Beetle Hysteria Again
Some foresters think a tiny tree-killing beetle is heightening the risk of big wildfires. They should think again.
By George Wuerthner, 6-30-09
Beetle hysteria has raised its head again, and I am not talking about the Fab four. A prominent article in the New York Times titled “Tiny Beetle Adds New Dynamic to Forest Fire Control Efforts” quotes many foresters and others who suggest that beetle-kill trees across the West will create larger wildfires and, by implication, are “destroying” our forests. Montana’s State Forester Bob Harrington said as much at conference recently, as in the article. While it may seem “intuitively obvious” that dead trees will lead to more fires, there is little scientific evidence to support the contention that beetle-killed trees substantially increase risk of large blazes. In fact, there is evidence to suggest otherwise.
At the heart of this and many other media reports are flawed assumptions about fires, what constitutes a healthy forest, and the options available to humans in face of natural processes that are inconvenient and get in the way of our designs.
One study in Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula looked at 2,500 years of bark beetle events and wildfires, and could find little correlation between the two. Similarly a study that looked at burn patterns of the 1988 Yellowstone fires found little evidence that recent bark beetle outbreaks had substantially increased fire spread in the Park (though an earlier beetle event did seem to increase fire spread slightly—more on why below).
In fact dead trees don’t automatically lead to more fires since climate/weather events, not fuels, largely controls large blazes. If the climate/weather isn’t conducive for fire spread, it doesn’t much matter how much dead wood you have piled up, you won’t get a large fire. As an extreme example, think of all the dead wood lying around on the ground in old growth west coast rainforests—lots of fuel, but few fires—because it’s too wet to burn. But it’s even more complex than that generalization.
First, to understand why beetle-killed trees don’t necessarily lead to large fires, one needs to know more about how bark beetles affect forests. Younger trees are not killed by beetles, and remain in the forest to fill the void created by the death of more mature trees. In effect, bark beetles “thin” the forest but typically there are still lots of trees growing on the site—some large mature trees and a lot of smaller ones. So the “forest” is not destroyed, nor does it “disappear” as may be implied from the hysterical statements coming from logging proponents, and others connected to the timber industry.
It’s important to note that mature trees are not hapless victims. When a bark beetle attempts to bore into the tree, the tree uses its sap to push out the beetle and any eggs. A strong healthy tree with sufficient resources can often flush out the beetles. It is not unlike the ability of a healthy moose to deter a wolf attack. Indeed, wolves are seldom successful in taking down a healthy mature moose unless circumstances give them the upper hand. Trees under stress from drought or damage from other causes are more vulnerable, just as a moose suffering from lower nutrients as a result of drought is more likely to be killed by wolves. So while beetles do kill trees, they aren’t able to “destroy the forest.” Many smaller trees—and even a significant number of mature tree—survive.
Since bark beetles tend to focus on larger trees, and not all trees are killed, this has important implications for fire risk. Fine fuels—not large snags—are the prime ingredient for sustained fire. So what you have after a major beetle outbreak is a lot of standing upright big boles. You can’t get big logs to burn unless you have fine fuels beneath them to sustain the heating process. That is why one uses small kindling and other fine fuels to start a campfire, and must continuously feed small wood under the bigger logs to keep the fire going. Assuming you have the right conditions for a fire in the first place, a forest fire will spread more rapidly, and with greater intensity, in a totally green forest than a sea of dead boles, in part because the green forest possesses a lot more fine fuels in the form of resin-filled needles and small branches.
Furthermore, tree flammability is not constant, but varies over time. It is highest immediately after beetles kill the tree, and brown needles and small branches remain on the tree. However, after a winter or two, the needles and smaller branches are knocked from the trees, and their flammability goes way down since the remaining upright snags are actually quite resistant to flames. It is generally only after understory trees, released by the death of more mature canopy trees, grow taller and provide a ladder into the canopy that fire hazard again increases. These ladder fuels, along with any dead snags that have toppled to the ground, can potentially lead to greater fire hazard. But this process takes decades. Thus, the immediate threat from bug-killed trees is not likely to be great, especially if the climate/weather is wet.
Of course, if you have the right conditions for a big burn, the dead trees will burn, but typically not at any greater potential than a forest of green trees. Green trees, after all, with their flammable resins in needles and branches, are highly combustible under extreme drought and high temperatures. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that green trees will burn even hotter and with greater intensity than, say, a dead snag.
Potential is not the same as absolute. Most lodgepole pine, the primary species attacked by beetles in the Rockies, tend to be found at more moist, higher elevations which simply do not dry out enough to burn well in most years. That is why lodgepole pine forests typically have long rotations between burns—on the order of hundreds of years in some places. Thus the presence of dead trees does not necessarily lead to fires. The probability that any particular bug-killed stand will be ignited by lightning or humans during the few years out of a hundred when they are dry enough to carry a large blaze is actually quite small. So even if there is a lot of dead wood on the ground, that doesn’t mean you will have large blazes. Probability is important—and the probability is low.
Even more importantly the news media often neglects to educate the public about the ecological value of bark beetles as “ecosystem engineers.” Beetles are essential to maintaining biodiversity in our forests. One study of bark beetles in Europe found that bark beetles created habitat for a wide array of other insect species, including many pollinating bees and wasps, whose numbers increased in the forest gaps created by bark beetles.
But it’s not just insects that increase as a consequence of beetle-kill. Dead trees created by bark beetles are used by cavity nesting birds, bats, and many small mammals. When dead trees fall to the ground, they provide hiding cover for insects, mammals, and amphibians, from salamanders to frogs. Dead trees that fall into streams create aquatic habitat for fish. Of course dead trees are utilized by fungi, lichens, and as a source of new nutrients for new plant growth. Thus if we grant that an increase in biodiversity is important to the long term forest health, beetles are actually a sign of “forest health.”
Even the way a tree dies radically affects its future decay trajectory. A tree killed by wildfire, for instance, decays much more slowly than one killed by beetles. By penetrating the outer bark of a tree beetles permit other organisms, including other insects as well as fungi, to enter the tree and begin the decay process. While fire-killed trees, charred black by fire, are more resistant to decay. Bark beetles, in addition to wildfire, wind throw and other natural events all contribute to different future forest dynamics.
The current spate of beetle outbreaks and dead trees, in and of themselves, is nothing to be alarmed about. However, there is another reason to be concerned. The current beetle “outbreak” may be a harbinger of climate change that may radically alter future forest ecosystems. Warmer temperatures due to climate change may be responsible for the expansion of bark beetle outbreaks in the West (though there is historic evidence to suggest that past outbreaks affected as many or even more acres than what we see today). Cold winter temperatures tend to kill beetles and keep their numbers under control.
Warmer temperatures not only increase the survivorship of beetles, but permit beetles to attack trees at higher elevation than in the past, and this has led to the death of many whitebark pine which, though occasionally attacked by beetles, usually are not affected to any great degree by bark beetles due to the whitebark pine’s preference for high, cold elevations.
Yes, bark beetles are killing many trees, but that won’t necessarily lead to large fires. Even if it did, there’s not much humans can do directly to forests to influence fire risk, except to begin reducing human causes of climatic change. Logging the forest will not significantly influence fire spread, and removal of dead trees has many negative impacts on forest ecosystems. Logging itself creates many additional environmental impacts, such as greater sedimentation of streams, invasion of weeds, and so on that are far too often ignored by proponents of active forest management.
Nor can humans have much influence on the spread of beetles. To effectively reduce forest susceptibility to bark beetles, 50-80% of the trees have to be removed. Since that is typically as much, or in many cases even more trees than are killed by bark beetles, such “let’s cut the trees to save them” seems unwarranted. Plus, there is no guarantee that those particular stands of trees that are treated with thinning are the same ones that will be attacked by beetles.
As far as community protection is concerned, it is far more cost-effective to reduce flammability of homes than to attempt to reduce the flammability of forests. Focus fire risk reduction in and near homes, not out in the backcountry.
