Increased global forest density necessitates more forest management

Environmental Research Web published a report last month based on U.S. and European research concluding that global "Forest Density is Increasing." This substantiates the argument that Indirect Land Use Change is a speculative theory because increased forest density can mitigate the impacts of deforestation - particularly in large forests like Brazil's. If we can sustainably grow and manage forests that have increased density or develop best practices that improve the health and yield of forests (just as we can with food and energy crops) then minor variations in the use of acres becomes a meaningless concern.

Unfortunately, many in the North American environmental community will conclude that the study results prove something else. They believe that, by obstructing forest industry development and enforcing a more laissez-faire attitude toward forests, that forests will cure themselves of the "exploitive invasion" by the forest products industry.

Almost everyone agrees that that an end to active fire suppression decades ago in North America has resulted in more forest density. However, the challenge and responsibility of maintaining forest health is more important now than ever before. Is it safe to have unmanaged forests with 400-600 trees per acre when, properly thinned, it is much healthier and fire resistant at 100?

What is the value of a carbon sink if it (and its diverse habitats) can be lost to megafires and beetle kill? These disasters have grown substantially since 2000 in North America - in acreage and intensity. One can believe that "natural conditions" will fix forests but if that same person believes that 39% more carbon in the atmosphere compared to the pre-Industrial era compromises natural conditions then a laissez-faire attitude toward forest health is pure negligence.

Increased density of our forests makes it imperative that we exercise more forest management. The academics (UC/Berkeley), agencies (USDA/Forest Service and the Woody Biomass Utilization Group), and associations I belong to (TAPPI, SAF, ACORE) all tell me that the key to improving forest management is building more "infrastructure." They define infrastructure to mean forest products facilities, including biopower plants and biorefineries, that can convert forest thinnings into products, power, and fuels.

These products that have the added carbon cycle benefit of reducing greenhouse gases from combusting coal and oil distillates. More infrastructure will also provide important disaster response alternatives for managing forest salvage from hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts - all anticipated to rise with global climate change.

I wrote about a 2008 study of 4 wildfires in California and the carbon consequences of active vs. inactive forest management as carried out by private vs. federal managers (see Links between California Wildfires and GHG emissions). The data analysis from this study raises some important questions relevant to our perception of the best way to manage forests before and after high density fuelwood accumulation.

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technorati BIOstock, biomass, agriculture, forestry

Evergreen no more?

"We must always consider the environment and people together, as though they are one, because the human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on Earth."
- Jim Petersen, Editor, Evergreen Magazine 1989

So opens the Evergreen website, an online resource for archives of the the Evergreen magazine. Started in 1986, articles about forestry, biological diversity, forest health, and wildfires have graced the pages of this singular, often plaintive voice in the forest wilderness. An example...

"To see what will happen next in eastern Oregon, look at what is already happening in northern Arizona and New Mexico. Federal forests in both states have been devastated by catastrophic wildfire in recent years. But because there is no wood processing infrastructure left in the Southwest, neither state possesses the structural nor financial means to mediate their forest health problems. And until the Congress decides to stop paying environmental groups to sue the socks off the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, there is zero chance that new infrastructure investments will be made in the region, despite quite valiant Forest Service efforts to recruit wood processing businesses.

"Many environmentalists know this, and are worrying aloud on their own websites about the loss of credibility they are suffering as urban support for thinning in at risk forests tops 80% nationally. While we applaud their more conciliatory voices, environmentalists have no way of controlling their own radical fringes."

The magazine preceded the establishment Evergreen Foundation whose mission is to help advance public understanding and support for science-based forest policies and practices. I became aware of this publication and its editor, Jim Petersen, when I received a copy of a speech Jim gave to the Montana Loggers Association last week (available for download here). He introduced his speech with the same combination of chagrin and optimism that motivates me.

"So much is at stake and so few seem to get it – the “it” here being the fact that Montana’s timber industry is teetering on the brink of collapse at the precise same moment when it ought to be laying the cornerstone for its own bright future.

