Is the essential being destroyed to produce the superfluous?

That’s the central question asked in a new film Forests by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, who was appointed by the United Nations to produce the official film for the International Year of Forests.

Following the success of Home, which was seen by 400 million people, Arthus-Bertrand began producing a short 7-minute film on forests made up of aerial images from Home and the Vu du Ciel television programmes.

“Over the past 60 years we have inflicted more rapid degradation on the planet than in all of human history. When forests are cleared it is not just animals that are in danger. Is the essential being destroyed to produce the superfluous?”

I’m certainly nothing more than a causal film viewer; however, some of the footage in Forests, where Arthus-Bertrand takes us into the canopy of forests around the world, is just mind-boggling and appears three-dimensional. Enjoy all this green on another gray Montana day!

Western Lumber Industry had worst year on record, outlook even more dismal

This week the Western Wood Products Association reported that the Western lumber industry in 2009 posted its worst year for production in modern history, and that the outlook for this year is even more dismal.

Key Findings

• Overall, U.S. demand for lumber in 2009 was less than half of what was consumed in 2005.

• The amount of lumber used for residential construction is down 76% compared to 2005.

• The lack of home building in the U.S. contributed to the historic decline. Just 554,000 houses were built in 2009, a 39 percent decline from the previous year and a staggering 75% decline from 2005.

• Low demand translated into even lower prices for Western lumber products. The estimated wholesale value of the 2009 production was $2.69 billion, down 26 percent from 2008. Five years ago, Western mills produced 19.3 billion board feet of lumber valued at $7.7 billion.

• Since 2005, output from Western lumber mills has fallen by some 46 percent.

Given the fact that overall lumber demand in the U.S. is down 50% since 2005 and housing starts are down 75% since 2005 one really has to question the motivation and economic rationale of those who are calling for Congress to step in and mandate more public lands logging.

Related articles from this blog:

Time to Use a “Sustainability Filter”

Lumber Demand Drops 55%…So Some Call for More Public Lands Logging?

Talking Sustainable Forestry at the Mill

FS Retiree on Tester Bill: Gutting the Forest Service is not the Solution

Note: The following perspective is from Bill Worf.  Mr. Worf was born in 1926 on a homestead in Eastern Montana and grew up on a ranch through the Great Depression. When World War II came along, Worf left high school to join the Marines. He fought in the battle of Iwo Jima.

Worf joined the Forest Service in 1950 and spent 12 years in Utah on the Uinta, Ashley and Fishlake National Forests. Worf then became the Supervisor of the Bridger National Forest in Wyoming. When the Wilderness Act passed in 1964, Worf was sent to the Forest Service National Office to head the development of Regulations and Policy for implementation of the Wilderness Act. In 1969, he was assigned to the Regional Office in Missoula as Director for Wilderness, Recreation and Lands, a position he retired from in 1981. He lives in Missoula. Click here for a short video featuring Worf.

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Gutting the Forest Service is not the Solution
By Bill Worf

I am a Montana native who graduated with a degree in Forestry from the University of Montana in 1950, when I started a career in the U.S. Forest Service. When the Wilderness Act passed in 1964, I was serving as Supervisor of the Bridger National Forest in Wyoming.

Forest Service Chief Ed Cliff and Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman immediately tapped me to serve in the National Office to oversee implementation of the Wilderness Act. I moved from Wyoming to Washington DC to administer the National Wilderness Preservation System established by the Act. I served in that position until 1969, when I was appointed Deputy Regional Forester for Wilderness, Recreation and Lands in Missoula, Mt.

Although I retired in 1983, I have remained involved in National Forest issues. In this capacity, I have strong feelings about the Jobs and Recreation Bill (S 1470) introduced by Senator John Tester. I share the Senator’s concern about growing fire and insect problems in our National Forests. The Senator’s heart may be in the right place, but his proposed solution would result in severe long-term damage to the Forest Service as an institution.

The Forest Service is one of the most respected agencies in government. It contains the finest collection of natural resource professionals in the world. I spent my professional career as a proud member.

