Forest Health?
At our last Institute for Sustainable Forestry planning retreat I promised to kick off a conversation to create some conceptual grid for forest health that reflected that complexity simply, but avoided being grossly simplistic. You will all see I've sent this outside our membership circle. If the urge to respond needs a bigger platform, the ISF website may work.
Personally, my feeling is 'send it on'
If you wish to just read my list of points, start on page 3.
Happy Easter!
Best Regards,
Jeff Hedin
Volunteer Coordinator
Forest Health?
I have struggled to compose this scrambled query. At a Redwood Forest Foundation Inc. annual meeting, Jerry Franklin warned, ”If you want to reach everyone, keep it simple.”
Simple is not my greatest skill. Nor do I have a universal imagination and a total grasp of all the workings of all the energy in our moment. I know only that simple is not simplistic. Please consider this a begging start. Simplify it. Add to it. Let’s talk.
About a year ago, while at my desk working on a grant proposal to create shaded fuel breaks on ridges around Piercy, a shaking plum tree in my orchard grabbed my attention. A bear? This time of year? I dropped my pencil, ran out, and found a PG&E vegetation management employee in the tree readying a chain saw.
“Hey, what are you doing in my plum tree?”
“It’s too tall. Have to cut it.”
“Too tall?”
“Yah, I have to cut the forest back to more than 18 feet from the wires”.
Downhill from my plum tree cutter I could see a large uniformed crew laying waste, with messianic fury, to a lot of important vegetation.
“Are you the boss of this crew?” “No.” “Well get down there and get your boss. You are not going to cut this tree. Can’t you see that every tree for 150 yards on both sides of this power line and road are pruned to the same height? Around here we don’t call this a forest. We call it an orchard.”
They were from Alabama. They didn’t know they were clearcutting a swath up a semi-dormant land slide that moved with every earthquake or that the tree roots held the soil. They didn’t know which stumps would sprout and keep their roots alive, and which would not.
“In Alabama we don’t have trees and mountains like this….”
These were good looking men. If they were my neighbors, they’d probably volunteer with me at the fire department. But they were too frenzied for polite conversation. They seemed to consider my orchard and me just a problem impeding their effort to save California and me from imminent wildfire. Their resistance to logic and friendliness was staggering.
I was done wasting energy. They agreed to skip my orchard. Both frustrated and angry, I returned to composing, but I could not stop replaying the confrontation. Trying to focus on my fire resiliency project just made me drowsy.
I gave up, climbed up into the loft, laid down, and fell asleep.
I woke up dreaming I was swarmed by smug news bites concluding ‘Americans just want their lives back to normal.’ I was contemplating the proposed legislation to fund CalFire to hire 1,000 more firefighters and wondering how PG&E had turned hundreds of men from Alabama, Arkansas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Mexico, and Laytonville into a messianic fuels reduction army.
These same patterns of discourse and behavior surrounded me in 1970 and 71 before Nixon declared war on drugs. That campaign, by attacking symptoms of a problem, not the causes, exacerbated the issue through blame, shame, fear, and waste.
At my desk, I was no longer chuckling at CalFire’s audacity for granting fuel reduction funds as a ‘Forest Health’ program. My amusement was not because I think firestorms are good for the forest; I wanted to reduce fuel, and I wanted fuel reduction funds. I was amused by our U.S.A. cultural tendency, especially by our promoters, to give our projects and programs all-inclusive, wide-appeal, ‘who could object’ titles that tend to obscure issues and processes more than reveal them.
What Does Forest Health Actually Mean?
Too often these wide-appeal captions, titles, catch phrases, lyrics, sayings, and slogans become memes, go viral, and worm their way into our languages, humanity’s most important survival tool, and dull them. A dull tool takes pleasure and joy out of work, and sows frustration. Frustration is always unproductive, discordant, and divisive.
I feared ‘Forest Health’ becoming a meme like ‘War on Drugs’ or ‘Make America Great Again’ that would make people see a forest as trees and brush and believe that whacking down biomass would create a brushless, healthy forest. "Now that’s a healthy forest, no way it could burn. We can relax, go back to normal, and stretch our incomes to buy more comfort."
I worry that this has already begun. How could PG&E so quickly organize this many people from so many different regions and dialects, with no knowledge of local terrain and no shared commitment to the local community, to such a focused fervor and sense of righteous entitlement? The organizing of all these ‘king’s men’ could not have resulted from a long, passionate study of biospheric intricacies and how to enter a forest community as one who enhances its sustained vigor. This group relied upon a small litany of simplistic, reductive memes.
I too easily imagine PG&E executives high-fiving and toasting each other: “We memed our way out of bankruptcy!” All of their trucks and all of their men can no more put our forest together again than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could put Humpty Dumpty or Vietnam together again.
Nor will a war on fire that blames our forest put the forest together again. This forest is not unhealthy. It is making an amazing recovery from the biggest catastrophic event in its evolutionary history: the arrival of European Industrial Culture with its awesome tools, its belief that the apex of human achievement is building and defending cities, and its total unfamiliarity with terrain being shaped by tectonic subduction.
If we let our governance simplify our response to this problem with sound bites to assuage fears that wildfire might reduce ‘normal human comfort’, then the verdant "collide-o-scape" of the triple junction—a fascinating region of rumpled ridges and twisty streams with its mosaic of microbiomes on various soils crunched into abrupt aspect changes—will continue to be reduced to humps of dumps.
Getting It Right
We need a serious conversation. Let’s put our minds together to define forest health so robustly that it cannot be degraded into a simplistic, reductive, life-threatening meme. To be quiet risks subjecting our biosphere to another misguided war, a tactic from the age of conquest: beat everything into submission to our urges.
'Forest' and 'health' are words with long, ongoing evolutionary histories in our language.
Etymologists trace 'health' from ‘kaillo’, an Indo-European word that becomes hale, whole, heal, and health in current English tongues.
Our dictionaries tend to define 'health' as free from injury or disease.
The etymologists say 'forest' comes from the Indo-European ‘dhiver’ which became 'door' in Old English, and in Old Latin became 'forum' (enclosed), 'foras' (outdoors), and plurally 'foris' (outside all enclosures, akin to our 'wilderness').
As the Germans and the Vikings moved into Gaul and became latinized, foris became foristis, the uncommercialized land belonging to the king, his hunting grounds.
In 1066, after the Battle of Hastings when William of Normandy defeated King Harold of England, William brought the word and the concept to English. It has evolved to conjure all the images it has today. Previously, what we now call forests were called 'woods' or 'woodlands.'
Our dictionaries tend to define 'forest' as land dominated by trees. But we extend the term to mean a kelp forest, urban forest, aquatic forest, food forest, commercial forest, riverine forest, etc.
My personal image of our geo-biosphere is an undulating web of continuums: waters to deserts, mesic to xeric, abyssal to sea level to glaciated peaks, tropical to arctic—and I prefer adjectives to nouns to describe terrains. Similarly, my image of biospheric health is another undulating continuum in which each member of a biotic neighborhood affects the health of all others as it adjusts to daily, seasonal, and epochal shifts in weather and geology.
Since our current funding programs do not make discussing these images of forest health easy, I searched CalFire’s website for their definitions. In their California Forest Improvement Program (CFIP), they consider any tract of land of at least five acres that is at least 10% shaded by tree canopy to be eligible for funding.
Criteria
I would include the following to assess forest health:
1. A healthy forest is creating and retaining soil as fast as or faster than it is losing it.
2. A healthy forest has evolved and maintains a chaotic bio-structure capable of surviving the apex catastrophes of its chaotic geology and weather.
3. A healthy forest is diversifying fast enough to adapt to the long-term climate and geologic shiftings of its locale.
4. A healthy forest’s seed distributers and pollinators are maintaining consistent population cycles.
5. A healthy forest’s composters (its herbivores, carnivores, detritivores, and saprophytes) in and on its soil and on its foliage digest and sequester sloughed biomass before it can support catastrophic wildfire, but leave a duff layer providing erosion control, water absorption and retention, and modifying soil temperature fluctuation.
6. A healthy forest has a healthy human community around and within it.
A healthy human community:
1. Understands humanity as a social way of life in which each human is infinitely unique.
2. Knows that every human helps us to understand what is going on, what and who we are, and what we should do next.
3. Accepts that humanity lives by its cumulative genetic genius and its cumulative linguistic genius, and nurtures its children’s development in both.
4. Knows that all the energy of our moment shares an evolutionary process, moving through the possibilities that emerge in our dance of life.
5. Knows that all biomes are communities.
6. Knows that our planet’s photosynthesizers provide 99% of the energy animating our biospheric life, treasures their genetic genius, and enhances their being.
7. Knows that each plant and animal is a geo-engineering entity, and every act affects biospheric habitat.
8. Provides the immersion in natural settings that each of its members needs, including the incarcerated.
9. Values eco-services and compensates those who provide them.
10. Manages its landscape for all age classes, with mid-seral domination.
Shaping the Future
We need to take the creative initiative. Just blowing a whistle at PG&E, CalFire, CPUC, Board of Forestry, etc. does not add enough to our intellectual toolkit to move life on Earth to sustainable comfort. We need to develop appropriate visionary tools and procedures, and apply them.
Wildfire is not the problem. It is a symptom—glaring, costly, frighteningly dangerous, but a symptom. The problem is twofold. California’s pre-Columbian communities managed these terrains to maximize their access to food, water, shelter, clothing, and commerce for thousands of years. Living this way involved geo-biospheric intimacy. The toolkit they created is now recognized as Tribal Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Eventually they became the dominant keystone presence in their environment.