"I want to talk about the elephants in the room that no one else ever seems to want to talk about. This being the case, I decided on the following title: “When you are up to your armpits in elephants, it is difficult to remember that your original job was to drain the swamp."

"And no mistake, we are all mired in a swamp. And we are up to our armpits in elephants. But I think I finally see a way out of the muck and mire that has been sucking us into the abyss for so many years. And the way out – the route to a better future – is biomass. So I am going to talk about biomass too.

Jim lists 22 different elephants. Here are a few of the most interesting:

"Elephant No. 1 is the one that perennially irritates me the most: Congress. It’s bad enough that Congress continues to twiddle its thumbs while the West burns to the ground. Worse though is the current debate over whether to include federal biomass in renewable energy legislation that is slowly making its way through Congress. If you wonder where this insanity begins, I’ll tell you. It begins with an unholy alliance between Elephant No. 2, several large pulp and paper producers, and Elephant No.3, the Natural Resources Defense Council. Elephant No.3 doesn’t want federal biomass to be included in the energy standard because it fears resurgence in the timber industry that it loves to hate. Elephant No. 2, the pulp and paper producers, are in league with Elephant No. 3 because they fear that including federal biomass in the legislation will drive up the price of fiber.

"I’ve got news for Elephant No. 2. Your problem is far more serious than whatever competitive headwinds you may face if federal biomass is included in federal renewable energy legislation. Your problem is that you aren’t competitive on the global pulp and paper stage. You are being eaten alive by Scandinavian companies that are investing billions of dollars in South America, where land, labor and regulatory costs are a fraction of what they are in the U.S.; where pulp mills actually sit in the middle of plantations, not 40 or 50 miles away from them, and where trees reach pulp-size maturity in 5-7 years.

"Imagine my horror on learning that some of the biggest publicly traded forest products companies in the country were working furiously behind the scenes to sabotage the Bush Administration’s Healthy Forests Restoration Act. Why? Because they saw the thinnings that forest restoration would yield as competition for their own wood – and their fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders, not the nation’s dead and dying federal forests. It’s the same in pulp and paper. These companies – all of them publicly traded – have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, not to you, not to me and not to the economic or social well being of our country. Those fiduciary responsibilities, those trust obligations, reside in our elected officials."

"Some people believe this new elephant – he is Elephant No. 6 – is a good for nothing slacker and doesn’t care if he ever brings us any wood. But I think they are wrong. I think Elephant No. 6 – we’ll call him Woody for lack of a better name – I think this new elephant whose last name is Biomass would like to show us what he can do, if only the Congress will let him.

"It is long past time for the Congress to give Woody Biomass, No. 6 in our string of elephants, the legitimate chance he needs to show us what he can do in our dead and dying federal forests. Let’s stop fiddling around on 10 or 20 or 100-acre show-and-tell plots; let’s put Woody to work on tracts of federal forestland that are large enough to make a difference both ecologically and economically.

"Some of you have heard me say that I think it is time for our nation to return its national forests to Indian tribes from whom we stole them more in the 1800s. I still believe this, but I don’t think it will happen in the near term, if ever. Nor do I believe that the Forest Service is to blame for our current state of affairs. The Forest Service is a public agency – albeit one that has wandered far from its original mission. Today, it serves at the behest of political parties and special interest groups that have vastly different visions for the future of our nation’s publicly-owned forests.

"My cynicism aside, the climate change debate gives us an unprecedented opportunity to argue the case for managing our federal forests in ways that increase their carbon storage capacity, no matter its source, no matter the guilty party, no matter the amount.

"I want to have this debate with every environmentalist in the country, because if we are really serious about replacing air polluting fossil fuels with lesser polluting renewable fuels, including solar, wind and woody biomass, and if we are serious about reducing CO2 levels in our atmosphere, we simply cannot ignore this next elephant that is standing quietly in our midst, waiting to be recognized. He is Elephant No. 13, and he possesses the miraculous ability to transform carbon dioxide into wood fiber through a process called photosynthesis – a process that powers itself with the free, non-polluting energy of the sun. He can thus increase the carbon storage capacity of our federal forests.

