Preforests in the American West, Part 2: “Reforestation,” By Gawd?

 This is the second of a two-post exploration of the stage of forest succession that occurs after a stand-replacing event and before the canopy again closes and dominates the site. Part 1 discussed why preforests are valuable, if undervalued. Part 2 addresses management of preforests to preserve their ecological value.

Figure 1. Mountain (shown here) and western bluebirds strongly prefer preforests. Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service.

If net present value of timber production is your goal, you want the preforest stage to be as short as inhumanely possible. Whether the trees were killed by clear-cutting or nature, by all means send as much of the forest to the mill as possible. Then densely plant a monoculture of Douglas-fir (or ponderosa pine, depending upon where you are) seedlings and spray the plantation with herbicides and/or hand-slash so any broadleaf vegetation doesn’t compete with the new conifer seedlings. Since time is money and forty years is the most profitable rotation age for production forestry, you cannot be wasting any of those years on the preforest stage.

The traditional response of the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and private industry after a stand-replacing event has been to immediately salvage log it (akin to mugging a burn victim) and then densely plant it with a monoculture of one species, usually Douglas-fir. The intent has been to short-circuit this stage of natural forest succession and reestablish the young forest stage. Of course, ecologically the plantation is more akin to a cornfield than a forest, but it has been “reforested,” by gawd.

Fortunately, the times are a-changin’ as understanding of preforests improves.

Complex Versus Simplistic Early Successional Forest Ecosystems

Not all preforests are created equal.

If the disturbance was natural—wildfire, wind, insect, avalanche, or volcano—the preforest stage is rich in the legacy of trees (living or dead, standing or fallen) that continue to influence the structure and function of the ecosystem. This is a complex preforest.

If salvage logging followed a natural disturbance or if the stand was clear-cut—perhaps accompanied by one or more doses of prejudicial herbicides and then a precommercial thinning to remove the excess conifers that were established due to the herbicides—it is a simplistic preforest.

The Douglas-fir region abounds in simplistic preforest but is rather short on complex preforest. Simplistic preforest on private timberlands has some—but not a lot—of habitat value. Certain species and ecological processes just won’t be found in simplistic preforest. However, as there is a lot of simplistic preforest, there is significant total value on a whole-landscape basis.

Figure 2. The poster plant for complex preforests is Vaccinium membranaceum (that’s mountain huckleberry, mountain bilberry, black huckleberry, tall huckleberry, big huckleberry, thin-leaved huckleberry, globe huckleberry, or Montana huckleberry to you). Source: Wikipedia.

Depending upon the cause of the stand-replacing event, combinations of various biological legacies, including live standing trees, dead standing trees (snags), and fallen trees (large woody material), can be found in the preforest stage (Table 1). Some events leave the understory undisturbed, while others do not. In the American West, besides the legacy of large wood (living and dead, both standing and fallen), preforests often host hardwood trees as well as conifers, along with herbs (pronounced “wildflowers”), shrubs, and graminoids (“sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses are hollow”).

Table 1. Biological legacies by disturbance agent. Additional disturbance agents include volcanic eruptions, snow avalanches, and severe floods. Source: Ecological Forest Management.

Bring Back the Black-Backeds

In “The Forgotten Stage of Forest Succession: Early-Successional Ecosystems on Forest Sites,” Swanson et al. report:

Naturally occurring early-seral pre-forest communities appear to constitute a unique system on the seral spectrum for forested lands of the [Pacific Northwest]. The structural attributes offered by this set of conditions provide habitat for a number of conservation-dependent species, as well as many species that are not rare, but are of substantial social and economic value (i.e., game animals such as deer, elk, and bear).

Furthermore:

Our research, while exploratory in nature, suggests that complex early-seral communities have importance on par with complex late-seral forests in providing habitat for conservation-listed species. . . . While not final due to the evolving state of knowledge on early-seral communities and the habitat dependencies of many wildlife species, the conclusions presented here suggest that early-seral conditions play an important role in maintaining a number of societally important values, including rare or conservation-dependent species.

As the northern spotted owl is to old-growth forests, so the black-backed woodpecker is to preforests. The bird’s back is black so it doesn’t stand out when dining on insects found under the scorched bark. As the Center for Biological Diversity notes:

An intensely burned forest of dense, fire-killed trees is perhaps the most maligned, misunderstood and imperiled habitat. Far from being destroyed, a naturally burned forest harbors extraordinarily rich biological diversity, and there’s no better flagship species to help us embrace that than the black-backed woodpecker. . . .

[T]he woodpecker prefers its mature and old-growth trees to be snags—because it loves to eat the wood-boring beetles that flock to large dead and moribund trees, responding to insect outbreaks following fires, windfall, and large-scale drought- or beetle-induced mortality events.