The important take-home message is that we need a paradigm shift in our response to bark beetles. We cannot significantly influence large-scale ecological processes like bark beetles and wildfire. Rather we must adapt ourselves and our communities to learn to live with them. If climate change is ultimately the reason for the changing tree vulnerability to beetles, than we should deal with reducing human sources of greenhouse gases.
Secondly, beetles are not destroying our forests, rather they are creating new ecological opportunities, increasing biodiversity, and improving ecosystem health.
Good article! Deserves a wider readership.
Comment By Bill Croke, 6-30-09Log it or it burns. Simple.
Comment By geo, 6-30-09Bill
I can't tell if you are joking or serious. But typically the choice is neither. Most of the time the bark beetles kill the trees and the trees eventually fall down and rot. They neither burn nor do they need to be logged.
It would be wonderful if the world, its forests, and the pine beetle are as simple as Bill Croke says. Alas, as many of us on the varied sides of the endless forest controversy have learned over the years, complexities lurk in the woods.
Wuerthner does a very nice job of wading through the complexities of forests, beetles, and fire in a time of rapid climate change. Phillip's right. George's article deserves a wider readership, and I hope it gets it.
Logging has been touted to increase native fish, elk populations, grizzlies and water yield. It was all a big fat lie. It should surprise no one that beetles are the latest pretext for logging. Bottom line, logging cannot stand on its own. Not ecologically, not economically, not in the Northern Rockies. Time to end it before we have a real problem with biofuels subsidies and other 19th-Century energy time travel.
Comment By Forester, 6-30-09"Furthermore, mature trees are not hapless victims. When a bark beetle attempts to bore into the tree, the tree uses its sap to push out the beetle and any eggs. A strong healthy tree with sufficient resources can often flush beetles out."
Indeed, you are correct. What might make a tree vulnerable to beetles (i.e. without sufficient resources to flush beetles out)? Stress! Stress from drought, climate change, etc. etc. Also, stress that results from competition with other trees for limited water and nutrients. So, overstocked stands reduce overall tree vigor; therefore, thinning stands can improve overall tree vigor and thus resistance to mountain pine beetles.
If that's a pretext for logging -- it should be. It makes perfect scientific sense.
Forester
In a simplistic sense you are correct.
But that raises several questions which I discussed in the column. First why would you want to reduce the beetle outbreaks when it's so critical to maintaining healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. Seems to me that we should be very caution about assuming that stopping or reducing bark beetles influences is desirable.
Second is the problem of probability. I.e. While thinning would likely increase vigor and the ability of any individual tree to withstand beetle attacks--at least in the near term until the understory trees are released and quickly grow up to complete with the existing mature trees.
But beyond the short term effect of thinning, the other problem is that one can't predict which trees will be attacked. Yes trees stressed by drought are vulnerable, but that is not a good indicator of which trees will be attacked. Drought is stressing all trees in many parts of the West, but most of them are not being killed by bark beetles. So how do you know where to thin? Once the bark beetles are present--it's generally considered too late to thin. You have to do it in advance.
Thinning might make sense in urban areas or around campgrounds, etc. where one might want to be certain that you will lose few trees, but we can't thin the entire West's forests.
Furthermore, we might do all that thinning and get two or three cold winters in a row that basically kills most of the beetles and halts the outbreak. So we'd expend all that money on thinning for naught.
Keep in mind that most of these trees (lodgepole pine) are not very profitable to log. They are small. Grow slow. And typically are found in the more remote areas. So the only way it would "pay" to thin is through subsidies.
Finally logging has a lot of negatives that come with it that must be weighed against any positive gain--whether that is wood products or reduction in beetles.
"So, overstocked stands reduce overall tree vigor; therefore, thinning stands can improve overall tree vigor and thus resistance to mountain pine beetles."
**citation needed**
Especially with current warming trends and the inability of the climate to dip below -10 deg long enough to freeze the beetles and eggs in trees that act as an insulator. I'm glad to see Mr. Wuerthner mentioning climate change. There are multiple studies that have noted the drastic increase of beetles and beetle kill due to the warming winters.
Yes, we must stop all logging now! That way, when we're building a home, or if we have a project at home where we need lumber, and it costs us both arms and legs, we can blame the politicians.
Comment By Geo, 6-30-09Waterman
No one said anything about stopping ALL logging. But many of us feel that we aren't paying the "real" price of our wood. Most of the lodgepole pine that would be cut is small stuff. It's difficult to reach. And typically requires "direct subsidies" from the government to make it cost effective. And that doesn't even begin to count the indirect environmental costs of logging and removal of biomass.
The idea that you can just take things (like trees) from the woods without significant ecological harm is just based greed over ruling knowledge or just plain ignorance. Neither is acceptable anymore.
Maybe Americans faced with higher prices for wood will be less wasteful, more creative, live in smaller homes, and just figure out to be more innovative. All of which I think on the whole would be good things for the country.
And I think Americans can be creative and innovative when faced with a challenge if we put our minds to it. But if we ignore the real costs, there will be no incentive for change.
see "steve kelly" above
Comment By Jay Kanta, 6-30-09Oil shipped from overseas cost Americans significantly less than oil generated inside of America. There is no reason to drill in ANWR, Wyoming or the Rockies, so any corporation looking to lease the land right now is only looking for the future benefit that will come when overseas oil costs exceed the cost of doing business in the US. Even then the anticipated amount of oil is minimal.
Many of the same things go for lumber. There is little to no profit, at this time, so there are few that will do the work. The discussion of logging, therefore, is theoretical at best and directly malicious at the worst.
Anybody have a market for timber as lumber?--or even paper for that matter?
Comment By jedediah Redman, 6-30-09We need to get back to clearcutting--just as we were doing before Europeans came over to foul up our natural forests..!
Comment By Sharon Fisher, 6-30-09I was fascinated to learn that trees under stress "scream" and that the bark beetles can pick up that frequency and know which trees are under stress that they can attack. Bark beetles also communicate with each other on that frequency. There are efforts afoot to disrupt the bark beetles' ability to receive that frequency, which would help save trees.
Comment By Jay Kanta, 6-30-09Sharon, please provide a citation to a peer reviewed journal when making that kind of claim. You've earned my respect before, but that kind of claim smells of transcendental woo.
I'll read anything you put in front of me.
Not sure if it's actually been peer reviewed yet, but here's a paper on it:
http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/06-12-055.pdf
Aw geez, not this $*(*^&$% again.
George, I've suffered through Clearcut as well as your other FDE bestsellers (not) and must conclude, when it comes to just about anything, you are in fact an abolitionist absolutist. Talk and write around it all you want, but you can't change your stripes.
Jay, let's step aside from the warring citations for a second. Say "Climate Change" is more than just more ($*%#(*$^. Say that declining water is a fact. Just pretend.
Now, I'm growing tofu, or pot if you prefer. I used to plant 100 stems per acre, to get 50 kilos per acre on 30 centimeters a year of irrigation and rain. But Al Gore has cut my allocation to 15 centimeters. What do you suppose happens to my yield? Will I get 50 kilos per acre, or 25, or lose the whole plot?
Should I plant my usual hundred stems, and let them fight it out, or perhaps plant only 50 stems?
What if the winds slow because of "CC" and only half the juice is available to run your server farm? Do you brown out all your servers and crash everything, or take half off line?
The fact is, Forester is completely correct. If your water budget is such and such, that's all you CAN grow with any kind of vigor or health.
Well Dave, I'd say the fact that you are a liar makes you a pretty bad businessman to begin with, so I'd cheer on your failure. Evidently your inability to farm using water saving techniques indicates that your IQ is about the same as your waistline.
Comment By Jay Kanta, 6-30-09Thanks Sharon, that link opened up a whole new author for me to research and get to know better. The amount of publications he's been involved with at UCDavis is enormous and a lot of it is right up my alley. I think I heard about him years ago but had forgotten him.
The article itself appears to be well researched, but isn't linked to any other journals, at least that I've been able to find, which limits the amount of "respect" that one would automatically give it, based on the generic academic scoring. That would also be why it didn't come up in a generic search.
