Our forests are under existential threat from climate change, and the federal response is confused, misinformed and disorganized. There’s not enough time to waste making more mistakes. We need to wake up, listen to the right scientists, change our approach, and coordinate new national policies. We need Joe to appoint someone to save our forests and all species before it’s too late.
Forests today are isolated, unnatural, unhealthy and threatened
Before humans intervened, forests were much larger, more continuous, older and more diverse. They were well adapted to their particular climate and terrain, and they supported more species. Naturally occurring fires spread in all directions by grass, scrub or trees, and they regularly burned out vulnerable undergrowth. Fires often left mature trees intact, with their tall, old-growth foliage canopies that naturally reduced plant density by blocking light from reaching the forest floor. Forest-dwelling species could easily move to unburned areas and return later.
Native Americans used fire for hunting, farming, ranching, cooking, heating, light and building, so they significantly increased the amount of forest fires, reducing the size, continuity, age and diversity of forests. Settlers removed ¼ of the forests they found for agriculture, regularly logged remaining forests of older trees, and also caused more fires, further reducing the size, continuity, age and diversity of forests. Tallgrass prairies that once stretched across almost ½ the country were replaced by farms & ranches that strictly control fires from spreading. While there are still many forested areas today, many have been logged frequently enough to remove the old canopy trees that need centuries to mature. Regrown logged forests are more vulnerable to forest fires than old growth forests, as they are denser, less diverse, younger and less well adapted to their area. Today, less than 10% of the old growth forest is protected compared to the forests that existed in 1690.
In the late 1800’s there were a series of deadly fires which destroyed valuable timberland and killed many people. Peshtigo, Wisconsin, was burned to the ground in 1871, killing 1100 of its 1700 residents. In the early 1900’s conservationists like Teddy Roosevelt started saving the remaining forests. The forest service started fighting fires and later the CCC built roads, trails, watchtowers, and firebreaks to protect nearby communities. They created reservoirs, ponds, and pumping stations to put out fires, which diverted water from wetlands. And they also thinned forests, removing dead trees & bug infested plants, and created spaces for recreation, which brought more people into the forests with more campfires and more cigarettes. And when WWII broke out, active forest management slowed dramatically as labor was needed elsewhere. Attention shifted towards stopping human-caused forest fires, with a cartoon bear reminding folks not to smoke and to put our their campfires.
The result was more fires (mostly human caused) quickly put out around the edges of forests, surrounding the ‘interior forests’ as unnaturally fire-free zones. While initially not well understood, especially in the dry West where natural wildfires are more common than the wet East, scientists eventually figured out that the problem was “fire exclusion” which resulted in increased fuel building up in interior forests.
Human impacts on forest fires in the western United States since Euro-American settlement are well documented and primarily resulted from altered ignition patterns associated with land and debris clearance, agriculture, fire suppression, and fire exclusion more broadly. Grazing and the introduction of non native species had major impacts on a host of ecological processes that affect fire, including forest composition and structure, nutrient cycling, soils, and hydrology. — Marlon, et al.
Please understand that “fire suppression” specifically refers to suppressing fires around the edges of old growth forests, separating them from people, which exacerbates the broader problem of fire exclusion. Even today, with helicopters, firefighters can’t access remote wilderness forest areas either quickly or easily. Firefighters of 100 years ago had even more difficulty trying to hike into mountains or travel by canoe to fight fires. Naturally occurring fires in remote areas have almost always burned out naturally, and fire-fighting has primarily focused on protecting communities around the forests.
Blaming Smokey Bear won’t solve the problem
What I hear most from folks who visit, live and work in the forests, is that wildfires are the fault of the forest and national park services, who relied on fire suppression for too long, causing too much fuel to build up. All those Smokey Bear ads reduced wildfires so much, that we need forests to burn extra just to catch up. This spring, SoCal AAA ran an article from a fossil-fuel vehicle consultant that argued that controlled burns were the solution to wildfires, not electric vehicles, and they recommended that tourists start visiting deserts more than forests. And if I had a nickel for every park ranger who told me how the Native Americans used fire naturally, then I’d be able to fund the fight against climate change myself.
Trump’s misunderstanding of forest management as requiring “raking and cleaning” the forest floors also blames the forest and park services. As usual, Trump is blaming the victim. The truth is that the forest and park services saved forests from direct development, but they weren’t able to save forests from being surrounded by indirect development of ranches, farms, timberlands and houses that isolated forests and excluded natural wildfires. Again, the problem is surrounding exclusion, not internal fire suppression.