"Yet despite his miraculous powers, our Photosynthesis Elephant will need our help, and he will need the help of No. 6, our new Forest Service elephant. Working as a team, which is what elephants do best, they can design perpetual thinning and stand tending programs capable of increasing the carbon storage capacity of our federal forests while, at the same time, decreasing the billions of tons of pollutants that wildfires spew into our earth’s atmosphere every year.

"I emphasize the word “perpetual” because we cannot thin our forests once and expect that they will magically hold themselves in perfect balance until the end of time. They won’t – because there is no steady state in nature. Chaos is constant, and everywhere. But we can limit nature’s wild swings by dedicating ourselves to the constant task of forest stewardship – the thinning and stand tending work that we must do if our forests are to provide the long list of things that we Americans want and need."

I highly recommend reading the Spring 2006 issue of Evergreen with the feature article written by Dave Skinner titled "Ring of FIre." It is difficult to read about the demise of forest product mills at the same time that the forests are so unhealthy. Even worse is the realization that this article was written a full two years before the current economic collapse - which imperils the future of all the mills that remain.

What will become of the forests? What impact there be on the communities that have been stewards of our forests? What will be the climate change consequences of this demise?

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technorati biomass, forestry

The Forest Service and Climate Change

The Forest Service has put together a 12 minute video titled The Forest Service and Climate Change that encapsulates some of the mounting concern for the impact of global warming on the health of our forests, the ability of forests to counteract its progress, and how the Forest Service plans to deal with it.
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technorati biomass, forestry

Links between California Wildfires and GHG emissions

"Reducing wildfires maybe the single most important action we can take in the short-term to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming." - Dr. Tom Bonnicksen

Dr. Tom Bonnicksen, a professor at Texas A&M and author of "America's Ancient Forests: from the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery" is a staunch advocate for restoring our forests to a healthier condition. That shouldn't make him controversial but it does because he advocates what many environmental groups consider "heretical" means to achieve this objective - removing excess biomass through forest thinning, salvaging of dead and dying trees, and reforestation on a massive scale. Recognizing such restorative steps will require the building of temporary roads and the re-introduction of forest product industries to buy the wood, he has drawn criticism from environmental groups, including coordinated attempts to question his academic credentials.


Above is a historic chart produced by the National Interagency Fire Center that plots the disturbing rise in wildfire acreage nationwide in the last 50 years. This doesn't register the growth of intensity of fires which are believed to be at unprecedented ferocity producing even more GHG. The trend line shows the legacy of the last ten years when litigious obstruction by environmental groups of planned USDA Forest Service projects has been the most vigorous - delaying remedial public forest programs.

To circulate his interpretation to a broader audience, Dr. Bonnicksen published a very professional 52-page booklet titled "Protecting Communities and Saving Forests: Solving the Wildfire Crisis through Restoration Forestry." It should be required reading for all environmental policy makers in California because it clearly states how the state has arrived at a condition of ever increasing wildfires and suggests sensible actions to mitigate the problem.

Taking his research a step further, Dr. Bonnicksen has just released a new study entitled "Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Four California Wildfires: Opportunities to Prevent and Reverse Environmental and Climate Impacts" which draws the connection between GHG and forest fires. Without restorative action, fires will get worse and greenhouse gas emissions will increase. With action, not only will the growth of forest fires and bug infestations likely be held in check, but more carbon will be sequestered, correcting the imbalance created by the original fires.

A key to understanding the urgency for remedial action is recognition that GHG doesn't just come from the combustion and smoke of the original fire - that only accounts for 25% of the emissions. The other 75% comes during the period of decay of the affected forest. According to his research of four representative fires, initial combustion plus eventual decay emissions represent the equivalent of adding 7 million cars to California's roadways for 1 year!

The study also paints a revealing picture of the difference in GHG impact between responsive action by private timberland owners versus the publicly-obstructed remedies proposed by the federal government. Because of fierce anticipated public opposition, the Forest Service has no know plans to plant trees on burned areas of the Tahoe area Angora fire - consequently 0% of the total CO2 emitted will eventually be recovered from plantings. Contrast this with the Fountain Fire where 100% of the privately owned burned land was replanted. The study estimates that 99.2% of the original lost C02 will be recovered.