Oh, Jay, tsk, tsk. More of your smug "I went to graduate school" elitism. Hey, Lance and Geo--I think we have pointyheads like Jay and green radicals to thank for all our "complexities lurking in the woods". We also have a lot of dead trees. That never changes. I know, I know, it's global warming. As if for centuries drought in the West didn't exist. Wuerthner's an idiot. Peer review that, Sharon.
Comment By howardamin, 7-01-09Check out http://billymayes.blogspot.com/ for his last interview it is sad
Comment By Forester, 7-01-09Jay -- I can't believe you are asking for a citation regarding thinning and tree competition. This is very basic and generally broadly accepted science. Most of the literature is very species specific, but I did find one basic reference:
http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2260.html
You might also try picking up a Project Learning Tree curriculum -- I believe the 3rd grade level would have an adequate module covering this concept.
Forester,
the basic concept is well understood, but tree density is not the only issue that causes stress and weakens trees. As well, and I'm sure your true intentions are well understood by most, the roadless rules would all have to be retracted in order for the dense areas to be profitably thinned. Otherwise, the cost to thin is higher than the profit (3rd grade economics) and no one will do it.
My request for a citation would be for a peer reviewed journal to support the idea that tree density is the major issue that needs to be addressed before many others, such as beetle kill. It may be that, due to extreme weather conditions, there is little we can do to reduce wildfires, especially during longer drought sessions.
Everyone has a pet issue, for some it is beetles, for some it is thinning and for others it is how long their nose hair will grow before they cut it back with hedge trimmers (Bill Croke). Real foresters can't just jump on a popular bandwagon and ride it to glory, they have to measure the gain vs. cost, and cost is a very complex set of variables.
If nothing else, that santafe.edu paper is a fascinating read. Thanks for the link, Sharon.
Comment By bearbait, 7-01-09Jay: the thinning citations are all very old. Thinning to improve stand viability is old news. The issue was and is, how to do it without damage to residual trees, which trees to leave, and how many.
Any logging entry will disrupt the soil surface and for disturbance regenerating plants, that is a good deal. For aesthetics, it is a bad deal. Then there is limbing. If using cutters, do you limb in place, or do you sever stems with a dangle head and limb them mechanically to have the material stay on the land for soil health? Or do you yard tree length and process and limb mechanically on the landing. Many ways to accomplish the job.
In very tight stands, will you never get release by thinning, or by bug kill. Those tassel-on-top trees don't have the needle surface to do much other than marginally stay alive. Thinning actually needs to be done as the first entry before the trees have any commercial use. The object is to keep the conical shape of the greenery intact, and have as much needle surface as possible to grow wood. That practice is called pre-commercial thinning. The fallen trees are left in place, and will decompose over time. For a year or more, they do have flash fuel potential with the abundance of red needles and fine branching. That is a risk of management, just as overstocked stands being totally wiped out by fire with nothing done, or taken by beetles, is a management decision. Encouraging the stand to burn is a management decision. Setting fires to help it burn, as is being done today in Arizona, is a management decision.
The thinning entry for wood to be removed should really space trees so that there is ample distance between crowns. Crown spacing is what it is all about. You keep trees with 30% or more crown, well removed from cohorts, and log the rest. The practical result is trees with distance between neighbors that will allow for the crown to remain intact as the tree grows taller and the bole larger. That is how you get to the magical 22" dbh that indicates you have met Federal standards for old growth. In a well managed doug fir stand along the West Coast, that can be done in less than 40 years. Unmanaged, it takes 70 years or more. In lodgepole, the 22" is almost never reached before beetle infestation takes the tree. In ponderosa pine, the more you thin the better chance the stand will survive the multiple perils of drought, bugs and fire. The true spacing of old growth Ponderosa is fifty feet or more from each other, with tops well spaced from any other trees, and the bole limbed up a ways to stop laddering of fire into the crown.
But, the vagaries of regulation, ownerships, weather, markets, all change as need waxes and wanes, fire destroys stands and watersheds, and governments make the decisions on land both private and public. There is no way to manage public lands that does not include "subsidy" because it is government taking money from the citizens to pay for "management" or "guardianship" of the resource. How, and how much money is spent, has no relationship to private resource management success when you compare the apple of government ownership and management with the orange of private ownership and management, attempting to compare costs. It costs private companies money to make a profit which in turn is taxed...unless of course, Senator Baucus is your friend, like he is to Weyerhaeuser, and he can get your taxes reduced. Private land produced wealth subsidizes public lands that produce no income of their own. That public land comes with an annual cost of ownerships, all paid by the public, who are subsidizing public lands, most for no personal benefit. So for the person in Missoula who uses Federal land every weekend, hundreds of people elsewhere are subsidizing your recreation. Is that fair?
Timber and trees, wildlife and watersheds, air pollution and global climate change, none of that has standing in public land management that I can see. Purposeful expansion of fires, allowing fire to burn at will, all in the name of "fire for beneficial use" is an egregious scam at a time when global climate change legislation has passed the US House to now be considered by the newly filibuster proof super majority of the left in the Senate. Wildland fire produces prodigious amounts of climate changing green house gases and health endangering organic particles from every acre burned. Taxing that output is not in the cards, and in fact gets a free pass. After all, fire is better than logging. So it would follow that wildland fire smoke is healthy as opposed to coal smoke from electrical generation. I know, and you know, that is faulty thinking, and the science of smoke would prove that both are not good for human health, and both have the same effect on global climate. Not that it makes any difference to Zealots, True Believers, and the lemmings jumping for the white greed of Al Gore and the Nobels.
Since there is no fair use, or critical attention paid to rampant wildland fire being directed, abetted, amended and added to, all in the name of forest health, while the very same government is now elected and prepared to force feed fossil fuel rationing in the name of global climate health, all that has happened is that thinking people become cynics.
The issue is simple: wildland fire does not destroy resources, and those dead trees have a higher value, as does the set back of the seral stage succession to point A or zero, all of which is of higher value than production of heat and cooling for society, or fuel for transportation, food production, or general societal health in the non-third world countries. It follows then, by congressional intent and regulation, that wildland smoke is good smoke, and wildland particles are good particles. Any products of mechanization, of factory production, of corporate farming are bad, and to discourage their being, their production, we shall tax them to oblivion for our own good. To preserve our wildland heritage, to provide for wildland species, we shall not suppress fire, but in fact encourage fire, across the broadest landscape, on a frequent basis, as the preferred way to remove fuels. Just disregard the smoke. That there is collateral damage to health and global climate change is to be expected and accepted.
Those are the facts as they exist right now. The burning of public vegetation in biomass energy production is not allowed as public vegetation is not sustainable, as per Al Gore, Henry Waxman, and all their Wall Street supporters who think the cap and trade ponzi market will make thousands of new billionaires. Someone has to make the Madoff victims (of which there were many, and perhaps an equal number of beneficiaries) whole. The burning of public land vegetation in wildland fire is sustainable, and the only way to sustain forests, and there is no global climate affects because the congressional super majority says there are not. Science is to be respected, except when trumped by the political will of knowing people who are very concerned and angry that Bush got us into two wars, and their answers are kinder and gentler, made by a diverse majority of anybody but white Christian males of European descent, and that by golly makes it right!!! The logical solution to red, dead, buggy lodgepole is to burn it. The Canadians have 24 million acres of dead lodgepole they will turn into lumber for the American market, and their logging will not impact ecosystems, animals, or the global climate. How can it way up there in Canada?
Forester
Thinning might make good sense for timber production, but it's not necessarily good from an ecological perspective for several reasons. As a forester you no doubt know that slow growing trees, with tighter growth rings are more "sturdy" (for what of a better word).
This has ecological implications because after such a slow growing tree dies, it rots slower. Therefore it lasts longer in the environment providing whatever benefits a dead trees provides.
Also trees with tighter rings burns differently in a fire. I.e. a tight growing tree will not ignite and burn as easily as a fast growing tree and once ignited it typically burns longer. So there are all sorts of ecological ramifications to thinning that I almost never hear foresters discuss, much less acknowledge.