Misunderstanding what caused the interior forests to fill with fuel confuses the solution. The common prescription is more controlled burns. Farmers, ranchers and timber owners often use burns, and they all tell Interior that’s the solution. Of course, they’re all only interested in one species, not in saving an intact ecosystem. It’s all ‘lumberjack logic’ that the best way to save a forest is to remove it. The correct solution would be to expand forests with natural transition zones (ecotones) that would allow more natural fire patterns, but I never hear the farmers, ranchers, timber men and people who own the surrounding property recommend that kind of forest management.
Instead, the forest and park services are left with the difficult task of trying to recreate natural fire conditions from pre-history in unnaturally isolated and unhealthy forests, by using prescribed burns while hopefully somehow protecting the endangered species who have nowhere to flee. They’re trying to develop sophisticated models to reduce fuels with limited data on either what the natural state should be or what the future environment will allow.
Do they want to restore forest fuels to approximate fire frequency in 1900, 1800, 1700 or before humans? How can they restore forests to natural conditions: what density, what tree species mix, and how long will it take (hint: centuries)? What climate conditions are they expecting? Are they still primarily focused on protecting structures and recreation areas? Are the neighboring private and state forests doing the same? How do they control burns without starting the devastating wildfires they are trying to avoid? If they continue focusing around the edges and ignore interior conditions, how can they contain wind-driven fires? From what I’ve seen, the approach is haphazard, uncoordinated, alternately over/under aggressive, often misinformed & backwards-looking, still mostly focused on protecting exurban property owners, and not guided by a consistent purpose, except saving money.
Many forest and national parks employees believe that their predecessors were solely responsible for mismanagement, even though the problem was caused by farmers, ranchers, timber men, developers and fossil fuels. Many have been told that the earlier fire suppression efforts are the only cause of the wildfire problem, and they generally avoid discussing climate change. National park “education” brochures describe wildfire threats without mentioning climate and describe climate threats without mentioning wildfires. The atomic scientists in Los Alamos had both a detailed explanation of arctic climate measurements and a display about wildfires without making any connection between the two, even as wildfires burned nearby. And any policies that don’t adequately consider climate change will fail.
All of us are dependent on complex ecosystems
As a boy, I learned forestry from a family who taught both my father and grandfather in their old growth forests of northern New England. I remember listening to the old forester lovingly describe each type of tree in his forest, teaching how to tell black cherry from pin, shagbark hickory from bitternut and how to distinguish ½ dozen types each of oak, maple and birch. He knew how long they lived, in what conditions they thrived, and what birds lived in them. He knew from experience when a dead tree should be left to improve the forest and when it was OK to use for firewood. We selected a fallen log for firewood based on how long we wanted the fire to burn and what we wanted it to smell like, before we dragging it back to chop and season for winter. Each species of tree has its own traits, uses and supports different species of animals in different ways.
Forests vary from fast growing industrial pine lots in the southeast, to mixed deciduous and coniferous forests in the northeast, to alpine in the western mountains, to chaparral in the southwest and even rainforests in the northwest. Climate changes to temperature, wind and precipitation are complex. Each area is facing different threats, and there’s no single solution that will solve everything (except stopping climate change). But it is possible to start developing better solutions now, if we try.
My summer camp counselors Amory & Hunter Lovins taught me even more about ecology and ecosystems, preparing me for further studies of whales and sharks while living aboard boats. I’ve never forgotten those lessons of how each living thing depends on complex ecosystems. I live in the mountains in central California, surrounded by the Sequoia National Forest, and last year I evacuated due to a wildfire. To me, the climate crisis’ existential threat to life on earth demands action.
Now that I’m retired, I’m visiting US national parks by electric vehicle to bring attention to the climate crisis (see my blog). So far this year, I have visited over 100 of the national park units (¼), observing conditions and often speaking with rangers about climate issues, including wildfires. Driving cross country, it’s apparent that people just take what want without worrying about the consequences. Rivers are diverted to cities, expanding deserts. Bugs, birds and wildlife are all diminishing rapidly. Ancient forests are burning, and the rich soil is dying. The climate is changing everywhere, and everywhere people aren’t changing.
We are running out of time
Plants and animals are not the only ones who do not have enough time to adapt. The herd of human society has evolved to change cautiously, waiting until after conditions have changed before changing our behavior. Unfortunately, we must change before the results are evident, or it will be too late to stop the worst damage.