Their management stopped with the hegemony of European Industrial Civilization (EIC). Long-managed floral species are now sprouting in territory where they were suppressed during the TEK period. During EIC management, some areas have been planted inappropriately, and invasive non-native species, some of them pathogenic, have been introduced and spread.
Furthermore, EIC, with its full toolkit (mechanical, social, financial, innovational) had no experience operating on seismically active landscapes. We still haven’t adjusted our toolkit to them. Our logging, mining, transportation, and agriculture have disrupted the landscape. A lot of soil has been lost. Pioneer floral species are revegetating these areas wherever some mineral soil remains. This recovery is often dominated by non-native and often flammable invasive species.
Enough of the pre-Columbian species have survived. They are making a healthy comeback. But if we want to live in this biosphere and maximize its resource production, we need to manage it. This includes managing ourselves. This is the problem. We are talking about a civil defense issue, a behavioral issue.
We are talking about restructuring California’s entire landscape from industrial leftovers to a vibrant, healthy, fire-adapted arena for joyful life. Appropriate forms of agroforestry must emerge. We need to include in our EIC cultural mosaic a plant-by-plant intimacy equivalent to TEK across the landscape.
Unfortunately, with EIC mechanization, virtually none of us make our living searching the landscape, walking it, collecting from it in deep intimacy to get the materials to feed, shelter, and clothe our people. We work for money to search catalogues and emporiums to buy the wherewithal for life.
Establishing this level of landscape intimacy in California’s version of European Industrial Civilization entails massive cultural change.
Massive cultural change in a community of 40 million people is a slow bell-curve crescendo. No significant shift seems likely until the academic priesthood ‘creates’ courses and majors. Suddenly a flood of young ‘credentialed’ acolytes shows up, and a new set of tenured 'experts’ are quoted in print and paraded on the screen. The vocabulary enters urban/suburban hip conversation. Then the regulatory framework adjusts. The pioneers are forgotten or dismissed as ‘anecdotal,’ but the culture has shifted. The pioneers choose whether to battle out the details or to move on and let the ‘experts’ and the politicians take the heat.
We can do this. We need to proceed with deliberate efficiency, and with care. Loving care. Rest and food and loving care—and housing, clothing, and celebration for all.
We need to reduce fire risk while increasing landscape vitality. Planting and tending are as important as trimming excess fuel. Maintenance is necessary.
Above all, we must engage local care across the state. We cannot be alienating and dividing local neighborhoods. They need to be trusted, funded, encouraged, and given access to information, training, and tools. They cannot be treated as if they are simply in the way. If they are not engaged, we fail.
We are not talking about an industrial or military adjustment. We are talking about a way of life. A way of life that recognizes our dependency on photosynthesizing botanical beings and cares for them—recognizing their well-being as the primary infrastructure for life on Earth.
Eventually this may require a semi-mobile middle-management organization on the scale of the CCC or the WPA. Okay, but we don’t need to start there.
In California, a one-size-fits-all program will not work. California is designated as an island of diversity, a hotspot of genetic variety.
I refer to it as a chaotic archipelago of island biomes, big and small. Each island needs its own appropriate care.
Caring for the landscape of California will be as individuated as caring for all the kindergarteners in a school district. It will not be like servicing a fleet of 1/2-ton Chevrolet trucks.
Eventually we have to coordinate all our state agencies that have large-scale landscape effects. CalFire, Cal Trans, CPUC, Parks and Rec., Dept. of Ag, Water Quality, and Air Quality have to be working together. Federally we must include BLM, Forest Service, National Parks, and Army Corps of Engineers. It’s a long way off, but they have smart people. Loop them in.
The Point of Existence
Do we consider the Earth as our launching pad or our destination? We have been gathering here from the space around us for 8 billion years. Go out at night and watch more of us arrive, meteor by meteor. Or go to the structures housing the edges of science where they measure the cosmic dust trickling on board, tons every day.
Have we gathered here, cuddled up, melted in our core, floated out our lighter elements to form our lands and waters and atmosphere and biosphere,
Have we listened to our planetary sounding off, our deep ancestors sounding along until we evolved our languages,
Just to launch off back into the space from which we gathered to become this planet?
Did we gather just to bicker, fight, and go to war?
Or did we come to party? To make life nice!
To triumph individually? To conquer?
Or to love, to enjoy, to feed, clothe, house, comfort…
To care for life, and celebrate the joy that brings?
What a show! Why go? Let’s stay and play for keeps.
[Editorial note: Replies to Jeff’s email follow below, with minor corrections and without the divergent responses. No one opted out of having their identity redacted to preserve anonymity.]
On Apr 17, 2022, at 2:00 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
Got it Jeff, beautifully expressed.
With Leggett Valley Fire Protection District Commission's Chief Ely Reighter, in my role also in the nonprofit organization LEGACY—The Landscape Connection, we are eager to establish Workforce Development in wildfire prevention, equipment acquisition and local labor employment in forest health firesafe restoration and maintenance operations. We may establish a payroll system within LV FPD if we can be adequately funded to do so. All monetary matters otherwise in LV FPD are transacted through County of Mendocino Auditors Department.
For my heartfelt start to get something real on a roll, I recently originated SWIFT as parallel-basic to the structure CalFire uses to certify starter levels, up to Burn Boss level. Chief Reighter has a more intimate and higher degree of understanding than do I (in originating SWIFT) of how training and certifications are witnessed and "signed off".
Chief Reighter has in mind that Leggett and Piercy FPDs and Bell Springs Volunteer Fire Department (VFD), in an alliance, will have four certified persons witness four volunteers, wherein "sign offs" will be booked during controlled burns and wildfire incidents and a rotation of certified witness of new volunteers and paid workers will be established.
I am Founder /Director in legacy-tlc.org
https://legacy-tlc.org/programs/
I step myself into this dual realm of nonprofit and Special District funding acquisition in part because LV FPD has experienced difficulty establishing USDA and FEMA required identifiers in recent funding cycles.
Your help and advice will be greatly appreciated in our unincorporated, severely disadvantaged communities of northern Mendocino, Southern Humboldt and Trinity Counties. Our expertise lies in boots to the ground far more than in grant writing.
Sincerely,
L. Steven Day
On Apr 18, 2022, at 5:27 PM, Kyle Keegan <owlsperch@asis.com> wrote:
Jeff (and others),
There were several important points made within the exquisite journey you took us on with this writing. There are no simple answers when working with complex systems. Thank you (as always) for your expansive vision.
A whole systems perspective is absolutely needed when defining "forest health." Our language (as you pointed out) can be limiting, especially when trying to define complex and dynamic systems. The word "forest" might be better served as a verb than a noun since it is perpetually in motion—a symphony of interdependent organisms and processes working in synergy. All of our definitions should be interlinked and cyclical at multiple scales in time and in space. The Fire-Carbon-Water-Nutrient-Life cycles are endlessly engaged in dynamic equilibrium. (Like riding a bike over uneven terrain.) Our definitions can be as fluid and interchangeable as the elements and processes that make up a forest organism. I like how you emphasized the cultural (human) elements in your list of forest health markers.
When considering the mega-restoration $$$ being infused by state agencies into our communities to proactively combat "mega-fires," I think we need to be on guard and recognize that landscape-scale restoration is nothing that we have any previous experience with. And like you mentioned, the "one size fits all" method of so-called "forest health" may not fit into our fragile geologies and complex and unique eco-types. What I am noticing lately is that we have adopted a language and perspective that is overwhelmingly fuel-centric. Complex and living systems are being subjugated into a reductionist mindset that defines ecological communities in terms of fuel hours. Let's not forget that the whole of the system is greater than the sum of its combustible parts!
The most concerning part of this trajectory is that the "solutions" to today's ecological "problems" are being derived from the same ideologies and world views that got us into this post-industrial logging, fire-exclusion conundrum in the first place. In order to take control of our local narratives, I think we first need to identify and acknowledge the colonial hubris that we have inherited. In my opinion, all of us who think we "know" and understand the complex living systems we are working with are the problem. We need a willingness to not know so that a deeper sense of understanding can emerge.
Lately, I have been trying to define and re-define language and pathways of gaining and valuing local ecological knowledge. The baseline being TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) which I consider "old growth knowledge" based on "keystone ideologies." With TEK being indigenous wisdom that evolved over the course of hundreds of generations we need another complementary form of place-based knowledge to aspire to. That's where PBEK (Place-Based Ecological Knowledge) comes in. And finally, there's what I am calling MEK (Modern Ecological Knowledge). MEK I am considering as a state and formal system/method of education and knowledge. So that's TEK, PBEK and MEK. (All we needed were more dorky acronyms!)
Currently, the marriage of government with Modern Ecological Knowledge (MEK) is informing many of our larger, landscape-scale restoration objectives, as well as public awareness and outreach. And as you pointed out, it is this marriage that has most of the control of the memes that are driving public opinion and acceptance. If we want control at the local level to develop our own specialized restoration objectives, then we need to to take control of our local narratives. In my opinion, the continued commitment to enhancing our Place-Based Ecological Knowledge (PBEK) should be the foundation of informing our local definition of "forest health." Guidance and wisdom should and can be informed by Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with the understanding that it is cultural property and not ours for the taking (appropriation). This requires inclusiveness at every level with the original peoples of this land and the ancestral territories that we are speaking of in this conversation. And MEK, (Modern Ecological Knowledge) can help to solidify place-based forms of knowledge. I don't see all three forms of knowledge as being mutually exclusive. When combined, they could offer our greatest chance of proceeding forward without leaving another legacy of unintended consequences to future generations.