With his logging bill, Tester is saying he knows more about how forests ought to be managed than professionals who work for the Forest Service. Tester is telling us what to do and how to do it, even though what Tester wants may violate federal laws. If Tester gets away with dictating forest management in Montana, every Senator and every Representative in Congress will try to do the same. Instead of being managed by one professional agency that considers all the views of public stakeholders from throughout the country, our National Forests would be managed by local interests primarily geared towards resource extraction.

By effectively dissolving the Forest Service, Tester would create 535 fiefdoms, all with different management mandates dictated by different members of Congress. This would take away Americans’ rights concerning our public lands.

What Tester may not know is that the National Forest System was established in 1897 by Congress. Congress also established the Forest Service to administer these National Forests for the benefit of all Americans of present and future generations. Subsequent laws provided additional guidance, including the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960, the National Forest and Range Land Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, and the National Forest Management Act of 1976. Congress passed these laws to ensure our National Forests are administered in a planned and sustainable way – in perpetuity.

Because Tester is a Hi-Line farmer, I figured he may not know much about Forest Service history. So, I attended an open house on Monday, October 26, 2009, concerning his logging bill. I shared with the senator that heavy corporate and political pressure had caused the violation of the 1960 Act mandating “Sustained Yield”. This unwise overcutting of our National Forests resulted in the closure of mills in Montana and elsewhere.

I followed up my conversation with Tester by sending him a detailed letter on Thursday, November 12, 2009. I included a 20-page comprehensive analysis of Forest Service reports which clearly shows the failure to maintain a “Sustained Yield” throughout the National Forest System.

I strongly disagree with Tester that the answer to overcutting in the past is to overcut in the future. Congressionally mandating logging quotas and legislatively dictating management would convert our National Forest into “Private-Local Forests.” This is directly contrary to 113 years of precedence. When Congress passed the Organic Act in 1897, lawmakers were assured that National Forests would remain open to the public and not restricted to private companies or privileged groups.

The Tester bill effectively says that a handful of local extractive interests have greater knowledge than the professionals of our Forest Service. This dangerous precedent would be viewed with glee by special interest groups of all kinds! For that reason, I must oppose the Tester bill.

Bill Worf served with the Forest Service for 33 years. Worf reports he has not yet received any reply to the detailed analysis he sent Tester on November 12, 2009.

New Report Debunks Myth of “Catastrophic Wildfire”

There is no such thing as “catastrophic wildfire” in our forests, ecologically speaking. That is the central conclusion of a report released this week by the John Muir Project (JMP), a non-profit forest research and conservation organization.

The report, “The Myth of Catastrophic Wildfire: A New Ecological Paradigm of Forest Health“, is a comprehensive synthesis of the scientific evidence regarding wildland fire and its relationship to biodiversity and climate change in western U.S. forests. It stands many previously held assumptions on their heads, including the assumptions that forest fires burn mostly at high intensity (where most trees are killed), and that fires are getting more intense, as well as the assumption that high-intensity fire areas are ecologically damaged or harmed. The report finds that the scientific evidence contradicts these popular notions.

“We do not need to be afraid of the effects of wildland fire in our forests. Fire is doing important and beneficial ecological work,” said the report’s author, Dr. Chad Hanson, a forest and fire ecologist who is the Director of the John Muir Project, as well as a researcher at the University of California at Davis. “It may seem counterintuitive, but the scientific evidence is telling us that some of the very best and richest wildlife habitat in western U.S. forests occurs where fire kills most or all of the trees. These areas are relatively rare on the landscape, and the many wildlife species that depend upon the habitat created by high-intensity fire are threatened by fire suppression and post-fire logging.”

The report notes that hundreds of millions of dollars are being needlessly spent each year suppressing fires in remote forests and implementing widespread “forest thinning” logging projects. This puts firefighters at unnecessary risk in remote wild areas, puts homes at greater risk by diverting scarce resources away from efforts to create defensible space around structures, and further threatens the many rare and imperiled wildlife species that depend upon post-fire habitat.

Specifically, the report finds:

• There is far less fire now in western U.S. forests than there was historically.

• Current fires are burning mostly at low intensities, and fires are not getting more intense, contrary to many assumptions about the effects of climate change. Forested areas in which fire has been excluded for decades by fire suppression are also not burning more intensely.

• Contrary to popular assumptions, high-intensity fire (commonly mislabeled as “catastrophic wildfire”) is a natural and necessary part of western U.S. forest ecosystems, and there is less high-intensity fire now than there was historically, due to fire suppression.