Furthermore, there are nutrient losses when trees are removed from the forest. Although I have read papers on nutrient loss, and that sort of thing, I haven't come across anything that definitively says how many trees we can remove over what time period and not impoverish the soil and ecosystem.
It was an enjoyable read until you got to your typical Al Gore bashing, bearbait. Once you did that, the rest of it went downhill until you were in full WHARRBLGHARBLL mode that also included a good smattering of racism. Adjust the tinfoil hat and try again.
Oh, and science that doesn't agree with you? It isn't political, it isn't personal, it is science, thats all.
I would like to respond to the first part, the part before you went nuts: Forests face a lot of various threats. Some of the threats are dependent on others, some aren't. If there are cost effective methods of ensuring forest health against a majority of threats, then those should be used. The threats are also changing. No one, 10 years ago, would have thought that the bark beetles would be increasing at a high rate due to the lack of freezing temperatures, but there you have it.
But for those that believe that logging is the only solution worth pursuing, I believe that they are stuck in the past, unwilling to measure new solutions on face value. They see conspiracies in everything, they take everything as personal attacks and they never once take a step back.
I guess some might call me an environmentalist, but I'm all for profitable lumber cutting in areas where the environmental impact would be low. New growth is far better at CO2 sequesteration than old (A summary of your points above). However, you seem to ignore the scientific findings that wildfire is carbon neutral over a very short time, and I wonder why. Wait, no I don't, it's part of the conspiracy, I forgot.
Jay,
Thanks for stating the obvious -- of course stocking isn't the only thing that contributes to tree stress. There are a variety of factors. I'm not pushing any agenda, I just think it's interesting that some very basic biology is now the subject of considerable debate. The timber industry is not looking to bark beetles as a pretext for massive logging. Rather, there is considerable benefit to looking at possible mitigations for as yet uninfested stands as well as for salvage as appropriate -- not just for money, but for forest health. If that's oversimplification, maybe we need a little more of it.
"The timber industry is not looking to bark beetles as a pretext for massive logging."
And you know this, how? Given the history of the logging companies, and their continued efforts towards deregulation, their desires to do things on the cheap (at both human and forest expense), and the fact that the profitability of logging in the US is questionable, at this time, it seems a far reach for you to state that they have no interest.
Your words echo theirs, your attitude, as well. It would be easy to confuse your "oversimplification" for the guile that is expected from logging companies.
George, Thanks again for an excellent, thought-provoking article about this issue.
The following information is from a comprehensive synthesis of relevant research related to bark beetles, insects and wildfire. Check out the entire study at: http://welcome.warnercnr.colostate.edu/images/docs/cfri/cfri_insect.pdf
• There is no evidence to support the idea that current levels of bark beetle activity are unnaturally high. Similar outbreaks have occurred in the past.
• The outbreaks now taking place are similar in intensity and ecological effects to previously documented outbreaks in the Rocky Mountains. There is nothing unusual about a hundred-year period of low activity followed by an extensive outbreak.
• Although it is widely believed that insect outbreaks set the stage for severe forest fires, the few scientific studies that support this idea report a very small effect, and other studies have found no relationship between insect outbreaks and subsequent fire activity.
• Bark beetle outbreaks actually may reduce fire risk in some lodgepole pine forests once the dead needles fall from the trees.
• Recent bark beetle outbreaks are the result of: 1) long-term drought; 2) warm summers and 3) warm winters.
• Climate in a major controlling factor of bark beetle outbreaks. Bark beetle outbreak is often associated with drought. For some insects, the end of the drought means the end of the outbreak.
• High density in lodgepole pine and spruce-fir forests are not related to fire suppression, it is simply a natural ecological feature of these subalpine forests. Dense lodgepole pine stands are not an artifact of fire suppression. These forests have always burned infrequently and at high intensity. Fire suppression has not significantly altered the natural frequency or ecological effects of fire in most lodgepole pine forests. Dense spruce-fir forests are not artifacts of fire suppression either. Fire suppression has not significantly altered the natural frequency or ecological effects of fire in most spruce-fir forests. The dense spruce-fir forests today are very much like they have been in past centuries.
• Recent fires have behaved just as they did historically in most high-elevation forests, such as lodgepole pine and spruce-fir. Large intense fires are the normal fire behavior in these kinds of forests and 20th century fire suppression has not caused them to be unnaturally severe.
• The presence of dead and dying trees does not necessarily mean that the forest ecosystem as a whole is not functioning properly. From a purely ecological standpoint, dead and dying trees do not necessarily represent poor “forest health.” They may instead reflect a natural process of forest renewal. Dead trees and fallen logs perform important ecological functions such as providing wildlife habitat and returning nutrients and organic matter to the soil.
• Insect outbreaks, even extensive ones that kill canopy trees over hundreds of thousands of acres, are natural events in forest ecosystems throughout the Rocky Mountains and have been occurring for thousands of years.
• From a purely ecological perspective, an insect outbreak generally would not be regarded as an “emergency” but as an infrequent but normal episode of rapid change within an ecosystem that most of the time is changing slowly.
Potential Treatment Options:
• Spraying with insecticide can be effective at saving high-value trees in localized areas, but is not feasible over large landscapes. Broad-scale spraying will kill many harmless and beneficial insects, including pollinators and butterflies.
• Once an outbreak has begun, forest management (ie logging, “thinning”, etc) generally cannot stop it, because the insects are numerous enough to overcome even healthy trees. For one, all stands across the landscape cannot be managed and second, drought and warm temperatures in summer and winter are major causes of beetle outbreaks, and forest management cannot entirely overcome these climatic effects.
• From a purely ecological standpoint there usually is little or no need to remove insect-killed trees.
• Natural ecological processes generally lead to the development of new forests after insect outbreaks, so a “no treatment” option can be a form of responsible forest management.
Bullshit is carbon neutral in a very short time, also.
Cap and trade is about the coal fired plants paying Weyerhaeuser, et al, to not cut trees (and they can't because they have few of merchantable size in the US), while they continue business as usual, and ObamaNation collects an unGodly amount of money from the working class (like a guy with a thousand times more money is going to use a thousand times more energy--NOT!).
So once again, the Smart Guys take the blue jeans down of the working class, to pass the benefits to the unworking classes and themselves, the don't-need-to-work-class. Nothing new about that. Sort of like sex. If it gets boring, find a new way to git 'er done. In the end, it matters not a whit for the same people will be doing the screwing and the same people will be getting screwed.
That short term carbon neutral deal with wildland fire. Do we all hold our collective breath while we wait for the aerosols, particles, and nasty gases to pass? And short term: is that a day, a year, or a century?
The fix is in. The story has been told. Don't argue. This will only hurt for a little bit, but is good for you. Shut up and swallow!! A few will have to pay more, but they should be happy to do so. And all those dead and dying trees are a celebration of the ecology of forests. The dolts who say the temps haven't been low enough aren't paying their own heating bills. Give me dead lodgepole any day over having to pay for minus 40 for any length of time. Like they had on the HighLine last winter. Or the great amount of lingering snow and late season ice on the rivers, and Gee Whiz, Captain Ajax, did the NoDaks flood out again? Damned global climate change and warming.
It stretches, it bends, it can expand or contract, it is the mighty global warming climate model, guaranteed to make your carbon credits soar in value. Step right up. Get 'cher carbon credits right here, right now. They are going fast. One bottle of these carbon credits from Waxmandu, home of the Hollywood Elixir, Suppository, and Campaign Massage. Get it right here!!
Mr. Wuerthner is the one who is "over-simplifying" the story about bark beetles and wildfire. Bark beetles kill trees of all ages and do not "thin the forest" like fire historically did. We cannot ignore the fact that many western forests were significantly altered by wildfire exclusion (fire suppression and over-grazing) and how bark beetles affect these altered forests has little to do with "natural" processes.
George must have been off counting taildropper slugs when Yellowstone burned in 1988 to contend there is little relationship between bark beetle mortality and wildfire in lodgepole pine forests. And by the way, the atmosphere doesn't care where the CO2 comes from; burning fossil fuel in your car/power plant or burning forests. Either way, more greenhouse gas is emitted and the climate gets warmer. As the climate warms, forests change. Some disappear altogether. Perhaps the one your home currently resides in. To contend there is nothing we can or should do to slow or adapt to a changing climate is socially irresponsible.