Here is an abstract written by The Forest Foundation on their website where free copies of the study is available for download:

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Wildfires, Forests and Climate Change
California wildfires release millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year. Conversely, sustainable forest management removes greenhouse gases from the air, stores carbon in wood products and regenerates landscapes in a perpetual cycle of carbon sequestration. The Forest Foundation developed the Forest Carbon and Emission Model (FCEM) to help clarify the relationships between wildfires, forest management and greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Four California Wildfires: Opportunities to Prevent and Reverse Environmental and Climate Impacts

In the report above, the FCEM presents details of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with four California wildfires. It estimates the total emissions from combustion and decay, provides comparisons to autos and other emission sources, and notes the potential value of reforestation to recapture gases released from wildfire. This report considers the Angora, Moonlight, Star and Fountain fires.

Forest Foundation Study Finds Four Wildfires Send 38 Million Tons Of Harmful Gases Into Air, Equivalent Of 7 Million Cars On The Road For One Year In California

The Forest Carbon and Emission Model Overview and Technical Information

The FCEM report above considers site characteristics like vegetation type, density, mortality, acres burned, and other factors to estimate emission totals. The FCEM Overview and Technical Information report explains the inputs and methodologies used to drive the model.

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technorati BIOstock, biomass, wildfires, forestry

Senators: "Wildfires are a climate change issue, too."

It is interesting to see the lengths that state and federal governments will go trying to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases: higher CAFE standards mandating increased mpg for automobiles, renewable portfolio standards that provide incentives for using renewable energy in place of fossil fuels, regulations on air conditioning systems and semi cab designs, etc. But efforts to reduce a profound source of greenhouse gases, seems to fall on deaf ears, presumeably because thinning forests of fire-producing underbrush, small diameter trees, and dead, infected trees is seen as politically incorrect - pitting "environmental" groups and their litigators against the Forest Service assigned with the responsibility of managing public lands.

Two Republican Senators representing western states that have suffered from significant fires and who sit on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee have testified their concern. Says embattled Senator Larry Craig:

Actively managing forests can lead to a 50 to 60 percent reduction in the numbers of acres lost to wildfires each year. Preventing the forests from burning also ensures that we maintain the forests for the consumption of carbon dioxide from other sources.

Senator Pete Domenici made similar points during testimony last July.

In California - site this year of the worst fire season in the state's history - Senator Feinstein recognizes the magnitude of the growing problem and has fought to secure more funding from the USDA Forest Service to address California's needs. However, that is like putting a bandaid on a problem rather than developing an economically sustainable remedy to address the cause of the fires - failure to thin the dense overgrowth of woody biomass. A true partnership is needed between the government and private industry to build and supply forest product industries that can provide funding for biomass removal and proper forest management.

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Craig: Wild Fires Impacting Our Climate
Hearing misplaces cause and effect

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Idaho Senator Larry Craig called attention today to the impact wildland fires are having on the global environment in a hearing by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The hearing examined the "Impacts of Global Climate Change on Wildfire Activity in the U.S."

As a member of the committee, Craig took the opportunity to point out the apparent chicken-egg scenario at play - do wildfires cause climate change, or does climate change cause wildfires?

"Fires in Idaho will emit more than 12 million metric tons of CO2 this year, compared to only 700,000 metric tons from our electricity generation, or 8.6 million metric tons from all of our automobile use," Craig said. "Wild fires in this country this year released the same amount of greenhouse gases as 12 million automobiles. Preventing fires through active management is certainly more feasible and cost effective than asking 12 million people not to drive."

On average, one acre of burning forest releases six tons of CO2. To date, roughly 8.4 million acres have burned in the U.S., meaning that over 50 million tons of CO2 has been released into the atmosphere. That's the equivalent of 12 million vehicles on the road for one year.

Senator Craig, also a member of the appropriations committee, called for a commitment to spending more on preventative forest management policies, noting that "the U.S. spends only $600 million to manage forests and $2 billion to fight fires. If we spent more of our resources on managing and thinning we'd likely not spend so much fighting fires. We'd also be reducing the amount of greenhouse gases from fires, and increasing the amount of CO2 sequestered by healthy trees."

