For the benefit of the interested general public, W.I.S.E. herein presents news clippings from other media outlets. Please be advised: a posting here does not necessarily constitute or imply W.I.S.E. agreement with or endorsement of any of the content or sources.
October 17, 2007 | Comments Off | Topic: Latest Forest News
WASHINGTON, May 9, 2008 [here]
Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell today announced the appointment of Tom Peterson as the Director of Forest Management. This position is responsible for guiding activities to maintain and improve the health, diversity and productivity of the National Forest system.
“Tom brings a wealth of on-the-ground experiences and innovative approaches for integrated resources management to assure forest health and productivity,” said Kimbell. “I look forward to working with him in his new role.”
Since March of this year Peterson has served as Acting Regional Forester for the Southern Region of the Forest Service. He has been the Deputy Regional Forester for Natural Resources in the Southern Region since August of 2005.
Peterson began his career on the Ottawa National Forest in Michigan in 1973. He later worked on the Chequamegon National Forest, Mark Twain National Forest, and Superior National Forest in the Eastern Region. In 1994 he accepted a position in the Eastern Regional Office on the Forest Management Staff until 1998 when he moved to the Forest Management Staff in Washington, D.C.
In 2001, Peterson was named Regional Director for Forest Management in the Southern Region, based in Atlanta, until he was selected for the Deputy Regional Forester for Natural Resources.
Born and raised in Minneapolis, MN, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Forest Management from the University of Minnesota in 1972.
He is expected to report to his new assignment in early July, 2008.
May 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Portland jury on Monday ordered Weyerhaeuser to pay almost $28 million for unlawfully monopolizing the market for finished alder lumber [here].
The award will be tripled under federal antitrust laws.
“We are very disappointed with the verdict,” said Sandy D. McDade, Weyerhaeuser senior vice president and general counsel. “We are confident it will be reversed on appeal because last year the U.S. Supreme Court decided in our favor a case presenting virtually identical issues. We fully expect that the Court of Appeals will apply that precedent.
“Our business conduct has been and remains within the spirit and letter of the law, and we will continue to vigorously defend this case.”
Morelock Enterprises Inc. of Bend filed the suit four years ago and it was later granted class-action status. The plaintiffs could not be reached for comment late Monday.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year tossed out a $79 million judgment against Weyerhaeuser. In that suit, a Vancouver, Wash., company convinced an Oregon jury that Weyerhaeuser paid too much for alder logs it didn’t need, with the goal of driving competitors out of business.
This class-action lawsuit was filed while that case was under appeal.
Morelock alleged that by controlling the logs, Weyerhaeuser was able to monopolize the market for finished alder, the Northwest’s leading hardwood lumber that is used in furniture and specialty products such as guitars.
Weyerhaeuser, based in Federal Way, Wash., is one of the world’s largest forest products companies. Sales last year were $16.3 billion.
April 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey will be in Missoula on Monday to answer questions about controversial closed door talks between the U.S. Forest Service and the Plum Creek Timber Company.
Rey says the talks have merely clarified old forest road use agreements, guaranteeing Plum Creek access across public land for all purposes, including real estate development.
But some say they’re worried that the easement negotiations could pave the way for extensive real estate sales in what is now working timberland.
Rey will meet with county commissioners from across western Montana, as well as with the public, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Monday at Missoula’s Holiday Inn Downtown at the Park.
Plum Creek is the country’s largest private landowner, with 8 million acres nationwide and 1.2 million acres in Montana.
Overall, the company says that some two million of those acres are targeted for sale in coming years across the U.S. … [more]
April 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, The Star Online [here]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mountain pine beetles that are destroying forests along much of the Rocky Mountain range are doing so much damage that they may affect climate change, Canadian researchers reported on Wednesday.
The damage is nearly equivalent to the polluting effects of forest fires, they report in the journal Nature.
“In the worst year, the impacts resulting from the beetle outbreak in British Columbia were equivalent to 75 percent of the average annual direct forest fire emissions from all of Canada during 1959-1999,” Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria, British Columbia and colleagues wrote.
Usually, a forest is a carbon “sink,” soaking up carbon dioxide that would otherwise affect the atmosphere and help hold in heat.
The beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, changed that. Dead trees release carbon as they rot, and of course fail to use carbon dioxide as they would if alive.
Read more
April 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Climate News, Latest Forest News
From ABC Alaska News [here]
Alaska Women in Timber, former Ketchikan City Council member and a co-founder of Alaska Cruise Lecturers Helen Finney died Feb. 25, 2008, in Ketchikan. She was 79.