Despite 100 + years of fire exclusion propaganda and practice, I don't want to fall into the trap of rushing to make up for lost time. Ecological restoration is starting to feel like a race as money flows into our communities faster than we can come up with the capacity to implement sound and ecologically beneficial outcomes. Jeff, I think your yearning to define "forest health" is a crucial step that was being overlooked. Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Kyle Keegan
On Apr 18, 2022, at 9:40 PM, Susan Nolan <snolan@humboldt1.com> wrote:
Kyle’s perspective is spot on. I’m beginning to hear “forest health” as (usually) well-intentioned efforts to manipulate vegetation for human benefit. Some have deep roots in traditional practice. Some are industrial and for-profit. And everything in between.
When considering the mega-restoration $$$ being infused by state agencies into our communities to proactively combat "mega-fires," I think we need to be on guard and recognize that landscape-scale restoration is nothing that we have any previous experience with.
Yes—and who gets those contracts? Those who have the resources to successfully negotiate the grant process, meet all the conditions, and fullfill the terms.
A lot of what’s getting done is about quick solutions that look good immediately but won’t hold up. PG&E’s clearcutting along power lines is a great example. What’s going to happen there in five or ten years? Places that had been shaded will erupt in brush and new young trees: low-growing fine fuel. Often power lines run along roads—sources of sparks and discarded cigarettes. Just one example.
In the not too distant future, I expect we'll be revising our view of what to do, just as we are now re-thinking fire suppression, salvage logging, and so much else that was past best practice. Thanks to Kyle for his beautifully and humbly written words of caution.
There’s still room in the August Fire campout at Ruth next month, if anyone’s interested just email me. Susan.
On Apr 18, 2022, at 11:31 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
I beg your indulgence.
With Leggett Valley Fire Protection District Commission's Chief Ely Reighter, in my role also in the nonprofit organization LEGACY—The Landscape Connection, we are eager to establish Workforce Development in wildfire prevention, equipment acquisition and local labor employment in forest health firesafe restoration and maintenance operations. We may establish a payroll system within LV FPD if we can be adequately funded to do so. All monetary matters otherwise in LV FPD are transacted through the County of Mendocino Auditors Department.
In my heartfelt desire to get something real started with boots on the ground, I recently originated SWIFT* as parallel-basic to the structure CalFire uses, to certify starter levels, up to Burn Boss level. Chief Reighter has a more intimate and higher degree of understanding than do I (in originating SWIFT) of how training and certifications are witnessed and "signed off."
Chief Reighter has in mind Leggett and Piercy FPDs and Bell Springs Volunteer Fire Department (VFD) in an alliance, with four certified persons to witness four volunteers, wherein "sign offs" will be booked during controlled burns and actual wildfire incidents, so that a rotation of Certified Witnesses certifying new volunteers as paid workers would be established.
Leggett Valley Fire Protection has fewer than FIVE volunteers. I suggest funding be directed to pay trained and CalFire-certified local labor in "Forest Health" Wildfire Resiliency catastrophic prevention operations. Volunteer firefighters remain volunteer firefighters, but they can get PAID for prevention work. The Districts and VFDs therein become more attractive to new blood with youth and fitness.
I step myself into this combined realm of nonprofit and Special District funding proposals in part because LV FPD has experienced difficulty establishing required USDA and FEMA identifiers in recent funding cycles.
Your help and advice will be greatly appreciated in our unincorporated, severely disadvantaged communities of northern Mendocino, Southern Humboldt and Trinity Counties (see map attached). Our expertise lies in boots to the ground far more than in grant writing.
*Service Work In Foresthealth Training (see descriptive flyer attached)
On Apr 19, 2022, at 10:14 AM, Kyle Keegan <owlsperch@asis.com> wrote:
Jeff and others,
A thought on Jeff's awesome 10 forest health objectives, specifically the human component:
Can we have a healthy human community without reconciling and deconstructing the colonial control of these ancestral lands that we are speaking of? In other words, what is the pathway to help "heal" white settlers who are still dominating these conversations?
Kyle
On Apr 19, 2022, at 11:44 AM, Jeff Hedin <jeffatstandish@gmail.com> wrote:
Kyle, Susan, Steven [Larry]
Yesss! Thank you. Love the way you move straight to practice. Reminds me of Yogi Berra: "In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not." Susan, I agree absolutely that the programs emerging are all aimed at human benefit, failing to study how humanity's relationship to the rest of our biocommunity can increase planetary vitality. That is the essential rub. And how do we reach the rest of the human population? Kyle, thank you for "place based environmental knowledge." I"d been searching for the clarifier to "this is not a one size fits all situation," and finally gave up and sent off what I had. PBEK feels perfect for now. I am not so sure about 'Modern EK, but the distinction is absolutely valid, as is your assessment of its value. I wondered about Formal, or Academic, Literary etc., but all seem a little bit divisive. Oh how to be inclusive! And Steven, I really like the idea of work parties with our local fire chiefs [volunteer and CalFire] attending and recording activities, both for hands-on education and certification for future paid participation. We could do it like barn raising parties. Bring food and tools. Socialize. Work, think and plan together. Get granted funds to pay the instructing/supervising chiefs; do it for our aging and infirm. Extend the fire-resistant perimeters around our yards until they become a significant fire-resilient aspect of our landscape. No funding, let's chip in a few bucks to show appreciation to our chiefs, do it, even tiny prescribed miniburns to get acquainted with that planning and that form of work coordination. Never before paused to consider the gap in our understanding of ordaining and coordinating, and how often Modern Ecological Knowledge ordains through exposure to literature, and repeating it, with no practice in community coordination.
Best Regards
Jeff Hedin
On Apr 19, 2022, at 12:40 PM, Susan Nolan <snolan@humboldt1.com> wrote:
Thanks for the Yogi Berra, Jeff!
And thank you, Kyle, for:
The most concerning part of this trajectory is that the "solutions" to today's ecological "problems" are being derived from the same ideologies and world views that got us into this post-industrial logging, fire-exclusion conundrum in the first place.
PG&E’s fire prevention work is a great example of this.
The burning that Indians did around villages tilted vegetation toward what was useful for them. And it’s a valuable model for us, but we should bear in mind that it is not natural, neither theirs nor ours.
There needs to be a place for fire to function naturally, as fire is an essential element in almost all our local biotypes. I would like to see the end of firefighting in wilderness, particularly the big wilderness areas such as the Yolla Bolly and Trinity Alps.
And prescribed burning will never catch up with what “needs” to be done. We aren’t Indians. Remembering a story of a grandmother sending a couple of young grandchildren up the hill behind the house with a book of matches. The white people’s way involves: scattered rural homes, timber values, property rights, air quality days, liabilty and insurance, permitting, qualification standards, etc.
Estimates of cultural burning and natural wildfire before significant white immigration are around five million acres a year in the state (in my fuzzy memory). I just can’t see that being allowed to happen now.
So there’s an important perspective to keep in mind: prescribed burning is helpful at the neighborhood scale. It can’t be relied upon to stop wind-driven crown fires, which we are seeing more and more. Routine burning to control ground fuels is a change in the vegetation beneficial to people, but it’s different from natural fire, which is variable in frequency and intensity. It creates a somewhat artificial environment (just as fire suppression does).
Prescribed burning would not have saved this stand in the North Fork Eel, blitzed during the August Fire. This extends for miles.
On Apr 20, 2022, at 3:50 PM, Will Emerson <fire@bellsprings.net> wrote:
Thank you, Jeff and Kyle and everyone, for narrowing in on some “forest health” concepts I have been uncomfortable with but couldn’t quite put my finger on. We humans seem to push the pendulum back and forth and count progress as velocity rather than in finding equilibrium. We still have so much to learn.
We turn toward the tribes for Traditional Ecological Knowledge. But when you ask them how they decide how to treat a piece of land, they usually say “we treat it as our elders taught us to treat it.” To back-to-the-landers that sounds suspicious since we don’t trust at all what our elders taught us. We trust our own intuition more. Homesteaders and Native Americans both have multi-generational trauma. Homesteaders, the grandchildren of immigrants — the children of detonated nuclear families — were yanked out by their roots and thrown into new soil. Natives were cut off from their roots and are trying to re-attach. We have a lot to share and a lot to learn from each other.
We have gone through at least two phases of resource extraction in these woods. The first started around 1850 when huevos grandes white men attacked the giant trees of the north coast with axes, crosscut saws, and oxen. The trees went on forever and they would never run out. That changed in the 1940’s and 1950’s when chainsaws, bulldozers, log trucks, and corporations came to turn everything standing into dollars. Then they packed up and went elsewhere. We’re left with overcut, overgrown brushy forests in need of help. Thanks, Jeff, for putting it into perspective that this is a functioning ecosystem trying its best to recover from this catastrophic industrial intrusion. Sometimes we feel we have to fix everything. If we wait long enough, all problems eventually fix themselves. My friend John Sipila taught me that.
But maybe we can’t wait that long. Maybe it’s not about selling postcards and ugly carvings by the roadside. Maybe it’s about learning to really live here and find abundance in these low-protein forests. To understand them so well, we heal ourselves as we help them to heal. To base this next phase on learning what the forest needs rather than what we can get out of it. How many more old-growth trees would we have and how many salmon in the rivers if it weren’t for greed. How many Native Americans lived in these forests, valleys, and highlands before the white man came? Way more than everyone here now. They didn’t need big pickups and big screen TV’s. They knew the land and how to care for it well enough to tip the bowl their way and thrive. I just read today that the Wiyot tribe is named after their word for the Eel River, which means Abundance.