• Patches of high-intensity fire (where most or all trees are killed) support among the highest levels of wildlife diversity of any forest type in the western U.S., and many wildlife species depend upon such habitat. Post-fire logging and ongoing fire suppression policies are threatening these species.

• Conifer forests naturally regenerate vigorously after high-intensity fire.

• Our forests are functioning as carbon sinks (net sequestration) where logging has been reduced or halted, and wildland fire helps maintain high productivity and carbon storage.

• Even large, intense fires consume less than 3% of the biomass in live trees, and carbon emissions from forest fires is only tiny fraction of the amount resulting from fossil fuel consumption (even these emissions are balanced by carbon uptake from forest growth and regeneration).

• “Thinning” operations for lumber or biofuels do not increase carbon storage but, rather, reduce it, and thinning designed to curb fires further threatens imperiled wildlife species that depend upon post-fire habitat.

• The only effective way to protect homes from wildland fire is to use non-combustible roofing and other materials, and reduce brush within 100-200 feet of structures.

Keeping It Wild! In Defense of America’s Public Wildlands

United by our common understanding that Montana’s wild country is its greatest treasure;
And, that once degraded or impaired, this wild country can never be restored or replaced;
And, cognizant of Thoreau’s belief that “In wildness is the preservation of the world;”
And, schooled by Aldo Leopold who long ago warned that wilderness can only shrink and not grow;
And, keenly aware of the definition of wilderness in the Wilderness Act of 1964 as being “untrammeled by man,” where “man himself is a visitor who does not remain;”
And, fully recognizing that the Northern Rockies ecosystem is the only functioning ecosystem in the lower 48 states where all native species still reside;
And, being of one mind in our desire and determination to protect and preserve what remains of our public wildlands to the greatest extent possible;
We hereby state our intention to work together to achieve the most inclusive and comprehensive protection under the law for all remaining publicly-owned de facto wilderness in Montana.
In full affirmation of the above and, after having been unsuccessful in our earnest efforts to improve Sen. Tester’s so-called “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act,” or “S. 1470,” we must now unanimously oppose this bill.
The bases for our opposition are exhaustively catalogued in separate analyses and papers, but we submit this foundational document to concisely articulate our chief objections. They are as follows:

1. The Tester bill specifically eliminates from mandated protection large portions of the late Senator Lee Metcalf’s wildlands legacy, Congressionally designated as Wilderness Study Areas in 1977 by his farsighted bill, S. 393. By eliminating this protection, the Tester bill opens these priceless public wildlands for road building, logging, and other development.

2. The Tester bill undermines the overwhelmingly popular Clinton Roadless Rule and Obama Roadless Initiative. Over one million acres of federally-inventoried roadless wildlands protected under the Roadless Rule and the Roadless Initiative would be classified as “Timber Suitable or Open to Harvest.”

3. The Tester Bill surrenders decisions about our national forests to a handful of local bureaucrats and extraction-oriented corporations, thereby promoting fragmentation of America’s national public lands legacy into locally controlled fiefdoms.

4. The Tester bill undermines the National Environmental Policy Act by imposing unrealistic and arbitrary requirements that preclude the Forest Service from accurately assessing environmental impacts of road building, logging, habitat loss, water degradation, weed infestation, and other costs of developing public wildlands.

5. The Tester bill mandates unsustainable logging quotas regardless of environmental costs, thereby jeopardizing safeguards provided public lands by the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Forest Management Act, Wilderness Act, and Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

6. In its effort to isolate decisions to log wildlands from national attention, the Tester bill disenfranchises public lands stakeholders, by overriding legitimate science-based forest planning that involves full public information and participation. It deprives the public of our rights to be included in irreversible decisions concerning our own land.

7. The Tester bill mandates cutting at least 100,000 acres over 10 years. It dictates at least 7,000 acres be logged per year for 10 years in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. In recent years, the Forest Service has set its sustainable cut level for the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest at 500 acres per year. In past years, when the Forest Service was dedicated to “getting the cut out,” an average of 3,213 acres per year was logged, from 1954 to 1996, in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. On the Three Rivers Ranger District of the Kootenai National Forest, Tester’s bill mandates logging of 3,000 acres per year for 10 years in fragile Yaak grizzly bear habitat, already severely damaged by decades of overcutting. While logging at least 100,000 acres would be compulsory, the Tester bill contains no accompanying mandates for restoration, leaving all post-logging reclamation and forest restoration optional.

