Wallowa Whitman National Forest Deforestation Projects

 

This “thinning” is a clearcut all but in name. Wallowa Whitman National Forest, Oregon. Photo George Wuerthner 

I recently gave a talk on wildfire issues in Baker City, a small town in Eastern Oregon. On my way home, I drove the Elkhorn Scenic By-way, traversing the Wallowa Whitman National Forest (WWNF), and encountered shocking evidence of agency malfeasance. The WWNF is engaging in massive new logging projects suggesting they are “restoring” the forests and reducing large blazes through “fuel reductions” and they are certainly not improving the “scenery” of the landscape.

HOW THE FS MISREPRESENTS WILDFIRE SCIENCE

I have written numerous articles on why such ideas misrepresent science.

Forest malfacience on the Wallowa Whitman NF. This kind of “thinning extended for miles along the Elkhorn Scenic Bi-way. Photo George Wuerthner 

First, climate/weather drive all large wildfires. I know of no exceptions. You will not have large blazes if you don’t have the right climate/weather conditions. The agency claims that fire suppression between the 1940s and 1980s led to increased fuel “loading” and forests that deviated from the historical past. During this period, fires were typically small, burning little of the landscape, and were quickly suppressed. Most went out without any suppression at all.

Photo George Wuerthner 

However, this was a period of cool and moist conditions due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, among other factors. During these years, glaciers were growing in the PNW due to the unusually wet weather. Indeed, Nature did a fine job of limiting fire spread and even ignitions.

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Note the reduction in acreage burned during the wet, cool period between the 1940s and 1980s. 

Then beginning in the late 1980s, these natural climate trends were overridden by climate warming due to human CO2 emissions. We are now at over 400 ppm carbon, and not surprisingly; we are experiencing extensive drought, higher temperatures, lower humidity, and higher average wind speeds, all of which promote extreme fire weather conditions.

Lodgepole pine is one of many tree species characterized by long fire-free intervals. However, when it does burn, it tends to burn at high severity. Yet much of the logging I witness was in lodgepole pine based on the idea that thinning would “restore” the natural condition. Photo George Wuerthner 

A further problem with the WWNF’s simplistic suggestion that the forest has deviated from its historical condition of open park-like forests. However, the majority of tree communities in the forest, including larch, lodgepole pine, subalpine fir, Douglas fir, sagebrush, among others, naturally have long fire-free intervals and were seldom open and park-like.. None of these plant communities have “suffered” from the presumed fire suppression. I will come back to this point in a bit.

The idea that all forests were open and park like due to frequent low-severity blazes primarily applied to ponderosa pine seen here,but much of the forest consists of tree species whose normal fire interval is decades to century. Photo George Wuerthner 

Finally, the WWNF suggests logging the forest to “restore” it to the presumed historical condition that existed several hundred years ago. The problem with this goal is that climate ultimately determines which trees grow where and in what abundance, and the climate is no longer the same as 200 years ago when the continent was under the influence of the cooler and moister conditions of the Little Ice Age.

COMPETING SCIENCE

A further problem with the entire WWNF logging program is that the forest stands that they are logging consist of fir, larch, and other species that typically have long fire-free intervals. They were never “open” and “park-like” until the agency got done logging them. Photo George Wuerthner 

The WWNF relies on the work of Oregon State forestry researchers who claim the regional forests historically were characterized by low severity frequent fires that kept fuel loads low and woods open and park-like. By contrast, the WWNF today has more shade-tolerant trees like grand fir and is denser than they suggest the historical conditions were. These more luxuriant forests, it is asserted, are contributing to large wildfires. All of this is based on extrapolation from limited studies of fire scars.

However, there are numerous problems with fire scar studies. Other methods used to reconstruct the historic fire conditions argue that mixed to high severity blazes dominated most western forest communities including the WWNF tree stand composition,

For instance, Government Land Office (GLO) surveyors recorded the actual condition and species composition of the forest they encountered on their surveys. Furthermore, these surveys were done in the 1800s before “fire suppression” or other factors could be used to explain forest composition.

