Rob—great review, heartbreaking reality, if only Klobucher could read this. Your forest-centered perspective makes so much sense. I would vote to put you in charge of making rational policy for healthy forests.
Rob everything about most politicians attitudes will not be consistent with the needs of our living planet. We've ran into the same with our dam work. Except not only politicians but many old guard scientists, stuck in the world of Co2. I'm hopeful that in our lifetime we can turn this corner but the money to keep the battle going needs to come into our courts. appreciate your efforts, I've been banging my head here in Maine with the states administrative departments.
I hear you, Cliff. There were times writing this I felt like a fool, wasting my time. We do, in the end, have one thing on our side: reality. Nature is reality. And wouldn't you know, it's also wise and beautiful.
I agree with you 100%, Sandy Masse. I’m an American grandma and no one seems to listen, even in my own family. The thought of our beautiful forests drying out makes me crazy, but I also feel helpless to change anything. What kind of world are we leaving for our grandchildren? That’s my question.
Hi, Rob! Today is Herb's birthday so reading your Substack seemed particularly important. I found it an excellent read. Thanks on reporting, besides the issues in this bill, the lack of knowledge that the Dems had....disappointing to say the least. Have you thought of running for political office? Thanks for all you do!
Heartbreaking, yes, what passes for deliberation of policy. Thank you, Rob, for sitting through this and reporting with comments on what might have been said, what was missing. Your ability to focus on the important points is impressive.
Thanks Rob for sitting in vigil through this process.
You are right - this is a precedent, but sadly it is not a new one in any sense.
To my mind Kirkpatrick Sale explained it best in his 1995 book ‘Rebels Against The Future: the Luddites and their War on the Industrial Revolution’:
"The industrial regime hardly cares which cadres run the state as long as they understand the kind of duties expected of them. It is remarkably protean in that way, for it can accommodate itself to almost any national system —Marxist Russia, capitalist Japan, China under a vicious dictator, Singapore under a benevolent one, messy and riven India, tidy and cohesive Norway, Jewish Israel, Muslim Egypt— and in return asks only that its priority dominate, its markets rule, its values penetrate, and its interests be defended." (I would add – 'at any cost'.)
What we are seeing is nothing but the 'industrial regime' - the industrial complex - that has only solidified since Sale wrote the above, doing what it does. It actually cannot do anything else. (Sale’s book is painfully enlightening - it documents the moment that government and modern industry aligned to stamp out any opposition to its 'progress'.)
While this is utterly devastating it is also a huge eyes open reality. It puts the responsibility on us, we must work out how to undermine this madness (politics never will until we have set the precedents). Audre Lorde wrote in the 1970s 'you cannot dismantle the master's house using the master's tools'. This phrase is a guide to my current thinking: what are the tools that the master cannot understand I ask? what are the things The System ignores because it thinks it is irrelevant? what things are allowed to grow undetected?
Most activism uses the same tools that the industrial complex ’the master’ uses (most activist organizations look and are structured in the same way corporations are, and are in fact often use that same companies who they are 'fighting' to help with promotions and products and software etc). 'The industrial complex’ will always have more 'fire power' than we will ever have. One of the most powerful tools they have is to encourage people to look away and be rewarded/seduced by what The System can provide them, no matter the cost. We have to be creative and inventive to understand what tools the master cannot see and cannot dismount...
In all this, knowing we cannot change the 'Master' overnight. I think we all must acknowledge that what we seek will not be accomplished in our lifetimes -- destruction and slavery will continue. But we (those whose love and connection to earth is in our bones) must create and be the source from which change can occur - from which a trickle can flow into the future holding unshakable love for the earth. Those of us who are young and those of us no longer young must doggedly keep spreading joy and love, and holding grief for our living earth ...and making sure others are inoculated with the spark of life.
Thanks tree woman. I love that last phrase: "inoculated with the spark of life." Yes, how do we fight the master while using the master's tools. It's the great conundrum we face. Here I am, tapping on one of those tools. It can be crazy making. But it's better than numb withdrawal or distraction.
A computer is indeed a tool made by the master but the real 'master's tools' are the structures of governance and law that hold the minds of us, the people, 'in trance' with the mythology of progress that has been in place for at least 5000 years — meaning that altering it is a huge task — this trance also keeps us separate from nature and rather importantly from each other. These master's tools, this mythology, are reinforced everyday with media, movies, songs, news feeds... and tragically our own language...
Sadly the mythology that our modern industrial system has come out of, comes out a fear of 'dark, wild nature'. The Gilgamesh story from 4000 years ago portrays Gilgamesh (part god and part man) as the hero when he tames the wild, cuts down the cedars. The Babylonian creation myth is particularly brutal, basically: the goddess was blown up by one of her sons he then used her body parts to make the world! The goddess (nature) becomes the raw materials for civilization. The middle east was the 'cradle of [our western] civilization'... The idea —that mythology— that we humans can use our powers to control 'dark, wild nature' got a massive boost with the first industrial revolution which has only continued to escalated and be reinforced ...bringing us to now.
Tomas Berry wrote in “The Dream of the Earth’: “However rational modern economics might be, the driving force of economics is not economic, but visionary, a visionary commitment supported by myth and a sense of having the magical powers of science to overcome any difficulty encountered from natural forces.”
Herbert Read noted that we need to become 'an apprentice to nature' in order to know how to use the tools that have the potential to cause destruction; I guess to de-master them and make them contributory. I think this is one of our tasks — how to use tools that came out of the master's system in a way that can dismantle The System and to know what the actual master's tools are. I am definitely not talking about withdrawal and distraction — I am talking about participation and contribution.
