In general, the state of Oregon forests is good, said

Joseph Donnegan, a Forest Service ecologist who was lead editor of the

report. Insect infestations and disease are low, the forests are

producing a variety of goods such as lumber and services such as clean

water, wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation. Climate, particularly a

prolonged drought, is a much bigger factor in determining the prospects

for a bad wildfire year than how much logging has been done, Donnegan

said. Forest ecologists Norman K. Johnson of Oregon State University

and Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington agreed. " On the

westside (of the Cascades) ... the fire danger is highly overrated (in

an historical context), " Franklin wrote in an e-mail. The work needed

to get forests in shape amounts primarily to clearing brush and small

trees that serve as ladder fuels, carrying flames from the ground up

into the forest canopy, rather than thinning mature trees, Donnegan

said. The problem is that there is little commercial value in the

materials produced from such work, except as fuel for biomass

generators, which are in short supply in Oregon. However, the inventory

estimated that thinning forests in the Cascades from Hood River to

Redding, Calif., and the Klamath and Siskiyou mountains from Roseburg

to Redding, Calif., could produce $6 billion to $9 billion dollars

worth of fuel for power generation, enough to produce 496 to 1,009

megawatts of electricity over 10 years. http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-28/1228523653142290.xml & storylist=orlocal & thispage=2

12)

It's a deceptively simple organizing tool: Fun hikes in the woods.

Couple that with a relentless focus on mission and an ability to

maintain connections with people, and you get Cascadia Wildlands

Project, a nonprofit conservation group celebrating its 10th year

working to permanently preserve old growth forests in the Pacific

Northwest. Today, Cascadia Wildlands Project holds its annual auction,

an event that last year brought in $35,000, according to Executive Kate Ritley. That represents about 15 percent of the group's

$232,000 annual budget, But it's a boatload more than the startup grant

Cascadia received a decade ago — $4,000 from the McKenzie River

Gathering Foundation. Back then, Cascadia Wildlands Project was little

more than a glimmer in the eye of several passionate University of

Oregon student activists. Today it plays a highly visible role in the

conservation community, advocating for healthy forests, robust

wilderness and clean water in a region that stretches from northern

California to Alaska. It was cobbled together in the wake of the forest

wars of the mid-1990s by veteran activists, most notably James

Johnston, Mick Garvin and Cindy Noblitt. All three had done their share

of blocking logging projects on public lands through civil

disobedience. They were among the extensive crew who for 11 months

warded off salvage logging in the Warner Creek area east of Oakridge on

the Willamette National Forest. Back then, civil disobedience was the

only real tactic available, said Johnston, Cascadia's founder and first

paid staffer. In 1995, Congress passed a law known as the salvage rider

that exempted logging on public lands from environmental laws and

prevented conservationists from challenging timber harvests in

court.Despite the protections of the Northwest Forest Plan, many of

Oregon's oldest trees were still up for bid, Johnston said. But by the

time the salvage rider expired in 1997, Johnston had become

disillusioned with direct action. "The actions became more dangerous

and irresponsible," Johnston said. Worse, they alienated law-abiding

community members who might otherwise be allies in the debate over how

best to protect Oregon's forests. While some forms of civil

disobedience still had a role to play, said Garvin, he decided he

wanted some other tools. And it wasn't lost on them how the

long-established conservation group Oregon Wild, then known as the

Oregon Natural Resources Council, used photographs of the Warner Creek

blockade as a fund-raising tool in its efforts to preserve the

environment, Garvin said. "James and I thought, How can we get some of

that? With the help of many volunteers, they created the Cascadia

Wildlands Project. Among the first of Cascadia's successful efforts:

They altered a logging project on Hardesty Mountain in 1998 by

conducting dozens of hikes to the area on the Umpqua National Forest

slated for logging, said Josh Laughlin, now the conservation director

for Cascadia and also a veteran of the Warner Creek blockade. http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/3676199-35/story.csp

13)

Deschutes National Forest has issued (Dec. 3rd) a Fire Review of the

Wizard Fire. The Wizard Fire was a prescribed fire set by USFS

personnel last Sept. 25th in the Metolius Research Natural Area. The

intention was to underburn 30 acres. The fire escaped, however, and

1,840 acres burned on both sides of the Metolius River near Wizard

Falls, a mile north of Canyon Creek and 3 miles north of Camp Sherman.