She was born Helen Ruth Yaw on Nov. 9, 1928, in Sitka, to Caroline (Witzigman) Yaw and Les Yaw, a director of the Sheldon Jackson School during the 1930s and ’40s, and later, manager of the Sitka Pioneers Home.
She attended Sitka High School, Cornell College of Iowa and Washington State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in communications.
She also was a teacher, cruise lecturer, political activist and advocate for Alaska who lectured on Southeast history and geography for 30 years. Her community service also included stints on the Alaska State Board on Post-secondary Education, Alaska State Parks Advisory Board, Ketchikan Children’s Home board, Ketchikan Gateway Borough Planning Commission, and the board of directors of Ketchikan community radio station KRBD.
While at WSU, she met Don Finney, a forestry major at the nearby University of Idaho. He had spent a summer working on the green chain at the Ketchikan Spruce Mill and had decided to return to Alaska when he graduated. They were married on Dec. 18, 1951, at the Sitka Presbyterian Church. … [more]
April 14, 2008 | 6 Comments | Topic: Latest Forest News
Dorothy English, the “poster child” for property rights in Oregon, passed away Thursday at the age of 95.
Mrs. English gained statewide notoriety for her long battle to regain the rights to use her property that were taken by the State of Oregon and Multnomah County. She served as a spokesperson for Ballot Measure 37 (2004), the landmark property rights measure approved by Oregon voters in 2004, and was the first person to file a Measure 37 claim.
Eventually, Mrs. English secured a $1,150,000 judgment against Multnomah County for the loss to the value of her property caused by Multnomah County regulations. To date, Multnomah County has not paid the judgment, and the case is on appeal to the Oregon Court of Appeals.
Dorothy leaves behind a daughter and son-in-law and many grandchildren. She touched the lives of many Oregonians, who will all miss her dearly.
April 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
By Bob Zybach, Opinion, Eugene Register Guard
For Oregonians with a strong interest in doing something about global warming and climate change, the logical starting point is our forests. That is where most of the carbon is, and where the most immediate and profound actions can take place to affect statewide carbon dioxide emissions.
Here are five practices that can be implemented within a few months or years. These practices would achieve dramatic results in Oregon’s efforts to address this issue: 1) Prevent forest fires by rapid response and 2) by mechanical thinning to reduce ladder fuels, 3) by salvaging dead trees, 4) by planting new trees and 5) by creating log banks. … [more]
April 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Climate News, Latest Forest News
Forest Service gets back to work on forest plan
By K.C. Mehaffey, World staff writer, March 20, 2008 [here]
WENATCHEE — The Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests will soon resume work on its Forest Plan — the document that guides what happens on the national forest over the next 15 years — a year after the process was put on hold due to a court decision.
Last March, a ruling in U.S. District Court in San Francisco overturned a Bush Administration policy that allowed forests to develop new forest plans without a lengthy environmental review.
The Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, which started developing its new Forest Plan in 2003, was using the new policy to revise forest plans adopted for the Wenatchee National Forest in 1990, the Okanogan National Forest in 1989 and the Colville National Forest in 1988.
A new planning rule, expected to be published in the Federal Register next week in response to the court ruling, will allow each individual national forest to determine which level of environmental review is necessary, said Margaret Hartzell, the Forest Plan revision leader for the forests.
“What we will do, when we revise the Forest Plan, is we will use the appropriate level of NEPA documentation to do that,” she said.
That means the plan could require an environmental impact statement, or it could be reviewed through an environmental analysis or a categorical exclusion, which are lower levels of scrutiny than the EIS.
“We are going to honor and pay attention to … what people have provided to us for the past couple of years, and we will be coming back and talking to even more people over the next year,” she said.
The team now hopes to have a draft Forest Plan ready for review by November, she said, and a final plan could be adopted in late 2009.
Debbie Kelly, spokeswoman for the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, said the Forest Service will soon begin to schedule public meetings to continue the planning effort. Those interested in becoming involved can provide contact information through the Forest Plan Web site or at the Forest Service office in Okanogan, 1240 S. Second Ave., Okanogan, 98840.
March 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
Cites administration’s failure on issues of rural Oregon
By KATHY GRAY, The Dalles Chronicle, March 28, 2008
Oregon Sen. Ted Ferrioli (R-John Day) resigned in protest Thursday from the Federal Forest and County Services Taskforce.
“The [taskforce] has done nothing to move forward on solutions that will work in rural Oregon, and instead has concerned itself with revenue restructuring ideas, which if adopted, will drive tax increases far beyond the capacity of citizens residing in damaged rural counties,” Ferrioli wrote in a letter to Gov. Ted Kulongoski dated March 27.