I spend much of my time talking directly to people (one-on-one conversations in the context of my outdoor sculptures) and I have come to understand (after talking to hundreds of passers by) that most people do love the earth but are ashamed to speak of it because they think everyone else will think they are stupid, and somewhere in there that they will be “a traitor to the race” (as Richard Powers put in in The Overstory), leaving them at risk of expulsion from the safety and comfort of the world that has been created. I have found that constantly creating visions of love for the earth and connection to all the living beings on the earth and each other, does shift something in people's bodies. Also when I can encourage a bunch of people (just everyday passers-by) to start sharing with each other their love for the earth it turns into a riot of love and connection ... rewriting the mythology by which their inner compass aligns - yes to be inoculated with the spark of life.
As poet and through your substack it is what you are doing too — thank you.
The hardest part to acknowledge is that we will not see what we hope for in our lifetimes. Yet while holding that grief we must hold our longing, for it will carry with it the sustenance that fuels something different... that writes some of the lines of a life-connected mythology of deeply contributory earth-human relations.
Excellent reporting with pithy commentary. Adam Schiff masterfully put into the public record that this bill is a bandaid to make up for some of the money and job loss caused by DOGE. There was no way Dems could stop the bill what with fire fears raging and foresters being laid off. Practically speaking, cutting Forestry budget by 63% will save more forests than will streamlining permitting and pennies for roads harm. Optics.
Thanks, Rob. I'd like to think the budget cuts will slow down the exploitation, but I suspect something more intentional is happening, that the Forest Service is being stripped of non-harvest personnel, the biologists and ecologists, and retooled for the core purpose of extraction. They'll rehire as needed to get out the cut.
Yes, the political spin of the government cutting 63% of the US Forestry's budget aims to eliminate the environmentalists. Unfortunately for forests, the US Forestry Dept is a well-honed timber-harvesting blade. Here, the "forest ecologists" focus on maximizing board feet production, sending foresters into the woods to spray glyphosate on competing plants. Over time, the non-harvesters may be worse than the harvesters as toxins increase in our burdened bodies while they profit.
Good point, and something I thought about even as I wrote. The only hope I see is a core of educated citizens large enough to counter the narratives that use science for extractive purposes.
Massachusetts does not have National Forests. We have state forests and privately held woodlots with 5-year management plans. At the Ocean River Institute, we are rallying support for the Let Forests Grow Carbon Offset Fund bill. When woodlot owners or state foresters plan to clear-cut, the Fund will pay the value of the timber harvest and contract in perpetuity to leave the trees standing and the forest intact to continue maturing. https://www.oceanriver.org/causes/the-let-forests-grow-carbon-offset-fund/
Rob, one of the first things I think it is important for people to remember is that national forests are not national parks. As stated in the 1897 Organic Act: "No national forest shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber...."
Almost anyone (there are always exceptions) who has walked through an old growth forest can't be moved by their beauty. The emotional connection cannot be ignored. But....
More than 340 million people now live in the US and are consumers of wood products in some form. The US is a net importer of wood products, so we export environmental impacts by asking other countries to provide us with wood harvested from their land. Many of these countries have lower levels of environmental protection than the US. Most of the commercial timber harvested in the US comes from private land, where the land is often managed as tree farms rather than natural ecosystems, but national forests also play their part with providing the raw materials for wood products.
Fire is one of the major forest disturbance agents throughout the country with the exception of cool-moist forest types. For more than 100 years, humans have been aggressively suppressing fires in forest which has led to unnatural development of dense multi-sized trees and buildup of dead fuels. The multi-sized trees create ladders to the crowns of otherwise large fire resistant trees. These are the areas that especially need thinning to protect the larger, older trees and reduce - not eliminate - the chance of high intensity/high severity fires.
Historic photos from the 1800s often show warm/dry forest types (e.g., ponderosa pine forests) as being populated with mostly large trees that are widely spaced with grass understories. Many of these forests are much denser now, so when they burn under dry, windy conditions assisted by anthropogenic climate change (ACC), they burn big. The issue is not past fire suppression or ACC, but both, along with human caused ignitions.
"Forest health" is a human construct that differs depending on who you ask. A person working in commercial forest products will have a different definition from an environmental preservationist. I think the term is best used in conjunction with a speaker/writer providing their definition.
Sorry for the above disjointed paragraphs, I wrote them this way to reduce length of this comment. My hope is that each point provides background for this next part.
Rob, it seems like I have seen you reference Dominick DellaSala and Chad Hanson previously in your writing. In my opinion, these two scientists seem to incorporate their values into their research, thus leading to value based conclusions. That is not how the scientific method is supposed to work. I think a wider search of the literature would provide information that conflicts with theirs.
Well planned and implemented thinning does increase forest resilience to wildfire related disturbances. There are many examples of crown fires dropping to the ground when they hit thinned forests resulting in lower intensity and lower severity burns in those areas. Whereas I agree the first priority should be treating those forests near human infrastructure, treating areas further from human developments is also important.
ACC seems to be impacting natural recovery from fires in some areas. There are areas where seedlings are no longer reestablishing after a burn due to increased temperatures and reduced moisture. This will only become more prevalent as we continue pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. I feel it is also important to thin areas further from human developments in order to provide islands of forest that are more likely to burn at low severity in order to act as a "arks" to repopulate surrounding areas after a fire.
National forest system land management goals are based on values not science. Science is information that informs how to reach those goals. The Organic Act of 1897 provided some over arching values for the management of national forests. Forest plans act kind of like zoning for a national forest where there is a mix of areas off limits or mostly off limits to logging (roadless areas and designated wilderness areas) and areas where more intensive management is allowed.