All the research predicts that sudden climate change will increasingly make conditions worse for life. Humans have altered the terrain by diverting water, fuel by fire exclusion, and precipitation patterns, wind, and aridity by climate change. Wildfires repeatedly burn the same areas in just a few years, meaning that fuels are not the main issue anymore. Wildfires now create their own wind, permanently reduce carbon sequestration and directly increase carbon pollution, in a series of negative feedback loops.
Climate has always been the primary driver of fires, and now the burn area of wildfires is expected to triple and the forest service’s costs to double. Fire-fighting is already the biggest line item at Interior, already costs 50% of the forest service’s budget, and that doesn’t include state & local spending or disaster relief. Fire-fighting is a carbon-intensive activity, with massive deployments of firefighters over great distances by fossil-fueled air & land vehicles, to use gas powered chainsaws and bulldozers and, yes, fire to fight fire. Damage control doesn’t solve the problem.
Climate change is increasing the wildfire “fuel gap” in both directions. As the temperature rises every year, more species of tree no longer live in their optimal zone, raising mortality and increasing fuel load. As temperatures rise, the model fuel level decreases, because if that were the natural temperature there would have been more fires historically. So the model recommends even more prescribed burns, even though there are no completely safe seasons in many states to schedule prescribed burns. So the burns aren’t saving forests, so much as assisting their death. We’re not getting ahead of the problem. We’re falling further behind. And we are running out of time to develop better solutions.
The threat is mass extinction. We need to start focusing on that.
Since the primary threat is the mass extinction of most species on earth, we need to establish our clear objective to be saving species, and make decisions purposefully to achieve that goal. We must listen to the right scientists (biologists and ecologists) and ask them how to save species. We need ecologically-minded forestry experts to tell us what kind of forests we should be planting and maintaining where and how, for optimal species diversity and survival. We need to listen to climatologists and use their climate change predictions to inform the right scientists and start saving species now. And we must stop listening to the folks who caused the problem (timber men, ranchers, farmers, exurban-developers and fossil fuel interests), unless they’re willing to put aside their own interests to help save species.
We can’t stop carbon pollution soon enough, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to do nothing now. We need to evaluate and prioritize all human threats to species together, not only from climate change, but including over-development, unsustainable water use, pesticides, air/water/mining/noise/light pollution, roadkill, etc. Then we need expertise to devise a comprehensive set of solutions that will help the most species nationally, and we need to share them globally.
Logically, species-rich areas (e.g. rainforests) should be given more attention than species-poor areas (e.g. deserts). New land should be purchased or protected. Wildlife corridors should be expanded along river watersheds and over/under roads to increase migration routes. Land and water should be returned to critical habitats. Some people must be paid to save specific ecosystems in private forests or even gardens, and many humans must stop living near critical habitats, stop landscaping with non-species supporting plants, and curtail water use. Tough decisions need to be made, including condemning some forests to species-specific logging. And those decisions must be made not based on profits but on the science of saving species. Humans must change and apply limits, now.
The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. — an old proverb
Joe, appoint someone to save species
All that requires to begin is leadership. It doesn’t require passing climate legislation to start making decisions with the goal of saving species. It only requires that Joe Biden appoint a cabinet-level post to mitigate mass species extinction.
None of his executive agencies now have that job. Interior only manages public lands, not private, and honestly, Interior is mostly tasked with helping the public use those lands, including cattle grazing, timber, mineral & fossil fuel extraction, roads, and recreation. As mentioned above, its largest expense is fire-fighting mostly to protect people and their homes. The EPA’s mission is primarily to protect Americans against pollution while developing environmental policies that benefit society, not all species, and they’re not even an executive department. Only when a species is “so rare they are in danger of becoming extinct” does it get EPA protection.
Nobody has the specific executive position of figuring out how best to protect all species now from the future threat of climate change. Nobody is responsible for developing the correct solution set to drive national policy. Nobody with power is in charge of developing a comprehensive plan to prevent the coming mass extinctions of pollinators, trees, soil biomes, or the collapse of ecosystems. It’s someone’s job to make sure our diplomats don’t run out of liquor, but it’s nobody’s job to save life on earth. That needs to change immediately.
We need Joe to appoint someone to the job of saving species before it’s too late. We need that person to be an expert in ecosystems, biology and climate science. We need national (and global) policies to increase biodiversity, predict risks and mitigate extinctions. We need a species-saving cabinet official to advise Interior, EPA and other departments on which policies will be most effective at saving life on earth. And we need to make sure that there’s a voice for solving the climate crisis that the President hears at every cabinet meeting.