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

Open Letter Defending REAP and BCAP

Yesterday the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee voted to eliminate USDA BCAP and REAP funding - this in the name of frugality. Biomass Magazine's Lisa Gibson has written an excellent article that accurately depicts the situation. I encourage readers to contact their House Congressional Representatives immediately to express their desire to keep these programs intact.

Cutting these biomass production initiatives are very likely just the opening salvo in an attack by the new House majority Republicans to gut alternative fuel and climate change programs. Surprising, really, since the states most likely to be hurt by these cuts are traditional Republican rural strongholds. The outcome of these cuts would be even less market entry of technologies providing choices at the pump and power outlets, shrinking markets for agricultural and forest industry producers, and declining of products that can provide America with greater energy self-reliance.

Here's an open letter to my Congressman on the possibility that the House Appropriations Committee will progress with plans to cut REAP and BCAP funding:

I want to express in the most vigorous way possible my alarm that the House Appropriations Subcommittee has recommended the elimination of two USDA programs (REAP and BCAP) that are critical to the future national and energy security of the nation.

I am deeply involved with bioenergy issues throughout the U.S. because of my firm belief in the need to insure that next generations of Americans have the choice of alternative fuels at the pump. Fossil fuels are not only not renewable but are getting dirtier, more expensive, and unsustainable (economically, environmentally, and socially) all the time.

REAP and BCAP are small investments that will help propel the development of new energy projects that cannot be off-shored. At the same time they will enable rural communities to remain economically self-reliant at a time when too many of our resources are being underfinanced for proper management or, worse, plowed under to make room for urban sprawl.

I implore you to take a leading role in fighting this attack on renewable energy development on the false perception that it will "save money." That is penny-wise and "pound-fuelish" to the extreme.

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technorati biomass, agriculture, forestry

Ag and Forestry Provisions in Waxman/Markey ACES bill

The Waxman/Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) narrowly passed through the House vote on June 26. It would not have passed if the authors had failed to accede to the amendments insisted upon by Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN). What are the provisions?

Below is a condensed explanation of the key provisions agreed to by bill sponsor Henry Waxman (D-CA) as reported by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI). Aside from securing approximately support of 45 Democrats who would have voted against the bill without the compromise, the ACES bill is much more likely to achieve its stated objective of creating more green jobs, stimulating investment and local economies, and contributing to greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Should these provisions survive Senate deliberations, it also would reverse the polarizing language of the 2007 EISA which severely reduced the availability of qualifying biomass feedstock for bioenergy projects.

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Democrats Strike Deal With Agriculture on Climate Bill

On June 23, Democrats in the House of Representatives announced that they had reached a deal on several key agricultural concerns in the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) (H.R. 2454). The deal, struck with Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and bill sponsor Henry Waxman (D-CA), included the following key provisions:

1) The agricultural and forestry sectors will be fully exempted from carbon emissions caps.

2) Oversight of the domestic agricultural and forestry offsets program would be moved from the EPA to the USDA. Under these provisions, farmers could sell carbon credits in exchange for practices that reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions or store carbon in the soil and vegetation. Supporters believe that the USDA is in a better position to implement such a program effectively, while critics fear that the USDA will be more lax than the EPA in determining which practices actually reduce carbon emissions. For the time being, the role of the EPA in implementing the offsets program will remain undefined, subject to future guidance from the Obama administration.

3) The renewable fuel standard in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires the EPA to conduct a life cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to indirect land use changes around the world caused by the production of biofuels in the United States. Under the agreement, this assessment would be put on hold for the next five years while the National Academy of Sciences conducts a study of the scientific basis and methodologies used in conducting such assessments.

4) The definition of renewable biomass would be expanded to include a much larger portion of available woody biomass on both federal and non-federal lands, and the definition of renewable biomass would be similarly amended for purposes of implementing the renewable fuel standard.

President Obama spoke in favor of the bill on Tuesday, saying it “will spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet.”

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SUSTAINABLE FOREST BIOMASS

Over the past two years, EESI has undertaken a project to assess the state of woody biomass utilization and to develop a suite of policy recommendations intended to promote woody biomass as part of the sustainable forestry paradigm.

After soliciting the opinions of a diverse group of foresters, researchers, NGOs, civic officials, as well as forest industry stakeholders, EESI has put together a well-documented policy paper that is balanced in the areas of environmental, economic, and soclal sustainability.

Although sustainability should be a cornerstone of federal biomass policy, it is important that federal laws and programs do not include highly prescriptive (or proscriptive) rules for where biomass can be harvested, for what purposes, or in what quantities.

It includes a call to evaluate the true comparative costs of various energy paradigm solutions whereby the lifecycle assessment of new approaches are compared not only with each other, but also with a fair assessment of costs and liabilities of the current fossil paradigm.

To view the entire policy paper written by EESI veteran Jesse Caputo, go to Sustainable Forest Biomass: Promoting Renewable Energy and Forest Stewardship.

