-
- Welcome to the Landscape,
your show about America's parks and public lands.
I'm Erin Weiss with the Center
for Western Priorities in an unseasonably warm
Denver, Colorado today.
- And I'm Kate Retinger in Salt Lake City,
where it also is pretty warm, but the air is clear.
So yay for that. Today's episode is a
little different than usual.
It's a quick check-in
with a forest expert on the recent news
that the Biden administration is taking steps
to protect old growth forests.
Our guest today is Dr.
Dominic Dalala, chief scientist at Wild Heritage, a project
of the Earth Island Institute.
We had Dr. Della on the pod back in June
to talk about the Biden administration's efforts
to protect old growth forests.
At the time, the Forest Service had just released data
that it had found more than 32 million acres
of old growth forests remain intact on public
lands in the United States.
The administration took a big step
to protect those trees this week with the announcement
that it plans to ban commercial logging in all old growth
forests on federal land.
Thanks for being here, Dr. Dalala.
- Yeah, thanks for having me on your show again.
- So, first off, how big of a deal is this announcement?
- You know, I think it's really great
that the Biden administration has recognized the importance
of older forests and the nation's, uh, federal lands.
It's a long time coming, you know, we're down to
so little left proportionate to the rest
of the forest landscape that has been heavily logged,
that these are really the anchor points of biodiversity
and clean drinking water and climate stabilization.
So they're absolutely critical in
how the nation addresses climate change, in addition
to getting off of fossil fuels by treating these forests
as natural climate solutions.
Now, having said that, while it's an important step forward,
there are many questions that are really concerning to me
that, that at this point of the announcement,
perhaps they have not gone far enough
in what's really needed to ensure
that these forests are protected for future generations.
I'm just not convinced yet.
Well, uh, there is language in there about exemptions
that allow for quote,
ecologically appropriate timber harvest, uh, and end quote.
And, you know, I kind of look at it this way.
Uh, I've been to the Louvre in Paris
and I would never dream about going in there
with a paintbrush trying to fix the Mona Lisa.
Why would you need to go into an old forest
where the chainsaw thinking it needs to be fixed?
There's no cause
or reason ecologically for any kind
of commercial timber harvest inside these forests.
It's can you just restrain yourself
and appreciate the beauty
and the benefits that we get uniquely from these forests.
They don't need the kind of management that the areas
that have already been logged need,
which is restoration and a lot of love.
All we need to do with these forests is
let them do their thing.
- So I think that gets up my next question, which was, from
what I read about the announcement,
it sounds like the Forest Service will still allow thinning
for fire control.
And it sounds like that's a, that's a problem.
- I I think it is because it's based on this failed policy,
uh, writ large that, you know, the agency's throwing, uh,
millions of dollars into thinning and fire suppression
and yet acres burning are, are, are going up.
And it's because the climate change signal is
overwhelming anything that's going on the ground.
And so in the process of trying to tame fires,
they're putting more emissions into the atmosphere than the
fires themselves, which is causing this feedback
between extreme fire weather and logged areas.
So these are the last places you wanna go and tinker.
There are plenty places in the industrial logged areas
that need, uh, restoration and better care.
These older forests burn in lower fire intensities
and act as climate strongholds.
So they don't need the kind of tinkering
that the degraded areas are in need of.
And yet this is where the priority is. It's misplaced.
- So what about controlled burns in
these old growth forests?
Are there places where there may have been natural wildfire,
but for the suppression policies
over the last a hundred years?
- Yeah, I think you could do prescribed burning
and certainly cultural burning practice from indigenous
people would be compatible with forest conservation
and the use of in, of, of cultural resources
by the indigenous communities, totally in support of that.
But we also have got to work with fire
for ecosystem benefits under the right conditions
when they're not burning or threatening communities.
The only way you're gonna maintain the processes
and the functions in these forests is to work
with those processes.
And we know that when fires burn in these areas,
they're kind of a mosaic burn pattern.
And we see levels of biodiversity in these burned forests
that are comparable to the old growth forests.
So again, no need to tinker, uh, work with wild, uh,
land fire for ecosystem benefits,
but in cases where you want to introduce fire
for some benefits
and especially cultural, that's compatible
with conservation, I believe.
