Warming climate could promote forest growth

A warming planet is expected to bring a host of ills, including rising seas, spreading deserts and disease infestations. Yet it's not all bad news, apparently. Researchers at Oregon State University looked at a variety of climate models and found that higher-elevation forests in the Pacific Northwest can be expected to vigorously expand their growth with warmer temperatures -- up to 500% a year, under some scenarios.

That means more carbon sequestration. But there's a downside too: lower-level forests, where the majority of timber is harvested, could see declines as warmer temperatures dry up moisture. Their report was published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.  Read more here.

--Kim Murphy

Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Tropical forests: Will the U.S. ride to the rescue?

Saving the rain forest is no longer just about helping such countries as Brazil and Indonesia preserve their exotic fauna and flora. Now it is about benefiting American corporations too.

A report released today by a blue-ribbon panel estimates that if American companies invest about $9 billion by 2020 in preserving tropical forests in developing countries, they can save about $50 billion that they would have had to spend on cleaning up their own carbon dioxide emissions.

"It is one of the few major sources of emissions that can be addressed cost-effectively now," concludes the Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, co-chaired by former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (D-R.I.) and John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, an energy think tank.

Left unsaid is that utilities and manufacturers who fiercely oppose federal climate legislation should see the writing on the wall: With the Earth heading toward dangerous levels of climate change, companies now have a chance to do well by doing good -- if they move fast.

Some 17% of global carbon dioxide pollution comes from burning forests and converting them to cattle ranches and soybean farms -- more than all the world's cars, trains and planes emit together.

 Climate legislation passed by the U.S. House in June includes provisions for international offsets, which could allow companies to pay for preserving forests in developing nations instead of buying expensive equipment to control all of their own emissions.

 Some environmental groups are critical of forest offsets, tarring them as a scheme to let corporations off the hook for cleaning up their own emissions. Others worry about bogus schemes claiming false preservation credits, since forest carbon is difficult to measure.

The 71-page report is timed to influence the U.S. Senate as it takes up climate legislation. It recommends that the U.S. government invest $1 billion in tropical forest preservation in the next three years. And it pushes to have tropical forest emissions included in a new international treaty to be considered in Copenhagen in December.

The 16-member commission includes former Sen. Chuck Hagel, former U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan, as well as business and environmental representatives.

California moved ahead earlier this month, adopting complex rules for regulating and verifying forest carbon in the voluntary carbon market. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has launched cooperative agreements with Brazil and Indonesia and other forest-rich nations to provide technical expertise with a view toward opening the state's planned cap-and-trade market to tropical forest offset programs.

-- Margot Roosevelt

Photo: A gibbon in Borneo's tropical forest, which is under pressure from logging, fire and palm oil plantations. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Judge bars new Lake Tahoe piers

A federal judge is blocking construction of new boating facilities on Lake Tahoe while he resolves an environmental lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed by the League to Save Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Club, challenges new regulations that would allow more than 100 new private piers, 10 new public piers, new boat ramps, mooring buoys and hundreds of slips.

The regulations were adopted last year by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency after years of controversy. Environmentalists argue that new piers and ramps will increase motorized boating and the pollution that goes with it.

In a Thursday ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence K. Karlton issued a preliminary injunction. It bars construction of the new piers and ramps but allows the planning agency to move ahead with processing permits for the facilities.

Still, boaters might want to hold off.

"The court notes that its independent review indicates that plaintiffs have shown some likelihood of success," Karlton wrote.

-- Bettina Boxall

Photo: Lake Tahoe. Credit: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times

 

Angeles National Forest fire takes toll on wildlife

The Station fire in the San Gabriel Mountains has taken an enormous toll on the environment, a fact that was particularly evident along Angeles Crest Highway, which remained closed to public traffic this morning.

Under skies tinged corral and gray by dense smoke, mile after mile of mountain and canyon lands along both sides of the two-lane highway, Route 2, had been stripped of manzanita, sumac, sycamore and pine trees that had not previously burned in nearly half a century.

Vistas had become moonscapes of dirt, rock and ash in the Angeles National Forest. Every few hundred yards, the charred remains of a squirrel or rodents could be seen lying by the side of the road. Some creatures, however, managed to survive.

Birds, including scrub jays, flitted among rare patches of chaparral clinging to cliff sides. A female mule deer wandered along the highway. A rabbit sat forlornly on a plateau covered with gray ash. Many firefighters recalled crossing paths with surviving rattlesnakes.

Federal wildlife authorities said biologists and environmental rehabilitation specialists were expected to begin inspecting the damage and developing recovery strategies in the near future.

Nearly every firefighter had a heartbreaking story to tell about an encounter with dead or dying wildlife.

"We came across a rabbit with a broken back, and we put it out of its misery," said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Capt. Nick Shawkey. "But the majority of animals die from superheated gases that precede the fire front. Their respiratory systems get knocked out. Essentially, they suffocate."

Standing on a cliff edge and surveying the devastation, he added, "It’s sad. Really sad. But it will come back."

-- Louis Sahagun at Mt. Wilson

New direction for U.S. forests: Restore and conserve

Restoration and conservation: Those are the goals that will guide management of the U.S. forest system under the Obama administration, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in his first major policy address on the nation's forests.

"It is time for a change in the way we view and manage America's forestlands with an eye towards the future," he told a crowd gathered at Seattle's Seward Park.

"This will require a new approach that engages the American people and stakeholders in conserving and restoring both our national forests and our privately owned forests. It is essential that we reconnect Americans across the nation with the natural resources and landscapes that sustain us."