New Report Challenges Searchinger ILUC Study

Coinciding with the National 25x'25 Summit earlier this month the alliance has just inaugurated their own blog full of news, reports, and commentary relevant to the mission of the organization - to get 25 percent of our energy from renewable resources like wind, solar, and biofuels by the year 2025.

A blog article published yesterday titled "New Report Challenges Searchinger ILUC Study" provides information about the work of two Australian researchers which criticizes the methods and assumptions employed by Tim Searchinger and others in the controversial study titled "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases through Emissions from Land Use Change", which was published in February, 2008.

Below are my comments to the article.

There are two paradigm shifts at play here.

The obvious one is the international effort to shift the production of liquid fuels from fossil, carbon positive, feedstock to renewable, carbon neutral or negative feedstock. The Catch-22 for renewables is its current unavoidable reliance on its predecessor for energy, transport, and fertilizers. Consequently, many of the factors that impact the carbon footprint of cultivated feedstocks like corn are a result of the very lack of alternatives that renewables are designed to provide. The corn ethanol industry in particular is already at work replacing every carbon input imaginable to improve its balance sheet but it will take time.

The second paradigm shift is the unprecedented global definition of acceptable technologies and markets before they have had a chance to incubate regionally. What innovations would we have sacrificed had we pre-regulated to this extent in the past? Nuclear bombs - which saved millions of lives by changing hot world wars into cold ones? Personal computers and the internet - which democratized worldwide communication and learning to an unparalleled extent?

Anticipating ill effects before feedstocks and products are developed is a risky business that threatens to kill research, development, and deployment - and rapidly shrinking investment. Are we to cede all future RD&D to deep pocketed corporations who have a vested interest in controlling threats to their markets? Can politically motivated legislators objectively thread the delicate needle of market definition and regulation?

The indirect land use conclusions arrived at in Searchinger’s paper are highly speculative and are better at looking backward than forward while new technologies and feedstocks alternatives are being developed. The prominence that such one-side speculation has been given in the public media is troubling.

The idea that low carbon fuel standards include factors based on speculation is prone to gross misuse and manipulation. By hamstringing technology and market development with such standards we virtually insure unfair perpetuation of the status quo - an industry that clearly would not have passed such scrutiny had similar lifecycle analysis models been applied one hundred years ago.

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technorati biomass, agriculture, forestry

Woody Biomass Removal Case Studies

Here are a series of publicly accessible case studies that point to the conscientious work being performed and meticulously documented by forest managers and academia "so that managers, land- owners, business entrepreneurs, communities, and industry partners can easily access information to help them remove and utilize woody biomass from forests in an efficient and ecologically responsible manner."

Who is the Forest Guild?

We are a professional organization of forest stewards and affiliates who are passionate about sustaining and restoring the integrity of our forests while meeting the needs of the communities that rely on them. Our members’ work provides tangible examples of “excellent forestry”—forestry that is ecologically, economically, and socially responsible.

Anyone can access the fruits of this study by simply inserting a search keyword (a species of animal, for instance) or by choosing from multiple options for each of several fields of information (see screen shot below).

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Woody Biomass Removal Case Studies
Lessons Learned and Strategies for Success

Forest managers remove woody biomass from forests for many reasons, including: reducing hazardous fuels, increasing fire safety in the wildland-urban interface, restoring ecosystems, improving wildlife habitat, conducting forest stand improvement, and providing products from poles to pellets. Managers across the country on public, tribal, conservation, and private lands have utilized a wide variety of strategies for removing biomass. To help share these strategies, the Joint Fire Sciences Program initiated two coordinated analyses of themes, strategies, and lessons learned from an examination of over 40 biomass removal case studies.

Two research teams, one led by the Forest Guild and another by the University of Minnesota, have collected and analyzed the case studies presented here so that managers, land- owners, business entrepreneurs, communities, and industry partners can easily access information to help them remove and utilize woody biomass from forests in an efficient and ecologically responsible manner.

• Search the case studies
• Case studies index
• Project summary – University of Minnesota
• Project summary – Forest Guild
• Links to woody biomass resources and information

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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

Forest Service and Sierra Club mark trees together

Maybe it's because of the wildfires, maybe the fear of global warming - whatever the reason, here is one example of a reconciliation taking place between two parties that are too often seen "at loggerheads" with each other.

The USDA/Forest Service at Black Butte Ranch in Oregon decided it was time to try a new tack in its attempt to create understanding between stakeholders in the environmental sustainability of forests. By inviting members of the local and environmental community (including the Sierra Club) the Forest Service succeeded in engaging stakeholders in the process of choosing which trees to save and which to harvest to enhance survival and the generation of new old growth forests.

Along similar lines, the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) has just released a document titled Factors that Influence Successful Collaborations Between the Forest Products Industry and Environmental Organizations. It details a dozen geographically diverse projects from the U.S. and Canada. It offers eleven factors that appear to be crucial for the broadbase acceptance of any forest management projects.