If you want a real scientific view of how climate change is affecting tree mortality, read the article recently published in Science titled Widespread Increase of Tree Mortality Rates in the Western United States.
Oh, and one last point; in case you didn't know it, the timber industry in the west is DEAD. Suspecting that foresters who warn the public about wildfires fueled by dead trees are doing so to support the now-extinct forest products industry is ludicrous!
Rick:
You are wrong two big counts.
First the atmosphere does care where the CO2 comes from. CO2 from wildfires is carbon that is currently circulating in the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuels is releasing "new" CO2 that has been stored underground for millions of years.
Furthermore, most of the carbon in burned forests is not released at all. As any one who has visited a burnt forest can attest, there's a lot of biomass remaining in the form of snags. Plus charred wood is highly resistant to decay. Charcoal is a great way to "store" carbon.
So while some C02 is released by wildfires, and I don't want to make light of the fact that this in combination with burning of fossil fuels is a problem, but the issue we have to deal with is burning of fossil fuels.
Secondly, regards fire suppression. You are repeating a widely held misinformation that is circulated by industry people, FS people who are not very knowledgeable about wildfires and others. But basically the greatest influence of fire suppression and grazing has been on the lower elevation forests around the West--though even these impacts are debated today. These are primarily ponderosa pine forests.
There is fairly uniform agreement that higher elevation forests of lodgepole pine--the ones that are the target of the bark beetles around most of the West--reside at higher elevations where fire suppression and grazing had little impact or alteration of fire regimes because natural fire intervals were so long--because it doesn't dry out enough for these forests to burn very often (as I state above).
But all of this is irrelevant because logging isn't going to matter in the big scheme of things in terms of altering the course of bark beetle spread because, like wildfires, it is largely controlled by climatic conditions. We simply could not log enough to make any difference in the outcome except on a very small and surgical basis. Which is why I acknowledge that thinning around campgrounds or around homes might make sense, but we are not going to log out way out of the bark beetles or wildlifes. Canada has done a yeoman's job of trying to lodge its way out of the beetles and failed.
What we need to do is focus on reducing HUMAN sources of CO2 and other GHGs (like methane from livestock). If we get those things under control, we can learn to live with bark beetles, wildfires and so forth.
The studies cited here examine forests at 10,000 feet. The beetle-kill over by Helena is closer to 5500 feet. It's apples and oranges.
If we get lightning strikes/ignition in one of these stands of dead timber -- with normal fire weather (including upslope/downslope winds, frontal activity, low RH's and high temps -- which the researchers will call "extreme") -- then it will be evident that somebody's lying. I guess we'll wait and see. Of course, with regards to forest management, that's all we ever seem to be able to do anyway.
We can't manage the forest ahead of the beetle...(too speculative)
then we can't manage during the beetle.....(too late)
We can't salvage behind the beetle....(too expensive)
We really can't do anything related to forest management to mitigate unnatural insect populations, because we might just get a good cold snap this winter that would take care of it.
So, we'll just do nothing....again.....and some more. (Yawn)...
Forester:
Most of the hysteria over beetles is about higher elevation forests--for instance the original NYT article that I cited at the beginning was discussing primarily high elevation lodgepole forests in Colorado. And most of the beetle killed trees in BC mentioned in the article are lodgepole pine as well.
With regards to your points. You may not like the science that is out there, but yes you are correct. Can't do much in advance because you can not predict the weather year to year and how that will affect beetles. And you can not predict which pines will be attacked.
And whether beetle killed trees will burn is also a crap shoot. As stated earlier, dead trees don't necessarily increase the likelihood of fire. If the forest is going to burn, it will burn whether you have live or dead trees. It requires specific conditions to burn. Those conditions are primarily related to climatic/weather conditions.
If it's dry and droughty than yes there's a good chance for a fire. But it's wet, well that is another story.
Finally, yes there's no sense logging them if you lose money and it impacts other values.
I know this is very difficult paradigm shift for many--that humans as clever as we think we are, cannot control every last thing in nature. Some people just get very upset with that idea. It unhinges them. So they spend a lot of time and money trying to control natural processes only to discover they didn't understand those processes at all. So their energy is not well spent. Our attempts to control nature is something like Sisyphus, who was condemned to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again and again. It doesn't seem how often ecological research demonstrates that previous ideas were completely wrong, people continue to think we finally understand things. Any one can make a mistake once or twice, but only a fool continues to make the same mistake over and over.
Let beetle eat for Christ's sake. It's natural - no dead trees is unnatural.
I'm amazed at the idiocy of some of the people in the Forest Service.
Bob Harrington et all need to STFU.
I completely agree with Wuerthner's well-thought-out and well-documented article. I want our public lands to be managed for ecological integrity, native wildlife, clean air and water, public recreation, and other values that private land cannot or will not ensure. Logging is not one of those values. In fact, it undermines all of the other values.
Comment By Rick Tholen, 7-01-09George,
There you go again over-simplifying forest ecology again. A lot of good folks who aren't experts in forest ecology are trusting in you to help them understand how forests work. Your over-simplications betray their trust in you as an expert.
The fact is, many different western forest types are at significant risk of uncharacteristically high levels of tree mortality (and in many cases uncharacteristic wildfire) because they are either dominated by late-seral tree species (e.g. grand fir instead of western whitepine in N. Idaho, Douglas-fir instead of western larch in west-central Montana, or subalpine fir instead of quaking aspen in Colorado) or they are just flat overcrowded due to the lack of fire for nearly a century. Ponderosa pine has been studied to death, but fire regimes in other forest types have also been signifcantly altered and should not be overlooked in this discussion.
And then there is the reality that we humans are now part of the environment. While I agree with you that we need to learn to live with bark beetle mortality and wildfire, I disagree that there is nothing more we can do to make these highly altered forest ecosystems more resistant and resilient to wildfire.
One last point. I agree with you that we need to focus on reducing "human" sources of CO2 in the atmosphere. But I would begin by replacing fossil fuel with woody biomass to generate heat and electricity (and perhaps liquid fuel at some point in the future). When we replace fossil fuel with wood to produce energy in forms that we humans can use, it's a win-win for the environment and we will begin to make significant gains in reducing atmospheric carbon and reducing the impacts of climate change.
George, I dare you to go to central Colorado and tell the residents there that what they are experiencing (2 million acres of dead lodgepole pine forest) is all part of nature and there is nothing we can or should do about it other than protecting their homes. By the way, those forests were all logged in the late 19th century and are now even-aged across large landscapes because of past human activities. The scale of this mountain pine beetle outbreak is likely unprecedented in evolutional history. Oh, and take a shovel and a pair of good leather boots with you when you go. They may need help on the fireline!
Good day my friend!
George,
Thanks for your points. I don't believe we are trying to control nature per se, rather, we are trying to respond to it and operate within the constructs as we understand them.
Everyone agrees beetle-killed trees are the result of a natural process. I'm not sure tens of thousands of trees killed is -- clearly there are reasons that the beetle population is unchecked and the forests are drought-stressed. While you could argue that these circumstances are natural, I would say the severity of them is unnatural -- the result of many factors (some of them human-caused).
Take, for example, Dutch Elm Disease, which has essentially decimated the elm trees across the country. The cause is a seemingly natural beetle, until one considers that the beetle is non-native. Through disposal and sanitation, some communities have saved their elms (at least for now)....The solution ends up being a more resistant cultivar of elm that is less susceptable.
There are instances where management leads to success in addressing forest health issues -- though one might argue the cost-benefit and/or the final verdict which remains to be seen. However, management response to white pine blister rust, asian long-horned beetle (midwest), and gypsy tussock moth come to mind as appropriate examples.
I'm not advocating wholesale harvesting, but I do believe aggressive management is an appropriate response in some areas -- particularly the wildland urban interface and on commercial timberlands where the management objective is to grow vigorous trees for fiber production.
