March 22, 2023 HFHC News Round Up 

LaMalfa: We must break away from the status quo forestry policies of the last 30 years (The Hill)
Since its establishment 90 years ago, the farm bill’s primary focuses have been to secure an adequate supply of domestic food, keep food prices fair for farmers and consumers, and promote conservation practices on our nation’s farmlands. Created in response to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl that impacted much of the Midwest, an official Forestry title wasn’t even included until the year 1990 and even then, proper management of our forested land came second fiddle to conservation initiatives and concerns over climate change. Meanwhile in the West, the forestry industry has been the backbone of our economy since pioneers first settled in. Even today, as the timber industry has declined and logging restrictions have increased, forest management is essential to our way of life in the West. 

Are Western Mountain Towns Ready For The Coming Flames? (Mountain Journal)
A number of environmental groups claim thinning proposals are merely a ruse to provide more wood products to a timber industry. As a stern rebuttal, agency personnel, off the record, and private landowners who dwell in close proximity to public lands say green groups have become so litigious—challenging practically any proposed thinning project in court—that they have caused paralysis, resentment and dangerously dense forests with high fuel loads.

Groups seek to halt Troy logging project as lawsuit pends (Missoulian)
A collection of environmental groups suing the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over a logging project in grizzly habitat north of Troy has asked a court to halt work on the project while their lawsuit plays out.  The Center for Biological Diversity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, WildEarth Guardians, Native Ecosystems Council and Yaak Valley Forest Council sued the federal agencies last year over the Kootenai National Forest's Knotty Pine Project. The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho intervened as a defendant alongside the federal agencies. The project entails commercial logging and fuels thinning in an area about 10 miles north-northwest of Troy, around where Yaak River Road meets U.S. Highway 2 just east of the Idaho-Montana border. The project proposes logging 5,070 acres, including 1,000 acres of clear-cut, scattered across several individual units. Most of the work is proposed for northeast of Highway 2 and northwest of Yaak River Road. 

Timber and silviculture program for 2023/2024 (Local News 8)
Active timber and silviculture/reforestation projects benefit both local communities and healthy forests. They help combat the ongoing wildfire crisis, contribute forest products to the local economy, improve forest resilience, and restore wildfire impacted landscapes. The Salmon-Challis National Forest has hundreds of thousands of acres effected by wildfire in the last decade and is actively developing and funding a robust reforestation program.  For 2023, the Forest has received more than one million dollars for reforestation– more than 50 times the investment in previous years

Biden creates national monuments in Nevada and Texas (Greenwire)
President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced the creation of two national monuments in Nevada and Texas, and directed the study of a possible marine sanctuary southwest of Hawaii that’s so large it would allow the administration to meet its goal of conserving 30 percent of the nation’s waters. “Our natural wonders are literally the envy of the world. They’ve always been and they always will be,” Biden said at the Interior Department headquarters as he touted his administration’s conservation record and the new monument designations. “They’re central to our heritage as a people and they’re central to our identity as a nation.” Biden used his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to establish not only the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument on lands considered sacred to Yuman-speaking Native American tribes in southern Nevada but also the nearly 7,000-acre Castner Range National Monument in northern El Paso, Texas.

Biden Takes Sweeping Federal Action Disregarding Local Communities (NRR Press)
Today, President Joe Biden held a so-called "Conservation in Action Summit," where he announced a unilateral decision to lock up massive amounts of new land and water. House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) released the following statement in response: "After taking flak from the far left on their Willow decision in Alaska last week, the Biden administration is clearly feeling the need to do damage control. As usual, their announcement today is a solution in search of a problem. This sweeping action limits access to public lands and waters without the proper input from Congress or local communities. Most concerningly, President Biden's continued federal overreach raises concerns around access to fisheries and comes without prior notice or consultation. Men and women on the ground - not bureaucrats in D.C. - know their land and water best, and should at the very least be closely consulted. I intend to request a full account from DOI on what went into these rushed and seemingly politically-motivated decisions."