The address was short on policy specifics but remarkable in the generally positive reception it got both from conservation groups and the timber industry, who often find very little to agree on.

Vilsack did let drop two important points: One, that the Forest Service won't be appealing the recent federal court decision in Northern California striking down the national forest planning rules promulgated by the Bush administration -- rules designed in part to foreclose protracted litigation over management plans for the nation's 192 million acres of national forests.

The new rules, conservationists charged, relied too little on science and provided fewer guaranteed protections for wildlife. Vilsack also affirmed what the Justice Department had already quietly revealed a day earlier: that the government will uphold a 2001 ban on development in the nation's last remaining roadless wilderness areas by appealing a Wyoming federal court decision striking down the ban. (A federal appeals court has already reinstated the roadless rule.)

"The fact that they're not going to relive the past with respect to the fights ... and that they're going to go forward and do new [forest] planning rules, that's a big announcement," said Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice in Seattle who has litigated some of the biggest forest cases in the Pacific Northwest.

"It's been a long time since we've heard anyone from the Forest Service talk about more than just timber."

Obama administration defends 2001 roadless rule

 

The Obama administration today formally entered the legal fray over the 2001 roadless rule that placed a large chunk of national forest land off limits to new road building and timber cutting.

In a one-paragraph court filing, the Department of Justice said it was appealing a 2008 U.S. District Court decision in Wyoming that struck down the road-building ban.

The 2001 rule, issued by the Clinton administration, has been the subject of a tangle of court rulings and administrative actions. Just last week, the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the roadless protections across the country.

The conflicting lower court order in Wyoming has already been appealed by environmentalists. Now, the federal government, a defendant in the case, is also challenging it, formally moving to uphold the Clinton road ban.

“This is a very positive, exciting development because a favorable ruling in the 10th Circuit would end the legal assault on 40 million acres of our roadless forests,” said Mike Anderson, a Seattle-based attorney and senior resource analyst for the Wilderness Society.

But if the 10th Circuit upholds the Wyoming order, the fight will go on.

--Bettina Boxall

Photo: A 1909 photo of the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana. Credit: Associated Press
 

 

Humans threaten bears in San Bernardino National Forest

When a bear decides it's a fine idea to hop onto a picnic table surrounded by people, something clearly has gone wrong. But officials say it's not the bear that is to blame.

In fact, the bear that forced the closure of a picnic area next to San Bernardino National Forest's busiest trailhead on July 7 had simply adapted to a quick and easy food source: hot dogs and other human fare left out -- sometimes intentionally -- by picnickers and area residents. 

"People were leaving a lot of food unattended; they weren't properly throwing it away in the bear-proof cans. There was even reported cases where people were intentionally feeding the bear," said John Miller, deputy public affairs officer for the U.S. Forest Service. "What we have is ... a human behavior problem."

Once bears learn to associate human scent with easy food sources, they are more likely to venture into picnic areas, according to Jeff Villepique, associate wildlife biologist at the California Department of Fish and Game.

Picnickers have reportedly enforced the behavior by tossing food at the bear and getting up close to take photos.

"The bear has pretty much lost its fear of humans," Villepique said. 

Although the bear is only about a year and a half old and weighs about 110 to 120 pounds, Villepique said, it could still pose a threat to picnickers who refuse to surrender meals or to infants who happen to be sitting too close to food.

More wildfire, more bad air

An expected rise in wildfire in coming decades is bad news for western lungs.

Harvard University scientists are predicting some forms of air pollution could increase significantly across the West as more of the region's wildlands burn as a result of rising temperatures.

Smoke from wildfires contains two main kinds of carbon particles: black soot, or elemental carbon, and lighter-colored particles, called organic carbon aerosols, which are a mix of chemicals.

"In large quantities, downwind of fires, organic carbon aerosols are hazardous," said senior research fellow Jennifer Logan, who led a study examining rising wildfire rates and the impact on air quality. "The particles irritate lung tissue and the chemicals they carry are toxic. But even at low concentrations, these aerosols may be dangerous. We don't know. There is no known threshold where damage begins."

Siskiyou Crest fans launch 90-mile trek

A team of activists, environmentalists, scientists and other fans of Siskiyou Crest set out into the forest Tuesday on a 90-mile hiking trip to document the creatures and plants that rely on this diverse habitat. Their goal? To persuade the federal government to recognize the area as a national monument.

Credit: www.siskiyoucrest.org; used with permission

Yosemite trees in decline; climate change is lead suspect

Yosemite National Park has fewer large trees than it did 70 years ago. Researchers believe climate change is behind the decline.

From the 1930s to the 1990s, Yosemite's large-diameter tree density decreased 24%, according to a study by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington. Scientists compared the park's earliest records (1932-1936) with records from 1988-99. The study was published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

"Climate change is a likely contributor to these events and should be taken into consideration," said USGS scientist emeritus Jan van Wagtendonk. "Warmer conditions increase the length of the summer dry season and decrease the snowpack that provides much of the water for the growing season. A longer summer dry season can also reduce tree growth and vigor, and can reduce trees' ability to resist insects and pathogens."

Scientists also believe Yosemite may now be more vulnerable to major wildfires, since areas that have not experienced fires in almost 100 years have shifted from fire-tolerant ponderosa pines to fire-intolerant trees, such as white fir and incense cedar.

The study comes on the heels of recent findings by a team of UC Davis scientists that a decline in winter chilling hours due to global warming is having a dramatic effect on trees in the Central Valley, where much of the nation's fruit and nut crops grow.

-- Amy Littlefield

Photo: Yosemite National Park's Merced River. Credit: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times