Forester:
I don't have a problem with doing things in the WIldlands Interface if it is truly in that zone--I consider that to be "surgical" and strategic. It's when such approaches are "scaled up" to the landscape as many seem to advocate.
If I may make an analogy. I use bug dope on my person to keep mosquitoes from biting me. I have a screen on my tent. These are relatively effective at allowing me to be comfortable in the woods--even where mosquitoes are very numerous as in Alaska. But I would be opposed to trying to "spray", use genetic methods or any other idea that would try to significantly reduce mosquitoes for a host of reasons I won't get into here, but suffice to say mosquitoes have an important role to play (pollination of plants for one, feeding bats, birds, and amphibians for another) in the ecosystem.
As for management, I am not familiar as you with the diseases/problems you listed, but at least my experience with white pine blister rust control is that it has been a phenomenal failure--at least when they sent college kids out in the woods to pull up ribes (the alternative host). And blister rust has infected white bark pine as well. So it would seem that trying to "manage" blister rust didn't work out--unless you know about something I haven't heard about. it seems approaching the white pine by planting and/or pollinating with genetically resistant tree sources has been far more successful.
Gypsy moth and long horn beetles I know about in general, but do not know what management strategies have found to be successful. I do remember as a kid watching lots of trees defoliated by gypsy months.
One the West Coast, gypsy moth pheromones loaded sticky traps are out for the season. If moths are caught, their location is gps located. Every year there appears a "hot spot" of gypsy moth activity, usually near Eugene or that area. The trade in vehicles from the East coast to the Left coast seems to bring them to Lane county. The hot spot located, the State will plan to spray Bt by helicopter on the hot spot area next spring. The state has been doing this for about two decades, and the moth has yet to establish itself in Oregon. Monitor and treat has worked. You don't kill them out because they are coming here on lawn furniture, RVs, what have you, that make the trip from East of the Mississippi River every year to Oregon. Now the State is looking at boats and boat trailers for exotic clams and other marine critters, to protect the lakes, streams and estuaries.
There is no milling or logging industry left to deal with buggy pine. You have to kiln dry the lumber, because you don't want the beetles boring their way through dry wall and pretty paint from a green lodgepole stud. And it has happened.
Logging is over in the West. The new 900 square foot homes will have to be built with imported lumber from Canada, or perhaps Argentina (Stanford could become a lumber trader) where there are now vast ponderosa pine plantations, or radiata from Chile, that lumber that sometimes has as many as three growth rings in a two by four....and sometimes less. Maybe the Chinese will be willing to sell us lumber stolen from Russia by freebooters and pirates on their border. Siberian forests are being decimated by illegal logging. Wait. I forgot. All logging should be illegal, and nowadays most of our imported wood does come from places without a carbon credit market, and no punitive taxes for environmental degradation. This is the United States, where we now have a super majority in the Senate, and Sen. "Tree Envy" Reid can stop all logging, so all states are on an equal footing with Nevada. No buggy pine there. And don't worry, if there are still some trees there, the Feds will burn them this summer.
Who left the door open and let all the crazy in?
Comment By Forester, 7-01-09George,
Large scale ribes eradication was deemed unsuccessful, but on a smaller scale, it works. I think the same could be said for beetle mitigation efforts ---
http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/pub/php/management/whitepine/
Forester
Scale--both temporal and spatial is everything.
The interest created by this thread is great. I live in BC if 2 readers took the time to reply it would be a hot topic.
BC has roughly 40 million acres infested by this tiny critter, Montana has maybe 2 million.
Just because a forest has been killed by MPB does not mean it will burn, in most cases it doesn’t, however to not be proactive on the interface and prepare for a worst case scenario would be foolish. Catastrophic fires can occur. Reduce the fuel loads around your houses and outbuildings.
On the landscape level, the MPB is going to do whatever it’s going to do; it can’t be stopped unless Mother Nature sends several cold winters in a row.
On the micro-site level high value trees can be protected by a variety of means. These trees are valuable they are worth trying to protect. Spraying of large acreages with broad spectrum insecticides is probably not in our best interest. Healthy trees can sometimes defend.
Old text books say that MPB will not attack juvenile pines, not so in BC we are losing many of our juvenile replanted stands as well as most of the mature stands. Old text books also suggested MPB could not survive east of the Rockies in our hybrid pines, not so. It’s doing fine thanks.
Log while you can Montana. Blue 2 X 4’s aren’t worth very much and reducing the forests to wood pellets provides an even lower value return. Replant with diversity.
Bottom line the fiorests are not healty. MPB will change BC for generations. Looks like its changing Montana too.
Arctos
There are experts out there. And one local recently testified before the House. Much better information than George!
See at: http://westinstenv.org/ffsci/2009/07/01/testimony-of-dr-peter-kolb-on-mountain-pine-beetle/
MsMontana: There are a host of PhD forestry professors at the University of Montana who would disagree strongly (and have in the past disagreed strongly) with much of what Peter Kolb says in his testimony. This includes actual entomologists. Many of us also don't want the public forests in the West managed like the forests in Germany anyway. Thanks.
Comment By MsMontana, 7-02-09No, thank you. Really. The more you try to represent Missoula, the U of M, and scientist in general the less credibility you have. Perhaps you would add your comments to the article about the 9th Circuit tossing another one of your silly lawsuits:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_6395a916-6638-11de-a0af-001cc4c002e0.html
MsMontana, what does that article have to do with anything, or the ridiculous labelling of Matthew Koehler? Was there something he said that was false about other scientists at U of M not agreeing with Kolb?
Comment By TreeHugger, 7-02-09George,
I'm having a hard time understanding why you're so up in arms about the New York Times article. I just read it and it seems pretty tame to me. The title doesn't seem hysterical, nor does the content within it. In whole it seems a lot more balanced and well put together than your piece above.
I think your confusion has to do with your inability to look at things from any basis besides whether something is "natural" or not. Most people spend their entire lives making decisions and doing things that wouldn't fit nicely into what you might envision in your perfect natural world. The publics reaction to the beetle outbreak in calling it a catastrophe or a shame is not wrong because to them it is seriously effecting their ability to do things that they enjoy. If a meteor hits Vermont tomorrow and totally destroys the state you won't hear people saying "don't worry about your friends and families that died or that Lake Champlain is gone, meteors hitting the earth are natural they are an important part of the ecosystem." Now that may be a little bit of an extreme example but I think it displays my point about peoples values and what they prefer or don't prefer. With the current beetle epidemic I agree there was nothing that could have been done to stop it, but there were options to do more to break up the continuity of the outbreak and to provide more security from a landscape level fire. When I picture the fire that must of preceded the current stands of Lodgepole Pine in Montana it scares the living daylights out of me. The general public does not want to see those kinds of fires again and given an option I'm sure would prefer a more intensive approach to managing our forests as an alternative.
Maybe what got George all fired up with the New York Times article was the bottom section where the reporter is interviewing the District Ranger from Helena. He refers to a Lodgepole Pine thinning project that was held up in court for 12 years by obstructionist environmental groups before they lost at the ninth circuit. From what I could gather from googling the internet I'm guessing that was Clancy-Unionville. Doing a little more research I find that the obstructionist environmental groups that held up the sale were none other than The Alliance For the Wild Rockies and the Wildwest Institute. The Alliance For The Wild Rockies executive director Micheal Garrity recently boasted to the press that his group had sued current FS chief Tom Tidwell over 20 times in his short 3 years as regional forester. The Wildwest institute of course is run by Mr. Koehler who writes above and George W. sits on the Board of Advisors for The Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
So you see the real issue here with George's article is not whether or not beetle outbreaks are natural or historic but instead just more excuses to try to stop all active management of our nations forests.
Hello TreeHugger: I should point out that the Ecology Center and the Native Forest Network merged to form the WildWest Institute in May of 2006. I worked with NFN from about 1997 until the merger to form WildWest. The justifiable concerns and management issues surrounding the Clancy-Unionville project, and the resulting litigation by AWR and the Ecology Center, far precede the 2006 merger and therefore my involvement as director of WildWest. Thanks.
