March 2, 2023 HFHC News Round Up 

Dr. Elaine O'Neil Explains (YouTube)
Dr. Elaine O'Neil, CORRIM, explains how sustainable forests and long-lived wood products integrate to form a powerful climate mitigation strategy. Wood products keep carbon out of the atmosphere for their entire life – which for a mass timber building, could be more than 100 years. More importantly, if a product wasn’t made from wood, it would almost certainly be made from a material that requires the release of significant amounts of fossil-carbon into the atmosphere. While a sustainably managed forest holds less carbon than a mature natural forest. But the amount of carbon a mature natural forest holds, averaged over time and landscape, does not increase.

Farm bill hearings continue with focus on conservation, forestry (Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette)
A U.S. Senate committee continued its work on the coming farm bill Wednesday by reviewing the impact of conservation and forestry programs under the current law. The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee began its evaluation of the current farm bill in the last Congress with lawmakers eyeing a fall deadline to pass new legislation. Legislators previously approved a farm bill in December 2018. The current law will expire Sept. 30 unless lawmakers pass an extension if they are unable to finalize new legislative text. The committee's hearing Wednesday focused on the farm bill's support for conservation and forestry programs. The Congressional Research Service estimates the next farm bill will include at least $57.5 billion for conservation and forestry programs

Farm bill field day (Axios Pro)
Western drought and forest management are emerging as major priorities for this year’s farm bill...Republicans in both chambers are eager to get substantive forest management legislation into the bill. House Ag Chair Glenn Thompson told Jael as he walked through the Cannon tunnel that he created a forest-specific subcommittee because it’s important to address the “devastating loss of lives and communities out West” from wildfires. As Thompson said this, he ran into Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman waiting for the elevator. Westerman is looped in on farm bill talks and has numerous forest priorities, including the Save Our Sequoias Act. Asked about the farm bill, Westerman simply said, “I would like to see some good forestry legislation passed.”

Hageman introduces bill to delist Yellowstone grizzlies (Cody Enterprise)
New legislation from Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (R-Wyoming) could direct U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to remove the Yellowstone area’s grizzly bears from the federal endangered species list. “The Greater Yellowstone population of grizzly bears should have been removed from the endangered and threatened species list 15 years ago,” Hageman said in a press release. “The grizzly bear has been listed since 1975, and its original recovery goal was 500 bears. Today, the number of bears is more than double that goal and has become a threat to people and livestock in Wyoming.

NorCal Superintendents Go to Washington (NCJ)
At the beginning of February, a small group of school officials from Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties traveled to Washington, D.C., with the aim of educating members of Congress about the unique challenges facing rural districts and the communities they serve. Leading the charge was Jamie Green, who grew up in Humboldt County and is now superintendent of the nearly 700-student Trinity Alps Unified School District in Weaverville. Faced with the prospect of losing federal funding, he rallied fellow superintendents from his neck of the woods to travel thousands of miles to talk face-to-face with elected officials who hold in their hands the power to decide his ability to expand school programs and the need to lay off staff.

Rural school districts on North Coast concerned about habitat conservation plan (The Astorian)
School districts in Clatsop County are examining how the state’s proposed habitat conservation plan could affect revenue. The 70-year plan, prepared by the Oregon Department of Forestry, would designate protected habitat areas across nearly 640,000 acres of state forests, mostly in Clatsop and Tillamook counties. The plan would outline no-logging areas to protect species and keep the state in compliance with the federal Endangered Species Act.

BLM seeks public input regarding timber sale near Salmon to improve forest health (Local News 8)
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Salmon Field Office seeks public input on post and pole timber sales in the McDevitt Creek and Baldy Basin areas located approximately 33 miles south of Salmon in Lemhi County, southcentral Idaho. These lodgepole pine permits are intended to improve forest health and resilience to insects, disease and wildfire on 183 acres of BLM-managed public lands.  

Commissioner of Public Lands testifies in favor of statewide wildfire impacts bill (Leavenworth Echo)
With Western Washington wildfire impacts still top of mind after the Bolt Creek Fire belched smoke across the Puget lowlands this past October, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz testified in favor of House Bill 1578 before the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources on Wednesday February 8. The bill, which has bipartisan support, would secure $12.8 million over the next biennium to prepare communities for wildfire smoke risks and impacts, expand community resilience efforts statewide, and manage post-wildfire risks including landslides and debris flows.

Report: Drought continues to hit forest health (Montrose Press)
The annual forest health report, released today by the Colorado State Forest Service, details how ongoing warm temperatures and below-average precipitation create challenges for Colorado’s forests. Even though monsoonal rains came in 2022 to parts of Colorado, relieving some of the drought, it will take several years of adequate precipitation for trees to recover their natural defenses to bark beetle attacks. And these forest pests continue to expand into new areas with vulnerable, drought-stressed trees. Large swaths of forests affected by forest pests and diseases increase the potential for large, uncharacteristic wildfire, so living with wildfire and watershed protection are top priorities for forest management across the state. Additionally, having sufficient tree seedlings to reforest areas affected by wildfire and floods is another top concern for the future of Colorado. 