There simply isn't time to waste on litigation anymore. Here are some excerpts on a story we need to see more examples of if we expect any headway in preserving the past for the future. Thanks to The Smallwood Utilization Network Forum for citing this and other relevant stories.

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Field trip helps forge trust among diverse interests
By Kate Ramsayer / The Bulletin
Published: November 16. 2007 5:00AM PST

The 20 or so people — from the U.S. Forest Service, timber industry, conservation groups and some who just live nearby — stood in the ponderosa pine forest next to Black Butte Ranch.

Armed with 11 different colors and patterns of marking tape, they set out with a goal — to flag which trees they would save, with the other ones left to be cut, if they were making the decisions.

One objective point of the Glaze restoration project is to thin trees and do other management treatments to generate new old-growth forests, possibly creating an example for other areas to follow in the process, said Maret Pajutee, district ecologist for the Sisters Ranger District.

But the goal for the day was to have people see how decisions are made about which trees to cut, learn from each other and share ideas, and perhaps build trust between the different groups and the Forest Service, she said.

And putting in time on the ground with different groups at the beginning of the process, she said, could help avoid time-consuming appeals and lawsuits at the end.

The Glaze restoration project was actually first pitched to the Sisters Ranger District by Cal Mukumoto, manager of Warm Springs Biomass, on the timber industry side, and Tim Lillebo, with the conservation group Oregon Wild. While the district originally had other priorities, once Mukumoto and Lillebo built some community support for the project and raised money, the agency got on board. Now, a draft environmental assessment of the project is expected early next year.

“That has never really happened to us before,” said Pajutee. “It’s really an exciting and unique thing that’s happened here.”

With some work that the Forest Service does, the agency has trust from the public, said Bill Anthony, Sisters District ranger. In other areas, however, like salvaging fire-killed trees, there’s a very low level of trust.

But the hope for projects like this, he said, is to move that trust and understanding along.

“What’s unique about this project is the partnership … with the restoration not only being the outcome, but working together, building trust, working through (issues) constructively instead of with litigation,” said Bill Anthony, Sisters District ranger.

The district wants to avoid situations like with the Metolius Basin forest management plan, where some groups collaborated with the agency, but an appeal was still filed against the project.

“By being open, upfront, by being out on the ground with the different interests, that’s how I think this is going to be a success,” Lillebo said. But there will still be concerns, he said, and times when people don’t agree about whether a tree should be cut.

“The goal was to have an example as a potential model,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll have people say, ‘I can live with that.’”

But the overall goal, he said, is to generate old growth. Lillebo said he used to be totally against all cutting, a response to earlier Forest Service policies of cutting large areas of forests and growing them back just to cut them again as a sort of tree farm.

“People don’t trust what’s happened in the past, when the whole last 40, 50 years has mostly been cutting the big trees down,” he said.

But now, he said, the science is indicating that some forests are so different from their natural state that they need to be managed by people.

“Uh-oh, maybe we were wrong,” he said. “In a lot of cases, you can’t just leave it alone. Let’s protect the big trees, and come up with a system where you grow back this old growth.”

On Thursday, forestry consultant Darin Stringer explained the strategy that the Forest Service is considering to treat the Glaze project area, parts of which edge right up to houses at Black Butte Ranch.

The idea is to create a mosaic across the landscape, of clumps of trees that are of a specific age or size. While that may require taking out a lot of small trees in areas that already have old growth, it will also mean taking some of the medium-sized, commercial-value trees out of stands to let the remaining trees grow bigger.

To show people how this might be done on the ground, the project organizers hosted the tree-tagging experiment. The results won’t actually be used, but it was a way to let people see what goes into the process, Pajutee said.

“You have to look for a lot of things — health, lack of defects,” he said. “If you take this one down, it’ll give this one a better chance.”

Tim Clasen, who lives a few miles south of the area, had come to learn about the Glaze restoration project. He was using his yellow-and-black-striped tape to mark groups of trees, and looking for a good spot to put a clearing that would allow one tree to grow unhindered.

“I really like the idea that they’re trying to coordinate different groups,” he said.

John Morgan, resource manager with Ochoco Lumber Co., said he was tagging the trees with the healthiest, sharpest pointed crowns — the ones that have a better chance of growing big, which adds to the health of the forest but also provides good timber down the road.

If this project is done correctly, it could be a model for future projects, said Miller, who added that she has high hopes that it will be done correctly. She said she had lots of reservations when Lillebo first told her of it, and still has some concerns about things like riparian areas and cutting too much in certain areas.

But if it works, the Glaze restoration project would be something that she could hold up as an example of acceptable ways to do forest management, she said.

“I think it’s kind of exciting,” Miller said, “because you wouldn’t see this five years ago, the Sierra Club and the Forest Service in the forest marking trees.”

Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 617-7811 or kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.