Editorial: Use state forestlands to ‘farm’ carbon credits (Everett Herald)
Washington’s first auction of carbon offsets — the revenue-raising piece of the state’s Climate Commitment Act — brought in $300 million last week, with three more such auctions scheduled for later this year. The purpose of the program is two-fold, encouraging industries and others that produce carbon dioxide and other pollutants that contribute to climate change to find ways to reduce those pollutants by putting a price on them, and at the same time using that revenue to fund projects that support a range of climate solutions and efforts to improve air quality for communities struggling with air pollution. 

Timber sales strong in Jefferson County (PDN)
Jefferson County received more than $1.1 million from its lands managed by the state Department of Natural Resources in 2022. According to a presentation to the Board of Jefferson County Commissioners on Monday, revenue for state-managed lands amounted to $1,116,217 for calendar year 2022 with more than $400,000 coming in the fourth quarter, which began Oct. 1. Jefferson County has more than 14,000 acres of land managed by the state, and timber sales from those lands fund county services including emergency services.

Major registries in the carbon offset market are allowing dubious credits, report says (CNBC)
Major registries in the carbon offset market are systematically over-crediting projects and delivering dubious carbon offsets, a practice that allows some companies to make unjustified claims of climate progress, according to a new report published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

EBRD Report: Anti-Russian Sanctions Are Boosting Central Asian Economies (Russia Breifing)
Russia’s bilateral trade with Uzbekistan increased by 23%, to US$9.3 billion, including textile and agricultural exports to Russia. In Kazakhstan, its timber exports to the European Union increased by 74 times, and from Kyrgyzstan by almost 18,000 times as EU buyers seek Russian alternatives. But things may not always be what they seem.  There are almost no timber reserves in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan, meaning the wood sold to the EU is of Russian origin.

Moose Fire revisited: Ranchers felt "helpless" for over four months while cattle were trapped inside the blaze (Idaho Press)
The Moose Fire was ignited on July 17, 2022 by sparks from an unattended campfire burning next to the Salmon River. A careless camper started what would become the nation’s largest wildfire in summer 2022. The sparks created a wildfire in Moose Creek canyon, on the south side of the Salmon River. Fanned by high winds and hot temperatures, the fire raced into the crowns of trees in Moose Creek canyon, causing a giant plume of smoke.

Does forest thinning work? (Payson Roundup)
Large-scale thinning projects coupled with managed fires and controlled burns have emerged as the only way to return forests to more natural conditions before megafires work permanent changes in the forest – and destroy many forested communities. Studies until now have shown that thinning projects combined with managed fires can dramatically reduce fire intensity, increase plant and wildlife diversity and boost watershed production. The NAU team will provide more detailed, real-time measurements of what happens once you thin a forest of ponderosa pines. Carmen Creek ranchers Jay and Chyenne Smith saw the smoke from their ranch, north of Salmon. Their cattle were grazing in the Diamond-Moose Grazing Allotment, high above where the fire started, in the Salmon-Challis National Forest.

Joe Stone: When giants fall, we need to listen (SL Tribune)
In just two years, wildfire has killed an estimated 13% to 19% of all mature giant sequoia trees. These most massive of trees grow only on certain western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, the mountain range that divides California’s Central Valley farmland from the Great Basin Desert. The loss of so many “big trees,” as conservationist John Muir called them, is unprecedented. Many of the best-known stands of giant sequoias grow more than 6,000 feet above sea level in three national parks — Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite. A visit to these immense trees typically begins with a drive up from Fresno. From the valley floor, Highway 180 curves into foothills, then winds onto steep, tree-covered mountainsides where cooler temperatures and higher humidity take the edge off the California sun.