What is succession in a forest? (Observer)
Forests are dynamic communities, defined and enriched by change. As forests change, they tend to follow a pattern called succession: a series of developmental stages, each of which follows, or succeeds, the last. Succession begins following a large-scale – or catastrophic – disturbance. As the forest regenerates, it enters a stage known as stand initiation, becoming an early-successional forest. Early-successional forests are defined by an incredible diversity of trees as well as a variety of shrubs and plants which provide habitat for wildlife species from pollinators to birds, bats and black bears. After 20-30 years, trees rise above the shrubs and the plants of the early-successional forest. As these trees grow, their crowns knit together and the canopy closes, casting the understory in deep shade. The forest enters stem exclusion, a stage of succession characterized by a single generation of trees engaged in intense competition with one another. 

The Deeper Dig: In the forest, a patch of common ground (VTdigger)
There’s a story about forests that you’ve probably heard. Some environmentalists want to protect old trees, and leave the forests alone to sequester carbon. Others say there are good reasons for humans to actively manage forests. Those advocates include loggers and foresters, who earn their livelihoods from the land, but also scientists and other members of the environmental movement. But amid a heated scientific debate about what is best for forests, and for people, some researchers warn against a false dichotomy. A bill is now working its way through the Vermont Legislature. It seeks a delicate, three-part balance, setting aside sections of forest with varied degrees of permanent protection. Some would become “forever wild.” Other tracts would allow some human intervention and sustainable forestry.  

The second most forested state, NH may end its forester licensing program (New Hampshire Bulletin)
When David Falkenham heard the state’s forester license is on the chopping block as part of budget talks in Concord, two words came to mind: “complete disaster.” What followed were thoughts about the timber harvest checks, ranging from $5,000 to $100,000, that he personally delivers to landowners as a forester licensed by the state of New Hampshire. He thought of the particular ways forest landscapes have to be styled to attract songbirds and other kinds of wildlife. How he crafts forest management plans and dictates the actions of loggers on properties he’s been hired to care for. 

‘People don’t come north to see stumps and blacktop’: Wisconsin’s largest land conservation project in state history faces roadblocks (Daily Cardinal)
The future of Wisconsin’s largest land conservation in state history is uncertain as leaders debate the project’s economic and environmental impact. The Pelican River Forest is a roughly 70,000 acre forest and wildlife corridor in northeastern Wisconsin, east of Rhinelander. The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental preservation and economic development, bought the Pelican River Forest in 2021. The organization is now looking to purchase a conservation easement, an agreement with the state which secures a permanent protective status for the land in exchange for public access and logging rights, among others, under the Managed Forest Law program. 

Advocates urge Biden to protect beavers, Oregon’s state animal (Salem Reporter)
A group of scientists, nonprofit organizations and advocates from Oregon and around the country have asked President Joe Biden to issue an executive order protecting beavers on federal public lands. Their letter was sent to the White House on Monday, signed by over 200 scientists, wildlife experts and activists. It says beavers are important for fighting climate change, biodiversity loss and water shortages.

Scientists engineered a wood that gets stronger as it captures CO2 (Interesting Engineering)
Although wood is a renewable resource, it takes years to grow and replace, while human activities already ravage forests. A more sustainable alternative made from smaller pieces of wood bonded together, called engineered wood, uses less material than solid wood. Thus, engineered wood has emerged as a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional building materials. However, this wood is prone to warping and deterioration of structural integrity, diminishing its life span.

Carbon credits: a contested tool to fight deforestation (Premium Beauty)
Planting trees or safeguarding tropical rainforests have become popular tools for companies seeking to offset their carbon emissions and proclaim their commitment to the environment. However, recent scandals have cast a shadow over the carbon credit industry, revealing a landscape rife with opportunities for greenwashing.

REVEALED: Russian “conflict timber” worth over $1bn sold in the US (Earthsight)
More than 260,000 cubic metres of Russian ‘Baltic birch’ plywood (with an estimated retail value of $1.2bn) has landed at US ports since the conflict began, customs records show. EU officials say it is “impossible” to know where this wood really originates – and therefore who profits from it. The suspect plywood is being sold across the United States, including by one of its largest home improvement retail chains, Menards.

Softwood Lumber Board Announces Second Annual Mass-Timber Design Competition (Architectural Record)
The Softwood Lumber Board (SLB) and USDA Forest Service’s second annual Mass Timber Competition: Building to Net-Zero Carbon is now open for proposals from eligible teams. Conceived to promote and expand the use of mass timber in American building projects, the competition awards $2 million in total to project proposals that showcase commercially viable and sustainable mass-timber or hybrid mass-timber building solutions and support the burgeoning sectors of wood products design, engineering, construction, and manufacturing. 

Bigger, Better and More Interactive: 2023 International Mass Timber Conference Expected to Set Attendance Record (PRweb)
The International Mass Timber Conference, the world’s largest mass timber gathering, returns to Portland, Oregon, March 27-29, 2023. Record attendance of over 2,400 from over 35 countries is expected, reflecting the growing interest in mass timber construction worldwide. Over 330 attendees will participate in sold out pre-conference tours of Portland and Eugene, Oregon, mass timber building and manufacturing facilities on Monday, March 27. Others have an opportunity to attend a design 101 workshop that same day titled "Mass Timber Boot Camp: Becoming a Mass Timber Design Expert." The workshop is presented by conference co-producer, WoodWorks. A popular Welcome Reception that Monday evening will officially launch the start of conference festivities and is open to all attendees. A second Happy Hour Reception takes place on Tuesday evening.

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