The Wizard Fire was declared a wildfire the day after ignition, and

$3,849,914 were spent on fire suppression before 100% containment was

achieved on Oct. 4th (see W.I.S.E. Fire Tracking [here]). The Deschutes

Fire Review is [here]. The Review Team attributed the fire escape to

the lack of fire patrols during the evening of Sept. 25. The principle

causal factor of the escape stemmed from a lack of patrolling of the

unit the evening or next morning following ignition. No agency policy

was violated, however the prescribed burn organization failed to

implement required operational procedures. A Prescribed Fire Burn Plan

was prepared, approved and met policy requirements, but did not

sufficiently address the mop up and patrol phase of the prescribed

fire. There was no documentation or formal plan developed (which was

supported by interviews) for mop up and patrol the following day. These

are procedures which normally occur in the periods following ignition

of a prescribed fire. Instead of patrolling the fire, the burning crew

went home at 6:00 pm. There was no mention of patrolling in the Burn

Plan, which addressed only the day of ignition with no mention of

subsequent work. Mop-up was discussed in the Burn Plan but not

implemented. The Review noted that: 1) Implementation documentation,

including plans for post ignition efforts [was] poor. … 2) Distractions

such as personnel rotating off the burn assignment due to approved

annual leave, Incident Management Team activations of key personnel,

not filling positions behind detailed personnel, work assignment

diversions, and individual personal issues, prevented supervisory

overhead redundancy from noticing breakdowns in critical operational

requirements such as post-ignition patrols. 3) There was a perception

of a pressure to burn more acres (either through the fire organization

or through a sense of individual responsibility) that may have lead to

urgency to move from one unit to the next without adequate attention to

the previous day, as well as a perception of being understaffed to meet

expectations. http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2008/12/07/wizard-fire-review/ 14)

In November, Siskiyou Project, Lomakatsi Restoration Project and the

U.S. Forest Service entered into a ten year, ten thousand acre Master

Stewardship Agreement to achieve a variety of goals: 1) Ecological

Restoration & Climate Change Resiliency; 2) Reduce the Risk of

Fire; 3) Community Collaboration; 4) Enterprise Creation --- The area

addressed in the Master Stewardship Agreement (MSA) is known as the

Wild Rivers Ranger District and lies within the borders of the Rogue

River-Siskiyou National Forest. Conditions within the Wild Rivers

Ranger District have changed over time from wildfire suppression and

timber harvest activities, resulting in overstocked stands and

unnatural accumulations of fuels. Forest stands have become denser,

increasing fire hazard, reducing wildlife forage, and depleting water

resources needed to sustain riparian vegetation and salmon populations.

Fire behavior within the rural/wildlands interface has an increased

potential to destroy property and threaten human lives. The MSA brings

together distinct and overlapping skills, values, and missions.

Together Lomakatsi and Siskiyou Project are equipped to address and

assist in implementing the variety of goals and objectives of the

projects which are sought by this Master Stewardship Agreement. We have

been actively engaged in development and implementation of community

supported stewardship and restoration forestry practices on these

landscapes in the past. All parties share an interest in improving the

condition and function of this landscape, not only for wildfire and

fuels concerns, but also for landscape and stand diversity. A healthy

landscape provides a variety of benefits well beyond the needs of a

single species, and therefore benefits all parties. It is therefore

mutually beneficial to work together to implement forest restoration

projects within the context of a landscape that will help protect

private property, reduce unnatural levels of forest fuels, and

ultimately restore forest and aquatic habitats. http://www.siskiyou.org/c-far/index.html 15)

After two months of review, Governor Ted Kulongoski today asked the

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) not to adopt its proposed forest

management plan, commonly known as the Western Oregon Plan Revision,

and to open the plan for an additional public comment period once the

BLM has addressed his concerns. The Governor cited BLM's decision not

to complete consultation on Endangered Species Act (ESA) impacts as a

major obstacle to the successful implementation of the proposed plan.