In a related press release, Ferrioli said the governor, the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate have given “lip service” to rural Oregon, but turned their backs on the threats it faces.
“When I heard someone on the taskforce float a ‘trial balloon’ for a proposal for a statewide property tax, I knew it was time to walk,” Ferrioli said.
He described the taskforce as an “exercise in misdirection.”
The Federal Forests and County Services Taskforce was convened by the Governor to develop “recommendations regarding administrative, budgetary, statutory and, if necessary, constitutional changes needed to provide stable and adequate funding for the provision of essential services at the county level,” according to the Governor’s executive order 07-21 creating the task force. … [more]
March 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
by Gary Jason, Liberty Unbound [here]
A review of Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health, by John Berlau. Nelson Current, 2006, 250 pages.
For the last half century, the environmentalist movement has been a dominant influence on the cultural and political scene. This is widely viewed as a blessing, whose progressive result has been without exception the improvement of our society. John Berlau has written a book aimed at kicking that smug sense of green achievement smack in the teeth.
Gary Jason is an adjunct professor of philosophy and a contributing editor to Liberty. He is the author of Critical Thinking: Developing an Effective World View and Introduction to Logic.
Berlau makes a sharp and vigorous presentation of the view that the environmentalist movement has had some very unfortunate consequences. He begins by reviewing the history of the successful campaign by environmentalist organizations to demonize DDT and other pesticides. DDT was first discovered in the 1870s and found to be a potent insecticide in the 1930s. But it was the U.S. military that pushed its mass production at the outbreak of World War II. With the troops facing both malaria and typhus — which had killed millions in World War I — the army knew it had to find some way to combat the vectors, i.e., the disease-carrying insects (lice and mosquitoes). It gave the assignment to Merck, and one of Merck’s top chemists (Joseph Jacobs) was able to set up a plant to mass produce DDT. Starting in 1943, DDT was widely used; it stopped a number of wartime typhus epidemics.
It was then used worldwide in the 1950s and early 1960s to stop malaria, which it almost eliminated. But after Rachel Carson’s popular book “Silent Spring” (1962), in which she alleged that DDT and other pesticides were killing wildlife and hinted that they were causing cancer in people, DDT was banned. As Berlau notes:
In 1948, Sri Lanka had 2.8 million cases of malaria. By 1963, after years of DDT use, that number had dwindled to 17 cases. But then in 1964, U.S. environmentalists and world health bodies convinced Sri Lankan officials to stop spraying. By 1969, the number of malaria cases had shot back up to pre-DDT level of 2.5 million. … [more]
March 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
Jeff Munson, Tahoe Daily Tribune, March 18, 2008
Dozens of recommendations on how to avoid disasters such as last June’s Angora fire will come to a head this week when the California-Nevada Tahoe Basin Fire Commission meets at the South Shore.
With a looming Friday deadline imposed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons, the hand-picked, bi-state commission has met monthly and sometimes twice monthly since August to pore over thousands of documents and hundreds of public comments.
The end result of the commission’s work will be a report that provides recommendations for the protection of those in the Tahoe Basin while preserving the environment, said Todd Ferrara, spokesman for the commission.
At the heart of the matter are recommendations that could change policies or create new ones on how dead and dying trees are removed from the forest and place new responsibilities on homeowners.
The final meetings will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday and at 9 a.m. Friday in the Lake Tahoe Community College boardroom. Final recommendations will be made at Friday’s meeting.
Also at stake is how public agencies such as the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the U.S. Forest Service can put measures in place to remove fire fuels in the basin without causing environmental damage to Lake Tahoe.
Finally, the commission will recommend how both states should pay for these policies.
This week’s gathering represents the last set of formal meetings. After Friday, the 70 or so recommendations will go up for a 30-day public review before being sent to the governors for action. … [more]
March 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Fire News, Latest Forest News
More than 50 environmental organizations have attacked Idaho’s proposed roadless plan, saying that if it is adopted by the Bush administration it could set a bad precedent for roadless areas in other states.
In a report released Thursday, the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups looked at how management of Idaho’s roadless areas would change if the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule developed by the Clinton administration was replaced by the new plan. …
The 2001 rule banned road building and logging on 58 million acres of remote national forests, mostly in the West. Idaho’s total of 9.3 million acres of roadless areas is second to Alaska, where 14.8 million acres are designated as roadless.
The Bush administration in 2005 allowed states to opt out of the 2001 rule. States were told they could petition the federal government with their own plans.
Idaho submitted its plan in 2006. At a January public hearing in Washington, D.C., Lt. Gov. Jim Risch said the Idaho plan would protect remote forests while allowing some activities in areas that should never have been designated as road-free in the first place.