I’m very interested to hear the Buddhist perspective on this. The Tibetan Buddhists have held onto a long unbroken spiritual tradition while being uprooted from their homeland. How do they view their role and responsibility in nature?
<Plug> I hope you’ll join us this Saturday April 23, 2022 at Gomde in South Leggett for a discussion of these topics and a workshop on cultivating mushrooms on logs from forest thinnings. See http://nm-era.org/next-up/ for more details. </End of Plug>.
I’ve said elsewhere that so many environmental actions have been acts of resistance but now these are acts of creation. We have gotten to a point where we can actually help create the world we wish to see. This is a great opportunity and a great responsibility. Let’s keep talking, thinking, and acting even if we are unsure of the path ahead.
Enjoying real rain,
Will Emerson
Bell Springs Fire
Northern Mendocino Ecosystem Recovery Alliance
On Apr 20, 2022, at 10:08 PM, Kyle Keegan & Dana Bloomer <owlsperch@asis.com> wrote:
Thank you Susan for your salient points, especially bringing up prescribed fire and its potential limitations. Normally I avoid email threads because they are too time consuming and tend to go mostly nowhere. But Jeff really lured me in with this one. (Plus this awesome April skywater event has me inside for the first time in months.) With unprecedented state $$$ being channeled into our rural communities we are on the verge of making some of the grandest decisions (good or bad) this land has seen since the last industrial logging era. I hope we can all set aside a little time to coordinate a sane plan before this mega-restoration train gets too much momentum, potentially losing control of our vision and values.
I am intrigued by your comments on "natural" vs. "non natural" fire. Our local restoration narratives are helpful in that they continually reveal the inherited world views of the Euro-American settler. (Colonialism can be so sneaky.) Those of us who are new arrivals to this continent seem to have a very hard time seeing ourselves as being a "natural" part of the living systems we are inextricably linked to, and a part of. (I'll speak for myself as a white settler. I have no idea of the ancestral history of the others in this email thread.)
I would argue that the human use of fire to modify our environment to achieve outcomes that enhance our ability (and the ability of other species) to persist here could be viewed as "natural.”
Fire suppression (in my opinion) is a form of cultural suppression. (For both native and non-native peoples.) The state-mandated exclusion of fire has also excluded humans from being able to have a functional and healthy relationship to fire. Fire suppression suppresses the ability of the original inhabitants to continue on their intergenerational journey (art) of utilizing fire as an ecological enhancement tool. Fire suppression also suppresses the ability of the new inhabitants to both learn from the original peoples (if we are humble enough to) and also learn for ourselves to utilize fire as a land care tool.
In response to your mentioning of the estimated historic average of 5 million acres burned prior to white settlement (that is also my memory for the number being tossed around as of late):
The question that comes up for me as someone who has been learning how to use Rx fire as a restoration tool is: should we be trying to set a goal to return to (anywhere close to) pre-Euro settlement acres burned in this modern day? Aside from all of the challenges you mentioned, I am having a very hard time fully getting on board with fire being over-applied to systems that are very different now than they were 175 years ago. When considering present-day species composition, introduced exotics, soil carbon loss/soil compaction, impaired hydrologic cycles, forest densification, etc., etc., and of course, the big one—climate chaos, all of these symptoms could be considered co-morbidities. Bringing in fire too fast and too frequently at a landscape scale could just be another hit on an already struggling system. I agree with you that "neighborhood scale" is where we should be with Rx fire right now.
(Serious heavy rain and hail event happening here right now....oh YEAH!)
Thanks again Susan, Jeff, Gray, and others for stepping up here. I hope to make it to Ruth for some camp fireside conversations vs screen time.
Sincerely,
Kyle
On Apr 21, 2022, at 11:12 AM, Susan Nolan <snolan@humboldt1.com> wrote:
Kyle, I do see Indian burning as a beautiful and deeply caring way of tending the land. But (acknowledging that this is a heretical point of view) I would still argue that it was also a human manipulation, and unnatural, although it worked much more closely with truly natural patterns, i.e., what would happen without human intervention.
Regular human-initiated burning differs from wildfire by creating a more stable and uniform vegetation. Shrubs burned for basketry material won’t become senescent or grow into impenetrable thickets, for example. Insect pests (and other insects) will be destroyed. In various ways, regualar light burns reduce habitat for species that need more variable conditions: the pests and all invertebrates and their predators, small mammals needing cover, etc.
At this point, after a century of fire suppression, there can be no natural fire, because fuel loading is unnatural. And we have climate change (warmer and drier), meaning that well-established trees and shrubs are no longer suited to the place they’re growing, over millions of acres. Besides that, weather change, as powerful new summer winds drive fires in an unprecedented way. A return to natural, uncontrolled fire even in most wilderness would be very messy for decades at least, besides being politically unlikely.
“[S]hould we be trying to set a goal to return to (anywhere close to) pre-Euro settlement acres burned, in this modern day?”
“The data shows Cal Fire treated 64,000 acres in 2019, but only 32,000 acres in 2020 and 24,000 acres through Memorial Day this year [2021]. The federal government and private landowners also chip in, but the totals remain far below what experts say is required to effectively adapt to the dangers of climate change. We need to be doing a million acres a year, for a long time,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “That's the scale where you start to achieve … strategic goals, like fewer structures lost.”
A million acres a year—sounds good, but that’s a whole new major industry. Again, you all know how much is involved, with planning and permitting, certified personel, air quality days, etc.
We’re not Indians.
But: four million acres burned in California wildfires in 2020, 2.5 million acres last year, another big fire year shaping up for 2022 in most of the state. We may reach the old numbers whether we do the work or not.
“I agree with you that "neighborhood scale" is where we should be with Rx fire right now.”
Yes. Because PG&E is showing us what government and corporations can give us. The current plan to give grants to local groups that can organize and jump through the hoops is not ideal, but probably the best possible.
Anyway. No easy answers, and the answers we think we have may not hold up as we learn more. It’s a compelling story--watching with interest—Susan.
On Apr 21, 2022, at 12:55 PM, Kyle Keegan <owlsperch@asis.com> wrote:
Will,
This was absolutely beautiful and insightful, every part of your expression.
Thank you.
Kyle
On Apr 21, 2022, at 9:34 PM, Kyle Keegan <owlsperch@asis.com> wrote:
Susan,
I agree with you that human-initiated burning creates more stable and uniform vegetation depending on the intervals in-between burning, as well as other factors. And that's a really good point about regular light burns potentially reducing habitat for species that need more variable conditions. Something that we will never know exactly is what the baseline species richness (biodiversity) was just prior to human-initiated burning. Also, thank you for doing the research and coming up with some numbers of acres burned. Yes, it looks like fire is having its own way with choosing how many acres need to burn in CA right now! I have been hearing about more recent data that is showing that prior to Euro-American contact, large, high-severity fires were more common than previously thought. (Douglas Bevington highlights that point in his article on Rx fire.)
The "natural fire" vs. "unnatural fire" part of this conversation is what circled in my mind all day today as I burned brush near fire lines that will be used to contain Rx fire this fall (if we can jump through all the regulatory hoops). Language has such a powerful influence on our perception. I think it is much clearer to me to describe what we are talking about with the wording you used, "human-initiated fire" vs. calling it "unnatural fire." It has me thinking about the importance of language when I work with children and teach ecology. When I am doing any form of ecological restoration with them, I have never told them that what they were doing was "unnatural," even if we are modifying our environment. Instead we talk about learning from and emulating the Scrub Jays who help plant our oak woodlands by caching (planting) acorns. Or how beavers build dams to slow down water and recharge our aquifers while also making more food for themselves by growing more willows. And the classic story with fire is of the "Fire Hawks" in Australia that have been observed for centuries using fire as a tool to hunt. (Literally picking up burning sticks and moving fire around for their benefit!)
Would we consider the actions of these nonhuman species as "unnatural" because they are modifying their environment for their own benefit? What part of being human is not natural?
I couldn't agree more with your statement:
"No easy answers, and the answers we think we have may not hold up as we learn more. It’s a compelling story--watching with interest."
I look forward to seeing you in person and exploring more of these complex issues.
Kyle
On Apr 22, 2022, at 5:23 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
Can we talk yet about adding smaller projects to Phase Two of Northern Mendocino Forest Health Collaborative, whereupon CalFire has a commitment to continue with us, to maintain these vegetation management manipulations when half the $4.9 million is spent?
Victor Bjelajac was ready with me in the "Burn The Park" Standish-Hickey proposal subbmitted two years in a row three years ago. I had Sparky lined up for the measly $10K coordinator position to commence planning a five-year plan with landowners big and small all around Leggett.
Lets get paid boots on the ground!
On Apr 25, 2022, at 12:49 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
Move onward from analysis.
California Legislative Analyst's Office, "Improving California’s Forest and Watershed Management"
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3798
On Apr 26, 2022, at 3:15 PM, Gail Eastwood <eastwood@asis.com> wrote:
Dear all,
This has been a very thought-provoking thread. Thanks to Jeff for initiating it, and thanks to all who have contributed to the conversation.
I'd like to respond to something in Jeff's original document where he lists the disruptions to our region's landscape of the European invasion as "logging, mining, transportation, and agriculture." Oddly left out is what is to my mind the most significant disruption of all: the widespread suppression of fire.