The Fix Our Forest Act does not allow logging in areas off limits to logging as spelled out in individual forest plans; that would require additional legislation. Like you, I don't agree with the provision "streamlining" environmental analyses with the ability to use categorical exclusions for areas up to 10,000 acres in size. And I don't trust the current administration to provide guidance to focus on thinning forests to increase resiliency to fires rather than log them to "get the cut out." But, I do think it is important for people to understand the current conditions of our forests and the importance of active management in areas to help meet the goal of improving forest resilience while also, where appropriate, to provide wood products.
There are many people who live in areas where forests have burned at a high severity (myself included) and know how they can impact water quality which conflicts with that other goal stated in the Organic Act of 1897: "secure favorable water flows..." I don't feel sitting on our hands is an option and I don't think the Fix our Forest Act is the answer.
Thanks for your detailed comment. You bring up a lot of points, some of which I agree with, such as the definition for Forest Health depending on the individual using the term. Is it health for the sake of timber productivity, or health for the sake of biotic integrity.
I would agree that DellaSala and Hanson are values oriented, (but so is the Forest Service, which seems to me to place a high value on timber production). I've looked at their work, and it seems awfully solid to me. One thing I appreciate about Hanson, is how much time he spends in the field, gathering real data, not relying too heavily on models.
He went to the national archives to cross check a paper which alleges, as you say, a much more park like forest structure predominated before settlement. He discovered, however, troves of photos passed over by the study which showed dense forests as well.
Regarding human caused climate change, I agree CO2 is part of it, but I'm convinced that biospheric damage at the hands of humans is also an important, though overlooked, factor. Again, thinning forests may (or may not) cause a fire to drop to the ground, as you say, but at what cost to local and regional water recycling? We don't know, because we're only now beginning to recognize the small water cycle and the role of ecosystems in managing them. Also, to make the work economically appealing, my understanding is that the Forest Service allows timber companies to harvest large trees, the most fire resilient and also the ones with the experience to pass on to younger trees about how to cope with drought. It seems wiser to me let the forest burn naturally and develop natural resilience.
I agree with your points about the fact that we all use wood, and that logging in other places often lacks safeguards used here, but until we actively work to reduce demand and as long as we let markets rule, the near term exhaustion of the planet seems inevitable.
Lastly, I really feel we need to recognize the biotic intelligence of living systems. They are more complex than we are even capable of understanding at this point, and we need to, as much as possible, trust them to heal and give them the space and time to do so, imo.
You mentioned the need to treat forests that aren't near human populations. I'd be interested in your reason. If suppressing fires has caused so much trouble, why don't we let the backcountry fires burn? Especially if naturally ignited, such as by lightning strike?
Per your point about the impact of logging on local and regional water recycling: I'm not sure what you mean by recycling vs my understanding of the impacts to the water cycle. Are water recycling and water cycle synonymous? One of the first studies on the impacts to the water cycle was done just down the road from me at Wagon Wheel Gap near Creede, Colorado. In that multi-year study (19teens and 20s), it found that removing trees from a drainage increased water runoff, which back then was considered a good thing from a downstream agriculture use perspective. Studies since then have shown mixed results.
Fires can do the same thing, only they can have dramatic short term impacts on water quality. A high severity fire kills all the vegetation including roots in the top 6-12 inches of soil. Hydrophobic soils may develop from fires which shed water without infiltration leading to higher surface flow and erosion during rainstorms (although some studies conclude it isn't the hydrophobic soils but the loss of vegetation that is the main driver of these ash and debris flows). Ash and debris flows can kill fish populations in streams, rivers and lakes. I have seen all this first hand and led tours to groups after such a fire in South Fork, Colorado. These types of fires have always happened, but my guess is they will happen more often due to past fire suppression and climate change.
In general, road building has the largest impact on water quality from logging. Ground vegetation is not removed except for roads and landings. Skid trails can impact water infiltration due to soil compaction. This tends to be temporary.
I think I answered your question about my reasoning for thinning areas away from human populations. These areas could be islands of low severity burns surrounded by high severity burn areas. They can help provide the seed source to naturally repopulate the high severity burned areas around them. "Could be" is the key point here. Weather and topography could interact in such away that crown fires would still jump from tree to tree even if they were large and spaced somewhat far apart.
As for your question about why not let backcountry fires burn... I'm with you, under the right conditions, although the public doesn't always have the appetite for that. So called "managed fires" will sometimes create poor air quality in areas for weeks - just like some large fires that are being aggressively suppressed. Forest fire smoke has been linked to premature deaths. I'm lucky in that I have the means to purchase good quality air filters for my home. Not everyone has those means and some people have to work outdoors regardless of the air quality. Additionally, just letting backcountry fires burn could lead to severe downstream water quality issues that impact human developments.
I don't blame you for not trusting the forest service. Some land managers on some national forests have been in the hip pocket of the timber industry. And this current administration believes in "log, baby, log." But, I think with the right administration, funding, and good direction and oversight, a lot of work can be done to reduce the risk of high severity fires without causing long-term impacts to forest ecosystems.
Understand, in all of the above (except that last paragraph), I'm not expressing my personal values rather I'm describing how things function to the best of my understanding. When it comes to Nature, Nature has no values, it just responds to the conditions. It is humans who put on their values filter to express whether something is good or bad and there is quite a diversity of values among humans.
Hi Mike: By precipitation recycling I'm referring to how landscapes hasten rainfall by seeding clouds with cloud condensation nuclei. Thus the same water can fall multiple times across a landscape, and so referred to "recycling," but could also be called the small water cycle, which I'm inclined to call the terrestrial water cycle, because it happens over land.
This goes beyond river flows, which can be increased by logging, as their are fewer trees transpiring. The important thing, from a fire standpoint, is how much water is in the soils, aquifer and vegetation. A healthy forest will hold water so it available in the critical dry season, helping it resist fire, and maintaining stream flows.