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technorati BIOstock, biomass, forestry

Hurricane Katrina's greenhouse gas legacy

Hurricane Katrina's legacy is not just the flooding of New Orleans and the destruction of coastal Mississippi. It is also responsible for damaging five million acres of forests - an area the size of the state of Massachusetts. For comparison, the destructive power the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens wiped out 150,000 acres of forests (less than 4% of the forest destruction reach of Katrina).

In a front page article of the Los Angeles Times, Thomas Maugh II and Karen Kaplan reported on new research results by Tulane's Dr. Jeffrey Q. Chambers that has appeared in Science magazine. By using spectral analysis comparisons of before (2003) and after (2006) imagery of the region made by NASA's Landsat V satellite (click to enlarge image above), Chambers and his research team has made a number of alarming findings about the carbon footprint of this very destructive hurricane.

What is the greenhouse gas consequence of all that wasted biomass rotting and decaying?

Left in place without removal, the carbon of the trees will continue to decay for decades. Roughly 50% of the content of trees is carbon. The emissions from decay will contain methane and carbon dioxide. According to Dr. Chambers' analysis, 367 million tons of carbon dioxide will be emitted - which is about the same amount as is absorbed by all U.S. forests in a year. It is also a total that exceeds the combined emissions of national forest fires for an entire year.

What is the time frame for removal?

As it decays, the woody biomass becomes harder to access and harder to remove. Even with modern equipment, it is easier to assess, plan, and harvest standing trees than those lying on the ground at some progression of decay. Besides the remaining obstruction of hurricane-damaged logging roads in the area, foliage regrowth has already begun which makes logging access more difficult.

Should the drought conditions of the South persist, the dead biomass represents a significant fire threat which would add significant amounts of new greenhouse gas and particulate matter emissions to the atmosphere and further complicate restoration.

What will the new forests look like if left to natural regeneration?

According to the Times article, "Chambers and his colleagues said the deforested land, once covered with native species such as longleaf pine, oak and cypress, is being taken over by invasive species that are change the ecology of the area. One of the most prolific, the Chinese tallow, oozes a milky, toxic sap that creates an inhospitable environment for insects, birds and small animals."

How can we pay for forest restoration?

According to Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen of The Forest Foundation, the a privately financed restoration of the forests is straightforward. "Sell the logs to sawmills to be turned into wood products, and use the revenue generated to pay for removing the slash left behind and replanting the forest. Replant native trees in a patchy mosaic so the forest develops naturally. This includes leaving enough snags and logs for wildlife habitat, and returning a few years after planting to remove competing brush so trees grow quickly and are protected against future wildfires."

Who would administer the forest restoration program?

There is a federal committee called the Woody Biomass Utilization Group that includes forestry, energy, and wildlife experts from several departments of government - the Departments of Energy, Agriculture/Forest Service, and Interior. They also have a subgroup studying Disaster Debris that works with FEMA and Homeland Security in an effort to establish and coordinate federal remedial response to environmental disasters like Katrina, floods, tornadoes, and megafires throughout the country.

When asked what the biggest hurdle was to the implementation of harvesting and reforestation programs, Ron Vineyard of the Forest Service responded "infrastructure." By that he meant that there needs to be more sawmills, power plants, forest products companies, and biorefineries who can take possession of the woody biomass harvested from the disaster zones. The carbon would be sequestered in forest products like lumber, paper, and biochar while carbon-neutral bioproducts like ethanol, alcohols, chemicals, and bioplastics could be cleanly produced to reduce the use of carbon-positive petroleum byproducts.

Unfortunately, many of companies of the pre-existing infrastructure have been damaged from the hurricane, too, and the timberland owners of the region are likely to sell their lands to developers rather than pay to reforest their lost inventories. That will not make environmentalist groups happy who recognize the need to keep our forests large and healthy as carbon sinks to mitigate global warming.

Government action is needed now

There is no possible way that the federal agencies - who are already coping with fire-fighting, humanitarian rescue efforts, and capital restitution from each year's mounting ecological catastrophes - can pay for the scope of immediate remedial action needed. Political leadership and coordination with utilities and private industry is required - and the nation will be stronger for it.

Now is the time for federal, state, and local governments to pass policies that reduce regulatory hurdles and create incentives to utilities and private industry to establish new infrastructure. Passage of bioenergy friendly amendments to the stagnating Energy and Farm Bills would be a very timely response demonstrating Congress' recognition of the long-term consequences of the problem while supporting green business and career opportunities for their constituencies.

Emerging technology companies can convert the woody biomass much more cleanly than their predecessors. This will create the economic means to address the gargantuan and urgent task of harvesting and replanting Katrina's catastrophic biomass legacy.

technorati BIOstock, biomass, agriculture, forestry

Ending Obstructive Environmental Lawsuits

An oft heard frustration of the USDA Forestry Service is the frequency of challenges mounted in opposition to their planned forest management programs. In June of last year, the Society of American Foresters published a comprehensive study of the legal challenges filed in federal court from 1989-2002 - all 729 of them!