Craig pushed for the active management of our nation's forests to significantly reduce the numbers of acres burned each year, which in turn would prevent significant emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Craig said, "Forest fires of the magnitude of this year's fires in Idaho and in other Western States emit massive quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Actively managing forests can lead to a 50 to 60 percent reduction in the numbers of acres lost to wildfires each year. Preventing the forests from burning also ensures that we maintain the forests for the consumption of carbon dioxide from other sources."

technorati BIOstock, biomass, forestry, wildfires

Woody Biomass: Fuel for Wildfires

This article contains the text and some images from the first half of a speech I presented at the Energy from Biomass and Waste conference in Pittsburgh, PA on September 27. It leads into the second half of the presentation titled Woody Biomass: Feedstock for BioEnergy which describes the existing and emerging technologies that can utilize woody biomass for the production of bioenergy - heat, steam, electricity, and biofuels. Many of the statistics and photos come from an excellent Forest Foundation publication titled Protecting Communities and Saving Forests.

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Woody Biomass: Fuel for Wildfires

I believe that the conversion of biomass to energy represents not only a sustainable, clean alternative to fossil fuel energy but that implementing these emerging technologies can help us solve environmental and ecological challenges of the new millennium.

This presentation will focus on just one environmental challenge - wildfires in the continental U.S. - and how a robust woody biomass conversion industry can provide tools to lessen the threat to our forests.

There are over 10 million private forest owners in the U.S. Although you could say that the country experienced “deforestation” during its early development, the acreage of forests have not diminished at all during the last 100 years. Forests have provided fuel and created great industries for furniture, construction, and paper - industries that sequester carbon.

Unfortunately, these industries that are now stagnating and, in some cases, staggering under the multiple pressures of cheap imports, crusades against forest use, and timberland sell-offs due to skyrocketing real estate prices.

Added to these pressures is the appropriation of more lands to public ownership shifting responsibility to management by the USDA Forest Service.

Some groups seek to preserve forests, biodiversity, and wildlife habitats by severely limiting access by the forest product industries and, through litigation, micromanaging the public forest services charged with insuring forest health.
I contend that it is simply not economically feasible or sustainable for public agencies to take proper care of forests under these conditions.

Forest health has suffered greatly from wildfires and bug infestations.

Wildfires and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
We all know that healthy forests are capable of sequestering vast amounts of greenhouse gases which is a leading cause of global warming.

But we are just starting to recognize that forests can emit vast amounts of GHG through burning and decaying. Here are some numbers pulled together by the California Air Resources Board comparing the average emissions of major geographic sectors. Notice that wildfire emissions dwarf the volume from the other sources combined!

Satellite photographs taken during the last four years of wildfire’s devastating impacts on public lands provide clear evidence of the extent of this travesty.

In Congressional testimony Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico testified that when the Hayman Fire burned in Colorado in 2002, NASA scientists estimated that the fire was emitting more carbon dioxide in one day than all the vehicles in the United States emitted in a week. It lasted 14 days.

Since 2002 mega-fires have gotten worse.

In 2003 the San Diego Cedar Fire (click to enlarge) was the largest in California history lasting 8 days and consuming an area half the size of Rhode Island. Here is a satellite photo of the emissions - so dense that air traffic control towers in L.A. and San Diego were closed for a period of time.


Simultaneously, a fire was burning in the San Bernardino Mountains, just east of L.A. It lasted two weeks and destroyed more than 1,000 other homes. Fortunately it stopped before reaching resort towns near Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, shown in the upper right corner. If it had it would have decimated evergreen trees that were already sick, dead, or dying from bark beetle infestations - which, incidentally, is what happened in Big Bear two weeks ago. The lakeside community of Fawnskin had to be evacuated by the 15,000 acre fire. The smoke plume from this fire reached far north into Nevada.