When we first arrived on our land fifty years ago, we were focused on the devastation of logging, with its massive erosion problems (some of them still active). Now, in retrospect, I see many of the stumps of trees on our land as being post-contact trees established where meadows previously existed. These trees were the first wave of fir invasion consequent to the suppression of fire. Firs and other species continue to over-run our grasslands and crowd the landscape with dense stands that present a heavy fuel load to the next out-of-control wildfire.
While many of the scars of logging continue to heal, the consequences of fire suppression to the forest and its dependent lifeforms (including us) continue to mount exponentially over time. Oak trees are being suppressed along with the critters they nurtured; grasslands continue to be gobbled up. Water storage over the dry season continues to be diminished as all the new tree growth sucks up moisture in our now hotter and lengthier dry season. (Transpiration probably accounts for more water loss than does human usage—look out at all those respiring trees in the the forest and think of how much water it takes to keep one tomato plant or one peach tree alive through the summer. There is some research on forest tree water usage that backs me up on this.)
It seems to me that the re-introduction of fire into the landscape is absolutely key to ecosystem renewal. It's going to be a long road; our choices in the journey are limited. Our forests will burn, most of them not through our intentions. More of them than in the past will burn catastrophically, as fuels loads continue to increase and climate conditions worsen. What pockets of health for the forest and all its lifeforms (including us) can we co-create and help to maintain?
Our species has the gift of thinking about and coming to understandings of how all of the different parts and forces of the ecosystem (including us) work together. With that comes the responsibility to use that gift to the best of our ability for the good of all.
Best wishes,
Gail Eastwood
Chair, Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council
On Apr 26, 2022, at 4:43 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
Doug Fir, the weed from Mixed Evergreen
On Apr 26, 2022, at 4:50 PM, Mary E. POWER <mepower@berkeley.edu> wrote:
This wonderful pair of pictures says it all. Thanks very much, Steven. This has been a great discussion. Let me know if some of you would like to discuss it over a campfire at Angelo after mid-summer, although let’s wait until we know what Covid’s up to now.
Mary E. Power
Professor of the Graduate School
4180 VLSB
Integrative Biology
Univ. California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3140
Faculty Director,
Angelo Coast Range Reserve
UC Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people.
On Apr 26, 2022, at 5:02 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
The first mistake in academically establishing the profession of forestry was to discard thousands of years' burning practices of indigenous cultures [Steven Pyne]. Dense re-growth of northern California coastal forests after timber extraction has produced dangerous loading of vegetation, fuel, and life web imbalance.
Western U.S.A. wildland fires in 1910 induced great fear among firefighter survivors who assumed leadership in the establishment of the U.S. Forest Service. Prioritization of a timber supply established the practice of reacting to wildfire with the sole intent of suppression.
Subsidizing logging in remote forests won't protect us; we need to live with fire, the way we do with earthquakes.
Heath Angelo in his orchard with Michael Huddleston, 1980
On Apr 26, 2022, at 5:13 PM, Will Emerson <fire@bellsprings.net> wrote:
Thanks, Steven, for the wonderful if blurry photo of Heath Angelo and Michael in the orchard. I vividly remember visiting Heath with Herb Roth one winter day. Herb would always bring him a bottle of very good scotch and a copy of the New York Times. A lively and far-ranging discussion ensued.
Will
On Apr 27, 2022, at 10:16 PM, Susan Nolan <snolan@humboldt1.com> wrote:
Is this something the Trips Committee is interested in organizing? I think all of you managed to miss the wonderful trip to Angelo in 2019. Mary and her husband Bill Dietrich were wonderful hosts, and of course the Angelo Reserve is one of the best-kept almost secrets in the area.
On Apr 27, 2022, at 11:51 PM, Chip Tittmann <chip.tittmann@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, great idea to go again to the Angelo. Who can spearhead this?
Kudos to Susan for getting the August Fire campout. I hope to make it this year.
As I would love to do Angelo...ct
On Apr 27, 2022, at 10:50 AM, Linda Gray <wildlands@pacific.net> wrote:
This is a great conversation!
Here at my place, just a little south of Central Mendocino County, we just had a thinning & release project done by a ground crew on 24 acres in March under a North Bay Forest Improvement Program grant. You can see the before and after photos attached, taken at the same spot. If you look carefully you can see the same oak tree in both photos. The work continued about 700' down the hill to within 50' of Eldridge Creek. As you can see in the photos, the canopy remains pretty much the same. What was cut and burned was lower branches, small Douglas-fir invading this oak woodland, dead and dying small brush and sick, small tan oak. Healthy tan oak with multiple stems was reduced to a single stem.
Patches of Douglas-fir forest were thinned to leave the large trees and improve spacing, and lower limbs were removed.
Now that this work has been done, I think we can safely do prescribed burns every 3 to 5 years without endangering the nearby homes. If we'd tried that without doing this ground work I suspect any fire, no matter what time of year it was done, would've been difficult to control.
My neighbors were unfortunate enough to have power lines crossing their property and PG&E came through with a 165' wide swath of destruction. There is no similarity between what PG&E's been doing and the work we had done. They took out every tree in that swath, and like a previous person noted, brush will return with a vengeance because the canopy is gone.
Fire is coming to all of us who live in the forests and woodlands; we just don't know when. If we thin out the kindling now, the big trees will have a chance at survival.
Campfire discussions at Angelo sound fabulous!
~ Linda
On Apr 28, 2022, at 1:17 PM, Karen Youngblood <karen@rffi.org> wrote:
Have you been to the California Natural Resources Agency website? They have a grants portal for all grants in California. There are a lot. https://resources.ca.gov/grants
Karen Youngblood
Redwood Forest Foundation/Usal Redwood Forest Company
Forest Conservation Specialist
(707) 357-8374
On Apr 28, 2022, at 5:10 PM, bruce hilbach <behilbachb@yahoo.com> wrote:
Re: Firs in the North Fork Eel
Looking out from some of the ridges across North Fork Eel landscapes, some of the fir thickets look like bad shag carpet. I have been told that a CCC camp in that area had, at one time, a program of sending out folks to stuff Douglas-fir into the landscape. A ridge near Salt Creek was mentioned in a conversation with a native elder when this topic was being discussed; one of the most striking perspectives was the view east from Mina Road toward the ridge between the North Fork and Salt Creek. The same has been said of the CCC camp on Corbin Creek in the Upper Mainstem, and there are oddly spaced fir thickets in that area too. These I've only seen while hiking through them. Having spent a little time with tree planters, I can imagine them emptying their bags with more thought for their piecework wages than for the future of the forest.
I probably won't make the North Fork campout and wanted to toss this into the thought and observation mix.
Bruce E Hilbach-Barger
Covelo, CA 95428
cell 707 358-0225
On May 12, 2022, at 7:48 PM, Karen Youngblood <karen@rffi.org> wrote:
What an important and inspiring discussion. Thank you Jeff for including me and starting a practical list of what forest health is. As most of you know, we (RFFI/URFC) are in the process of creating shaded fuel breaks, re-introducing Rx burns and planning watershed restoration projects for Usal Redwood Forest. We are putting all these ideas on the ground now, so this conversation is very timely, very much welcome and appreciated. Here are some of my thoughts on forest health:
Being in the role I am at Usal, working with restoration partners to develop projects, applying for money, and now spending the money to improve “forest health,” I too think a lot about what “they” mean by forest health and what I think forest health is. To me, a healthy forest is a mature forest, which is a resilient forest. A resilient forest will survive climate change, wildfire, drought, landslides and other human impacts or natural crises.
Our planning regarding restoration of redwood forest health needs to consider not only the characteristics of a mature healthy redwood forest in our region, but also the current trajectory of a young, disturbed redwood forest and the necessary trajectory for the forest to develop maturity/resiliency most efficiently.
Coastal redwoods have a very limited range restricted to the fog belt along the northern CA coast. One of the most important conditions for a healthy redwood forest is climate. A healthy redwood forest is moist, cool and shady, not just because of its proximity to the ocean, but also because of the tall, large-canopied trees themselves.
Because we can’t restore these impacted young forests to mature healthy redwood forests in our lifetimes, I think restoring redwood forest health does simply mean fuel reduction right now. Fuel reduction is a means to increase resiliency from high intensity, imminently threatening wildfires, and fuel reduction is a means to potentially invigorate growth rates of leave trees and improve water storage and distribution. Although, fuel reduction treatments to restore forest health need to retain mature, resilient overstory trees, which are critical to help recreate the microclimate necessary for a healthy redwood ecosystem. These overstory trees that remain today are relicts of the past—the sourdough starter for the return of the future healthy redwoods. As the stands mature, they will become more resilient. A shady redwood stand will create its own rich, thick duff and soil.
Although simple, ambiguous—perhaps misused?—I do like the term forest health, that it is popular and that lots of money is being allocated to bettering it. Even if there are ulterior motives for reserving funds for forest health, we can take advantage of that for the sake of our forests. In California, improving the health of our environment has actually become a priority among many scientists, politicians and the general population. That is not the case everywhere. Is that even done for humans? Human health?
Also, I confess, I do feel impatient. I do think we need to race, in a sense, to remedy what we damaged. Maybe it is too late, but maybe we can make a difference. If we can, the time is now. The attention, science and money is here now. We need to collaborate, strategize, prioritize and act now. If we don’t know exactly what will work in our area of land tending, we need to do pilot studies, create technical advisory groups, and use all of our resources, knowledge, and community.