Dr. Robert Malmsheimer, lead researcher and Associate Professor of Forest Policy and Law at State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) expressed the good news/bad news verdict of the study:

“The Forest Service enjoys an excellent success rate – winning 57% of all cases and 73% of the cases decided by a judge or panel of judges – especially when one considers that the Forest Service is the defendant in all of these cases and the plaintiffs get to choose the basis and venues for their lawsuits.

“It’s interesting to note however, that the Forest Service settles more than one in every six cases – almost as many land management cases as it loses. Clearly both the Forest Service and litigants view settlements as an important dispute-resolution tool.”

The study’s authors also note that plaintiffs win less than one of every four cases. This suggests that plaintiffs may receive indirect benefits from litigation, such as publicity, delay of action, and the chance of establishing new legal precedents. These benefits may be as important to some litigants as the direct benefits of winning lawsuits.

Delays are costly to the environment. Forest Service programs are designed to either prevent a health problem for a forest or remediate an unhealthful condition that could result in fires, decay, or infestations. It has been determined that a decaying forest emits 300% more greenhouse gases than a fire ravaging the same tree. The Forest Foundation reports that "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.” As Forest Service resources are squandered fighting litigation and forest fires, is it any wonder that more remedial programs are shelved until more resources are available?

On the bright side, Michael Moore of The Missoulian reports that environmentalists and government leaders have found a way to reach consensus on forest programs without resorting to legal redress. See excerpts below:

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Forest Parties Reach Consensus on Restoration Principles
by MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian, September 28, 2007

For months, a diverse group of conservationists, timber industry officials, forest users and government leaders met in an effort designed to stem the tide of lawsuits filed against forest restoration projects.

Finally, on Thursday, the group announced a set of 13 principles that might guide future restoration work on the Bitterroot and Lolo national forests.

And because those principles are the result of a time-consuming consensus process, the hope is that restoration projects will move ahead more quickly, be less likely to spawn litigation and, most important, be good for the ecosystems they're designed to restore.

The effort started in the frustrating wake of a post-fire restoration project in the southern Bitterroot Valley. The project became embroiled in litigation, and prompted many on both sides of the debate to wonder if there wasn't a better way to approach such projects.

Not long after that, a group of about 35 gathered at the Lubrecht Experimental Forest for a meeting that eventually evolved into the Montana Forest Restoration Working Group.

The group drew representatives from industry and the conservation community, but also from forest user groups like snowmobilers, horsemen and outfitters.

Over the next months, they worked to find what they characterized as a zone of agreement, a place where everyone could accept what a successful restoration project ought to look like.

The zone eventually grew into a preamble and set of principles. That preamble notes the importance of scientifically sound, ecologically appropriate restoration work, but it also factors in the importance such work can have on surrounding rural communities.

The principles include:

- Restore functioning ecosystems by enhancing ecological processes.
- Re-establish fire as a natural process on the landscape.
- Consider social constraints and seek public support for reintroducing fire.
- Engage community members and interested parties in the restoration process.
- Improve terrestrial and aquatic habitat and connectivity.
- Establish and maintain a safe road and trail system that is ecologically sustainable.
- Integrate restoration with socioeconomic well-being.

Now that the principles are in place, the committee will begin work on two pilot projects on the Lolo National Forest and one on the Bitterroot. Those projects are still under consideration and were not announced on Thursday.

On a project-to-project basis, committee membership will vary depending on where the project is, with an eye toward bringing stakeholders and those with the most knowledge of the area to the table, Ekey said.

Pyramid's Gordy Sanders said the end result should be a restoration process that works for both the land and communities.

The Full Restoration Guidelnes Can be viewed and Down loaded at www.montanarestoration.org.

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Finally, in a recent article in the NY Times titled As Logging Fades, Rich Carve Up Open Land in West environmentalist see another ominous threat that is a consequence of the demise of the forest products industry - the rise of timberland sales to real estate developers.

In ways that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, environmentalists and representatives of the timber industry are reaching across the table, drafting plans that would get loggers back into the national forests in exchange for agreements that would set aside certain areas for protection.

Both groups are feeling under siege: timber executives because of the decline in logging, and environmentalists because of the explosion of growth on the margins of the public lands.

technorati BIOstock, biomass, forestry

California wildlife threatened by mega fires

The Forest Foundation has made a field guide available to help forest enthusiasts appreciate and identify the variety of wildlife that populate various geographical portions of California's 15 million acres of private forestlands. The guide categorizes the wildlife by forest type - generally the age and type of vegetation - with geographic state maps that display where these species are located.

There is also an identification guide that depicts the prevalent types of trees that grow on California forestlands. Not only are the shape profiles provided, but also the leaf and needle designs.