The plan defers consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

and the National Marine Fisheries Service until harvest projects are

identified. "I had every reason to believe that the plan would fully

address BLM's obligations under the Endangered Species Act. I believe

that delaying this work is the wrong approach and is legally

inconsistent with the requirements of the ESA," Governor Kulongoski

said. "Furthermore, this approach could set a bad precedent that opens

the door for other federal agencies to do the same." The Governor also

expressed concerns related to water quality, wilderness areas,

insufficient monitoring provisions and the lack of any acknowledgement

that the BLM will utilize forest management strategies that fight

global warming. Additionally, he is concerned that the BLM has failed

to garner the support of Oregon's congressional delegation, which is

critical to the success of the plan. The U.S. Congress eventually will

be asked to allocate funding. "I am committed to a developing a plan

that meets the economic, social and environmental values of these

forest lands and that can gain the support of Oregonians and especially

our congressional delegation. We all know that our counties desperately

need predictable, sustainable revenues," the Governor said. "We're not

there yet, but there is an opportunity to build upon this proposal and

make it better." Regarding monitoring, the Governor recognizes that the

BLM will measure progress as the plan is implemented, but he is

concerned about the lack of an effort to assess the effectiveness of

the management plan. He also requests that the BLM commit to working

with local communities and Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality

in advance of harvests to monitor water quality for drinking and for

fish. Finally, he requests that BLM incorporate the best available

science on forest management strategies that fight global warming and

incorporate those strategies into the plan. "Any management plan should

incorporate the best available science on strategies that recognize and

support the role our forests play in carbon sequestration and that

future forest ecosystems are better able to accommodate a warmer

climate," the Governor said. "For the long-term economic health of our

counties, we must ensure that these forests are managed in a way that

takes climate change into account." http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/P2008/press_120808.shtml California:16)

A new report by the United States Forest Service on the status of

California's forests is a mixed bag. The agency's Forest Inventory and

Analysis Report states, among other things, that the state is

surprisingly heavily forested, with 19 million acres of the state's 100

million acres of forest under public management. Some 13 million acres

are privately held, and much of that land is used for logging. The

inventory, which is released every five years, states that most housing

growth over the past decade has been on the edge of forested lands and

open space. Insects, diseases, air pollution and fire are also taking a

toll, with an average of more than 200,000 acres of forested land

burning between 2001 and 2005. State Senator Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa

Rosa, was hoping for good things when she introduced legislation this

week designed to encourage more production of solar power. Senate Bill

7 would compensate residential electric utility customers who

participate in the state's solar program, known as the California Solar

Initiative, for all the power they generate from solar panels. Besides

subsidies for installing photovoltaic panels, residents are now

compensated only for the amount of energy they use. And Friends of the

Earth announced this week that they are mobilizing for a fight against

the resurgence of nuclear power, a source of energy for which many,

including President-Elect Barack Obama, have expressed at least some

support. The first order of business, say activists for the

organization, is to stop President Bush from opening up Nevada's

proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste dump. Meanwhile, global

warming is believed to have claimed its first victim in Australia.

Biologists and biodiversity experts claim that a white possum native to

the Daintree forest in Australia has not been spotted there since 2005.

The lemuroid possum, native to mountain forests north of Queensland,

may have died off as a result of record high temperatures that year,

according to the experts. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/chrongreen/detail? & entry_id=3324217)

Due to budget cuts, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control

Board is currently rethinking its timber harvest review participation.