8. The Tester bill fails to address at least $100 million in costs to U.S. taxpayers that would be incurred by the Forest Service for subsidizing “below-cost” timber sales and power plants for the few specially-privileged timber corporations involved. The bill interferes with free enterprise by mandating that five favored private mills be subsidized with perpetual supplies of national forest trees, at huge economic costs to taxpayers. The bill ignores the financial realities that the United States currently face: Economic crises and a lumber “depression,” with new home construction down 70 percent and demands for lumber down 55 percent.

9. By forcing unsustainable industrial-scale logging upon our public lands, the Tester bill would irrevocably harm essential habitat of species that characterize the wild nature of the northern Rockies, such as the gray wolf, bull trout, cutthroat trout (Montana’s official state fish), otter, mountain goat, mountain sheep, elk, arctic grayling, northern goshawk, boreal owl, pileated woodpecker, ferruginous hawk, Montana vole, sage thrasher, wild bison, peregrine falcon, bald eagle, pine marten, fisher, lynx, wolverine, and grizzly bear (Montana’s official state animal).

10. The “wilderness” areas in the Tester bill are fragmented and unconnected islands of largely “rocks and ice,” with limited biological integrity and no potential for sustaining biodiversity. The minimal “wilderness” designated in the bill fails to protect different elevation habitats and their dependent species with core areas, buffer zones, and connecting biological corridors. The bill promotes numerous abuses that are clearly in violation of the 1964 Wilderness Act, including motorized access into and through “wilderness,” military aircraft landings in “wilderness,” possible “wilderness” logging, and other intrusions that violate the principles of Wilderness.

Due to these severe deficiencies, we intend to see that the Tester bill is not endorsed by Congress. Instead, we will constructively stand for a scientifically-sound, ecologically-based Wilderness Bill that preserves the greatest amount of our priceless and rapidly-vanishing public roadless wildlands in Montana.

We, the following, are conservation organizations and citizens dedicated to wildlands protection, Wilderness preservation, and the sound long-term management of our federal public lands legacy. Our coalition includes small-business owners, scientists, educators and teachers, health care practitioners, hikers and backpackers, hunters and anglers, wildlife viewers, outfitters and guides, veterans, retired Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management officials, ranchers and farmers, craftspersons, and community leaders – all stakeholders committed to America’s public wildlands legacy.

Note: Individual citizens can sign onto this, by clicking here. For more information visit: http://testerloggingbilltruths.wordpress.com.

Alliance for the Wild Rockies (MT)
Big Wild Advocates (MT)
Buffalo Field Campaign (MT)
Conservation Congress (MT)
Deerlodge Forest Defense Fund (MT)
Friends of the Bitterroot (MT)
Friends of the Rattlesnake (MT)
Friends of the Wild Swan (MT)
Swan View Coalition (MT)
Western Montana Mycological Association (MT)
Western Watersheds Project (MT)
Wilderness Watch (MT)
WildWest Institute (MT)
Allegheny Defense Project (PA)
Bark (OR)
Big Wildlife (OR)
Biodiversity Conservation Alliance (WY)
Buckeye Forest Council (OH)
Caney Fork Headwaters Association (TN)
Cascadia Wildlands (OR)
Center for Biological Diversity (AZ)
Center for Sustainable Living (IN)
Citizens for Better Forestry (CA)
Clearwater Biodiversity Project (ID)
Cumberland Countians for Peace & Justice (TN)
Dogwood Alliance (NC)
EcoLaw Massachusetts (MA)
Ecosystem Advocates (OR)
Environmental Action Committee of West Marin (CA)
Green Press Initiative (MI)
Friends of Bell Smith Springs (IL)
Friends of the Breitenbush Cascades (OR)
Friends of the Clearwater (ID)
Heartwood (IN)
Hells Canyon Preservation Council (OR)
John Muir Project (CA)
Kentucky Heartwood (CA)
League of Wilderness Defenders (OR)
Native Forest Council (OR)
Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility, United Church of Christ (TN)
Protect Arkansas Wilderness! (AR)
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) (DC)
RESTORE the North Woods (ME)
Save America’s Forests (DC)
Selkirk Conservation Alliance (WA)
Umpqua Watersheds (OR)
Utah Environmental Congress (UT)
Western Lands Project (WA)
WildEarth Guardians (NM)
WildSouth (NC)