You may enjoy scrolling though his site, which explores water cycles in numerous ways.
In terms of high severity fire, many researchers have found such fires to be necessary for many species, and almost always regenerate on their own in great profusion.
Also when you let a forest burn naturally, it can increase its resilience through natural selection.
I guess the bottom line for me is that we need to foster biological complexity. Complexity seems like the key. Managed forests look simplified to me, and I feel like our tendency to simplify natural systems will always bite us in the end.
Hi Rob, Thanks for the link. I checked it out and didn't see anything different, except some terminology, from what I learned in my watershed management classes back in the late 70s. Additional studies I have read since then seemed to indicate there is much variability in response of local water cycles to disturbances - both human and natural. One cool thing that has changed is the ability to more accurately quantify those responses.
Per your comment on high severity fires: Yes, there have always been high severity fires or more accurately, portions of large fires that have burned at high severity. When looked at over a large landscape level, fires have helped create a mosaic of vegetation types each of which favors different species. But the argument of "there has always been high severity fires" is similar to the anthroprogenic climate change skeptics' refrain of "there has always been climate change."
Large areas of moderate to high severity fires can take centuries to revegetate to become the forests that were burned. A large fire burned near my home in 2013 - 49,000 ac. Much of it burned at moderate severity and some at high severity. Aspen quickly sprouted where there were existing root systems in the low to moderate burn areas. In high severity burned areas the heat penetrated deep enough to kill the roots that were within seven inches of the surface, which is generally the maximum depth in our area from which aspen sprout (due to soil temperature). In some cases aspen seeded in, but it will take at least a couple hundred years for coniferous forests to take shape due to the distance from conifer seed sources. How do we know this? That history has already been written on the land from fires in the 1850s that created large aspen stands that still dominate today.
Additionally, a large debris flow following this fire killed hundreds (thousands?) of fish and aquatic macroinvertebrates. The good news, these areas were recolonized within a couple years.
But, this all circles back to one of your original points that seemed to be against mechanical thinning. One of the ingredients for high severity fires is heavy fuels that burn hot and holds the heat close to the ground. Fire suppression in warm/dry forests has led to unnatural high concentrations of fuels increasing the chance of high severity fires. So, then a question would be, what would be the "correct" mix of areas where type conversions take place due to high severity fires?
As I mentioned earlier, there is growing evidence that many burned areas are not responding after fires like they used to due to increased temperatures, reduced moisture and/or changes in the timing of moisture. Mechanical thinning reduces the amount of fuel, thus reducing the risk of high severity burns.
Thanks, Mike. Sorry for the delay in replying. At a certain point we get into philosophical territory, such as, if an Aspen forest grows back naturally, why not let nature have its way?
This, I suppose, is a first principle for me, that nature knows best, and operates at levels of complexity and at time scales we don't see when we employ scientific reductionism, whether for the sake of carbon, board feet, or fire resistance. Over three quarters of the planet's lands have been human modified, and I believe we'd be wise to tip the balance in the other direction. Indeed, I think that is the most important thing we can do as a species if we want to maintain a functional biosphere, or getting even more philosophical, if we want to be worthy of our occupancy here.
The other first principle to me is water. Water is life and life is water, or as Millan Millan put it, water begets water, soil is a womb and vegetation a midwife. Healthy ecosystems not only maintain water but increase it. The more life grown, the more water contained in biomass and soil, and thus the more life it can grow. Further, a healthy ecosystem will raise water tables by capturing water and allowing it to percolate down. Further still, a healthy ecosystem emits a wide spectrum of bioaerosols and water vapor, at times and rates corresponding to inherited biotic intelligence and experience (if allowed to gain it) that hasten re-precipitation as well as cloud formation at lower altitudes, which helps cool the climate.
Now, if you thin the ecosystem, it's not only evaporating less water, but it's producing a different profile of bioaerosols. Further, the soil has been severely degraded and is now exposed to the sun. And again, if large, mature trees are removed (which we can expect a lot of under FOFA) the forest loses experience and knowledge about how to properly regulate its respiration and microclimate. This to me is a recipe for shifting entire ecosystems to drier states.
As for regrowth after fire, it sounds like the key thing is not to salvage log, which FOFA appears aimed at substantially increasing. And even if the fire is severe enough to kill most seeds in the soil, which I understand to be rare, won't birds bring them in, especially if allowed to naturally regenerate?
In any case, I don't claim to KNOW. I don't think anybody can make that claim, given the complexity of the matter. Which I guess is my biggest problem with FOFA, is that it creates statutory permanence around management concepts that are still unproven, in my opinion. It would be helpful if there were real hearings on this that allowed all voices and was not controlled by the Forest Service. FOFA would foreclose on that possibility, leaving citizens very little option to protect their ecosystems, and that will get ugly.
In any case, thanks again for your thoughtful comments. My firm stance against FOFA doesn't necessarily extend to what you are saying about forest management. I'm still trying to understand the issue and doing my best to listen to all sides. But while FOFA looms, I have to fight it.
Well, Rob, thank you for sitting through this heartbreaking meeting and bearing witness to the process that will lead to devastating loss. Grateful to you. If only “I tried to tell you,” could save us all.
Rob—great review, heartbreaking reality, if only Klobucher could read this. Your forest-centered perspective makes so much sense. I would vote to put you in charge of making rational policy for healthy forests.
Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate the words.
Thank you, Rob, for such a clear report. Thank you.
Thanks, Katie!
