Spring 2006. Wolves roam radio-free. Counting on catastrophes.
The gray wolf roams radio-free in Idaho for now. Photo courtesy Teri Spivey, USDA Forest Service
RADIO-FREE WOLVES
The Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness is the largest wilderness area in the lower forty-eight states, and is exemplary of the ideal of wilderness as a place “untrammeled by man.” It is also a stronghold for the gray wolf. After extensive reintroduction efforts, the Idaho wolf population has recovered and is being removed from the Endangered Species list. Responsibility for managing the wolf has been transferred from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Idaho is hoping to institute a small but lucrative wolf hunt, and wants to gather population data to support that goal. To do so, the agency proposed to land helicopters in remote areas of the wilderness in order to radio-collar and track wolves.
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics sent a letter to Regional Forester Jack Troyer, the official responsible for permitting the helicopter landings, writing, “The landing of aircraft for the purpose of radio-collaring wolves is barred by the Central Idaho Wilderness Act, not authorized by the Wilderness Act, and is not properly categorically excluded from environmental review.” The Wilderness Act specifically restricts the use of motorized vehicles, including helicopters, to uses established prior to the passage of the Act, or necessary for the administration of the area.
Our comments pointed out that “Wolves have re-inhabited the wilderness areas notwithstanding our relative state of ignorance regarding their precise numbers or locations. The U.S. Forest Service has provided no rational basis for concluding that wolves will not continue to prosper in wilderness areas if radio-collaring data are not collected,” and noted that the wolf management plan that accompanied the removal of the Idaho wolf population from the Endangered Species Act did not require radio-collaring of wolves. After receiving our comments, the U.S. Forest Service decided to deny the permit. FSEEE will continue to monitor attempted violations of the Wilderness Act and other environmental protections. — Forrest Fleischman
A post-fire forest continues to provide ecosystem services for wildlife and plants. Photo © George Wuerthner
UNFETTERED SALVAGE LOGGING
The Department of Homeland Security defines a catastrophic event as “Any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions.”
Last fall, Oregon Senator Gordon Smith and Representative Greg Walden, and Washington Representative Brian Baird, introduced companion bills HR 4200 and S 2079 that seek to redefine the word catastrophe: they think that every one of the 130,000 forest fires that burn in an average year, as well as every windstorm or insect outbreak that kills a few trees, deserves the attention garnered by Hurricane Katrina or the September 11 terrorist attacks. HR 4200 would require the U.S. Forest Service to drop whatever it is doing in the wake of a fire, storm or insect outbreak, and prepare plans for “restoration” that could include salvage logging unlimited by bedrock environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.
In the summer of 1988, massive fires swept through Yellowstone National Park, and across the television screens of countless Americans, who feared that wildfires were destroying one of the crown jewels of the National Park system (see the article “Under Fire” from this issue).
But once the smoke cleared, the Yellowstone fires provided scientists with proof of one of the major revelations in twentieth-century science—that biological diversity and forest health are the result of regular disturbance and recovery, rather than of a long-term steady state.
An analogy could be made with the business cycle in a free-market economy. A steady-state economy, such as that envisioned by the central planners of the Soviet Union, might provide constant employment in theory, but in practice it stifled innovation and led to economic inefficiencies. Our free-market economy is subject to periods of rapid growth, periods of slower growth and occasional recessions. During periods of rapid growth, many companies start and during recessions, many are eliminated. The net result allows our economy to incorporate new ideas and adapt to changing circumstances, ensuring long-term health.
HR 4200 is based on an outdated, steady-state view of ecology, and its result will be a long-term weakening of our forests’ health and a decline in biodiversity. HR 4200 would increase the level of human interference in natural disturbance processes. While it is important that forest managers repair infrastructure in the wake of hurricanes, forest fires, or snowstorms, it is not essential, and it is frequently not desirable, to immediately pull out all of the dead material and replant an industrial forest. If this had been done in Yellowstone in 1988, the park would no longer support a great diversity of charismatic wildlife, and the local economy would suffer as a result.
The difference between natural recovery and industrial forestry is illustrated by examining the different restoration efforts undertaken by federal and private landowners after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The eruption was the largest natural disturbance to occur in the Pacific Northwest in the past century. Vast areas of forests were leveled, and even larger sections were damaged by debris flows, heat and ash fall. The timber company Weyerhaeuser moved in rapidly to salvage dead timber and replant a young forest of Douglas-fir and other commercially valuable species on its property. The Forest Service, by contrast, was ordered by Congress to create a National Monument to study the process of recovery. For twenty-five years, scientists from around the world have flocked to the monument to learn how the ecosystem would change as a result of the volcanic eruption. The results have surprised even the most optimistic scientists. According to Charlie Crisafulli, one of the Forest Service’s lead scientists on the monument, “All the indications of the data speak to how incredibly resilient the systems have been to the disturbance.” Much like Yellowstone, the outcome in a particular location has depended on the legacies left from the disturbance. The overall result has been to create an environment with biological diversity unparalleled in the Northwest. For example, Crisafulli says that migrant songbird and amphibian populations are higher in the disturbed areas of the monument than he has seen anywhere else in the region. That diversity is not found on Weyerhaeuser lands, which continue to have the depressed biology of young planted timberlands.
While the timber productivity of Weyerhaeuser’s industrial lands is high, they fail to provide for the multiple uses for which our forefathers set aside the national forests—including watershed protection, wildlife habitat and recreation. In fact, densely planted, uniform forests are much more susceptible to insects, fire and disease than natural forests. It may be appropriate for a private timber company to seek to maximize its profits by managing for timber to the detriment of other forest values. But federal timberland has never made much money—and nearly all salvage logging projects lose money for the federal treasury. The Forest Service has struggled to balance timber with other uses in a site-appropriate fashion. HR 4200 would give blanket approval to techniques such as industrial reforestation, which may be useful in areas managed exclusively for timber, but would be inappropriate on Mount St. Helens or in Yellowstone.
Post-fire logging does nothing to protect people living in remote areas from fire. Forest Service research has shown that the most effective way to protect a home from wildfires is to take two steps: replace a wooden roof with non-flammable materials, and create defensible space in the 100-foot radius around the home. Carefully planned thinning treatments in younger forests can improve the resilience of the forest to fire and disease. Congress can help the Forest Service and other agencies protect communities from wildfire by increasing appropriations to help homeowners fire-proof their homes.
HR 4200 is a step backward in public lands management. It replaces sound ecosystem management and multiple-use mandates with a timber-first attitude. Industrial forestry may be appropriate on private lands, but our public lands are for all Americans, not just for timber companies. — FF