Dr. Power: Two Views of the Tester Forest Jobs and Recreation Bill

Note: The following commentary from economist Dr. Thomas Michael Power was presented on Montana Public Radio December 7, 2009. – MK

Two Views of the Tester Forest Jobs and Recreation Bill
By Thomas Michael Power

(Dr. Thomas Michael Power is the former Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Montana, where he currently serves as a Research Professor)

The controversy over Senator Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Bill is likely to get some national attention in a week or so as the bill receives its first hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests in the our nation’s capitol. That bill has been called both Tester’s “logging bill” as well as Tester’s “wilderness bill.” Critics point out that the title of the bill mentions “forest jobs” but does not mention “wilderness” at all, leaving some suspicion as to what the main purpose of the bill is.

Wilderness advocates who support the bill point out that the bill would add 670,000 acres of wilderness and another 225,000 acres of National Recreation Areas where timber harvest will be prohibited. That’s approaching a million acres of protected land, clearly an admirable goal.

The critics, also wilderness advocates, shake their heads in dismay because at the same time that bill appears to open so much roadless wild land to potential logging. Consider the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, Montana’s largest National Forest. It contains 3.3 million acres of land, mostly undeveloped, high lodgepole pine forest. Forest managers there have classified less than ten percent of that land as suitable for commercial timber management. Yet, Tester’s bill would classify 1.9 million acres of land as “suitable for timber production” where “timber harvest is allowed.” The 500,000 acres of new wilderness that Tester’s bill would create in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest somewhat shrinks in significance compared to the area four times as large that appears to be declared open for timber harvest. That is especially shocking since the area now declared open to logging is over eight times larger than what had previously been deemed suitable for timber harvest.

This may just be the result of bad horse trading and a conscious gamble on the part of the collaborative that originally negotiated this proposal. The fact is that the vast majority of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest is likely to remain unroaded and unlogged indefinitely into the future, primarily protected by economics. It is far too costly to go after most of the standing inventory of trees there and those trees have little commercial value, at least for now.

Tester’s bill actually attempts to steer the logging that the bill mandates away from the backcountry and limit it to the already human dominated edges of the forest. The bill orders the Forest Service, when choosing the lands where the timber harvest is to take place, to give “priority” to lands that already have high densities of roads, have already been relatively heavily logged, and contain forests that are at high risk for insect epidemics or high-severity wildfires.

The actual meaning of these limits, however, may hinge on whether all of these criteria have to apply or whether only one of them need apply. That last criteria is loose enough that it by itself could open the entire Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest to timber harvest since lodgepole pine forests naturally tend to experience large stand-replacing fires.

The level of timber harvest that would be annually mandated on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest under Tester’s bill can also be read in either comforting or alarming terms. The bill requires 7,000 acres a year to be harvested. To supporters of the bill, this is a tiny acreage of harvest, a tiny fraction of one percent of the huge 3.3 million acre forest.

To critics, although 7,000 acres appears trivially small compared to the total size of the forest, it is not so small compared to the part of the forest deemed suitable for commercial timber harvest, 300,000 acres, of which the 7,000 acres are 2.3 percent. That level of harvest would be sustainable only if new trees grew to commercial size in about 40 years, an unlikely event in a high, cold, lodgepole pine forest in Montana.

To critics, this is simply an unsustainable level of harvest. Looking back over 40 years of timber harvest on that forest, 7,000 acres of timber harvest was reached only once, in 1971, in the heyday of aggressive Forest Service harvests across the nation. That level of harvest was once again approached in the last peak harvest year on Forest Service lands in the late 1980s when 6,000 acres were harvested. Between 1967 and 1989, when the Forest Service was still largely unhindered by environmental concerns and harvested record numbers of trees, the average acreage harvested on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest was about 4,000 acres. The Tester bill would seek to force a harvest level two-thirds higher than that previous unfettered average harvest level.