Here is what a burned forest looks like (click to enlarge) - charred remains stripped of its leaves and pine needles and in active decay. According to the Forest Foundation the impact of wildfires does not end with the smoke. During decay trees emit about 300% more greenhouse gases than what was emitted during the fire.

Most of the charred remains need to be removed and the lands replanted. Unfortunately, “Nearly four years after fires burned more than 133,000 acres of national forest land in California, less than one percent of those acres have been replanted.”

Just Monday, Senator Craig of Idaho gave testimony in Congress stating that over $2 Billion has been spent this year fighting forest fires while less than $600 million has been spent on preventing them.

Indeed, 2007 has seen a startling upsurge in mega-fires. The Angora Fire, a 3,100 acre blaze in South Lake Tahoe, was responsible for emitting the equivalent of 143,000 cars for an entire year. A blaze 15 times that size devastated Montana.

On July 4th a fire broke out in the Santa Barbara mountains. A week later in Yosemite a satellite photo series was posted throughout the park warning hikers of the health impacts caused by the fire 180 miles away. Driving south through Bakersfield the sun was blotted out by the smoke. The fire lasted another two weeks.

The point is that MORE greenhouse gases are emitted each year from wildfires than we are likely to save in a decade of reduced vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. We can do much better.

Wildfire Impact on Wildlife
They say the road to hell - in this case wildfires - is paved with good intentions. Activists mount crusades and file litigation to protect endangered species which frustrate attempts to fix forest health problems that lead to wildfires.

It is impossible to estimate the impact of wildfires on wildlife but even if the species escape, it leads to overcrowding in surrounding ecologies. But not even mobile animals are immune from the quick moving fires. Like the victims of Pompei most animals die from asphyxiation. Fires can boil streams which kill the fish. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department reports that Georgia’s largest fire ever that started in the Okefenokee Swamp this year was also the most expensive ever for the agency.

The problem of forest density
According to Texas A&M professor Dr. Tom Bonnicksen, a founder of the Forest Foundation, the problem is one of forest density. Our forests have 4 to 10 times as many trees per acre as they used to have. People used to be able to gallop through forests - now it is hard to walk through them or fight fires within them.

Excess forest biomass in the form of small diameter trees, and underbrush create a kindling “ladder of fuel” that helps surface fires spiral up to the crowns of trees. Once there, a fire storm can evolve whipped by winds to spread rapidly in all directions.

Public agencies waste precious funds to fight the wildfires - the symptoms of unhealthy forests - rather than invest it in efforts to restore and manage forest health through thinning. When asked what the biggest hurdle is to deploying thinning programs that are important to restoring forest health, field Forest Service planners say "infrastructure." Without forest product industries to convert the woody biomass to carbon sequestering products and bioenergy, there is no where to store the collected woody biomass and no economically sustainable way to help pay for the program.

To restore forests to a healthy condition, Dr. Bonnicksen recommends a three step, economically sustainable solution that involves private industry who would restore and maintain forest stewardship as part of their operating overhead.
1. First they would harvest decaying biomass
2. Then reforest to a historic model specific to the forest, and
3. Third mechanically thin vulnerable forests of woody biomass as part of their stewardship.

The USDA Forest Service could provide oversight of the program.

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The followup presentation is titled Woody Biomass: Feedstock for BioEnergy

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technorati BIOstock, biomass, forestry

Restoration Forestry and 5 Myths about Wildfires

While conducting some research on the catastrophic "megafires" that have been plaguing the U.S. in recent years and their relationship with forest tree density, I ran across a terrific website that offers free downloadable and printable educational materials appropriate for all ages. It is operated by "The Forest Foundation which was created in 1994 to inform the public, specifically Californians, about the relationship between the environment and human needs."

The Forest Foundation is elevating key points in the forest management debate and building valuable relationships with government officials, educators, and community leaders. We bring forest science to today's students and tomorrow's leaders, and develop on-the-ground solutions to improve forest health throughout the state.

Education must be the agent of change that saves California's forests. More than 90 percent of Californians now live in urban settings, meaning most kids growing up here have little or no experience in the state's forests, rangelands, or farms. The next generation will be essentially disconnected from the natural resources they take for granted every day.