Given what they have learned about timber harvests (and what might that

be?) they will be making some changes to their THP program. It is

unclear at t his point in time just what those changes may look like,

though one can guess that they will no longer have a staff member

available to participate in pre-harvest inspections. Since they do not

currently submit PHI reports or participate in Second Review, they

can't do less in those areas. It is also unclear whether this change

will be made as an internal policy revision, or will come before their

Board for a vote. If there is insufficient funding for proper agency

review, a fee paid by the plan submitter would be in order. But we know

who doesn't like fees. I am told that the Waterboard will continue to

issue waivers. JodiFredi 18) DFG recently completed a

memorandum re THP 1-06-147 SMO for the Redwood Glen Camp on Pescadero

Creek in San Mateo County. RPFs are Gary Paul and Chris Hipkin. DFG

conducted a site visit and reviewed results of a marbled murrelet

survey performed in the plan area. Survey results in 2007 and 2008

indicated a total of 68 and 212 murrelet detections within or near two

habitat areas on the property to both the east and west. Even though

DFG determined that murrelets were not inhabiting the THP area, they

concluded that the T HP area should be classified as a 'presence' site,

due to murrelet occupation on lands adjacent to the THP. DFG has

recommended retention of potential nest trees and adjacent screen trees

within the THP area. Additional measures were recommended to avoid

attracting predators of murrelets, avoiding auditory harassment, and

contacting DFG to examine marked wildlife trees prior to harvesting.

Apparently, CAL FIRE's policy that they do not post documents on their

ftp site which are received after a plan is approved strikes again.

Seems very inappropriate to me. Anyone who would like a digital copy of

this DFG report can email me: jo difredi and I can forward to

you, or you can email Leslie Markham at CAL FIRE and see if she will

email to you or post: leslie.markham from JodiFredi19)

After thirteen months of being nestled 75 feet up in the branches of a

grove of redwoods at UC Santa Cruz, a group of tree sitters are finally

in talks with school officials to end their protest. Last November,

protestors climbed up the redwoods on Science Hill to protest the

University's expansion plan to build a biomedical facility. The

protestors clashed with police, who used pepper spray and batons to

beat back the growing crowd. Since then, it's been mostly peaceful. The

University said this is the first time such a discussion has

transpired. " We're both looking to get mutual concessions out of it, "

said Jennifer Charles, a spokesperson for the tree sit and a UCSC

alumn. The details surrounding those concessions are being kept

confidential at this time. The University said they've waited this long

to begin these talks because the project will begin soon. " It seemed

reasonable to take one last crack at opening up dialogue with these

people and see if there's any way to end this voluntary on their part

and peacefully, " said Jim Burns, a UCSC spokesperson. The university

would not say if they would extract the tree sitters by force if no

agreement is reached. " I wouldn't want to forecast an outcome, but say

we obviously will give it our best effort because it's in everyone's

interest to end voluntarily and peacefully, " said Burns. Charles said

the tree sitters will remain in the trees until a solution is reached,

but she said their fight won't end even when the tree sitters are on

the ground. " Regardless of what happens with mediation, regardless of

the tree sit, the people in the community will continue to oppose the

University's plan to build in the upper forest, " said Charles. The

University said the expansion plan to build a biomedical facility was

approved by state voters through a bond measure years ago, and it's a

facility needed for the students as well as California in order to

provide more health care professionals. The University said the project

is purposely being built inside the campus' core, which will not add to

the campus footprint on the environment. Protestors do not want the

facility, concerned both for the redwoods and the growth in students it

promises. http://www.kcba.com/Global/story.asp?S=9454911 20)

Homes built in the wildland-urban interface account for most of

California's housing growth over the last 10 years. This means that

forest managers will be tasked with fire hazard reduction, prevention,

and suppression on an increasing area, according to the first five-year

report on the state of forests on California's private and public

lands. More than 200,000 forested acres burned on average annually

between 2001 and 2005, the five years covered in the report. Forests

cover about a third of California's 100 million acres, and of that

forested area, about 19 million acres is publicly managed, the report

shows. More than 13 million acres of forest land is privately held -

about five million acres is owned by industry, and seven percent of

this acreage is managed by a timber investment management organization

or real-estate investment trust. Released to the public on Wednesday,

the California report was produced by the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific

Northwest Forest Inventory and Analysis Program. Based in Portland,

Oregon, the program conducts forest inventories in Alaska, California,

Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands. The five year

frequency of reporting was set by Congress through language in the 1998

Farm Bill, says ecologist Joseph Donnegan, a member of the Forest

Inventory and Analysis Program. " Instead of the 10 year timber reports

we used to produce, we now post data annually and write a report every

five years that covers a much broader range of topics that regularly

appear in the news, " he said. " The idea was not only to provide data on

an annual basis, but to be nationally consistent in how we conduct

inventory and monitoring. Previously, different FIA regions were using

different methodologies, " explains Donnegan. " The results were specific

for that region or part of the country, but comparisons and analyses

weren't easily made owing to the variety of techniques used. The

national Forest Inventory and Analysis Program now uses standard

measurement and analysis techniques, " he said. The five year report

shows that insects, diseases, air pollution, and fire shape the

forested California landscape. California trees are useful for

absorbing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Carbon storage for live

and dead trees, and downed wood are highest in redwood and Douglas-fir

forest types when evaluated on a per-acre basis, according to the

report. Modeling crown fire potential under extreme weather conditions

showed that fire would occur as a surface or conditional surface fire

in 72 percent of forests, and as a passive crown fire in only 20

percent of forests. http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-03-091.asp 21)

After decades of battling MAXXAM, Humboldt Earth Firsters! have

directed their collective efforts towards stopping the destruction that

Simpson(Green Diamond) has wrought upon our lands for far too long. The

action is taking place outside of Eureka, Ca., in which tree-sitters

are occupying several large second growth trees. Don't let Green

Diamond's name fool you! The former Simpson company with a greenwashed

face is FAR from being " green " , even with bogus sustainable

certification. To learn more about the recently formed Earth First!

Humboldt collective or to become involved directly, please visit them

at their site http://efhumboldt.org/. You can also see photos of the banner high in the trees of the new action. http://humboldtforestdefense.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-earth-first-humboldt-action.html

22)

" Redwood Forest Foundation (RFFI) is looking for ideas on how to remove

tanoak and have the trees pay for the removal. They have 50,000 acres

from Piercy/Legget to the coast. Any ideas? " àBen as you know, the

forest/timber industry considers the Tan Oak to be a weed. Back in the

sixties and seventies, Mal Coombs spent a lot of big bucks hoping to

find a use for Tan Oak. He had thousands of acres of them choking out

Redwood and Fir trees. He brought many of the oak logs into his mill

and experimented with them. He already had a steam powered drying kiln

for the kiln-dried Redwood products that he sold. He did a lot of

experimenting in drying the lumber for high quality furniture. The tan

wood proved to be too unstable for furniture. I think that people

nowadays would be glad to have it. We have forgotten what quality is.

He developed a baseball bat out of the Tan Oak. There was something

wrong with the wood where it wasn't strong enough, or something like

that. I'm not sure what was wrong with the wood, but they even made a

bat that was laminated with fiberglass to make a wood quality bat, but

it was not approved by the baseball industry. I think that he was just

not one of the baseball "good old boys". After the bat thing failed,

they tried to manufacture various small board flooring options. The

only flooring that Mal would approve of, that he would put his name on,

was the small wood pieced Parquet flooring. The flooring was beautiful,

but it was not as successful as a product as he had hoped it would be.

An interesting story: When Mal was just going into full production with

the Tan Oak flooring, the Humboldt County Airport in McKinleyville was

just being built, and Mal negotiated a deal with the county to put his

Tan Oak Parquet Flooring in the main terminal. Somehow a piece of

Chinquapin Oak, that he was also experimenting with, got mixed in with

the Tan Oak. It was not noticed until the Varnish was applied to the

floor, then the different colored Chinquapin stood out like a sore

thumb. Mal had to stand the cost of re-flooring the whole main

terminal. He was not a happy camper! The flooring was in the main

terminal of the airport until the recent remodel. It would still be

beautiful today if it had been taken care of. Unfortunately, the way

the county takes care of things is smear wax on the dirt over the top

of the floor until it becomes unrecognizable, then replace the

beautiful oak floor with concrete. Rogan Coombs tried manufacturing

firewood out of Tan Oak in piercy. I'm not sure why that failed. One

thing that Rogan did was sell logs and put them on a landing for peole

to cut firewood out of. I think that it was also an attempt to to get

rid of them out of the conifer forest. I've been told that it makes

high quality paper products, but that is kind of a moot point with all

of the pulp mills closed. http://ernielb.blogspot.com/2008/12/tan-oak-came-back-with-vengence.html 23)

