A short list (below) describing the Obama Administration’s short list of potential new national monuments was leaked to the media this week.  I had heard rumors that this was being considered as early as November when I had a private conversation with a top BLM administrator, so I was not surprised by the “announcement.”

At one time or another I have visited nearly all the proposed national monuments and each has its special values that make them worthy of protection. Let’s hope the Obama administration follows through on designation of these areas, and even adds a few of the runner up proposals like Bristol Bay, Alaska and Wyoming’s Red Desert.

The areas under consideration for new national monument status subject to public support and other considerations include the following lands, Owyhee Canyons, Montana Plains, Otero Mesa, San Rafael Swell, Northern Sonoran Desert, Cascades Siskiyou, Vermillion Basin, Lesser Prairie Chicken, Berrysessa-Snow Mountain, Heart of the Great Basin, Bodie Hills, Modoc Plateau, Cedar Mesa, and San Juan Islands. 

The land area utilized for livestock production-including rangelands, pasture, and the production of forage crops (corn, soybeans, alfalfa, etc.)-occupies 65-75 percent of the total U.S. acreage, excluding Alaska, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics ( USDA 1997b). Four crops account for approximately eighty percent of all acreage planted per year in this country: hay, corn, soybeans, and wheat. All but wheat are grown primarily to feed livestock (USDA 1997a). In comparison, (and again, not counting Alaska), the amount of land taken up by sprawl and development is slightly more than four percent (USDA 1997a). In the West, urban and suburban landscapes, including fairly low-density subdivisions, occupy an even smaller fraction of land than in the country as a whole. Sprawl, though a serious and usually permanent blight where it occurs, is not the major ecological threat to the natural systems of the West for the very reason that it is-despite the connotation of the term-confined to a limited area.

Fire suppression effects on fuels are likely exaggerated. Most forests types are well within their historic range of variability.  Most of the acreage burned in fires annually is in forest types that historically experienced moderate to significant stand replacement blazes. Thus the idea that large fires that occur are the result of fire exclusion is inaccurate.

There is new evidence that suggests that even low elevation dry forests of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir occasionally experienced large stand replacement blazes. The old model that characterized such forests as primarily a consequence of high frequency-low intensity blazes that created open and park-like may not be universally applicable.

Thinning won’t significantly affect large blazes because fuels are not the major factor driving large blazes.  Climatic/weather conditions are responsible for blazes.

Large blazes are driven by drought, wind, low humidity, and high temperatures. These factors do not occur in one place very frequently.  That is why most fires go out without burning more than a few acres.

The probability of any particular thinned stand will experience a blaze during the period when thinning may be effective is extremely low.

The majority of acreage burned is the result of a very small percentage of blazes—less than 0.1% of all fires are responsible for the vast majority of acres charred. Most fires go out without burning more than a few acres.

Even if it were possible to limit large blazes, it would be unwise to do so since the large blazes are the only fires that do a significant amount of ecological work.

Large fires are not “unnatural”.  There are many species of plants and animals that are adapted to and/or rely upon dead trees and snags. There would be no evolutionary incentive for such adaptations and life ways if large fires were “unnatural.”

Dead trees are important physical and biological components of forest ecosystems. They are not a wasted resource.  Beetles and wildfires are the prime agents that create dead trees.  Removal of significant amounts of biomass by thinning and/or logging likely poses a long term threat to forest ecosystems. Biomass energy is the latest threat to forest ecosystems.

Logging/thinning is not benign. Logging has many impacts to forest ecosystems including spread of weeds, sedimentation of streams, alteration in water drainage, removal of biomass, and so on.  These impacts are almost universally ignored and externalized by thinning/logging proponents.

Alternatives to logging/thinning to reduce fuels that do not remove biomass and avoid most of the negatives associated with logging practices exist, including prescribed burns and wildlands fire.

Reducing home flammability is the most economical and most reliable way to safeguard communities, not landscape scale thinning/logging projects.

Another livestock industry propaganda piece recently appeared in Time Magazine by Lisa Abend titled “How Grass fed Beef Can Save The Planet.” The basic premise of the article is that factory farming is bad, so grass-fed or free-range beef is good for the planet and even human health. Grass-fed beef is the latest fad with people who have little scientific training, and thus are easily duped by pseudo-scientific sounding pronouncements.

While there are some livestock operators who are promoting grass-fed beef, many of the advocates are well meaning people who are vulnerable to anything that have the word “natural” in it. Just because raising cows in factory farms on grains is bad for the Earth, does not mean that cows grazing on pasture or hay are better for the Earth.

After the Smurfit-Stone Container Corp.’s linerboard plant in Missoula announced that it was closing permanently, there have been many people including Montana Governor Switzer, Missoula mayor John Engen and Senator Jon Tester, among others who advocate turning the mill into a biomass energy plant. Northwestern Energy, a company which has expressed interest in using the plant for energy production has already indicated that it would expect more wood from national forests to make the plant economically viable.

The Smurfit Stone conversion to biomass is not alone. There has been a spade of new proposals for new wood burning biomass energy plants sprouting across the country like mushrooms after a rain. Currently there are plans and/or proposals for new biomass power plants in Maine, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, Idaho, Oregon and elsewhere. In every instance, these plants are being promoted as “green” technology. 

On the Range

The recent closure of the Smurfit-Stone Mill in Missoula signals yet another nail in the coffin for Montana’s timber industry. Yet far too many people in Montana want to live in denial, including Senator Tester, who asserts this closure is just a momentary result of the current economic recession—and that once the economy recovers (which is another questionable assumption)--housing demand will kick start the timber industry. Tester wants to jump start that with his Forest Jobs Bill. But what Montana’s national forests do best is protect some of the best wildlife and wildlands, not produce wood. Why compromise nationally significant values for something that can be produced elsewhere at less environmental and economic costs? 

On the Range

Subsidizing the diet of wild wolves with domestic livestock is a form of animal welfare and leads to moral decay. It’s time to hold ranchers accountable for their practices of subsidizing predator diets with their four-legged picnic baskets known as cattle. 

George Wuerthner's On the Range

William Cronon was recently featured in Ken Burn’s documentary on the National Parks. Cronon is a well known historian but his knowledge of the conservation movement context is limited in my view. Cronon is part of new post modern movement that critiques the conservation movement as imperialistic or trivial--only concerned with setting aside places to hike. However, he appears to miss many important contextual aspects of the debate. Below is a critique of his essay “The Trouble With Wilderness” where he outlines many of his concerns. I originally wrote this critique shortly after his essay appeared in Uncommon Ground, but I feel after viewing Burn’s movie it is still relevant to the larger wilderness debate today.  Cronon’s original essay can be viewed here.

On the Range

Those advocating wolf hunting may be doing more to solidify opposition to all hunting than any other action they could take. 

Wilderness Bill Analysis

I’ve been holding off writing anything about Senator John Tester’s Forest Jobs bill for a while. I’ve talked to many people, both supporters of Tester’s bill and those who have many questions about its implications. As most people in Montana know, Senator Tester combined three different logging/wilderness proposals formulated by collaborative efforts affecting all or portions of the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest, Seeley Lake District of the Lolo National Forest, and Three Rivers Ranger District Kootenai National Forest into one bill that will designate wilderness areas. But the bill also mandates a minimum acreage for logging, new ORV and mountain bike trails, plus some other tax payer supported goodies like the specific subsidy of a biomass plant for Pyramid Lumber in Seeley Lake. He then added some twists of his own.

Unlike some of my friends and associates, I do believe there are some good things in Tester’s legislation and other things that I could live with if there were some modification of the bill’s language.
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