There we go, those are my thoughts for now. I would love to keep discussing how to create healthy forests with all of you—with patient urgency, of course.
I would also love to discuss in person over a campfire this summer at Angelo Reserve 😊.
-Karen
Karen Youngblood
Redwood Forest Foundation/Usal Redwood Forest Company
Forest Conservation Specialist
karen@rffi.org
(707) 357-8374
On May 12, 2022, at 8:00 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
Redwoods are sexy, but not the only forest type or grasslands in our region that need fuels reduction, ridgetop shaded breaks to isolate watershed units and maintenance with indigenous knowledge and management practices.
On May 13, 2022, at 12:30 PM, Karen <karen@rffi.org> wrote:
Agreed! I work in the redwoods so that is my focus when considering what forest health is.
Karen Youngblood
Redwood Forest Foundation/Usal Redwood Forest Company
Forest Conservation Specialist
(707) 357-8374
On May 13, 2022, at 5:39 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
RFFI land has Tan Oak, Doug-fir other species mixed in. My place is adjacent. If not all Redwood, then it is called Mixed Evergreen Forest.
On May 16, 2022, at 12:59 PM, Karen <karen@rffi.org> wrote:
According to Veg Camp vegetation classification for California vegetation alliances, which I like to use for considering vegetation community types, the Redwood Forest alliance includes redwood as a dominant or codominant with associates grand fir, big leaf maple, alder, madrone, chinquapin, tanoak, Sitka spruce, Douglas-fir, western hemlock and bay. To be classified as a RW Forest alliance, redwood either has to have greater than 50% cover in the canopy or greater than 30% cover with co-dominants DF and tanoak. So, it definitely does not need to be all redwood to be considered a redwood forest. Also, if you have a Doug-fir/tanoak cover with redwood stumps, is this not a redwood forest? Should it be managed as a redwood forest?
Karen Youngblood
Redwood Forest Foundation/Usal Redwood Forest Company
Forest Conservation Specialist
(707) 357-8374
On May 17, 2022, at 11:02 AM, Kyle Keegan <owlsperch@asis.com> wrote:
Hi all,
On the topic of forest health, I wanted to suggest the most informative book (thus far) that I have purchased: Forest Ecosystems, 2nd edition, by David A. Perry, Ram Oren, Stephen C. Hart. It covers forest ecosystem dynamics at every level imaginable and is written by and for foresters. It is beautifully written and fully backed by scientific study with an emphasis on Pacific Northwest forests. You can find copies used for around $60 and new copies are around $95. You'll also need a forklift to get it off the bookshelf! Any book that tries to tackle an integrative whole systems approach to forest health and care is going to be heavy.
Cheers,
Kyle
On Jun 11, 2022, at 4:15 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
Northwestern Leggett Wildfire Resiliency and Incident Safety Preparedness
In anticipation of CalFire's promised Phase Two of Northern Mendocino County Forest Health Collaborative, I submit this Fire Safe responders route and shaded fuel breaks project, indicated by my hand-drawn red line on the attached map zoomed in with RFFI* ownership cross hatching (purple).
Betty Ball will pass this on to RFFI board members and founders Linda Perkins and Bill Heil, who will forward it to RFFI's Forester Linwood Gill. I copied Linwood on this to get it on a roll, pray tell.
It is a wildfire fast attack route and shaded fuel break that loops off State Route 1 onto Page and Gates Road through seven residences, Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area (park), my place and Lowrys, onto RFFI land up to Usal Ridge, onto the WRRP Road and back to Rt. 1.
Easement language for Day's 93 acres and Lowry's 54 acres is unrestricted and may be granted to other entities, regardless of state partnership. Of course, partnering is desirable but bureaucracy is a banana slug.
Northern Mendocino County CalFire Battalion Chief Ryan Isham, Leggett Valley FPD Chief Ely Reighter, Bell Springs VFD Chief Will Emerson, Piercy FPD Commissioner Jeff Hedin and L. Steven Day met January 30, 2022. Chief Reighter outlined seven Vegetation Management projects beneficial to LVFPD resiliency.
The Page and Gates Road action is described as "Feuls (sic) reduction along 4 miles of road. Hand crew or mastacator." This did not take into consideration any partnering with RFFI and counted only two residents, not the seven and possibly additional residences at the beginning of the private road. I implore our decision makers to build upon additional proposals such as this, while RFFI already has submitted Phase Two projects to Joe Scriven, apparently already on queue.
LEGACY—The Landscape Connection (L-tlc)'s GIS team can perform any necessary threat analyses and cartographic visual planning. I look forward to a field exploration with Linwood and anybody else who would like to join us, in reply.
Sincerely,
L. Steven Day
LVFPD Commissioner
* Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (nonprofit)
The maps and CalFire contract cover sheet are attached.
On Jun 13, 2022, at 11:15 AM, Joe Scriven <joe.scriven@mcrcd.org> wrote:
Hello Steven,
Suggesting that CAL FIRE promised to fund phase 2 of the forest health program is not accurate. While it is true we are working towards that goal, the funding program is based upon competitive grant proposals. Successful implementation of phase 1 will be a big component for CAL FIRE to award funding for phase 2.
I like your optimism and enthusiasm but suggest we not assume assured funding for phase 2.
Take care.
Joe
Joseph D. Scriven
Assistant Executive Director
W: (707) 462-3664 ext 104
C: (707) 245-2314
MCRCD’s mission is to conserve, protect, and restore
wild and working landscapes to enhance the health of
the water, soil, and forests in Mendocino County.
On Jun 13, 2022, at 11:27 AM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
How's it going? Half spent yet? That was the timing I understood, at which point we would develop additional projects. Will we come together to do it?
On Jun 13, 2022, at 12:30 PM, Linwood Gill <linwood@rffi.org> wrote:
Steven, Joe and others
I have been following this thread for some time and would definitely be interested in attending the next meeting of the Northern Mendocino Ecosystem Recovery Alliance to discuss our plans at RFFI/Usal Forest (URFC) and how best to work with others on Phase 2.
As Joe mentioned, there is no guarantee of funding. And we need to show substantial progress before we can submit for phase two. We are looking at our (URFC) portion of the project as taking three years, with hopes to complete the first half of the fuel reduction work in this calendar year. We still have a ways to go to meet that goal, but are making good progress. Most of the remaining fuel reduction will be scheduled for 2023. The small prescribed burn we are hoping to complete in 2023, but will have 2024 as a backup in case we do not get favorable weather conditions. We will then have the rest of 2024 to wrap up any loose ends.
It took us two attempts and over three years of planning before we received funding for our current project. So, now is a good time to start looking forward to the next phase to see what it may encompass. We will most likely be looking at adding the major north-south trending ridge on URFC and, if things go well with our prescribed fire, we may be looking at adding another section of prescribed fire along the Yokohama Road and possibly in some of the areas we are currently treating.
I think it would be helpful to give folks a tour of the work we have done to date and maybe take a look at areas others may have in mind for treating. Could we set up a time in July or August to meet in the woods? Also, if I am able to attend the next meeting of the NMERA, let me know when and where you will be meeting.
I look forward to meeting you in person.
Linwood
Linwood Gill
Forest Manager, RPF # 2491
Usal Redwood Forest Company
707-357-8371 (cell)
707-961-0377 (Home Office)
http://www.usalredwoodforestcompany.com
On Jul 6, 2022, at 3:31 PM, bruce hilbach <behilbachb@yahoo.com> wrote:
An interesting observation was made by Judy Harwood several years ago when she coordinated the RFFI demonstration tanoak harvest for biochar production.
The demonstration plot was designed around (90%?) canopy retention but taking a large proportion (50% as I remember it) of the tanoak stems in a mixed tanoak, fir, redwood stand. She noted that a tanoak reduction project without canopy retention had occurred in a (similar?) plot at the same time. Under shade, the tanoak sprouts were heavily browsed by deer, grew much shorter and less thick. I toured that shaded plot and indeed the sprouts were modest. Redwoods were planted in places where they would presumably reach for sunlight through small breaks in the canopy.
As she described the other tanoak brush clearing plot, Judy noted that in a short period (1 or 2 years), the tanoak sprouts were impenetrable thickets that were, as she stood on tiptoes and reached her hand high above her head, "this high."
I think that human attention and careful observation of landscapes with which we become at least familiar or even intimate is the real basis of forest/human community health. I visited both of these plots in my mind; I wish I could go back to look at the soil, the deer browse, the growing redwoods, the tanoak sprouts and the rodents and birds that live there. I wish we were managing forests with our hands and (fully engaged) imaginations.
I have bcc'd Judy in case she wants to comment but not get roped into this long conversation.
Bruce E Hilbach-Barger
Covelo, CA 95428
cell 707 358-0225
On Jul 6, 2022, at 9:07 PM, Mary E. POWER <mepower@berkeley.edu> wrote:
That’s a fascinating and important observation, Judy and Bruce. How much does shading inhibit coppicing by tanoak? Although as Bruce says, slowing it so deer can keep it grazed down would be enough.
At Angelo, we have a wonderful glade of California fescue under mature white oak canopy on the hike up to the Elder Creek waterfall—many of you probably know it. I think the partial shading may be sustaining the grass. Where I’ve had most luck growing CA fescue is under hazel bushes or other partial shade.
best
Mary Power
On Jul 6, 2022, at 9:31 PM, Dave Kahan <sparky@asis.com> wrote:
Outside of the inner defensible space zone, we usually try to maintain a fully closed canopy, preferably of dominants and co-dominants. On North and East aspects, tanoak sprouting vigor is greatly diminished under that prescription. On South and West aspects, more maintenance is necessary. Anecdotally, I've noticed that if I'm diligent about cutting all the foliage on the sprouted stumps, maybe 3-4 times in 5-6 years, the stumps will often die back and no longer sprout.