Supporters of Tester’s bill insist that the intent is not to open up most of the forest to timber harvest but quite the opposite: to support modest timber harvests where they would do the most good and the least harm. If that is the case, the language of the bill should be tightened up to accomplish exactly that by limiting the areas open to potential timber harvests to a much smaller portion of the forest and by making clear that the “priority” areas for timber harvest are in fact those areas that have already been roaded and open to logging and where the timber harvests can help protect human habitation. Finally, the level of mandated timber harvest should be set based on what foresters indicate is a sustainable level of harvest given the characteristics of that forest.

Such a tightening up of the language and numbers in the Tester bill should be acceptable to the wilderness advocates who support this bill since it would simply assure that the bill does what they say it is intended to do. If timber interests howl in protest over such clarification that should give the rest of us pause as to exactly what the Tester bill is really all about.

By the Numbers: Tester’s Mandated Logging vs. Historical Logging

What follows is some information compiled from US Forest Service records regarding historical logging on the Beaverhead and Deerlodge National Forests.

The info will clearly demonstrate how Sen. Tester’s S.1470, which would Congressionally mandate a minimum of 7,000 acres of logging per year for ten years on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, would compare with historical logging on these same forests.

All of the following information was obtained directly from the US Forest Service.

From 1959-1996 the Beaverhead NF averaged 1621 acres of logging per year. The greatest acreage logged on the Beaverhead NF in that time period was 4168 acres in 1987. The Reagan years average on the Beaverhead NF was 2697 acres of logging per year.

From 1954-1996 the Deerlodge NF averaged 1592 acres of logging per year. The greatest acreage logged on the Deerlodge NF in that time period was 4332 acres in 1971. The Reagan years average on the Deerlodge NF was 1916 acres of logging per year.

The average acres logged per year for the Beaverhead and Deerlodge forests combined from 1954-1996 was 3213 acres/year. The average acres logged per year on these same forests during the Reagan years was 4,613 acres/year.

The most acreage ever logged in a single year since 1954 on both forests combined was in 1971, when 7013 acres were logged. The next highest total was in 1966 at 5813 acres. These years were also prior to our nation having environmental laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act.

Remember, Sen Tester’s bill would Congressionally mandate a minimum of 7,000 acres of logging per year for ten years on the BHDL NF. That amount of logging per year is not only more than double the historical average on these forests, but it’s the most amount of logging ever, except for one single year.

There is near universal agreement between the timber industry, Forest Service, conservationists, economists, scientists and the general public that the logging levels on National Forests during the logging hayday of the 1960s, 70 and 80s were completely unsustainable and misguided.

However, despite the current and on-going economic crises and resulting “Lumber Depression” (lumber demand down 55% and new home construction down 70%) Sen. Tester’s bill would have Congress step in and mandate a minimum level of logging on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF that far exceeds anything this forest has ever seen…at an estimated taxpayer cost of $100 million.

Furthermore, it’s quite clear that because Tester’s bill contains a number of “unfunded mandates” money would be taken from other national forests in Montana and the region and given to the BHDL NF to conduct this mandated logging and complete NEPA requirements for these large logging projects within the arbitrary 12 month timeline, which Tester’s bill imposes. (Note: NEPA typically takes the Forest Service 2 to 4 years to complete, and often even at that pace the NEPA assessment isn’t as complete as it should be).

This is just yet another concrete example of a serious concern many of us have that’s based on the actual language contained within the bill.

Protecting America’s Public Lands a National Concern

The following perspective is from Keith Hammer. Mr. Hammer grew up hiking, skiing, camping, hunting, and fishing in the Swan Mountains of Northwest Montana. He has worked a number of jobs, from Forest Service trail worker to logger to backcountry guide, and currently works as an environmental consultant and head of the nonprofit Swan View Coalition, which he co-founded in 1984. Keith and Swan View Coalition have gotten over 600 miles of road decommissioned on the Flathead National Forest to restore fish and wildlife habitat.

Protecting America’s Public Lands a National Concern!
By Keith Hammer, Swan View Coalition

We can take much inspiration from Ken Burns’ film “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” and readily extend its premise to the remainder of America’s public lands. Key take-home messages in Burns’ film are that threats to America’s wildlands never cease and that their protection is brought about through national concern and legislation, often over the objections of local politicians.

