Mike- Q1-How much better off? I don't have figures, but most everything they have done has been for the better. Q2-How much acreage...the percentage still overstocked...? I don't have figures, but it's much less now than it was. Q3-How much acreage has been treated in lst ten years? That figure for the Grand Canyon NP forested ecosystems, I do know. 90% of Grand Canyons forested ecosystems have been treated at least once, and of that 90%, I believe more than half has been treated a second time. Personally, I thing our fire guys have accelerated the return of fire too rapidly, but hey, I'm not running the fire program.
Grand Canyon, in the context of National Parks, is in the avant garde, and the National Parks in the context of national land management agencies, are significantly advanced in the actual application of fire (man-caused, lightning-caused, wildfires used for resource benefit (WFURBs). The USFS has entered 'the fray' a little later, and is able to consider more varied applications of mechanical thinning than the NPS, and is making improved headway in making our forests less susceptible to catastrophic wildfire. They also spend way too much, balance-wise, on fire suppression versus fire prevention. But that too is changing for the better. These are serious problems, and don't get solved quickly nor easily. Comment1-Problem of overstocked forests in the west remains absolutely immense. Very true, ten years ago it was even 'immens-er'! Ten years from now, it's likely to stil be absolutely immense, but less so with each year that we apply ourselves to this major natural, even human resource issue. My time in UMASS was during the early 90's, but even then WAP III (Bill Patterson) had an active prescribed burning research program going, glad to see that such applications are on the increase. On a totally separate note, have you read the book 1421, by Gavin Menzies? You of course are familiar with the understated role that presettlement indigenous natives played in the 'management' of their forests? And the dates of first explorers to your area? "1421" details the locations that the Chinese first discovered, around the world during the 1420's, including both East and West coasts of the US...wonder what our forests looked like back then?!?!?! -Don From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [ENTS] Re: High elevation forest response to climate change and other factors Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 07:58:51 -0400 RE: [ENTS] Re: High elevation forest response to climate change and other factors Don, You say the west is much better off than it was 10 years ago. Well how much better? How much acreage or what percentage of federal forests are still overstocked due to fire suppression and carry a higher risk of catastrophic forest fires? What percentage or how many acres have been treated in the last 10 years? I’m asking this because the articles I’ve read is that the problem of overstocked forests in the west remains absolutely immense. In SE Massachusetts we have the Pine Barrens at Myles Standish State Forest where they do some prescribed burning and have started to remove some of the red pine plantations. This is helping to restore the native forest there. Mike -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of DON BERTOLETTE Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 4:05 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [ENTS] Re: High elevation forest response to climate change and other factors Mike- Dendrochonology was initially as you say a fairly direct correlation between ring width and moisture relations. But as the discipline evolved, the array of statistical analytic tools available is mind boggling, at least for my abilities. Myy stat guy at UMASS made me promise that I'd not take anymore stat classes, otherwise I'd have barely passed the class. But advanced statistical analysis aside, I did understand the breadth of tools available to dendrochronologists, and I'd encourage you to approach local folks like Lee Frelich, Neil Pedersen, or David Stahle for a better understanding of the relationships of climate (you mention atmospheric CO2, El Nino/La Nina cycles, etc.) with the record of tree rings so far accumulated. But the answer is yes there are varying levels of confidence in these correlations, but they are there. Some interesting accounts of the proxies by which some of these relationships are generated follow: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_longer.html http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/animation/pdsi_animation.html http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/image/pdsi/pdsi_tr.mov With regard to environmentalists that say that thinning (you don't specify whether thinning is achieved by fire, or fire surrogates (mechanical thinning strategies)) CAUSES catastrophic wildfires, I can think of several thinning efforts, particulary those using wildfire for resource benefit (referred to as WFURBs in 'the business) that went bad, usually due to unexpected weather changes. Grand Canyon NP had one of those, during my time there. We were not above reproach, we were overextended at the time that an ongoing blacklining operation was initiated, and the subsequent weather change, in conjunction with a western region-wide low available firefighter manpower situation coalesced into a 16,000 plus acre fire that burned through some prime (at least to me) forest real estate on the North Rim. But these are the exceptions to the rule...much of the west is much better off than it was 10 years ago, BECAUSE of the reintroduction of natural fire regimes. Does the west need to continue the various thinning practices? Fire scientists have learned much in the last two decades, and yes, we need to continue such efforts so that we can step out of the ecosystems, and let them manage themselves...the goals of every one of these efforts that I'm familiar with, is the return of fire dependent ecosystems to their natural fire regimes. These are characterized by high frequency, low burn intensity wildfires. They are characterized by ground fires, burning through forest without fuel ladders that enable wildfires to climb into the crowns which lead often to catastrophic