- So switching gears a little bit here.
This is the first time the Forest Service has proposed, um,
simultaneously revising all 128
of its forest management plans.
That's a lot. I mean,
even just revising one management plan is a lot .
Um, do you think the government has the
resources to do this?
- I guess that is yet to be determined , uh,
and they're on a fast track,
and I hope that in the process of doing this,
there's strong enough guidance in there.
I, like I said, I've got concerns
that there are standards in the amendment
that are a little bit stronger than guidance,
but even those standards have exemptions, they allow
for some logging of old growth on the tongass rainforest in
Alaska, which is totally unacceptable.
They really need to be shifting all of the logging out
of old growth and into secondary forests
that already have been logged previously.
There's no need for that exemption.
There are other exemptions in there that, uh,
when you read them on face value, they could be interpreted
as way too much discretion for local, uh,
forest plan revisions
that may not be strong enough on these forest protections.
- So I guess that gets to the question of implementation
and how these plans
and how this old growth rule will be implemented.
Uh, what does that look like, you think over the next year
and what does it look like potentially if there's a change
of administration at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025?
- There's not a lot of time.
And so there are really pushing through some, uh, important
conservation measures in a very short time space.
And I wish there were more time for this to kind
of percolate better, but this is the situation we're in now.
And the hope is that through the public comment period
and input from scientists, uh,
especially independent scientists, they'll be willing
to make some changes to tighten that language.
Now, whether or not it's lasting, you know, depends on
who the next president is
and if it's he that shall not be named, uh,
all betts are off and it could go completely
the opposite direction.
So it's always a risk.
You know, I was involved in the roadless conservation rule
when President Clinton did that in 2000,
and here we are, uh,
23 years later still defending that rule.
It, there's been multiple attempts to weaken it
and it's still standing.
And so my hope is
that the Biden administration will adopt a, a mechanism,
a policy mechanism that can stand the test
of time like the Roadless rule did, despite
who the next administration is.
- Well, that seems like a good place to leave it,
but I do wanna ask, is there anything else you think folks
should know about this news?
- Uh, yeah, I think that this is a good first step.
It's not strong enough to really kind of lead by example.
You know, this administration has done three
really important things.
They, uh, are part of the Paris Climate Agreement,
which includes maintaining stocks of carbon
and reservoirs of carbon.
They also signed onto the Glasgow Forest Pledge
to end forest losses by 2030.
And the president did the 30 by 30 announcement, you know,
protect 30% by 2030.
I don't think that this language goes strong,
is strong enough for any of those pledges and policies.
So they really have got the, tighten this up
to even be consistent with
what the president has laid out previously
and to send a message to the rest of the world
that, Hey, look at us.
We can do this and so can you.
- Awesome. Well, Dr.
Dominic Dalala, chief scientist at Wild Heritage, thank you
so much for being with us again.
- You bet. Thanks again for having me on.
- Alright, we are gonna keep this one short today,
but we will leave you with a little good news
for the holidays, which is that Colorado has officially
reintroduced wolves.
Colorado wildlife officials captured five wolves in Oregon
and flew them to Colorado for release.
The wolves include two juvenile females, two juvenile males,
and one adult male.
The wolves are expected to immediately disperse from
that release site, travel up to 70 miles,
and stay on the move for several weeks
until they find their new homes.
These wolves are the first of up to 50 that are expected
to be released over the next three to five years.
Colorado parks and wildlife plans to release up
to 10 wolves from Oregon between December and March
before restarting releases next winter.
This is, as you'll recall,
the first voter mandated wolf reintroduction
in the United States.
- That's right. Best of luck to those wolves.
Um, unfortunately their names are things like B 5 92 6,
so hopefully folks will come up with some better names
for them and we can cheer them on.
- You know, I'm, I'm okay with that.
It is at the end of the day, science, they're not
- .
Fair enough.
That's all for today's episode.
If you like this quick news analysis format,
please let us know at podcast@westernpriorities.org.
We could definitely make this a more regular thing.
- Thanks again to Dr.
DLA Sala for taking time to talk with us.
Thank you for listening to the landscape
and wherever you are, I hope you have a very happy holiday.