One of the concepts that their site successfully gets across is the counterproductive results of modern fire-suppression and restricted timber harvesting. Our forests are much denser than they were natively. Around Lake Tahoe - which has recently suffered a wildfire that destroyed over 250 homes - the forests are four times denser than they were 150 years ago. Beetle infestations from forest density further endangers tree health, wildlife diversity, and provides even more fuel for wildfires.

Timber harvesting on California's public lands is down about 90% since 1990. Yet demand for timber is up and will continue to rise with population increases. I believe it is hypocritical for Californians to enact "tree-hugger" policies that necessitate outsourcing wood harvesting and processing outside the state - particularly since it is counter-productive to the proper stewardship of our public forests. Our forests have become time-bombs in our midst that will cloud our skies with decades worth of particulate matter and greenhouse gases as they burn, rot, and decay.

Here are two sections from a well-researched, downloadable brochure that details techniques for solving the wildfire crisis through restoration forestry.

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Protecting Communities and Saving Forests
by Thomas M. Bonnicksen, Ph.D

What To Do with the Excess Fuel

There is no doubt that California’s forests are plagued with excess fuels. What remains to be seen is how those fuels are dealt with. We could simply leave it there and watch it burn, we could remove some of it in prescribed burns or we can harvest it and put it to good use.

Clean energy
California’s ongoing energy crunch, goals of deriving more energy from renewable sources, and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state to 1990 levels by 2020 highlight another possible use for excess forest growth: biomass energy.

Biomass energy is produced by burning organic material and converting the heat to electricity or even converting the biomass to fuel for cars. Because trees can be replanted, forest biomass represents a largely untapped source of renewable energy.

Utilizing biomass energy has several advantages, especially when seen in the context of global climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the wildfire threat. Burning fossil fuels to generate energy releases tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Burning biomass to produce energy does not. In fact, biomass energy has a “net zero” carbon impact on the atmosphere.

The more energy we derive from renewable sources like biomass, the less need we have to burn fossil fuels that spew greenhouse gases into the air. Furthermore, the more excess fuels we burn to generate electricity, the less we have to watch burn in catastrophic wildfires.

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5 Myths about Forests and Wildfires

It is important to distinguish between fact and fiction regarding certain myths that may advance agendas but block ecologically sound forest management. Those myths include:

Myth #1: We have to live with catastrophic wildfire. No, we don’t. Managing our forests to reduce fuel loads can make them safe again. Catastrophic wildfire was not a frequent occurrence in California’s historic forests; it need not be frequent today.

Myth #2: Fire is natural and good. There is a world of difference between the low-intensity fires that shaped California’s landscape for thousands of years and the mega-fires that now devastate thousands of acres at a time. Low-level fires cleared the forest floor of debris and regenerated forests. But we have suppressed natural fire for more than 100 years. Wildfires can now feast on unnatural fuel loads, decimate wildlife, sterilize soils and erase forests from the landscape for centuries.

Myth #3: Today’s forests are natural forests. Research and photographic evidence show that California’s modern forests are vastly different from historic forests. Today’s forests are far thicker than their historic predecessors, densely packed with up to 10 times as many trees. Forests have become dangerously overgrown, much to the detriment of wildlife and biodiversity.

Myth #4: Escalating firefighting costs are inevitable. It’s true that average firefighting costs have increased by more than $100 million per year since the early 1990s, but the trend does not have to continue. Spending a fraction of what we spend on fighting fires to manage forests so there are fewer dangerous fires in the first place could save taxpayers millions.

Myth #5: Commercial logging denudes hillsides and kills wildlife. Private forestland owners have proven that modern forest management can provide habitat for diverse wildlife and sustain forests for generations. The most productive forestland in California is privately owned, and research confirms that wildlife and fisheries from salmon and owls to deer and songbirds flourish on managed lands.

technorati BIOstock, biomass, stewardship, forestry

Thinning trees to save ecology

640,000 acres.