The Concerned Citizens for Reasonable Fire Management, consisting of

Forest Service retirees, foresters, Trinity County citizens and

business owners, have been studying the 1999, 2006 and 2008 fires on

the Big Bar Ranger District. We believe that we see a pattern that is

most disturbing. Since 1999 over 300,000 acres of the district, in

northwestern Trinity County, have been burned. From the 1905 inception

of the Forest Service until 1999 — 93 years — less than 100,000 acres.

Maybe a result of global warming or drought — we don't believe so! We

have the rain records to prove it. The recent Fire Forum was definitely

a step in the right direction. When studying fire suppression covering

all of Northern California, involving multiple fire agencies with

different suppression responsibilities, it is unlikely that any clear

solution could evolve. However, our group has concentrated on only the

Big Bar Ranger District of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Here we

have been able to isolate some issues and have narrowed the focus. Why

such a dramatic rise in fire size and duration? Our analysis leads us

to the following reasons. Forests are creating more woody volume each

year. In fact the Shasta-Trinity as of the early 1990s was growing 400

million board feet each year. Now with the current environmental

protections in place, the Shasta-Trinity is removing less than 50

million board feet annually. So each year the forest builds up more

fuel in the forest. Of course we can just watch it grow and then let it

burn. That seems to be the opinion of many people who call themselves

environmentalists. Or we allow removal of reasonable amounts of timber

that can be used to build houses, offset some of the lumber imports

into this country and reduce the fuel loading in the forests. Tough

choice? One very important facet of this very complicated issue that

was not brought out in the write-up of the forum is a change in

suppression tactics used by federal fire managers. This seems to be one

issue that nobody wants to bring out in the open. The federal fire

agencies have at least in behavior if not in written policy altered

their suppression tactics. The underlying issue is safety. Firefighting

tactics long accepted as effective and safe are now shunned by fire

managers. http://www.redding.com/news/2008/dec/07/forest-service-suppression-tactics-dont-meet-muste/

24)

Thanks to our community of more than 21,000 members, Save the Redwoods

League has saved these redwood forests and the landscapes that support

them: 1) We transferred to Butano State Park 100 acres containing

ancient coast redwoods and potential nesting sites for the threatened

marbled murrelet, a seabird that relies on ancient trees. This

acquisition also expands protection for critical watersheds and will

increase the park's recreational opportunities along the Butano Fire

Road, a trail often used by hikers that bisects the northern portion of

the park. 2) Our purchase of 39 acres upslope of the scenic Freshwater

Lagoon in Humboldt County increases watershed protection for the lagoon

and adds second-growth redwood forest to Humboldt Lagoons State Park.

3) Old and young redwoods, grassy bluffs and more than 1½ miles of

stunning Pacific Ocean coastline are highlights of a 401-acre Mendocino

County property Save the Redwoods League has acquired. In a new type of

partnership, the Coastal Land Trust is caring for the land, while Save

the Redwoods is exploring exciting new alternatives for long-term

stewardship that include California State Parks and other partners to

ensure the public can enjoy this inspiring place. 4) We protected 113

acres of land adjacent to Bothe-Napa Valley State Park containing some

of the last remaining unprotected ancient redwoods in Napa County. In

the face of global climate change, redwoods in this region are

important to preserve because they may hold the key to species'

survival, having developed in a relatively dry, warm environment. Of

the total 113-acre project area, Save the Redwoods League acquired 51

acres for future transfer to the park. We acquired a land preservation

agreement on 62 of the acres and transferred it to The Land Trust of

Napa County, a new Save the Redwoods partner, for permanent monitoring.