In the first ten pages of the guide are several essays by an esteemed slate of forestry experts. Many point out the severe risks to wildlife and wildlife diversity that are posed by the poor health of our forests. The main causes? Excessive forest tree density (four to ten times historic norms) leading to wildfires and bug infestations. Here are some excerpts:

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A Guide to California's Wildlife on Private Forestlands

Enhancing Biodiversity by John Stuart Ph.D

On California’s private forestland, foresters strive to create a mosaic of forest types to support diverse wildlife – just like patches of old and young, dense and open forests that historically covered the West were shaped by seasonal lightning fires and fires set by Native Americans. Harvesting and replanting are carefully planned because everybody needs a home.

California's Historic Forests and Wildlife by Thomas Bonnicksen, Ph.D

Overcrowded forests can fuel catastrophic wildfires and have detrimental effects on wildlife. The plants and animals that need sunny openings get crowded out and are disappearing. Streams are drying up as thickets of trees use all the water. Insect infestation and tree mortality are reaching epic proportions. Catastrophic fire can alter wildlife habitat for centuries.

Habitat in Decline by George Gruell

Wildlife habitat in unmanaged forest ecosystems is collapsing across the West. Overly dense forests block sunlight and intercept precipitation that once reached the forest floor. That begins the collapse. Herbaceous plants and flowering shrubs, denied moisture, sunlight and nutrients, die out and get replaced by litter and coniferous debris. When you lose the grasses and shrubs, you lose critical habitat and wildlife populations suffer. The cumulative effect of hands-off forest management has been less biodiversity and more catastrophic fire. We must actively manage the landscape if we are to sustain the biodiversity we claim to cherish.

Forestry Education Must Prevail by Douglas Pitrio

Some people equate caring for forests with leaving them alone. Doing so ignores the dangerous fuel accumulations that now plague our forests and fails to consider that today’s overgrown forest conditions negatively affect biodiversity. It also dooms California to a cycle of severe fires, deadly mudslides, and devastated communities.

There is no doubt that many of California’s public forests are overcrowded, nor that overcrowding can lead to horrific forest health and fire hazards. Conditions similar to those in Southern California’s forests before they succumbed to beetles and flames in 2003 are increasingly appearing throughout the Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe Basin.

Leaving forests alone doesn’t work. Southern California’s firestorm makes clear what professional foresters have known for years: forests need management to be safe and productive.

technorati BIOstock, biomass, forestry

California's Zaca Fire and Global Warming

Click to enlarge

Here's a question I haven't seen in the press...

What is the impact of public forest wildfires on global warming?

I have seen plenty of inferences that global warming is contributing to the cause of wildfire spread and ferocity but virtually nothing on how the burst of fire temperatures, soot, ash, carbon monoxide, and other toxic emissions impact global warming. No journalists make the connection between the rash of horrific megafires of the last two decades and the precipitous rise in carbon emissions during that same time.

U.S. Senator Pete Domenici recently testified...

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.

That fire lasted over a month. The Spring 2007 megafire in Georgia and Northern Florida (the biggest in Georgia history) lasted even longer. The size, length, and ferocity of these fires is not normal - at least not prior to 1980.

Most animal deaths during and after a wildfire are caused by asphyxiation, not the flames themselves. In a sense, the "canary warning" to humans has been given. Now we must act to save not only forest wildlife, but all animals including humans who are in the path of wildfire plumes.

As the huge Zaca fire 9 miles north of bucolic Santa Barbara, California nears completion of its second month of devastation, it is time to ask some environmental questions:

Are we reaping the result of failure to adequately harvest excess forest fuel, reforest past forest acreage, and manage public forests as efficiently as private forests are managed?

Are public perceptions, litigation, and policies designed to protect wildlife diversity having the opposite effect? Stated another way, do efforts to preserve forests actually spell their doom and destroy the habitats of their occupants?

Can the federal and state governments ever be expected to allocate sufficient taxpayer funds to adequately manage the vast public forests under their stewardship?

Here are the latest facts on the Zaca Fire.
--------------------

Basic Information
Incident Type: Wildland Fire
Cause: Human Caused
Date of Origin: 07/04/2007 at 1053 hrs.
Location: 9 miles north of Santa Barbara

Current Situation
Total Personnel: 2,545
Size: 235,601 acres (1/3 the size of Rhode Island)
Percent Contained: 83%
Estimated Containment Date: 09/07/2007 at hrs.
Fuels Involved: Heavy brush containing a high dead component. Some conifer at higher elevations. Live fuel moistures are at 49% which is well below critical levels. A continuous fuel bed lies ahead of the fire.

Growth Potential: Extreme.
Terrain Difficulty: Extreme.
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I toured California in a motor home between Santa Barbara and Yosemite August 9th through 17. Here are some photos I took in Yosemite August 15th (click to enlarge)...




As I was travelling south August 17th on the 99 FWY near Bakersfield, we caught sight of the smoky plume of the Zaca fire which blotted out the sun at 5pm - actual darkness - (click to enlarge)...