That's larger than the state of Rhode Island and is, unfortunately, the current extent of the pine beetle infestation in Colorado as of February, 2007. There is no way to halt it and it will only get worse. The impact on the state's wildlife (not to mention the effect on tourism and the state's economy) is hard to imagine. Similar outbreaks risk forest fires of horrendous proportions in the San Bernardino mountains in Southern California and the much larger infestations in British Columbia.

Growing replacement trees will have to await the removal of dead ones to save wildlife. Finding an economically practical solution may require swift governmental action to spur private development of new solutions.

This ecological emergency requires forestry triage on a massive scale. The Rocky Mountain News carried the original story that led to this entry in the online BCO newsletter of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

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Colorado Seeks Market for Wood Waste from Forest Thinning

As ethanol-from-wood biomass plants open in Georgia, the state of Colorado questions the choice of location. Colorado has been suffering from a pine beetle outbreak for the past four years with 42 percent of Colorado's lodgepole pines infected. One of the largest factors for the outbreak, and one that if addressed could help mitigate the problem, is the accumulation of biomass in Colorado's forests and tree overcrowding. The lowest bid to thin one acre of forests in Summit Count, CO is $1600.

Gary Severson, executive director for the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, said "It's so expensive because there's no market for the wood. And at that price, there's simply not enough public money to thin the forests. The only way to do this is to find some way to add value to this material. With small-diameter lodgepole pine, there aren't a lot of options."

When Range Fuels was asked about its location choice of Georgia for its cellulosic ethanol plant, CEO Mitch Mandich explained that it was the difference between the trees as plantation crops and the already developed timber infrastructure Georgia has to offer. Georgia rain and soil conditions allow trees to grow to ten inch diameters within ten years, much different from Colorado's position. Lynn Young, a retired U.S. Forest Service public information director, explained, "It's too dry here, the soil's not deep and the trees are small - usually 6 inches to 8 inches in diameter."

Severson added - "What it's going to take is involvement of the private sector. What can we as government do? Cut red tape. Provide some incentives to make things possible, so people say 'Hey, I can make a buck at this.' Then the problem begins to solve itself. Until then, economic disconnect is the big problem."

technorati BIOblog, BIOstock, biomass, forestry

The Canadian action plan against the Mountain Pine Beetle

Previous posted was an article about beetle infestations and how they were ravaging forests and wildlife habitats - Will dead trees revive forest industries?.

The British Columbia government in concert with BC Hydro (the primary electricity provider of the province have published their Mountain Beetle Action Plan. In concert with that, they have issued the following press release...

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PROVINCE AND BC HYDRO LAUNCH BIOENERGY CALL PROCESS

VANCOUVER – In support of the BC Energy Plan, BC Hydro today launched the Bioenergy call process with a Request for Expressions of Interest to assess the potential of using wood fibre for power production. This Bioenergy Call will help meet the Province’s goal of making British Columbia a leader in clean energy.

BC Hydro is asking for preliminary proposals in order to identify potential projects that will generate electricity from wood fibre fuel sources such as beetle-killed timber, sawmill residue and logging debris.

“The BC Energy Plan recognizes the enormous potential to build on British Columbia’s natural bioenergy resource advantages,” said Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld. “The steps BC Hydro is taking today will help us meet our goal of electricity self-sufficiency and secure B.C.’s position as a leader in Canada for the use of biomass for energy.”

“Energy production is an innovative way to use mountain pine beetle-damaged timber,” Forests and Range Minister Rich Coleman said. “It helps to recover the value of the dead wood and creates a viable energy opportunity.”

“BC Hydro is committed to finding new, clean, renewable sources of power for British Columbians and we see wood fibre as one of the many potential sources of this clean energy,” said BC Hydro CEO Bob Elton. “Another potential benefit of these bioenergy projects is that they will provide us with firm power which we can schedule to use at times when we most need the electricity.”

B.C.’s new Energy Plan requires that at least 90 per cent of electricity come from clean, renewable resources. BC Hydro’s 2007 Bioenergy Call for Power will help address the surplus of wood residue.

The deadline for expressions of interest to be filed with BC Hydro is April 17, 2007. For more information, go to >www.bchydro.com/2007bioenergy.

technorati BIOblog, BIOstock, biomass, beetle, forestry