Rob everything about most politicians attitudes will not be consistent with the needs of our living planet. We've ran into the same with our dam work. Except not only politicians but many old guard scientists, stuck in the world of Co2. I'm hopeful that in our lifetime we can turn this corner but the money to keep the battle going needs to come into our courts. appreciate your efforts, I've been banging my head here in Maine with the states administrative departments.
I hear you, Cliff. There were times writing this I felt like a fool, wasting my time. We do, in the end, have one thing on our side: reality. Nature is reality. And wouldn't you know, it's also wise and beautiful.
Thank you for your words. I weep for the forests of the world but feel helpless to change anything. No one listens. A Canadian Grandma.
I agree with you 100%, Sandy Masse. I’m an American grandma and no one seems to listen, even in my own family. The thought of our beautiful forests drying out makes me crazy, but I also feel helpless to change anything. What kind of world are we leaving for our grandchildren? That’s my question.
I weep for them. We are indeed poor ancestors.
Thank you both for being willing to weep. To grieve at this time is to be fully alive to the moment.
Hi, Rob! Today is Herb's birthday so reading your Substack seemed particularly important. I found it an excellent read. Thanks on reporting, besides the issues in this bill, the lack of knowledge that the Dems had....disappointing to say the least. Have you thought of running for political office? Thanks for all you do!
Hi Kathy. So good to hear from you, and thanks for letting me know about Herb's birthday. I'll be remembering him today. Miss him.
Heartbreaking, yes, what passes for deliberation of policy. Thank you, Rob, for sitting through this and reporting with comments on what might have been said, what was missing. Your ability to focus on the important points is impressive.
Thanks, Deanna.
Thank you, Rob, for your clarity and steadfastness. So heartbreaking, though...
Thanks Rob for sitting in vigil through this process.
You are right - this is a precedent, but sadly it is not a new one in any sense.
To my mind Kirkpatrick Sale explained it best in his 1995 book ‘Rebels Against The Future: the Luddites and their War on the Industrial Revolution’:
"The industrial regime hardly cares which cadres run the state as long as they understand the kind of duties expected of them. It is remarkably protean in that way, for it can accommodate itself to almost any national system —Marxist Russia, capitalist Japan, China under a vicious dictator, Singapore under a benevolent one, messy and riven India, tidy and cohesive Norway, Jewish Israel, Muslim Egypt— and in return asks only that its priority dominate, its markets rule, its values penetrate, and its interests be defended." (I would add – 'at any cost'.)
What we are seeing is nothing but the 'industrial regime' - the industrial complex - that has only solidified since Sale wrote the above, doing what it does. It actually cannot do anything else. (Sale’s book is painfully enlightening - it documents the moment that government and modern industry aligned to stamp out any opposition to its 'progress'.)
While this is utterly devastating it is also a huge eyes open reality. It puts the responsibility on us, we must work out how to undermine this madness (politics never will until we have set the precedents). Audre Lorde wrote in the 1970s 'you cannot dismantle the master's house using the master's tools'. This phrase is a guide to my current thinking: what are the tools that the master cannot understand I ask? what are the things The System ignores because it thinks it is irrelevant? what things are allowed to grow undetected?
Most activism uses the same tools that the industrial complex ’the master’ uses (most activist organizations look and are structured in the same way corporations are, and are in fact often use that same companies who they are 'fighting' to help with promotions and products and software etc). 'The industrial complex’ will always have more 'fire power' than we will ever have. One of the most powerful tools they have is to encourage people to look away and be rewarded/seduced by what The System can provide them, no matter the cost. We have to be creative and inventive to understand what tools the master cannot see and cannot dismount...
In all this, knowing we cannot change the 'Master' overnight. I think we all must acknowledge that what we seek will not be accomplished in our lifetimes -- destruction and slavery will continue. But we (those whose love and connection to earth is in our bones) must create and be the source from which change can occur - from which a trickle can flow into the future holding unshakable love for the earth. Those of us who are young and those of us no longer young must doggedly keep spreading joy and love, and holding grief for our living earth ...and making sure others are inoculated with the spark of life.
Thanks tree woman. I love that last phrase: "inoculated with the spark of life." Yes, how do we fight the master while using the master's tools. It's the great conundrum we face. Here I am, tapping on one of those tools. It can be crazy making. But it's better than numb withdrawal or distraction.
A computer is indeed a tool made by the master but the real 'master's tools' are the structures of governance and law that hold the minds of us, the people, 'in trance' with the mythology of progress that has been in place for at least 5000 years — meaning that altering it is a huge task — this trance also keeps us separate from nature and rather importantly from each other. These master's tools, this mythology, are reinforced everyday with media, movies, songs, news feeds... and tragically our own language...
Sadly the mythology that our modern industrial system has come out of, comes out a fear of 'dark, wild nature'. The Gilgamesh story from 4000 years ago portrays Gilgamesh (part god and part man) as the hero when he tames the wild, cuts down the cedars. The Babylonian creation myth is particularly brutal, basically: the goddess was blown up by one of her sons he then used her body parts to make the world! The goddess (nature) becomes the raw materials for civilization. The middle east was the 'cradle of [our western] civilization'... The idea —that mythology— that we humans can use our powers to control 'dark, wild nature' got a massive boost with the first industrial revolution which has only continued to escalated and be reinforced ...bringing us to now.
Tomas Berry wrote in “The Dream of the Earth’: “However rational modern economics might be, the driving force of economics is not economic, but visionary, a visionary commitment supported by myth and a sense of having the magical powers of science to overcome any difficulty encountered from natural forces.”
Herbert Read noted that we need to become 'an apprentice to nature' in order to know how to use the tools that have the potential to cause destruction; I guess to de-master them and make them contributory. I think this is one of our tasks — how to use tools that came out of the master's system in a way that can dismantle The System and to know what the actual master's tools are. I am definitely not talking about withdrawal and distraction — I am talking about participation and contribution.