Indeed, as elk and bison were being slaughtered by commercial hunting in the West in the late 1800s, it was not the new states of Montana and Wyoming that put an end to it. It was Representative John Lacey of Iowa who prohibited the interstate transport of illegally killed wildlife when his “Lacey Act” was signed into law by President William McKinley in 1900.

Montana Senator Thomas Long objected to what is now Glacier National Park being designated a Forest Preserve in 1900, followed by the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce objecting to its designation as a National Park in 1910. Thank goodness for the persistence of Americans George Bird Grinnell and others, who had the foresight to see that the area needed better protection than that afforded the Forest Preserves (later known as National Forests) and convinced President Taft to designate Glacier as America’s 10th National Park!

Today, local communities thrive on tourists visiting Glacier National Park and the families and businesses choosing to locate near it! More recently, the town of Seward, Alaska was so dead-set against the designation of Kenai Fjords National Park that it passed two resolutions denouncing the idea. After the Park was designated in 1980 and Seward began to reap the rewards, however, it rescinded its previous resolutions and asked that the Park be expanded! President Carter, once burned in effigy in Alaska for his conservation initiatives there, nonetheless tripled the size of Denali National Park and designated most of it Wilderness for added protection.

For these reasons and more, we helped write and support the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act knowing it may not initially garner support from Congressional delegations in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. It builds upon President Clinton’s – and now Obama’s – intention to protect roadless lands from development, sequestering carbon in roadless forests also serving as wildlife migration corridors. It also creates high-paying jobs restoring watersheds through road reclamation .

In contrast, Senator Tester’s (D-MT) wildlands logging bill (Links: here, here and here) would set dangerous precedent by mandating logging levels on two National Forests and subsidizing the burning of public forests as “biomass.” It would also release from protection numerous roadless lands and Wilderness Study Areas granted protection by the far-sighted Senator Lee Metcalf in 1977!

Sen Tester and His Logging Bill “Rack”-Up Major Endorsement

This just in:

Senator Tester and his mandated logging bill have “racked” up a major and important endorsement from the fine folks at “Outdoor Life,” who have named Senator Tester part of “The Outdoor Life 25.”

These are the same “Outdoor Life” folks that bring you:

“Rack Girls 2009“

“Fish N Chix 2010“

“Shed Hunting Babes“

Yep, those “Outdoor Life” folks are all about big rack collaboration. Clearly their support of Senator Tester’s logging bill means something…but what that is isn’t exactly clear.

Just read the entire “Outdoor Life” entry about Senator Tester and his logging bill and it’s very clear that “Outdoor Life” has a better handle on big racks hoisted in the air by bikini-clad women than they do on public lands and wilderness policy.

From Outdoor Life:

“For more than 25 years, some 600,000 acres of Montana backcountry have been lost in bureaucratic limbo, legal leftovers from pitched battles between wilderness zealots and timber barons. Described on maps as “wilderness study areas,” these alpine peaks, timbered slopes and foothills grasslands have been off-limits to logging and mining, but have also been a sort of no-man’s land for hunters, anglers and landscape preservationists [Totally not true as every single Wilderness Study Area is currently open to hunting and fishing. - MK]

Are “study areas” open to resource development, or are they locked up in wilderness? Every Montana politician for a generation has tried to untangle the land-use stalemate before being cowed by one interest group or another. Now, thanks to a U.S. senator with a flat-top haircut and a butcher’s build, hunters will be able to access these lands, watersheds will be preserved and unemployed loggers and mill workers will go back to work. Jon Tester crafted his landmark “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” to preserve the majority of land as wilderness, but require sustainable timber harvest on much of the rest.