A study by William Baker using Government Land Office (GLO) surveys concluded that eastern Oregon forests were historically denser than presumed by OSU researchers, and low severity blazes only dominated approximately 23% of the landscape. Mixed to high-severity blazes were the norm on much of the region’s forests.

CARBON STORAGE

Even burnt forests store significant amounts of carbon in snags, soil, and down wood. Photo George Wuerthner 

Indeed, intact forest ecosystems play a massive role in carbon storage. Soils stored most of the ecosystem carbon (63 percent), followed by live vegetation (26 percent) and dead organic matter (11 percent).  Even heavily burnt forests maintain most of their carbon for decades to centuries as snags, soil carbon, and down wood. Large trees, in particular, are critical for carbon storage.

WHAT I FOUND

Forest “restoration” WWNF style. Photo George Wuerthner 

The WWNF uses the above misinterpretation of the historical forest conditions to rationalize massive deforestation. In the region between Granite and Sumpter, Oregon, the agency is logging lodgepole pine forests to “restore” the historical situation that never existed.

Lodgepole pine typically has long fire-free intervals, but when it burns, it is often at high severity, where most trees are killed. However, lodgepole pine quickly reseeds after a blaze, constantly creating dense (doghair) stands. This is the natural condition, not some aberration. Yet, the WWNF is “thinning” to such a degree as to create what are clearcuts in all but in name in the effort to “restore” the forest.

DEGRADING THE FOREST

Deforestation on the WWNF. Photo George Wuerthner 

While the WWNF asserts it is “improving” forest health by removing the majority of existing trees from the sites, it is degrading the forest ecosystem.

First and most apparent, removing such a large amount of biomass significantly reduces the carbon storage on the site. Given the need to keep carbon in the forest, such removal is counterproductive for reducing climate warming.

Second, the indiscriminate removal of trees eliminates the very trees which may have genetic resistance to drought, insects, and other usual sources of mortality. Studies have shown that individual trees can vary in their susceptibility to these natural agents.

Logging removes carbon that would otherwise be stored on site. Photo George Wuerthner 

Third, thinning typically puts more fine fuels like small branches, needles, and other materials on the ground. It is fine fuels that sustain and drive fire spread. In addition, thinning opens the forest to greater wind penetration and drying. The wind has been demonstrated to be responsible for most of all large blazes and home loss due to embers that can travel as much as 1-2 miles ahead of the fire front.

Fourth, logging disturbs sensitive wildlife and removes wildlife habitat.

Feller buncher logging the forest. Photo George Wuerthner 

Fifth, wood products production releases a tremendous amount of CO2 emissions. Indeed, 66% of the carbon losses across the West were due to logging, while only 15% was due to wildfire.

Thinning in lodgepole pine forest that naturally grows in dense stands does not ‘restore” the forest ecosystem. Photo George Wuerthner 

Sixth, thinning s not effective at stopping and even slowing fires during extreme fire weather conditions. Since all large high-severity blazes only occur during such extreme weather situations where high winds toss embers miles ahead of any fire front, the idea that thinning will preclude large blazes is fallacious. Studies have shown that lands protected from logging, like wilderness and parks tend to have fewer acres burning at high severity compared to areas with “active forest management”.

Thinning puts more fine fuels on the forest floor which contributes to fire spread. Photo George Wuerthner 

Seventh, the likelihood that any fuel reduction will encounter a fire is typically less than 1%. So given the numerous ecological impacts of thinning, and the cost to taxpayers, it simply doesn’t make any rationale sense.

The brush piles will likely be burned in the fall, but in the meantime, they are real source of fuel for blazes. Photo George Wuerthner 

The photos speak for themselves, but the WWNF is embarked on numerous misguided forest degradation and deforestation projects.

I encourage anyone who doubts my interpretation to review these photos and get involved in the WWNF. The WWNF is proposing a massive deforestation project called the Morgan Nesbit Forest Resiliency Project near Joseph, Oregon. Note the euphemism that logging will result in “resiliency,” as if the forest can’t survive without human intervention and “active forest management.”