Facing record deadly and destructive wildfires, the state of California has partnered with the federal government, environmentalists, and the logging industry to collaborate on a project to cut down trees in order to make forests less flammable.
The unlikely coalition is coming together at a time when the Trump administration is fighting with environmentalists and Democrats over the role of forest management in reducing the risk of wildfires.
President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke say logging is the primary answer to preventing disasters like last month’s Camp Fire in Northern California — the deadliest and most destructive in state history.
Critics, meanwhile, say logging forests is harmful if the government won’t also acknowledge the role of climate change, and take action to combat hotter and drier conditions that lead to longer wildfire seasons.
“It’s a very positive sign to have this level of collaboration in California,” said Rich Gordon, president of the California Forestry Association. “It reflects an understanding with people on the ground actually facing the problem that it’s not either-or.”
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California’s government launched the initiative in 2017, joining with the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy — a nonprofit environmental group — the Forestry Association, and others.
It aims to cut trees in 2.4 million acres of forest, in a process called forest thinning, involving crews removing small trees to reduce the amount of fuel in dry forests. The group also plans to do more prescribed burns, in which officials intentionally set fires to take away ignitable material like brush off the forest floor and give trees more space to breathe.
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The coalition had completed early stages of the project before the Camp Fire, but most of the work will occur next year. This summer, Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency, awarded $27.5 million in grants to the Tahoe-Central Sierra Initiative for thinning projects. After it had struggled to secure funding, the partnership has earned a total of $32 .5 million in grant funds.
As for California’s commitment to forest management, a new law enacted in September provides $200 million a year for forest thinning.
California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has doubled the amount of land open to vegetation thinning, to 500,000 acres from 250,000 acres, and eased permitting for landowners to remove trees.
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The action represents a recognition that forests have become overcrowded because of “unintended consequences” from federal policy, says Branham. Over recent decades, officials have emphasized putting out wildfires, even blazes that don’t threaten human life or property, rather than letting them burn.
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“Our forests are dramatically overcrowded,” said Krystal Beckham of the Little Hoover Commission, an independent California oversight agency that has called for major changes in the state’s forest management practices.
“There are some places where there may be four times as many trees as there should be,” Beckham said. “When you have trees that close together, they can’t get the water they need, so they are more susceptible to drought, insects, and disease. And when they start dying, they become a terrible fire threat.”
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Eli Ilano, a U.S. Forest Service official who is supervisor for the Tahoe National Forest, acknowledges the coalition will have to remove more trees per acre, and even some larger trees which are more commercially viable, in response to worsening wildfires. The law passed by the California legislature this year increases the diameter of trees that can be thinned, from 26 inches to 30 inches.
“The way we would have designed projects 10 years ago won’t work anymore,” Illano said. “But this is not clear-cutting or removing the largest trees.”
Illano said the coalition has tried to appeal to critics by emphasizing the environmental costs of not acting. Wildfires are harmful to water quality and natural habitat in the Sierra Nevada populated by species such as the spotted owl and Pacific fisher.
“There are huge environmental consequences to wildfires,” he said.
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California, feds, green groups partner on more logging to stop deadly wildfires https://t.co/xjQrWJFk0F
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 11, 2018
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