I spend much of my time talking directly to people (one-on-one conversations in the context of my outdoor sculptures) and I have come to understand (after talking to hundreds of passers by) that most people do love the earth but are ashamed to speak of it because they think everyone else will think they are stupid, and somewhere in there that they will be “a traitor to the race” (as Richard Powers put in in The Overstory), leaving them at risk of expulsion from the safety and comfort of the world that has been created. I have found that constantly creating visions of love for the earth and connection to all the living beings on the earth and each other, does shift something in people's bodies. Also when I can encourage a bunch of people (just everyday passers-by) to start sharing with each other their love for the earth it turns into a riot of love and connection ... rewriting the mythology by which their inner compass aligns - yes to be inoculated with the spark of life.
As poet and through your substack it is what you are doing too — thank you.
The hardest part to acknowledge is that we will not see what we hope for in our lifetimes. Yet while holding that grief we must hold our longing, for it will carry with it the sustenance that fuels something different... that writes some of the lines of a life-connected mythology of deeply contributory earth-human relations.
Thank you for what you do, tree woman.
Excellent reporting with pithy commentary. Adam Schiff masterfully put into the public record that this bill is a bandaid to make up for some of the money and job loss caused by DOGE. There was no way Dems could stop the bill what with fire fears raging and foresters being laid off. Practically speaking, cutting Forestry budget by 63% will save more forests than will streamlining permitting and pennies for roads harm. Optics.
Thanks, Rob. I'd like to think the budget cuts will slow down the exploitation, but I suspect something more intentional is happening, that the Forest Service is being stripped of non-harvest personnel, the biologists and ecologists, and retooled for the core purpose of extraction. They'll rehire as needed to get out the cut.
Yes, the political spin of the government cutting 63% of the US Forestry's budget aims to eliminate the environmentalists. Unfortunately for forests, the US Forestry Dept is a well-honed timber-harvesting blade. Here, the "forest ecologists" focus on maximizing board feet production, sending foresters into the woods to spray glyphosate on competing plants. Over time, the non-harvesters may be worse than the harvesters as toxins increase in our burdened bodies while they profit.
Good point, and something I thought about even as I wrote. The only hope I see is a core of educated citizens large enough to counter the narratives that use science for extractive purposes.
Massachusetts does not have National Forests. We have state forests and privately held woodlots with 5-year management plans. At the Ocean River Institute, we are rallying support for the Let Forests Grow Carbon Offset Fund bill. When woodlot owners or state foresters plan to clear-cut, the Fund will pay the value of the timber harvest and contract in perpetuity to leave the trees standing and the forest intact to continue maturing. https://www.oceanriver.org/causes/the-let-forests-grow-carbon-offset-fund/
Rob, one of the first things I think it is important for people to remember is that national forests are not national parks. As stated in the 1897 Organic Act: "No national forest shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber...."
Almost anyone (there are always exceptions) who has walked through an old growth forest can't be moved by their beauty. The emotional connection cannot be ignored. But....
More than 340 million people now live in the US and are consumers of wood products in some form. The US is a net importer of wood products, so we export environmental impacts by asking other countries to provide us with wood harvested from their land. Many of these countries have lower levels of environmental protection than the US. Most of the commercial timber harvested in the US comes from private land, where the land is often managed as tree farms rather than natural ecosystems, but national forests also play their part with providing the raw materials for wood products.
Fire is one of the major forest disturbance agents throughout the country with the exception of cool-moist forest types. For more than 100 years, humans have been aggressively suppressing fires in forest which has led to unnatural development of dense multi-sized trees and buildup of dead fuels. The multi-sized trees create ladders to the crowns of otherwise large fire resistant trees. These are the areas that especially need thinning to protect the larger, older trees and reduce - not eliminate - the chance of high intensity/high severity fires.
Historic photos from the 1800s often show warm/dry forest types (e.g., ponderosa pine forests) as being populated with mostly large trees that are widely spaced with grass understories. Many of these forests are much denser now, so when they burn under dry, windy conditions assisted by anthropogenic climate change (ACC), they burn big. The issue is not past fire suppression or ACC, but both, along with human caused ignitions.
"Forest health" is a human construct that differs depending on who you ask. A person working in commercial forest products will have a different definition from an environmental preservationist. I think the term is best used in conjunction with a speaker/writer providing their definition.
Sorry for the above disjointed paragraphs, I wrote them this way to reduce length of this comment. My hope is that each point provides background for this next part.
Rob, it seems like I have seen you reference Dominick DellaSala and Chad Hanson previously in your writing. In my opinion, these two scientists seem to incorporate their values into their research, thus leading to value based conclusions. That is not how the scientific method is supposed to work. I think a wider search of the literature would provide information that conflicts with theirs.
Well planned and implemented thinning does increase forest resilience to wildfire related disturbances. There are many examples of crown fires dropping to the ground when they hit thinned forests resulting in lower intensity and lower severity burns in those areas. Whereas I agree the first priority should be treating those forests near human infrastructure, treating areas further from human developments is also important.
ACC seems to be impacting natural recovery from fires in some areas. There are areas where seedlings are no longer reestablishing after a burn due to increased temperatures and reduced moisture. This will only become more prevalent as we continue pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. I feel it is also important to thin areas further from human developments in order to provide islands of forest that are more likely to burn at low severity in order to act as a "arks" to repopulate surrounding areas after a fire.
National forest system land management goals are based on values not science. Science is information that informs how to reach those goals. The Organic Act of 1897 provided some over arching values for the management of national forests. Forest plans act kind of like zoning for a national forest where there is a mix of areas off limits or mostly off limits to logging (roadless areas and designated wilderness areas) and areas where more intensive management is allowed.