5) League land preservation agreements in Del Norte County on

industrial timberland now protect some of the best remaining privately

owned old-growth forest habitat for marbled murrelets in northern

California. The murrelets, a species of seabird, need ancient trees'

large branches for nest platforms. There are two agreements: one covers

650 acres, including 142 acres of old-growth forest buffered by 508

acres of younger forest; the other covers 298 acres, with more than 77

acres of old-growth forest buffered by 220 acres of younger forest. http://www.savetheredwoods.org/enews/0808.htm

6) New Property Makes Way for Access to Giant Sequoias Our members'

support enabled us to recently transfer to Sequoia and Kings Canyon

National Parks an 11-acre parcel that will allow the National Park

Service to improve public access via the historic Colony Mill Road. The

Colony Mill Road connects to a network of trails through the park

leading to the Giant Forest. The Giant Forest is home to the world's

largest tree, the General Sherman Tree. The property also is important

because it contains blue oak woodlands, an increasingly threatened

habitat in California. http://rare-earth-news.blogspot.com/2008/12/save-redwoods-league-2007-8-land.html

25)

There have been lots of local "victories" for the Eastern Sierra Land

Trust, and most recently the innovative non-profit organization secured

a couple of conservation "landmarks." Adding to its list of

accomplishments are the beautiful ranching and grazing lands of Bill

Bramlette, a fourth generation landowner near Benton Hot Springs. The

900-acre ranch is now in a permanent conservation easement, forever

keeping those grand landscape values protected. Bramlette will continue

ranching, just like his family has for decades. Along with the

Bramlette success story are two properties in the Mono Basin. The

Yednock and Crystol properties are now a part of the permanently

gorgeous landscapes surrounding Mono Lake. The Yednock property (480

acres) was a real challenge, as it had really been let go for a long

time, and once the 20 vehicles and other debris were removed-the

property looks like a place where people will find wildlife habitat.

The Crystol land (80 acres) was "purchased by the Wilderness Land Trust

and donated to the BLM to be managed for the protection of its natural

resources including undisturbed alkali dune scrub and scattered pine

trees," according to the ESLT's Spring newsletter. Total land recently

put in trust for our collective heritage and enjoyment= 1,460 acres.26)

Redwood Empire recently completed logging their 398 acre THP downstream

from the Olive Springs Quarry on Soquel Creek. They installed temporary

bridges to access the harvest and now want to install a permanent

bridge across Soquel Creek along with 800 feet of new road, largely in

the20WLPZ. They apparently do not want to locate it at the existing

'wet ford' used by neighboring land owners as this would require

Redwood Empire to conform to County permit requirements. The proposed

bridge location is immediately downstream of the confluence of Hinckley

Creek with Soquel Creek. California Geologic Survey has expressed

significant concerns with the proposal, citing a lack of data for the

basis of the 100 year flow used for the design (11,100 cfs) and has

asked that calculations be based on Soquel Creek stream gauge

information along with 'any adjustments due to the recently burned

portion of the watershed'. CGS also notes that the amendment shows

approach fills placed within the 100 year flood plain of Soquel Creek,

which would " narrow the channel at the bridge site and the resulting

constriction will likely result in higher flow velocities at the bridge

location and could cause an increase in sour potential. " The proposal

also mentions that , " water is expected to flow over the flat area near

Abutment 1. " As a result of these and additional concerns expressed by

CGS, the Major Amendment was not accepted for filing. It has been

resubmitted and goes to First Review again on Thursday, 12-11-08.

Curiously enough, CAL FIRE has a policy that they do not post on their

ftp site any documents that come in on approved plans after approval.

That includes Major Amendments which are to be treated the same as

THPs. Please c ontact Leslie Markham and let her know you want to see

this policy changed. Given that this Major Amendment is not included on

the 'current THP list' on CAL FIRE's website either, nor was it posted

on the white board in Felton, it is essentially impossible for the

public to stay informed and to participate in the review, as allowed by

CEQA. Contact Leslie Markham: leslie.markham – Post from

JodiFredi