Comment By Geo, 7-02-09Tree hugger:
You're right. The particular NYT article I mentioned at the beginning of my piece wasn't terrible. It was better than many I've read, nevertheless, it was just the latest in a long series of article in many different medium that follow the same set of assumptions to one degree or another, including some that followed the recent hearings on bark beetles held in Washington DC.
Those assumptions I tried to address include:
The notion that a lot of dead trees means big fires. It does not necessarily lead to significant fire hazard.
That dead trees are something to avoid and are "bad" for the ecosystem. Dead trees are very important to long term ecosystem health. And many things in ecosystems are not steady, but rather periodic and in pulses. We are seeing a pulse of dead trees--but averaged over the long run--this is what the forests need.
That logging and thinning can halt or slow beetle outbreaks on a landscape scale. The evidence suggests that we are real good at stopping fires and beetles when it is cold and moist and not too good when it's hot and dry.
I think all of these assumptions divert our attention from the things we can and should do--make our individual spaces and home fire safe. Reduce human contributions to global climate change. And get ourselves mentally prepared and ready to adapt to a changing environment.
<quote>Log it or it burns. Simple</quote>. Simplistic, certainly.
Comment By TreeHugger, 7-02-09Matthew,
I'm sorry, I guess I must have missed that press release in 2006 when you took over as head of the Wildwest Institute and dropped your litigation against the Clancy-Unionville sale. Maybe you have some documentation in your files that you could share with all of us that records your change of heart. We're all anxiously waiting.
George, I think we are getting a little closer to understanding each other. Your first point in your response I'm still not sure about. The research that is out there is murky at best. You cite the Yellowstone study (Lynch..etc I assume ..?) in your piece. In the conclusions Lynch states "in this analysis, we found a measurable influence of mountain pine beetle activity in increasing the odds of burning in the 1988 Yellowstone fires, by approx 11% for sustained activity in the period 1972-1975. More recent insect activity (specifically 1980-1983) was not significantly correlated with increased risk of burning." Now I'm not taking this study as gospel, it's one study in a specific location that may or may not be applicable to the environments that we are currently talking about. The CSU summary research that Mr. Koehler is so fond of citing is likewise murky,..with many of the groups conclusions or hypotheses being self-admitted theoretic in nature due to a lack of information and research (which the N.Y. Times reporter evenhandedly pointed out). Let's say that CSU's conclusions are pretty close to correct...you seem to glaze over this very scary 2-4 period where the majority of whole landscapes are dead with red needles on the trees. I'm pretty damn scared along with most of the public that I talk to thinking about what will happen if we get a large fire going in the next couple of years. Unfortunately most of Montana and Colorado is not like northwest rainforests where abundant rainfall will quickly break down dead fuels. We live in a semi-desert, relatively low elevation environment where things like dead Lodgepoles stick around for a very long time before breaking down into duff or soil. There is a very real chance of having some extremely scary fires in the next couple of years.
Your second point I agree with you to a point. You're correct in saying that dead trees are not something that is bad for the environment, but again I must return to my previous post to reiterate that we as humans make many decisions daily that go against your idea of what is good for ecosystem health. To tell you the truth I'm pretty sure that the ecosystem doesn't give a damn one way or another about what we do. Nature moves on with life, trees don't have feelings as far as I know. I guess I'm not sure why every acre of the forest needs the specific pulse of dead trees for, maybe you could expand on that premise. What happened to Vermont in the relative recent history when it got almost entirely cut over by farmers and grazed heavily by sheep? The forest came back, and now you never hear people in downtown Burlington sipping expressos at Speeder Joe's complaining about how much life would be better in Vermont if only those farmers hadn't had slashed and burned the forest.
Your third point about logging I think we'll have a harder time finding common ground. First of all I'll agree that it would have taken a scale of logging that would have been socially unacceptable as well as socially biologically unacceptable to stop the current beetle outbreak. What thinning along with the dreaded clearcuts can provide are healthy green trees on a landscape that is turning solid red from the current beetle outbreak. If you look around many parts of Colorado and Montana today you will see that the only green Lodgepole Pine stands that are left in most areas are the result of old clearcuts, thinnings and fires. It's easy to underestimate the publics desire to have green stands on the landscape to enjoy. The general public likes green trees more than dead ones. We've gotten pretty good at putting out fires over the last 100 years and yes I believe that logging is a very valuable tool that can be used to stop or break-up the continuity of large fires. It's not that I don't want to see fires on the landscape, I just don't care along with most of the general public to see large landscape fires anymore.
Tree Hugger:
The point of the changes in fire/beetle mentioned Lynch paper is the result of changing stand dynamics, not due to dead trees. That's the nuance that I was trying to get across. In other words, the recently killed trees did not seem to influence fire behavior at all.
And ironically it was not so much the dead trees from the earlier 1970s bark beetle outbreak that affected fire as much as the rapid growth of younger trees up towards the canopy once they released from competition of overhead canopy. Their rapid growth created ladder fuels to the canopy which did seem to enhance fire spread. But this is a different story than we hear.
In other words, it more due to the influence of green trees than dead trees. The influence of the beetles was to created a staggered so to speak age structure in what were otherwise more or less even aged lodgepole stands.
Your third comment deserves another rebuttal. What you are failing to understand (and you're not alone) is that under specific climatic conditions that are favorable to large bark beetle outbreaks as well as large fires, there is no evidence to show that breaking up the forest as you suggest or any other treatments really slows or stops such events.
Much of the so called period of "fire suppression" was actually a climatic anomaly. It was wetter and cooler than much of the historic past and than the recent period as well. No one seems to wonder how some guys with shovels and pulaskis were able to keep all fires under control back in the 1940s-1970s, but today with helicopters, air planes, sophisticated models of fire behavior, etc. we can't seem to control fires. The easy answer has become we were so good at putting out fires with your shovels and pulaskis that now there is so much fuel, our modern fire fighting capabilities are hopefully inadequate.
Now I'm not saying fuels did not accumulate during those years--they did--but more because it was cool and moist which was favorable for tree seedling survival as well as unfavorable for fire spread.
And that condition of limited fire and bugs has become the "norm" against which society is measuring the current spate of fires and bugs. As I mentioned, we appear to be very good at putting out fires when its moist and cool. I'm not being entirely cynical here, but we (humans) have puffed ourselves up and take credit for something that perhaps we were not so responsible for--i.e. putting out fires across the West.
The point is that many people assume that we can significantly influence both fires and bugs. I'm saying that these things are controlled by elements at much grander scales than whether you have a few clearcuts, thinnings, or whatever on the landscape.
At less than severe conditions, such treatments "appear" to work. But that is delusional.
Tree Hugger
One more thing I might elaborate upon from my earlier post.
Remember that Lynch and others found that areas of lodgepole in Yellowstone with older bug killed trees appeared to enhance fire spread slightly. And one of the reasons given for this is that removal of canopy trees by beetles permited understory young trees to grow rapidly upwards creating ladder fuels thus enhancing fire spread.
Well this is not much different than the same kind of "release" that happens with thinning the forest canopy. That is one reason why some studies of thinning suggest that thinning can actually acerbate fire spread. Another good example of unintended consequences.
This article in the Globe and Mail of Canada demonstrates to me the problem with our approach to bark beetles. The entire emphasis of the article is that through research--in this case genetics--we might be able to control or even halt bark beetle attacks. The entire assumption is that this would be desirable, and nowhere is there any indication of humidity that screwing around with something like bark beetles might have other unintended consequences.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/genome-projects-devote-millions-to-study-forests/article1201938/
Treehugger: Far as I can tell, the final environmental impact statement for the Clacy Unionville project was issued in 2000. Apparently the decision was successfully appealed by Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council and Ecology Center and was remanded back to the Forest Service by the Regional Forester. A new decision was issued in early 2003 and that decision was litigated by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council and Ecology Center in 2003.