The Fix Our Forest Act does not allow logging in areas off limits to logging as spelled out in individual forest plans; that would require additional legislation. Like you, I don't agree with the provision "streamlining" environmental analyses with the ability to use categorical exclusions for areas up to 10,000 acres in size. And I don't trust the current administration to provide guidance to focus on thinning forests to increase resiliency to fires rather than log them to "get the cut out." But, I do think it is important for people to understand the current conditions of our forests and the importance of active management in areas to help meet the goal of improving forest resilience while also, where appropriate, to provide wood products.
There are many people who live in areas where forests have burned at a high severity (myself included) and know how they can impact water quality which conflicts with that other goal stated in the Organic Act of 1897: "secure favorable water flows..." I don't feel sitting on our hands is an option and I don't think the Fix our Forest Act is the answer.
Hi Mike:
Thanks for your detailed comment. You bring up a lot of points, some of which I agree with, such as the definition for Forest Health depending on the individual using the term. Is it health for the sake of timber productivity, or health for the sake of biotic integrity.
I would agree that DellaSala and Hanson are values oriented, (but so is the Forest Service, which seems to me to place a high value on timber production). I've looked at their work, and it seems awfully solid to me. One thing I appreciate about Hanson, is how much time he spends in the field, gathering real data, not relying too heavily on models.
He went to the national archives to cross check a paper which alleges, as you say, a much more park like forest structure predominated before settlement. He discovered, however, troves of photos passed over by the study which showed dense forests as well.
Regarding human caused climate change, I agree CO2 is part of it, but I'm convinced that biospheric damage at the hands of humans is also an important, though overlooked, factor. Again, thinning forests may (or may not) cause a fire to drop to the ground, as you say, but at what cost to local and regional water recycling? We don't know, because we're only now beginning to recognize the small water cycle and the role of ecosystems in managing them. Also, to make the work economically appealing, my understanding is that the Forest Service allows timber companies to harvest large trees, the most fire resilient and also the ones with the experience to pass on to younger trees about how to cope with drought. It seems wiser to me let the forest burn naturally and develop natural resilience.
I agree with your points about the fact that we all use wood, and that logging in other places often lacks safeguards used here, but until we actively work to reduce demand and as long as we let markets rule, the near term exhaustion of the planet seems inevitable.
Lastly, I really feel we need to recognize the biotic intelligence of living systems. They are more complex than we are even capable of understanding at this point, and we need to, as much as possible, trust them to heal and give them the space and time to do so, imo.
You mentioned the need to treat forests that aren't near human populations. I'd be interested in your reason. If suppressing fires has caused so much trouble, why don't we let the backcountry fires burn? Especially if naturally ignited, such as by lightning strike?
Hi Rob, thanks for replying to my comment.
Per your point about the impact of logging on local and regional water recycling: I'm not sure what you mean by recycling vs my understanding of the impacts to the water cycle. Are water recycling and water cycle synonymous? One of the first studies on the impacts to the water cycle was done just down the road from me at Wagon Wheel Gap near Creede, Colorado. In that multi-year study (19teens and 20s), it found that removing trees from a drainage increased water runoff, which back then was considered a good thing from a downstream agriculture use perspective. Studies since then have shown mixed results.
Fires can do the same thing, only they can have dramatic short term impacts on water quality. A high severity fire kills all the vegetation including roots in the top 6-12 inches of soil. Hydrophobic soils may develop from fires which shed water without infiltration leading to higher surface flow and erosion during rainstorms (although some studies conclude it isn't the hydrophobic soils but the loss of vegetation that is the main driver of these ash and debris flows). Ash and debris flows can kill fish populations in streams, rivers and lakes. I have seen all this first hand and led tours to groups after such a fire in South Fork, Colorado. These types of fires have always happened, but my guess is they will happen more often due to past fire suppression and climate change.
In general, road building has the largest impact on water quality from logging. Ground vegetation is not removed except for roads and landings. Skid trails can impact water infiltration due to soil compaction. This tends to be temporary.
I think I answered your question about my reasoning for thinning areas away from human populations. These areas could be islands of low severity burns surrounded by high severity burn areas. They can help provide the seed source to naturally repopulate the high severity burned areas around them. "Could be" is the key point here. Weather and topography could interact in such away that crown fires would still jump from tree to tree even if they were large and spaced somewhat far apart.
As for your question about why not let backcountry fires burn... I'm with you, under the right conditions, although the public doesn't always have the appetite for that. So called "managed fires" will sometimes create poor air quality in areas for weeks - just like some large fires that are being aggressively suppressed. Forest fire smoke has been linked to premature deaths. I'm lucky in that I have the means to purchase good quality air filters for my home. Not everyone has those means and some people have to work outdoors regardless of the air quality. Additionally, just letting backcountry fires burn could lead to severe downstream water quality issues that impact human developments.
I don't blame you for not trusting the forest service. Some land managers on some national forests have been in the hip pocket of the timber industry. And this current administration believes in "log, baby, log." But, I think with the right administration, funding, and good direction and oversight, a lot of work can be done to reduce the risk of high severity fires without causing long-term impacts to forest ecosystems.
Understand, in all of the above (except that last paragraph), I'm not expressing my personal values rather I'm describing how things function to the best of my understanding. When it comes to Nature, Nature has no values, it just responds to the conditions. It is humans who put on their values filter to express whether something is good or bad and there is quite a diversity of values among humans.
Hi Mike: By precipitation recycling I'm referring to how landscapes hasten rainfall by seeding clouds with cloud condensation nuclei. Thus the same water can fall multiple times across a landscape, and so referred to "recycling," but could also be called the small water cycle, which I'm inclined to call the terrestrial water cycle, because it happens over land.