Steady revegetation on Glenwood Canyon burn scar is a ray of sunshine for interstate commerce (Post Independent)
As snow melts and recedes into spring, many communities east and west of Glenwood Canyon are keeping a keen watch on whether this awakens the return of disruptive debris flows. Closures in Glenwood Canyon are especially on everyone’s radar. For instance, speaking on canyon crashes in February, Glenwood Springs Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Officer Angie Anderson said “approximately $1 million is lost for every hour that (Interstate 70) is closed on the mountain corridor.” On Tuesday, Rifle City Manager Tommy Klein echoed this spirit. “It affects the delivery of food, fuel, the ability of people in our area to travel upvalley for work and to Denver or any location east of us,” he said. “Having to take a detour that adds several hours to anybody’s trip is just very inconvenient.

Judge puts WOTUS on hold in Texas, Idaho (Capital Press)
A U.S. district judge in Texas has halted the implementation of the Biden administration’s Waters of the United States rule in Texas and Idaho. But he denied a request by American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and 16 other trade associations for a nationwide injunction. The rule went into effect nationwide — other than in Texas and Idaho — on Monday. Opponents of the rule contend it would threaten land use and massively expand the federal government’s jurisdiction over waters not intended under the Clean Water Act.

Fierce competition for sales drops lumber prices further: Madison’s (CFI)
With cold winter weather still a serious issue across the continent, secondary suppliers of construction framing dimension softwood lumber competed fiercely for whatever small sales volumes they could muster. As for producers, sawmills held their ground on pricing only to be met with resistance from customers. As such, prices did drop – precipitously back to lows seen in the depths of January. Lumber manufacturers and resellers alike could only wait for better weather to come on, bringing with it a return to the hammers-and-nailing of renewed construction activity for this year. The good news is that there has been no impediment to timber harvesting, thus log supplies at sawmills across Canada and the U.S. are good; in expectation of increasing demand once the weather actually does improve.

USFS shares work and future plans (Nugget Newspaper)
The Sisters Ranger District, led by District Ranger Ian Reid, was on full display at the Sisters Fire Community Room last Wednesday before a crowd of 70 people who came to hear what the district accomplished in 2022 and what the plans are for 2023. Reid began the evening by quoting the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Gifford Pinchot who said, “A public servant is there to serve the public, not run them.” Reid and his staff take that philosophy to heart. The district staff shared highlights of last year’s projects, including vegetation management completed on 250 acres at Suttle Lake as well as the CCC shelter restoration at Cinder Beach on Suttle Lake.

"Forests could be at the heart of our society again" says Joe Giddings (dezeen)
We should be aiming for the future depicted in the Timber Revolution logo with a combination of mid- and high-rise mass-timber buildings interspersed with trees, argues ACAN co-founder Joe Giddings in this interview. "My vision is in some ways aligned to that illustration," Giddings said of the artwork produced for the series by Yo Hosoyamada (top). "I really think we should be building our cities densely and avoiding urban sprawl, and if we follow that to its logical conclusion you need buildings at scale."

Alabama: The state where money does grow on trees (AL Reporter)
The forest products industry contributes more than $28.9 billion to Alabama’s economy according to the latest IMPLAN study commissioned by the Forest Workforce Training Institute (ForestryWorks®). Jacksonville State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research conducted the study that showed a $1.3 billion increase from the previous study of $27.6 billion impact in 2018.

Students work to reduce fire fuels in forestry class at Columbia College (Union Democrat)
A crew of 14 Columbia College students began gathering before 8 a.m. March 3 to gear up for forest fuels management class, a hands-on, learn-by-doing course rooted in the school’s beginnings 55 years ago. The Forestry and Natural Resources program at Columbia, founded in 1968 — the school’s first year — by retired instructor Ross Carkeet, is as old as the college itself. Students who showed up for class the morning of March 3 included young men and women who want to be firefighters, foresters, silviculturists, interpretive rangers, and at least one hopeful state fish and wildlife warden.

Timber! Popular Forestry Day Returning to Fort Missoula (KGVO)
After making a big, post-pandemic comeback, the annual Forestry Day will be coming back to the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula next month. This is the 26th year for the event, which is a collaboration between the Museum and the Society of American Foresters. It brings not only unique competitions and exhibits for families, including kids and "old timers" to enjoy but serves as a way of educating people about Western Montana's long heritage of wood products.

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