All of this activity proceeded the formation of the WildWest Institute by 3 to 6 years, so your anonymously blaming me for any of this is pretty bizarre and pretty telling, especially since I had no involvement, control or responsibility over any of these organizations. And even if WildWest would have chosen to drop our name from the lawsuit in 2006, AWR and NEC would have continued on with it.
If you have questions regarding the justifiable scientific concerns and management issues surrounding the Clancy-Unionville project I suggest you contact AWR or Native Ecosystems Council, as they are familiar with the project.
And next time you anonymously chose to attack me or blame for something make sure to get your facts straight, alright Hugger? Better yet, grow a pair and use your real name. Oh wait, then your rants would look really stupid wouldn't they? After all, then you'd actually have to take responsibility for the things you say. Good day.
Matthew,
Did it ever occur to you that the ability to speak one’s mind while remaining anonymous might be one of the things that draws people to blogging? It’s the nature of the beast you might say- deal with it!
Anonymous -- I agree completely. In fact, sometimes posting anonymously can remove prejudices about the person and keep the discussion on topic. Ironically, Matthew is probably the person that could benefit most from NOT using his name -- right or wrong, he has a lot of history(baggage) that makes him a lightning rod for both sides, at times.
Comment By Anonymous As Well, 7-06-09Exactly! Why does knowing a person's "real name" change anything about their opinion?
Comment By Sharon Fisher, 7-06-09I think there's a distinction between completely anonymous and simply not knowing a person's real name. If there's somebody who posts under 'pjm' or something all the time, I'll get to know who they are and judge their reliability, and I don't necessarily need to know who they are.
Comment By another anonymous, 7-06-09Matthew, the end of your last post:
"And next time you anonymously chose to attack me or blame for something make sure to get your facts straight, alright Hugger? Better yet, grow a pair and use your real name. Oh wait, then your rants would look really stupid wouldn't they? After all, then you'd actually have to take responsibility for the things you say. Good day."
strikes me as more than a slight overreaction when you go back to look at what treehugger actually said about you. Yes, he/she is apparently mistaken that you were personally involved in said lawsuit. So what?
Treehugger's essential points are valid. And some people have good reasons for posting anonymously.
I believe much of this debate has at its roots a philosophical difference. . .can we humans really "not manage?" or is choosing a "natural" course still management? I firmly believe the latter and while I don't have time at the moment to give you citations, there is a growing group of climate change scientists including Dr. Running who are advocating for more active management so that we can assist our landscape's adaptation to changing climatic conditions and still have some forests to enjoy. Recent publications in Science are noteworthy as well.
Overall it comes down to what we humans want. And I agree with treehugger that I do not want vast swaths of dead forest (or landscape level wildfires which are a real possibility in the next 2-4 years) and that there are some management approaches that, although they will not stop the outbreak OR the fires, could be effective in breaking large scale events up and bringing back at least some acres of green forest sooner rather than later. All of this while, by the way, possibly generating electricity, offsetting coal and natural gas, sequestering carbon in wood products (albeit temporarily) and avoiding increasing wood imports from places where land management has very little public scrutiny or accountability. Yes, I know, no one is buying wood right now, but we all know it is a matter of time before that changes. And yes, I agree, conservation, energy efficiency, making things last as long as possible are all essential. But we will still have markets for lumber in this country and I would rather they come from FS lands than elsewhere.
Sharon - point taken, and agreed with.
Comment By bird, 7-06-09“The following information is from a comprehensive synthesis of relevant research related to bark beetles, insects and wildfire.”
You forgot to mention that it has also not been published in ANY peer reviewed journal because it is largely a compilation of opinions of a few likeminded individuals with a few cherry picked citations and offers very little contribution to the scientific community.
The broader scientific community would greatly enjoy dismantling your bullet points that you have derived from this so called comprehensive synthesis not to mention the article itself.
Bird:
One can't really respond to your critique because you did not mention anything specific from their research that you found lacking. The researchers of the review are among the best known working experts on bark beetles and wildfire in the Rockies. That doesn't mean they know it all--but they are not unfamiliar with either the latest research on beetles or wildfire. Nor are they the only scientists saying much the same thing as my major points above. Many scientists are saying much the same thing, you can see this article in the NYT today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/science/earth/07beetles.html?ref=science
Matt,
You can just think of me as one of the millions of taxpayers that are tired of footing the bill for the lawsuits that you keep losing in the courts.
I'm sorry if I got the dates wrong on the Clancy lawsuit, I was going from the N.Y.T. article that I figured would be fact checked. I guess I got most of it right though. As you admit, you took over the WildWest Institute in 2006. Is it a safe bet to say that once you were the director that you took a hard look at the existing litigation......hopefully? The final ruling from the 9th circuit had WildWest institutes name on it. The courts said that you were wrong, along with A.F.W.R. and N.E.C., and we all had to pay the bill.
Has the Wild West Institute filed any court documents to be removed from the 30 some lawsuits filed by the Ecology Center and still in process since the merger that created the WWI? It appears the WWI continues to keep its name on the lawsuits with the apparent hope that any fees granted under the Equal Access to Justice Act will throw a few bucks its direction.
Comment By Matthew Koehler, 7-08-09Ellen Simpson, lead timber industry lobbyist in Montana, so nice for you to chime in. And using your real name too yet! Good for you!
Could you please provide a documented list of the "30 some lawsuits filed by the Ecology Center and still in process." I'm certainly unaware of 30 timber sale lawsuits still in progress.
I'll say it again, I really have no control with what happened in the past five to 10 years with organizations that I had no part or say in. These lawsuits (which I do believe were/are completely justifiable in terms of their substance) were filed by a coalition of groups. The fact that you and others want to pin this on me is really bizarre, but perhaps gives some indication to how desperate you have really become. I mean, if you want to help the timber industry you should get out of your office and try and find customers who will purchase lumber.
Fact is, you folks logged too much and were part of the over-consumption and over-development paradigm that has nearly brought this country's economy to its knees. Lumber demand is currently half what it was just a few years ago, lumber prices are in the toilet, you have nobody to buy the lumber and yet you still want to try and blame things on a few lawsuits while you clammer for more national forest logging? Get serious Ellen.
All I have control over (together with other staff members and our board) is what the Native Forest Network/WildWest Institute has been working on. For a group our size, we are as deeply involved with open and inclusive collaborative groups in Montana as anyone.
I'll end by telling a little story about Ellen. A few year's ago our organization raised about $20,000 to help reduce the wildfire threat around the homes of elderly and disabled people in the DeBorgia, MT area. In addition to hiring a local fuel reduction crew, we had great volunteer turnout from our organization as well as the Forest Service and Tricon Timber out of St. Regis. According to the timber mill owner, a few days before our work week, Ellen Simpson called him up trying to encourage him not to participate in our effort to help older or disable folks "FireWise" their properties. According to the timber mill owner, Ellen didn't want the WildWest Institute to look too good. To his credit, the timber mill owner basically told Ellen to "fork off"...but that's how Ellen rolls folks...Don't forget it.
Sadly, the Wild West Institute does not seem able/willing to remove itself from the myriad of lawsuits in which it continues to participate. The spokesperson simply attacks the inquiry without providing any answers. Oh well, it all leads to credibility, or in the case of WWI, the lack thereof.
Comment By Matthew Koehler, 7-08-09Ellen: I'm happy to answer honest inquiries based on reality. Anyone who truly knows me knows that I speak openly, honestly and proudly about our efforts to protect and restore public lands in the northern Rockies and help push a region and country towards a more sustainable future. The fact that you and others of your ilk don't like me, or think I or our organization lacks credibility really doesn't concern me much....except that you can always count on me to help set the record straight.
Anyone who can read can see that I asked you a clarifying question to "provide a documented list of the '30 some lawsuits filed by the Ecology Center and still in process.' I'm certainly unaware of 30 timber sale lawsuits still in progress." Did you provide that list of 30 lawsuits in progress? Nope. I suspect it's because it doesn't exist. Why should I respond to your non-sense about 30 lawsuits still in progress when I'm 100% positive it's not true?
Anyway, I'll also point out that Ellen didn't at all deny the story I related above. Perhaps that's because its true. Thanks.