There’s something for everyone, but not enough for a single group to claim victory. The collaborative agreement is being eyed by conservationists across the nation as a model for resolving similarly intractable issues.” [Not true...but it sure sounds nice!  Fact is "conservationists across the nation" are pretty much in agreement about their opposition to Senator Tester's Mandated Logging Bill and the sloppy, bad-precedent-setting Wilderness language contained in the bill. - MK]

Report: Ten Solutions to Curb Forest Fire Costs, Currently $3 Billion Per Year

Note: The following press release was issued today from Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based independent, nonprofit research group. The press release is to draw attention to their new report titled, “Solutions to the Rising Costs of Fighting Fires in the Wildland-Urban Interface.” - MK

Report Promotes Ten Solutions to Curb Forest Fire Costs, Currently $3 Billion Per Year

BOZEMAN, MT. – A report released today by Headwaters Economics outlines ten proposals to help curb the rising expense of fighting forest fires—which already costs taxpayers $3 billion annually or roughly half the Forest Service’s budget. The new report shows that, unless action is taken, firefighting costs could at least double in the next 15 years because of expanding residential development on fire-prone lands along with the increasing temperatures associated with climate change.

“The current policy of looking the other way while more and more homes are built on dangerous, fire-prone lands is not sustainable,” said Ray Rasker, the report’s author. “This report shows that we have the knowledge and solutions needed to address this problem. Now is the time to implement responsible, accountable steps that can help hold the line on future fire costs.”

The report, Solutions to the Rising Costs of Fighting Fires in the Wildland-Urban Interface, was completed by Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based independent, nonprofit research group.

The fire cost research paper enjoys the support of Dale Bosworth, former Chief of the Forest Service, and Roger Kennedy, former Director of the National Park Service and author of Wildfire and Americans.

The research paper outlines ten possible solutions, ranging from increased education to changes in insurance or mortgage laws. Addressing the issue of ever-escalating fire suppression expenses could achieve a number of related public policy goals: fiscal responsibility, a fairer and more equitable distribution of costs among those benefiting from wildfire protection, and increased safety for future homeowners and wildland firefighters.

Even though less than four percent of homes in the West are located within this wildland-urban interface (WUI), a number of studies have show that these residences are a significant contributor to the rising costs of fighting wildfires.

Yet, the cost of protecting these homes is spread among all taxpayers and little has been done to address the pace, scale and pattern of development in the WUI. In this context, the current approach to fire suppression has perverse incentives and lacks accountability. People who develop in forested areas, and local governments that allow such new subdivisions, do not pay their share of fire fighting costs. The majority of firefighting expenses instead are paid by the Forest Service, BLM, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Across the West today, only 14 percent of forested private lands near fire-prone public lands has homes on it. Using Montana as a case study, Headwaters Economics found protecting the average home from a wildfire event costs roughly $8,000. Statewide, the cost of protecting homes from forest fires averages $28 million annually. If development on private land near fire-prone forests continues, costs associated with home protection likely will rise to $40 million by 2025.

Climate change would increase costs even further.  A one-degree increase in average summer temperatures in Montana would at least double home protection costs, and the combination of additional development and hotter summers could push the average annual cost of protecting homes from forest fires to exceed $80 million by 2025.

“Unless we address one of the root causes of the problem—home building in wildfire prone areas—the costs of fighting forest fires will continue to escalate,” noted Rasker.

The report outlines ten possible solutions. Headwaters Economics does not advocate one solution over another. Rather, all are presented, with background, to explain how each idea could work along with its pros and cons.
1. MAPPING: Publish maps identifying areas with high probability of wildland fires;
2. EDUCATION: Increase awareness of the financial consequences of home building in fire-prone areas;
3. REDIRECT FEDERAL AID TOWARD LAND USE PLANNING: Provide technical assistance and financial incentives to help local governments direct future development away from the wildland-urban interface;
4. COST SHARE AGREEMENTS: Add incentives for counties to sign agreements that share the costs of wildland firefighting between local and federal entities;
5. LAND ACQUISITION: Purchase lands or easements on lands that are fire-prone and at risk of conversion to development;
6. A NATIONAL FIRE INSURANCE AND MORTGAGE PROGRAM: Apply lessons from efforts to prevent development in floodplains;
7. INSURANCE: Allow insurance companies to charge higher premiums in fire-prone areas;
8. ZONING: Limit development in the wildland-urban Interface with local planning and zoning ordinances;
9. ELIMINATE MORTGAGE INTEREST DEDUCTIONS: Eliminate home interest mortgage deductions for new homes in the wildland-urban interface;
10. REDUCE FEDERAL FIREFIGHTING BUDGETS: Induce federal land managers to shift more of the cost of wildland firefighting to local governments.

A newsletter summary is also available here.