This California roadtrip experience left an indelible impression - not the one I was expecting.

technorati biomass, forestry

Salvaging wood from natural disasters

We've all heard the following bromides:
"When all you've got are lemons, make lemonade."
"Turning a silk purse out of sow's ear."

Somehow they don't quite measure up to what needs to be done with the devasting waste refuse of natural disasters. However, unless something is done with this unanticipated wealth of biomass, the decay may lead to further perpetuation of the emergency conditions: forest fires, disease, infestation, and the release of even more greenhouse gases.

An interdepartmental government task force called the Federal Woody Biomass Working Group and Partners (WBUG) has been formed to, among other things, draw up contingency plans to deal with the residual biomass of woody biomass related disasters - from floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, and the like. What resources can be enlisted to collect the residuals? What processes can be employed to mitigate the harmful effects of the decay? What benefits can be derived from converting the biomass into bioenergy or biofuels?

A proposal has been drafted by the WBUG titled "Timber Recovery and Wood Utilization Response Plan." In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, its initial focus is on wind events and disturbances in the Eastern and Gulf Coast Regions. Here are some excerpts from their funding proposal to create the plan:

Executive Summary:
The Plan will assist in the short term response, but also provide opportunities for long term economic and environmental recovery. Many partners have been engaged in developing this proposal, and see high potential for coordinating a broad spectrum of federal, state, tribal and local government and industries in disaster debris and wood utilization.

Final Product:
A hands-on tool for planning for and responding to multiple-level wind disasters at local, state, regional, and national levels. It will also be a framework for better coordination among the various federal, state, tribal and local government agencies, and with partnering organizations within the forestry, arboricultural, disaster response, and wood utilization sectors.

Scope:
The scope of this project is to begin the process of (1) focusing on the recovery of downed or damaged woody biomass in the forest, both merchantable and non-merchantable material not currently being recovered, and (2) expanding and improving upon national, regional and local response to disaster debris disposition, including green waste and uncontaminated demolition wood.

Meanwhile, another natural disaster has befallen the Southeastern states of Georgia and Florida - a months long fire that resulted from acute drought followed by intense lightning from thunderstorms.

Here's another bromide - "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." It is time to enact and fund policies and procedures that will strengthen proper stewardship of the nation's forests. Sadly, not much can be done with the pitiful amount of biomass left after a major fire. It is a time to clear out the refuse and replant the forests.

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Fires Rip through GA, FLA
Timber Harvesting Magazine
May/June 2007

Wildfire fighters from Georgia and surrounding states continued to struggle to put out a major forest fire that had scorched more than 100,000 acres in southeast Georgia, with major fires spreading into northeast Florida and popping up across the Florida Panhandle region.

The Sweat Farm Road/Big Turnaround Fire, burning mostly in Ware and Charlton counties south of Waycross and near the Okefenokee Swamp, is the biggest in Georgia history, covering more than 100 square miles. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed an Executive Order on May 2 declaring a state of emergency in 21 counties in southeast Georgia, citing severe drought conditions and extreme wildfire threat. Through the second week of May, the area had passed a record-setting 66 days without rain.

Yet a line of thunderstorms that provided a small amount of spotty rain the weekend of May 7 did more damage than good, with lightning strikes starting new fires. One, the Bugaboo Scrub Fire, started at the southern tip of the Okefenokee and quickly burned into Florida, scorching more than 30,000 acres in two days. Other wildfires have popped up across the Panhandle region, with a subdivision in Freeport losing 4 homes and having 13 others damaged.

As of May 8, Florida officials reported fires burning in 54 of the state’s 67 counties.

Extensive post-fire surveys and inventories have yet to be performed, but early observations are the fire has burned extremely hot across all age classes and in many cases stems are completely burned and unsalvageable. Salvage rate for merchantable-size timber may be as low as 15%, according to one early report, with poor markets making the salvage situation even tougher.

technorati BIOstock, biomass, forestry

Clean Wood replaces Coal Power Plant in N.H.

When it comes to producing electricity, it isn't necessary to convert the feedstock to ethanol or syngas or even invest in gasification or pyrolysis burners. Advanced wood boilers meet the EPA standards and provide a clean renewable alternative to dirty, carbon-positive coal boilers of the past.

Here is the press release from Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH). It is New Hampshire's largest electric utility, generating and distributing clean electricity for more than 490,000 homes and businesses in an environmentally friendly manner. Each year, PSNH supports dozens of forest protection, energy conservation, and environmental organizations through both financial contributions and employee volunteerism.

There is a YouTube video of this project available online.

----------------
Officials Celebrate Northern Wood Power

One of the nation’s newest and largest renewable energy projects was officially recognized today as environmental, political and utility leaders celebrated the completion of Public Service of New Hampshire’s (PSNH) Northern Wood Power Project. The $75 million project includes a new 50 megawatt wood-burning boiler which replaced a coal-burning boiler of identical size.
The new PSNH boiler, capable of producing power for about 50-thousand typical homes, is expected to consume more than 450-thousand tons of clean wood chips annually, significantly reduce emissions at the Seacoast power plant, and contribute about $20 million a year to the regional economy.

