A link in Nick Smith’s email today goes to a press release about the USFS’s Climate Action Tracker, which I have not yet explored. The release also mentions “A revised Mature and Old growth Definition and Inventory revised report released today has new charts that include lands managed by both the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service.” From the exec summary: Based on the working definitions used in this initial inventory, Forest Service and BLM lands collectively contain 33.1 +/- 0.4 million acres1 of old-growth and 80.8 +/- 0.5 million acres of mature ..read more

Anthony Botello took the job as forest supervisor on the Flathead at the beginning of the year, and provided this extended interview to the Missoulian.  This may be paywalled, but I’ve pulled out a few quotes related to things I tend to talk about. Staffing of NEPA specialists is especially hard: We have staffing challenges all across our workforce, but the one that pops to mind right now — because much of what we do revolves around very smart people who lead our ID (interdisciplinary) teams through our NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process, and those are folks that are in hi ..read more

FOREST SERVICE Shasta Trinity NF logging project New (to me) lawsuit Last fall, Safe Alternatives for our Forest Environment, Conservation Congress and Klamath Forest Alliance sued the Shasta Trinity National Forest for its decision to approve the McFarland Project using a categorical exclusion for “wildlife habitat improvement.”  According to plaintiffs, the project would include commercial logging of over 2000 acres, most of which is in a late successional reserve that supports “one of the few successful breeding pairs of the northern spotted owl left in the Shasta Trinity National F ..read more

Susan Jane Brown was kind enough to provide links to the draft plan components and draft recommendations. She pointed out, importantly (!) that “THESE ARE DRAFT AND UNDER ACTIVE DISCUSSION AND NEGOTIATION. The USFS hasn’t made any decisions yet, nor has the FAC reached consensus.” Here’s a link to their meeting archive page, and here’s one to the recommendations. As with many things in forest planning there are many words here,  the Tribal recommendations are too long to post, 15 pages and change. So I hope readers will take a look and give us your thoughts on any section. Maybe our thoug ..read more

This is the latest I received from one of my sources.. I asked the question “so it’s the folks covered in FF retirement and who have fire quals that are not being affected?” Also I got an answer as to “why it’s so hard to count.” It does get a little fuzzy around the edges. Clearly fire positions with FF retirement coverage are not in any kind of pause. Right now, even some fire-funded positions such as Fire Cache positions are not affected. No current non-fire employee is impacted except in terms of applying for a position for competitive promotion and/or lateral…opportunities may decrease a ..read more

Highlights: increased capacity (hires), planting and seed orchard establishment, one-year anniversary of regional budget organization and drones for prescribed burning. Here’s a link. Other Regions, if you send I will post ..read more

From newsradio 560KPQ. Chelan County is moving ahead with plans for a wood products campus, which would use timber thinned from the county’s forest land to make a variety of wood products.  County commissioners and staff recently toured sawmills and biomass plants in the region to gather ideas for the future facility.  Chelan County Natural Resources Director Mike Kaputa says they’ll look to develop a hybrid type of plant, based on what they saw.  “I wouldn’t say that we saw any one facility that we thought was perfect for Chelan County, but some combination of those things we ..read more

You can click on the above photo once and get a much better view.  The big red blob on the Nevada wildfire map is Spring Creek Nevada. Spring Creek, NV pop. 15,062 Rural Capacity: 50 out of 100 13th percentile in the U.S. Wildfire Risk to Homes: 100th percentile in the U.S. So I wondered what the landscape looked like for an area with the 100th percentile for wildfire risk.   This is not a critique of Headwaters, as they used the Forest Service’s (and not First Street’s) Wildfire Risk to Communities map. I think groups who develop maps think that they will be useful ..read more

Inquiring minds might wonder why there has been only limited use of TFPA and GNA in this area, compared to other places, and how (or if) this bill would help that (other than providing funding?) **************************   Jon posted this news story in a comment yesterday, and I think it’s innovative enough to deserve its own post. We’ve talked about what “co-management” means, and how it’s interpreted.  I think we have to look very specifically at what is meant.  Let’s develop a range of options- these are just some.   Talking more? Sharing information? Using tradit ..read more

Article in the4 NY Times today. I hope this link works — I’m allowed to “gift” articles…. They Shoot Owls in California, Don’t They? An audacious federal plan to protect the spotted owl would eradicate hundreds of thousands of barred owls in the coming years. Excerpt: Crammed into marginal territories and bedeviled by wildfires, northern spotted owl populations have declined by up to 80 percent over the last two decades. As few as 3,000 remain on federal lands, compared with 11,000 in 1993. In the wilds of British Columbia, the northern spotted owl has vanished; only one, a female, remains. If ..read more