Onward!
Dave
On Jul 6, 2022, at 11:39 PM, Dave Kahan <sparky@asis.com> wrote:
Caveat: what allows us to maintain a closed canopy in the outer defensible space zone is to apply an extremely thorough treatment of surface and ladder fuels, targeting intermediate trees for removal (which makes a significant dent in the canopy bulk density and reduces ladder fuels way beyond the reach of pole saws), and extremely thorough brush disposal. Studies have shown that if those bases are covered, initiation and sustenance of crown fires are repressed under most conditions. That also helps keep the bill down for the client on the first run-through, a not insignificant matter for most. We'll also usually devote time to plucking little seedlings and cutting little sprouts. Despite not being noticed by most, if not addressed they will quickly refill the understory, necessitating re-treatment sooner rather than later. Once the sprouts are "unvigorated," opening up the canopy some becomes more of an option in subsequent treatments.
Dave
On Jul 7, 2022, at 2:28 PM, Jesse Noell <noelljesse@gmail.com> wrote:
While ground fuel regrowth does increase flame length up towards the lower canopy, the other and greater considerations are feeding the trophic food webs in the soil and maintaining plant diversity.
I find that coppicing the sprouts of tan oak, tree foliage, elderberry, huckleberry, fern, Ceanothus velutinus, or what have you makes for good composting materials to activate the char.
A battery-powered lawnmower with a razor-sharp blade can do a great job, especially if you hedge-trim or clip the material first. This compost, being high in small wood and bark, has lots of carbon to encourage fungal growth, but you need to let the compost age past the heating stage to boost all of the trophic levels to get the full balance. This is informed by and seems consistent with the science and observational results.
I'd like to see actual evidence about hand crew costs; how competitive are they with mechanical? We need to compile such evidence for grants, so please share.
On Jul 7, 2022, at 6:07 PM, Linda Gray <wildlands@pacific.net> wrote:
Here's information on all the work I've managed to get done with grant funding for fuels treatment in my neighborhood.
FIRST CREW: In early 2019 we had a crew here that charged $60/hr/man and they did 12 acres for $1,950/acre or a total of $23,100.
SECOND CREW: I had a different crew here in the winter of 2019 & 2020 and they worked on 35.4 acres of projects on several of my neighbors' places. At that time they charged $49/hr/man and the projects varied between $1,850/acre (less dense) and $2,992/acre (more dense). If they used a chipper along the edge of a road, that added another $500/day. It may be more now.
I had the same (second) crew work for me in March of this year, and their price had increased to $67/hr/man. The total crew cost of my 19.25 acre project was $64,320, so about $3,341/acre. The brush was very dense with a lot of young Douglas-fir and tan oak.
This same crew just gave another neighbor an estimate of $,3800/acre for what it will cost in the fall (dense young tan oak and madrone that filled in a Douglas-fir forest that was pretty much scalped in 1952).
The reimbursement amounts per acre have also been going up similarly, working out to about 70% of actual cost.
I got an estimate for a masticator to create shaded fuel breaks 50' wide (each side) along the roads here last fall for $3,000/acre. That project didn't get funded. The masticator operator is local (Willits).
I think the 1st crew is local—maybe out of Redwood Valley—but very difficult to get. Most of their work is with big timber companies. We only got them because it was snowing too much further north for them to get to their job up there, so they came here for a week.
The second crew is out of Marysville.
I really wanted to let local people get the work this last winter, but here's a cautionary tale about my experience trying to do that:
A local building contractor, who is a friend of mine and who lived nearby, wanted to do the 24-acre project. He had never done this type of work before. Since he was already a contractor he had the license, insurance, etc. needed to cover his crew if anything went wrong. We began discussing the project toward the end of August 2021 and agreed by Oct 20th that he'd get a crew together and do the project under his contractor's license at $50/hr. I already knew that the "SECOND CREW" would charge $67/hr to work over here, but this new contractor was completely inexperienced, so $50/hr seemed fair. Besides, the other crew had to come over from Marysville and stay in a hotel while here, and that's part of their cost.
By Oct 22nd we'd already had more than 3" of rain, so work could've started any time after that. My new contractor wasn't available to even hike the project till the middle of November and finally started work in December.
On January 13th he and my husband and I all hiked the parts of the project that had been completed by his crew. They did a beautiful job, but had only completed about 3 acres. He told us that $50/hr wasn't enough to cover $35/hr wages + Workers Comp, liability insurance, etc. and that some of the areas they'd worked were going to end up being around $4000/acre (at $50/hr).
By Feb 22nd no new work had yet been done. This contractor had other projects (construction) besides mine, so wasn't here often. There was no significant rain since January 3rd, and by the middle of January I was starting to get stressed out about whether or not this project was going to get completed. If not done by August 18, the grant money would evaporate, and no one can safely burn after the end of April anyway unless there are late rains. So by January 21st I contacted the SECOND CREW to see if they could squeeze my project in and luckily for me, they were able.
If you decide to have an inexperienced crew do a project for you, be careful. Fewer dollars per hour don't necessarily translate to lower project costs. Most people have no idea how hard forestry work is.
~ Linda
On Jul 8, 2022, at 10:01 AM, Jesse Noell <noelljesse@gmail.com> wrote:
I am increasingly concerned that neither California nor the Federal Government are taking sufficient effective action to draw down carbon or reduce emissions, and are therefore locking in a rapid temperature rise which increases our fire hazard and endangers our future. If California or the Federal Government were concerned about our lives, livelihoods, and futures, they would recognize the emergency (documented by NOAA radiative forcing data) and they would do everything they could to help the people living in the forest to draw down carbon into a recalcitrant form. Instead, we see subsidies and plans to burn the carbon from biomass right back up into the atmosphere. I think we need to write and sign an emergency petition for redress, due to inaction. Government should explain if they are ignorant, lack understanding, or know but intend to inflict harm. Please let me know if you agree.
Here is some evidence of the magnitude of inaction. The first three graphics were prepared by Dr. Peter Carter of the Climate Emergency Institute, based on the NOAA assessment update for 2022 below and the 2007 IPCC crosswalk table to equilibrium temperature [Ed: "crosswalk" refers to the relationship between GHGs that trap heat and the "equilibrium" temperature when climate stabilizes]:
On Jul 8, 2022, at 10:16 AM, Linwood Gill <linwood@rffi.org> wrote:
We are still waiting to sign our contract, so not comfortable sharing too much yet. But based on our discussions, we are looking at $2,200–2,300 per acre for the manual portion of the job. Our mechanical costs have been running closer to $2,500.
Not everyone will have this situation, but while we were working along the highway and needed traffic control, the cost was over $7,000/ac. Traffic control alone was $2,000/day, and production goes way down if you have to stop working every time you let cars through the work site. Something for everyone to keep in mind if you are working along a public road. I can only assume that work along county roads and private roads would be less than state highways, but something you should keep in mind. Luckily, we worked with our contractor ahead of time to get an estimate of this section and budgeted accordingly. I cannot stress enough the importance of working with a contractor ahead of time to get the best estimates possible before figuring out your budget…and then add a buffer to cover increases in cost between the time you submit the proposal and actually get the project completed. And buy a crystal ball to help forecast fuel cost!
Our plan is to continue along the WRP road/ridge in the next phase. We already have most of it laid out and, with a little tweaking, should be able to submit a proposal once we have a substantial part of the current project completed. This will tie into an already existing fuel break along our northern east-west road (Yokohama/Kenny Road). We are always open to collaboration.
Linwood
On Jul 8, 2022, at 10:53 AM, Linda Gray <wildlands@pacific.net> wrote:
$67/hr was the rate this spring. It has already gone up for the fall. I don't know what the $/man/hr rate is now—they're just bidding by the acre—but it's more than what they charged in the spring.
On Jul 8, 2022, at 1:33 PM, bruce hilbach <behilbachb@yahoo.com> wrote:
Thanks Linwood for providing that much detail.
It would seem that that the obvious value of and need for fuel reduction along roads would motivate state encouragement and perhaps even a subsidy of roadside fuels activity. I immediately think of evacuation route values and response times (more on that later). One other consideration that I think merits additional resources for roadside work is the tendency of roads to be vectors of active environmental disruption—invasives and ignition events—and ecological fragmentation barriers. Perhaps the state could provide encouragement to projects that mitigate the environmental damage that road corridors cause.
Road Access: In general, I am not a fan of roads or automobiles but we have built our society around them. Since we have them I believe that there is a collective responsibility to care for them. At the time of the Camp Fire, I was struck by many of the details in an article from the LA Times, but particularly by this passage:
“Fifteen minutes later, McKenzie stood at the dam looking helplessly across the river canyon at a 10-acre fire on the rock slope above. He had no way to reach it. Its unpaved access route, Camp Creek Road, clung to the mountain so precariously that rock slides threatened to erase it. The last time he put a heavy wildland engine on the crumbling grade, it took an hour to creep a mile, mirrors folded in, a man walking beside each wheel to watch for collapse. It would be a death sentence to send a crew out there in a fire. California’s professional wildfire strike forces make a regular practice of killing small grass fires—stomping thousands into anonymity each year. But this one was being lashed by a canyon vortex locals call the Jarbo wind.”