damage. I worked hand in hand with Sharon Galbreath of the Arizona Sierra Club and know full well that they don't characterize thinning efforts as 'causing catastrophic wildfires'. WHile in Flagstaff, I was a member of the Flagstaff Forest Partnership which was instrumental in researching a wide variety of thinning approaches, in several of the experimental units involved EXACTLY the kind of equipment manipulation of slash that you employed in some of your operations, to good effect, although some worked better than others...there were many surprises in these units, and many of the stakeholders' eyes were opened. The "Flagstaff Plan" went on to get national exposure and significant funding support during the time I was involved there. The biggest success was the Northern Arizona University and Ecological Restoration Institute's efforts at working with the local community, the recycling of research and educational programs, and achieving consensus. Re bio-fuel energy generators, you're on the money...as businesses get bigger, the less they concern themselves with environmental ethics, at least in my experience... I do disagree that the problem has gotten out of hand and that we should just throw up our hands and give up...headway is being made, and should continue...the years of right hearted but wrong minded fire suppression need to be corrected. Unfortunately this need is really brought to a head by the tendency of new developments to be located at the wildland urban interface, without attention being paid defensible space...but that's another story! -Don From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [ENTS] Re: High elevation forest response to climate change and other factors Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 06:20:20 -0400 Don, So if you match up the tree ring data, which shows the drought years by narrow rings, with the increase in atmospheric CO2, is there some kind of correlation? I would guess there are too many other factors involved like Pacific ocean currents (El Nino, etc.) to account for droughts and other weather anomalies. Regarding thinning those overstocked Ponderosa Pine and other conifer stands out west, some environmentalists say it increases the risk of catastrophic fires rather than reduce it. However, I think they are referring to conventional logging operations which just take out the more valuable and merchantable sawlogs while leaving the tops. By employing whole tree harvesting, I’d say it would greatly reduce the fire risk. After one of my operations, sure there is still a bit of scattered slash around but the feller-buncher and the grapple skidders turn the rest of it into a sort of mulch (fragmented bark, branches, twigs, leaves, etc.). But your distances are so vast out there; it is no doubt extremely difficult to do this type of harvesting profitably unless many small biomass plants are built locally in the small towns as you say being centrally located close to the source. This has been one of my arguments against the big 50 MW biomass plants – the supply radii and trucking distances are too long. Reducing the size of these plants will reduce trucking distances and all that diesel pollution. I think the problem of overstocked conifer forests out west due to unnatural fire suppression has grown much too big for anyone to solve so Mother Nature will help solve it with more catastrophic forest fires. Burn baby burn! Mike Mike- I don't pretend to know much about NIPF in Massachusetts. I don't think you have ever read me saying the phrase global warming. I know that to be a loaded concept that hasn't been universally accepted. But I do believe that the regions I've worked and lived in are experiencing climate change outside of the natural range of climate variation. Yes, actually there is tree ring documentation to that effect. Dendrochronology started with a man named Douglas at the Flagstaff Observatory (the one that discovered "canals" on Mars), and was furthered in partnership with early archeologist Emil Haury when they discovered missing tree ring segments in Anastazi roofing timbers...there are some really intereseting regional climate graphs that have been derived from dendrochronological research carried on at the University of Arizona at their Tree Ring Lab ('google' Tom Swetnum for a broad coverage of just about everything I've said). I do however have a fair handle on forestry in the Southwest US. I can send you any number of supporting documents regarding my statements below. I stand behind my statement that all five of those points are inter-related, not separated as they were in your reply. Deconstruction doesn't work that way. Regarding your comments on bio-fuels, you may be surprised that I've supported it, particularly in the Southwest, and with smaller more efficient operations. For much of the ponderosa pine forests, conditions (4 of 5 points below) have led to abundant smallwood that despite multiple efforts, no commercial operations can handle. More acres of controlled burning occur than should (difficult not to exceed air quality regulations), and running it as bio-fuel through an efficient energy generation plant was a solution being sought in Northern Arizona. Finding the balance between constant, consistent, regular source in the amounts appropriate for the energy generated was the key, that and being located centrally to the source. The small wood fuels are abundant and burgeoning. -Don From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [ENTS] Re: High elevation forest response to climate change and other factors Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 16:41:24 -0400 Don, How do you know that the current drought in the west is the worst since 600 AD? Tree ring data? I would say that unnatural fire suppression has led to invading white fir regeneration and above normal ponderosa pine regeneration as well as much of the bark beetle outbreaks. Blaming it all on global warming is bunk. Mike Hotmail® has ever-growing storage! Don’t worry about storage limits. Check it out. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- _________________________________________________________________ Lauren found her dream laptop. 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