Joint Oversight Hearing on "Mountain Pine Beetle: Strategies for Protecting the West: FOC's testimony
Submitted by foc on Wed, 07/08/2009 - 11:50am
2009-07-08
Representative Raul Grijalva
Representative Grace Napolitano
House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
House Subcommittee on Water and Power
Joint Oversight Hearing on "Mountain Pine Beetle: Strategies for Protecting the West
Dear Representatives Grijalva and Napolitano:
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments on this important topic. Friends of the Clearwater is a non-profit conservation organization in north-central Idaho.
Pine beetles are an important and natural part of public forests. Dr. Art Partridge, a noted forest pathologist, said when the issue of "forest health" surfaced in the mid-90s, "Insects and disease are the engines that drive forest succession . . . Insects and disease are not at epidemic levels as the Forest Service claims. A statement like that is wild. There’s nothing epidemic about them." What changes have occurred since that statement was made? Is there any credible evidence that the national forests in the US are under a pine beetle epidemic of unnatural proportions or one any more severe than past outbreaks? Even Forest Service research suggests the cyclical nature of insect outbreaks in forests.
Just as predictable as the cyclical nature of beetle infestations is the cyclical nature of alarmist calls about beetles, fires, or other pathogens permanently destroying our forests. If there is cause for alarm, it is due to the effects of global warming and the solution to that problem is not to log forests, spray beetles with insecticides, or spray pesticides to kill diseases. Rather, the only solution is to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
Insects are a crucial part of forest ecosystems. There is a plethora of research showing the importance of beetles and dead trees for woodpeckers, lichens, and water shed function. In general, forest conditions that are maintained through intense mechanical manipulation are not maintaining ecosystem function. Proposals to log or thin the backcountry to save it are not based upon the best science. Indeed, rather than foster the processes that naturally shaped the ecosystem and resulted in a range of natural structural conditions, these kind of projects are merely designed to recreate structural conditions in a single point in time to fit some narrow definition of "natural." Generally, past process regimes are better understood than past forest structure. Fire, insects, tree diseases, and other natural disturbances are all part of the process.
The claim that forests need to be logged or thinned for fire prevention because of beetles is specious. Most large blazes are due to climate/weather conditions not fuels. When extreme drought, high summer temperatures, low humidity and most importantly wind override fuel as a major factor, conditions occur that can create large, stand-replacing fires. All big blazes in the West have occurred under these conditions--including the 1910 fires that burned 3.5 million acres, more than half on two days, August 20 and 21 in 1910. And that was before "fire suppression" would have affected forests by creating so-called "high fuel loads."
Furthermore, beetle-killed trees are usually less flammable than live trees which retain their needles and the volatile oils in those needles. The explosive events in Yellowstone in 1988 were due to the flammability of the resins in the live trees and needles, not from beetle-killed trees.
Veblen (2003) questions the premises the US Forest Service often puts forth to justify "uncharacteristic vegetation patterns" by noting (Veblen, Thomas T. 2003. Key issues in fire regime research for fuels management and ecological restoration. USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-29):
The premise behind many projects aimed at wildfire hazard reduction and ecological restoration in forests of the western United States is the idea that unnatural fuel buildup has resulted from suppression of formerly frequent fires. This premise and its implications need to be critically evaluated by conducting area-specific research in the forest ecosystems targeted for fuels or ecological restoration projects. Fire regime researchers need to acknowledge the limitations of fire history methodology and avoid over-reliance on summary fire statistics such as mean fire interval and rotation period. While fire regime research is vitally important for informing decisions in the areas of wildfire hazard mitigation and ecological restoration, there is much need for improving the way researchers communicate their results to managers and the way managers use this information.
The real issue of fire in the Northern Rockies is not fuels, beetles or disease, it is structure protection. Cohen (Cohen, Jack 1999. Reducing the wildland fire threat to homes: where and how much? RMRS. Paper presented at the Fire Economics Symposium, San Diego, CA April 12, 1999) reviewed current scientific evidence and policy directives on the issue of fire in the wildland/urban interface and recommended an alternative focus on home ignitability rather than extensive wildland fuel management:
The congruence of research findings from different analytical methods suggests that home ignitability is the principal cause of home losses during wildland fires… Home ignitability also dictates that effective mitigating actions focus on the home and its immediate surroundings rather than on extensive wildland fuel management.
[Research shows] that effective fuel modification for reducing potential WUI fire losses need only occur within a few tens of meters from a home, not hundreds of meters or more from a home. This research indicates that home losses can be effectively reduced by focusing mitigation efforts on the structure and its immediate surroundings. Those characteristics of a structure's materials and design and the surrounding flammables that determine the potential for a home to ignite during wildland fires (or any fires outside the home) will, hereafter, be referred to as home ignitability.
The evidence suggests that wildland fuel reduction for reducing home losses may be inefficient and ineffective. Inefficient because wildland fuel reduction for several hundred meters or more around homes is greater than necessary for reducing ignitions from flames. Ineffective because it does not sufficiently reduce firebrand ignitions.
In essence, the only effective way to protect homes from fire risk is to fire-proof the homes (i.e. metal roofs, etc.) and keep homes from being built in harm's way. It is far more cost effective to do this than trying to fight fires in the forest and/or thin them on the small chance they will burn. We can't log our way to a fire-proof or beetle-proof forest. As such, it is the immediate surroundings of structures that require attention.
The agencies have adequate policy tools to deal with beetles, if needed. In such cases, which would be very few, small, and site-specific, those decisions are best left to the local office of the federal land management agency, operating under existing laws. While there may be a temptation to take drastic, ill-advised action, beetle outbreaks have occurred in the past and will occur in the future.
Sincerely,
Gary Macfarlane
Ecosystem Defense Director
Friends of the Clearwater
Read George Weurthner's Testimony here >>
Bookmark/Search this post with
Navigation
RSS Feeds
Big Wild Bi-Weekly
FOC All New Content FOC Action Alerts FOC Events
FOC iCal FileFollow us on Facebook