This goes beyond river flows, which can be increased by logging, as their are fewer trees transpiring. The important thing, from a fire standpoint, is how much water is in the soils, aquifer and vegetation. A healthy forest will hold water so it available in the critical dry season, helping it resist fire, and maintaining stream flows.
Here's a piece by Alpha Lo at the Climate Water Project: https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/new-terms-for-the-small-water-cycle
You may enjoy scrolling though his site, which explores water cycles in numerous ways.
In terms of high severity fire, many researchers have found such fires to be necessary for many species, and almost always regenerate on their own in great profusion.
Also when you let a forest burn naturally, it can increase its resilience through natural selection.
I guess the bottom line for me is that we need to foster biological complexity. Complexity seems like the key. Managed forests look simplified to me, and I feel like our tendency to simplify natural systems will always bite us in the end.
Hi Rob, Thanks for the link. I checked it out and didn't see anything different, except some terminology, from what I learned in my watershed management classes back in the late 70s. Additional studies I have read since then seemed to indicate there is much variability in response of local water cycles to disturbances - both human and natural. One cool thing that has changed is the ability to more accurately quantify those responses.
Per your comment on high severity fires: Yes, there have always been high severity fires or more accurately, portions of large fires that have burned at high severity. When looked at over a large landscape level, fires have helped create a mosaic of vegetation types each of which favors different species. But the argument of "there has always been high severity fires" is similar to the anthroprogenic climate change skeptics' refrain of "there has always been climate change."
Large areas of moderate to high severity fires can take centuries to revegetate to become the forests that were burned. A large fire burned near my home in 2013 - 49,000 ac. Much of it burned at moderate severity and some at high severity. Aspen quickly sprouted where there were existing root systems in the low to moderate burn areas. In high severity burned areas the heat penetrated deep enough to kill the roots that were within seven inches of the surface, which is generally the maximum depth in our area from which aspen sprout (due to soil temperature). In some cases aspen seeded in, but it will take at least a couple hundred years for coniferous forests to take shape due to the distance from conifer seed sources. How do we know this? That history has already been written on the land from fires in the 1850s that created large aspen stands that still dominate today.
Additionally, a large debris flow following this fire killed hundreds (thousands?) of fish and aquatic macroinvertebrates. The good news, these areas were recolonized within a couple years.
But, this all circles back to one of your original points that seemed to be against mechanical thinning. One of the ingredients for high severity fires is heavy fuels that burn hot and holds the heat close to the ground. Fire suppression in warm/dry forests has led to unnatural high concentrations of fuels increasing the chance of high severity fires. So, then a question would be, what would be the "correct" mix of areas where type conversions take place due to high severity fires?
As I mentioned earlier, there is growing evidence that many burned areas are not responding after fires like they used to due to increased temperatures, reduced moisture and/or changes in the timing of moisture. Mechanical thinning reduces the amount of fuel, thus reducing the risk of high severity burns.
Thanks, Mike. Sorry for the delay in replying. At a certain point we get into philosophical territory, such as, if an Aspen forest grows back naturally, why not let nature have its way?
This, I suppose, is a first principle for me, that nature knows best, and operates at levels of complexity and at time scales we don't see when we employ scientific reductionism, whether for the sake of carbon, board feet, or fire resistance. Over three quarters of the planet's lands have been human modified, and I believe we'd be wise to tip the balance in the other direction. Indeed, I think that is the most important thing we can do as a species if we want to maintain a functional biosphere, or getting even more philosophical, if we want to be worthy of our occupancy here.
The other first principle to me is water. Water is life and life is water, or as Millan Millan put it, water begets water, soil is a womb and vegetation a midwife. Healthy ecosystems not only maintain water but increase it. The more life grown, the more water contained in biomass and soil, and thus the more life it can grow. Further, a healthy ecosystem will raise water tables by capturing water and allowing it to percolate down. Further still, a healthy ecosystem emits a wide spectrum of bioaerosols and water vapor, at times and rates corresponding to inherited biotic intelligence and experience (if allowed to gain it) that hasten re-precipitation as well as cloud formation at lower altitudes, which helps cool the climate.
Now, if you thin the ecosystem, it's not only evaporating less water, but it's producing a different profile of bioaerosols. Further, the soil has been severely degraded and is now exposed to the sun. And again, if large, mature trees are removed (which we can expect a lot of under FOFA) the forest loses experience and knowledge about how to properly regulate its respiration and microclimate. This to me is a recipe for shifting entire ecosystems to drier states.
As for regrowth after fire, it sounds like the key thing is not to salvage log, which FOFA appears aimed at substantially increasing. And even if the fire is severe enough to kill most seeds in the soil, which I understand to be rare, won't birds bring them in, especially if allowed to naturally regenerate?
In any case, I don't claim to KNOW. I don't think anybody can make that claim, given the complexity of the matter. Which I guess is my biggest problem with FOFA, is that it creates statutory permanence around management concepts that are still unproven, in my opinion. It would be helpful if there were real hearings on this that allowed all voices and was not controlled by the Forest Service. FOFA would foreclose on that possibility, leaving citizens very little option to protect their ecosystems, and that will get ugly.
In any case, thanks again for your thoughtful comments. My firm stance against FOFA doesn't necessarily extend to what you are saying about forest management. I'm still trying to understand the issue and doing my best to listen to all sides. But while FOFA looms, I have to fight it.
Well, Rob, thank you for sitting through this heartbreaking meeting and bearing witness to the process that will lead to devastating loss. Grateful to you. If only “I tried to tell you,” could save us all.
Thanks, Leah.