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-camp-fire-tictoc-20181118-story.html?outputType=amp
Bruce E Hilbach-Barger
Covelo, CA 95428
cell 707 358-0225
On Jul 9, 2022, at 3:12 AM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Linda Gray, a before-and-after pair of photos for reporting to a grant source.
Russian River/Big River, inland/coast, high ground
On Jul 9, 2022, at 12:05 PM, L Steven Day <lsteven.day@gmail.com> wrote:
Among any number of project site-specific objectives, gross cost budgeting is calculated in acreage. The dimensions of a treatment area range from extreme linear to more broad—for burn prep, chipping or biochar hand crews. Plan ahead to re-enter the project area for inspection and maintenance every three to five years.
Here are useful factors in measuring acreage by linear feet:
108.9 feet each side from centerline of an access way (a full width of 217.8 feet) equals 1 acre per 200 feet of access.
For every 200 feet along an access route, budget 3 to 5 thousand dollars.
On Jul 9, 2022, at 1:57 PM, Kyle Keegan <owlsperch@asis.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Mary’s as well as other people's comments have me thinking about the importance of understory diversity and forest health. In more recent years we have upped our game by seeding burn scars with locally collected native seeds after pile burning projects. This year is an excellent year for seed production with the spring rains, and we have been able to collect in bulk for future projects. Bruce mentioned exotic species and roadside projects. As we scale up our fuels treatment projects regionally, we will be increasing ground disturbance. Instead of this ground disturbance becoming a potential vector for exotic species to become established, we can utilize the opportunity to establish understory species that may have been lost due to fire exclusion and lack of regenerative disturbance regimes. In considering forest health, re-seeding after disturbance can and should be considered in our overall design and budget.
We can stack functions into the single goal of creating fuel breaks to obtain multiple yields. For example, future shaded fuel break projects in the King Range can include re-seeding disturbed areas with culturally and ecologically beneficial species, such as Bear Grass for basket making, Salal for pollinators and berries, etc. Both species are non-receptive to fire and do not decrease the value and purpose of the shaded fuel break. The potential species that could be utilized in this way are endless. And from the perspective of cultural use, the gathering of basketmaking materials requires maintenance of these roadside areas over time to keep re-sprouting tanoak and other species from out-competing the tended species. So the choice of species can influence the maintenance of these areas over time.
On the topic of mechanical (machine) vs. human labor: In my personal opinion, human relationships formed with the land via direct experiential work increases our local connection and capacity for place-based knowledge. In the long term, this builds a local culture capable of sound decision-making and visioning. I don't think we can "afford" to give this opportunity over to single operators of machines.
Cheers,
Kyle Keegan
On Jul 9, 2022, at 7:12 PM, Dave Kahan <sparky@asis.com> wrote:
My crew has done about 20 miles of shaded fuel breaks along county roads in Southern Humboldt, and I can share that traffic control and safety was by far the biggest headache of those projects. Many of our "rugged individualist" neighbors don't care to be told what to do in the first place, "know" that they know better than us what's safe and what's not, or just don't care. I've got a good stable of stories of near-misses, running the stop signs, etc. One time at the end of lunch the CHP visited. I asked what was up and she said they had gotten complaints about us. I asked what for and she said they complained we were stopping them. "Guilty as charged!" I exclaimed. We had our permit, the signs were properly placed, she smiled and said, "Keep up the good work," and that was that. One for the books, for sure.
On the topic of costs, I think it's important to consider that there's shaded fuel breaks and there's shaded fuel breaks. In other words, there are a number of variables that can range widely. Start with the prescription. My observation is that most other crews doing this work around here don't cut enough. I often see suppressed understory trees that have nowhere to grow into the canopy, pruned and left, probably to die in the next ten years or so anyway. Outside of inner defensible space zones, our default Rx is to leave a closed overstory of dominants and co-dominants. We feel it important to do a very thorough job on the surface brush and suppressed trees and prune as high as the budget will allow. In addition, we target many if not most of the intermediate trees. They are usually brushier than their taller cohorts, so removing them reduces the bulk canopy density significantly. Also, felling them often breaks off some branches on the leave trees, out of range of even pole saws, especially if we wrestle with them when they get hung up. We call that free pruning. It raises the base of the canopy nicely, with the added bonus of making the project look better. These help reduce and delay the need and cost of subsequent maintenance treatments. But it's more $ up front for the first go-round. Another thing is what foresters call "advanced regeneration." That's all the little seedlings that often carpet the forest floor. If left behind, they will quickly refill the understory. So we'll usually spend some time on our knees, plucking the seedlings and cutting the sprouts.
These all affect the bottom line for the cost of treatment. But since it makes the project function better and last longer, I believe it's cost-effective in the long term, provided the resources exist to cover it.
Which brings us to another big variable: The personnel themselves, and how they operate. We figured out a long time ago that we couldn't work any harder than we already were. But we are always looking for how we could be more efficient, and have developed a number of strategies and tactics to help achieve that goal. My observation is that some folks seem determined to do things the harder way, affecting costs, and possibly quality as well. And of course it's important to not skin the bark while making pruning cuts. That could leave a residual stand open to infection. Good to discuss all this with any prospective contractors.
One last item for now. Some crews use 4.5 cu. in. saws with 28" bars. I highly recommend favoring those that use smaller (2.8–3.2 cu. in.) saws with 18–20" bars. Much less operator fatigue, with the ability to make better cuts in tight quarters.
Onward!
Dave
On Nov 18, 2022, at 12:50 PM, Jeff Hedin <jeffatstandish@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear All,
Thank you for participating. The active Institute for Sustainable Forestry participants want to post on their website my plea for creating an acceptable and powerful definition of a healthy forest, and the email thread that your responses created. They feel we should make it widely available. I gave permission to post my original plea. ISF wishes to allow each of you to opt in or out. ISF will post your work with or without your name, or not include your contribution as you wish. Please respond. We respect each of you. Don't feel trapped into obligation.
Trees Foundation has included an edited version of my original plea in their Winter 2022/23 edition of Forest and River News [Building a Forest Health Economy]. They included a link to the ISF website for those curious about the unedited version.
I apologize for not participating more actively in creating the thread. I was too engaged in Piercy's effort to qualify our Community Hall as a Red Cross-approved emergency shelter.
One theme I would like to reopen is the issue of Douglas-firs sprouting in oak groves, causing the oaks to die as the firs overtop them. I think the use of militaristc terminology (invading, encroaching, etc.) tends to anthropomorphize biospheric processes, cloud our understanding, and demonize the wonderful contributions Douglas-firs make in our local forests. Douglas-firs, amongst many other things, are a remarkable pioneer species. They sprout and thrive on bare mineral soil. Their seeds have a single-winged formation that can be wind-carried for long distances. They are sticky, and they tumble as the wind carries them. I suspect they catch spores as they fly through the aeolian plankton, sometimes landing inoculated with advantagious fungal partners. If you see them sprouting and dominating a beloved oak grove, you are looking at an oak grove that previous human occupants tended. If you want it to remain dominantly oak, weed out the fir. Firs do not thrive everywhere under all conditions. There are are oak groves on Red Mt., the Dyerville Loop, and Smook Ranch that I've watched for forty-plus years where the firs sprout, wither and die.
To see a great example of a DF pioneering biospheric recovery post-geo-cataclysm, stop on Hwy 101 turnout just south of the Benbow bridge over the South Fork Eel River. There is a huge slide visible on the west bank of the river canyon. Almost nothing has sprouted on that slide face or the rubble pile at its foot except Douglas-firs. Low-nutrient, bare mineral soil, but Douglas-firs finding a toehold for biospheric recovery.
Best Regards
Jeff Hedin
Volunteer Coordinator
Phone: 707.943.3816
On Nov 22, 2022, at 10:54 PM, bruce hilbach <behilbachb@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hey Jeff,
I appreciate your Douglas-fir perspective. It has been easy to forget how much I enjoy Doug-fir in so many forested landscapes when the bashing begins. The following observations led to my own monochromatic vision of Doug-fir as "weeds." But a monochromatic response is foolishness too. Thanks for reminding me to look more closely; what are the progressions being suggested by the plant communities that develop?
Where I live east of the Mainstem Eel, the Doug-fir can be a problematic "pioneer species." I think fire suppression favors them in even-aged stands that then burn very hot and result in a see-saw of soil and plant community erasing and building. The "timber" extraction cycle (which is also soil and plant community disturbing) can become very attractive as an answer. Much of the disturbed soil ends up in our streams, reducing their productivity. This all severely limits human communities from re-establishing long-term productive relationships with the land.
Open oak woodland and oak savannah, already degraded in soil and grass quality because European grazing animals (hordes of sheep in the 1880's and cows later) converted them from bunchgrass dominance to European annual dominance, then filled in with Doug-fir. Perfect fuel for hot fires.
Rumor (local knowledge) has it that CCC camps encouraged their resident crews to stuff the landscape in both the Upper Mainstem and the North Fork Eel with as many Doug-fir seedlings as they could dig in.
Large areas of older to ancient uneven-aged forests in the Yolla Bollys ended up burning up in the '08 Lightning Complex fires (and subsequent heavy fire years in nearby areas) because the lowlands had built up Doug-fir thickets that provided kindling for torching off the upslope "old growth," much of which was beautiful Douglas-fir.
"Bad poetry leads to bad forestry," as you have said. Bad forestry then leads to more bad poetry unless someone rewrites the poetry. Thanks for rewriting the poetry, Jeff.
Bruce E Hilbach-Barger
Covelo, CA 95428
cell 707 358-0225