A federal plan for Idaho closely follows the state’s proposal. It could be adopted this fall, said David Hensley, counsel to Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter. … [more]
March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
By Boaz Neumann, Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel [here]
“How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment and Nation in the Third Reich (Ecology and History)” by Franz-Josef Brueggemeier, Mark Cioc and Thomas Zeller, Ohio University Press, 288 pages, $22.95
“The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (Studies in Environment and History)” by Frank Uekoetter, Cambridge University Press, 246 pages, $23.99
Nazism and ecology? The Nazi party as a green movement? At first glance such analogies seem ridiculous, absurd, outrageous. In 1985, historian Anna Bramwell published a book in which she claimed outright that the Nazi party was a “green party.” She focused on Richard Walther Darre, the agricultural minister of Nazi Germany, and his “Blut und Boden” (”blood and soil”) ideology. Darre, wrote Bramwell, was the head of the “green” faction of the Nazi party, which greatly influenced the thinking of leading Nazis, among them Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. Bramwell called Darre the “father of the greens” for his support of organic agriculture, restrictions on the use of mechanized farming methods, and so on. In its time, if I am not mistaken, the book was quite esoteric.
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In recent years, however, a growing number of articles and books, primarily academic texts, have been written on the subject. One of the more dominant titles is “How Green Were the Nazis?” In other words, the question “Were the Nazis green?” has already been answered. Another book with a no-less- provocative name is “The Green and the Brown.” Brown, for those who have forgotten, was associated with the Nazis because it was the color of the shirts worn by their stormtroopers.
So this is clearly a difficult and emotional subject, like all historical and historiographic issues related to Nazism. Were the Nazis “green,” and if so, how green? What does that say about them? Does it change our perception of their crimes? In what light does this place the green movement and ecological activism in the 20th century?
In July 1935, Germany’s Nazi regime headed by Adolf Hitler passed the Reich Nature Protection Law. It was one of the most progressive laws of its time. First of all, it was a federal law that applied to the whole country and not just a local ordinance, as had been customary in the past. It was also unprecedented in scope: The law protected nature and the environment in the name of the German people and for their sake, and prevented damage that might have been caused by economic development in undeveloped areas. Anyone whose actions were liable to harm nature or alter the landscape in any significant way, such as developers and building contractors, had to obtain permission from the Reich nature protection office. This legislation also protected bridges, roads, buildings and other landmarks perceived as having German historical-cultural value. It imposed restrictions on advertisements that marred the landscape and, in some cases, banned them altogether. In Britain, legislation of this scope was only introduced after World War II, and in France, as late as the 1960s. … [more]
March 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
A new study has found that California wildfires emit more greenhouse gases than previously believed largely through the post-fire decay of dead wood, a finding that is raising questions about how effective the state’s forests are at storing carbon and slowing global warming.
The study by Thomas Bonnicksen, a retired forestry professor at Texas A&M University, found that four major wildfires – from the Fountain fire near Redding in 1992 to the Angora blaze at Lake Tahoe last year – are responsible for the release of 38 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, far more than the 2 million tons the state estimates that fires produce on average each year.
“Up until now, we have not fully appreciated the magnitude of the impact of wildfires on climate change,” Bonnicksen said. “This is a very important part of the problem.”
His study, which is not peer-reviewed and has been found lacking by some, is one of a flurry of reports that have begun to explore the critical role that forests play in regulating carbon dioxide, the principal atmospheric gas responsible for global warming. Traditionally, forests have been viewed as green reservoirs of landlocked carbon, soaking up and storing CO2 from the atmosphere in their leaves, needles, roots and soil.
Bonnicksen’s study casts that view into question. Forests today are so overcrowded with spindly, unhealthy trees – partly the result of decades of fire suppression – that as they burn and decay they are turning into an actual source of greenhouse gas pollution.
His study, for example, estimates emissions from just one blaze alone last year, the Moonlight fire in Plumas County, at more than 19.6 million tons, three-quarters of which are expected to occur over the next century as trees killed by the fire decay. That much carbon is roughly equivalent to the emissions from 3.6 million cars for a year.
Overall, California fires are producing so much CO2, he said, that they will defeat the state’s pioneering efforts to respond to climate change by reducing emissions elsewhere.
“No matter what anybody does in California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as long as these forests are burning, they are wasting their time,” Bonnicksen said. … [more]
For the full text of Dr. Bonnicksen’s reports, see W.I.S.E. Forest and Fire Science [here]
March 15, 2008 | 1 Comment | Topic: Latest Climate News, Latest Fire News, Latest Forest News