“In completing this project, PSNH has demonstrated its ability to build and operate the state’s largest and cleanest biomass power plant,” said Chuck Shivery, president and chief executive officer of Northeast Utilities, PSNH’s parent corporation. “It achieved this accomplishment on time, under budget, and in a way that has kept electric rates low and stable for its customers.”

Northern Wood Power began official operations last December and has, since that time, received clean wood chips from licensed loggers and certified suppliers in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts.

“A little over three years ago, Northern Wood Power was just an idea, a vision for the future that PSNH brought to state legislators with the promise of lower emissions, a stronger forestry industry, and low electric rates for New Hampshire homes and businesses,” said Gary Long, PSNH president and chief operating officer. “We’ve demonstrated that PSNH can be part of the solution in helping New Hampshire become the ‘greenest’ power-producing state in the nation while maintaining a significant price advantage for our 490,000 customers.”

Environmental Benefits
Northern Wood Power is reportedly the largest coal-to-wood repowering conversion in the nation. It is also one of the lowest-emitting power plants in New England today, not only meeting but exceeding all US Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards for new power plants. The plant achieves these results through a state-of-the-art, fluidized-bed boiler combustion system, an advanced combustion technology which burns fuel more completely and substantially limits the production of nitrogen oxide (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and Mercury (Hg) emissions. Northern Wood Power is also considered ‘carbon neutral,’ meaning that no additional net carbon (CO2) is released into the atmosphere by the burning of wood.

Economic Benefits
There are a number of substantial economic benefits associated with PSNH’s new wood-fired power plant. The plant produces power for PSNH customers at a lower cost when compared to the price of energy offered through the regional marketplace. Northern Wood Power also produces ‘Renewable Energy Certificates,’ which PSNH sells in a regional market to suppliers and utilities without sufficient renewable resources of their own. The proceeds of the sale of RECs is used to offset the project’s capital costs and keep PSNH customer rates low.

Further, the company’s switch to wood has eliminated the need to burn more than 130,000 tons of coal annually. The money paid for fuel now remains in New England, contributing an estimated $20 million annually to the area economy.

More Wood to Come?
PSNH’s Gary Long and NU’s Chuck Shivery both spoke of the need in New England for additional sources of new renewable energy and expressed their desire to invest in more regulated generation to help meet that need. Current state law prohibits PSNH and other regulated electric utilities from acquiring or building any new renewable sources of generation, but legislators are considering modifying the law to allow such a proposal to be made.

technorati BIOstock, biomass, electricity, 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 need for Public Outreach: a case study in China

One year ago I wrote an article about the Environmental Impacts of Conversion Technologies using MSW Feedstocks. Biopact recently published a lengthy article on the impact of energy farming on primarily the "Global South" (southern hemisphere countries) - their environments and their societies.

The article includes a case study of the Chinese community of Guanxi with impacts potentially affecting over 650,000 people. The study was commissioned by Stora Enso, a major Finnish forestry company that has entered the biomass industry, and that wants to establish a large (120,000 ha) Eucalyptus plantation project. Working with Stora Enso, the United Nations Development Program conducted the study from their China office.

Biopact's focus is on the Social Impact Assessment aspect (SIA) of the report which is much more subjective than the Environmental one (EIA). Here are some representative excerpts from their article:

----------------
A closer look at Social Impact Assessments of large biofuel projects

Our bioenergy future will rely on large-scale energy farming. Many of the projects will be located in the Global South where they are set to have both positive, negative and ambiguous impacts on the environment as well as on the socio-economic fabric of the communities that host them.

Whenever large infrastructure and development interventions are carried out - from the construction of dams and pipelines to mining projects or indeed the establishment of biofuel plantations - it is absolutely critical to assess these potential impacts thoroughly before the project is implemented. Failure to do so may result in unwanted and irreversible consequences that threaten the viability of the project over the long-term.

The SIA team identified as top priority for communications work that:

• The company should strengthen its communication practices with local communities and seek expert advice on means through which more effective and transparent flow of information to all levels of affected communities can be achieved.
• The company should address, as a matter of urgency, issues surrounding clarity and transparency of rental agreements, fuelwood collection, and community perceptions of slowness.
• Maintaining a greater presence of national and foreign staff in the field to help explain the project directly to people.
• Development of peer support groups within villages.
• Establishment and support for forest plantation associations, which include land users and managers, contractors, and other stakeholders.
• Expansion of the functions of the company’s Hotline.
• A strengthened schools' program and additions to the curricula.
• Development of tele-centres (web-based information systems) as a part of the school computer program or general village out-reach.
• Regular excursions organized for local communities to plantation sites. In the longer term, an annual opportunity to visit the pulp mill.
• Introduction of communications approaches with sensitivity for gender, ethnicity, and poverty

technorati BIOblog, BIOstock, biomass, agriculture, forestry