Black-backed woodpeckers depend upon an unpredictable and ephemeral environment that may remain suitable for at most seven to 10 years after fire; their populations are clearly regulated by the extent of fires and insect outbreaks—and by the management actions people choose to take in those affected forests.

Figure 3. The black-backed woodpecker is the spotted owl of the preforest. Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Salvage logging is deadly to Picoides arcticus. Complex preforest is also the required or preferred home of many other wildlife species, including several that are “species of concern” due to trends of population decline, including bluebirds (western and mountain). Butterflies and moths of all kinds as well as deer and elk thrive in complex preforest.

The Good News, the Bad News, and My Recommendations

The good news is that the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are doing far less salvage logging after stand-replacing events. Public opposition, a lack of industry capacity to absorb the large pulse of logs, and other bureaucratic factors have combined so that the amount of complex preforest on federal public lands is on the increase (a rare bit of good news).

The bad news is that some federal forest managers, while not salvage logging after a stand-replacement event, are nonetheless planting nursery seedlings in a misguided attempt to be (seen to be) doing something after a wildfire.

My recommendations to address concerns about preserving the ecological value of preforests follow.

On private lands: (1) State laws that require the prompt planting of conifers after clear-cutting on private lands should be repealed. While industrial private timberland owners will continue to so plant, there are nonindustrial owners who desire to apply the principles of ecological forestry, which honor the preforest stage. (2) For a variety of reasons—public health, ecological health, and watershed health—herbicide application on preforests should be banned.

On public lands: Salvage logging should never occur after a stand-replacing event (and neither should planting nursery seedlings).

On all lands: The Forest Service, as part of its Forest Inventory and Assessment Program, should inventory and assess the extent and quality of preforest across all ownerships and site classes. One cannot value or manage what one does not count.

Figure 4. The three-toed woodpecker is another aficionado of preforests. Source: Flckr.

Back to Opal Creek

Senator Mark Hatfield, who did more than anyone to facilitate the logging old-growth forests (and rapidly replanting monocultures) (see Public Lands Blog posts Mark Odom Hatfield Parts 1 and 2), nonetheless—or perhaps because of—did the right thing for Opal Creek. In one of his last acts as a US senator, the statute creating the Opal Creek Scenic Recreation Area, is this clause (included, dare I brag, by my incessant whining to Hatfield staff):

(ii) SALVAGE SALES.—The Secretary [of Agriculture {Forest Service}] may not allow a salvage sale in the Scenic Recreation Area.

Bottom Line: When I return to the Opal Creek Wilderness within the Opal Creek Scenic Recreation , I will enter bittersweet and leave happy—happy in knowing that the forest continues its natural succession.

For More Information

DellaSala et al. “Complex Early Seral Forests of the Sierra Nevada: What Are They and How Can They Be Managed for Ecological Integrity?” Natural Areas Journal 34 (July 2014):310-324.

Franklin et al. Ecological Characteristics of Old-Growth Douglas-fir Forests. USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, 1981.

Franklin et al. Ecological Forest Management. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2018.

Oliver, C. D, and B. C. Larson. Forest Stand Dynamics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990.

Smith et al. “Peak Plant Diversity During Early Forest Development in the Western United States.” Forest Ecology and Management 475 (November 2020):118410.

Swanson et al. “The Forgotten Stage of Forest Succession: Early-Successional Ecosystems on Forest Sites.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (March 2011, first published online March 2010):117–125.

Swanson et al. “Biological associates of early-seral pre-forest in the Pacific Northwest.” Forest Ecology and Management Volume 324 (15 July 2014): 160-171

Ulappa et al. “Silvicultural Herbicides and Forest Succession Influence Understory Vegetation and Nutritional Ecology of Black-Tailed Deer in Managed Forests.” Forest Ecology and Management 470–471 (August 2020):118216.

Remembering Ecowarrior Dave Foreman, Part 2: Moving the Needle

Note: This is the second part of a two-part tribute to Dave Foreman, who recently shuffled off this mortal coil. Part 1 recounted Dave’s contribution to stopping the infamous Bald Mountain Road, a dagger into the heart of the Kalmiopsis wildlands in southwestern Oregon. Part 2 is my take on Dave’s unique contributions to the conservation and restoration of nature.

Figure 1. Dave Foreman never failed to give a hell of a speech. It was often more like a sermon full of information, wisdom, provocation, humor, and inspiration—but never damnation—delivered by a preacher who sought to save not human souls but life on Earth. Source: The Rewilding Institute.

The North Kalmiopsis wildlands, the lands Dave Foreman nearly lost his life trying to save from the bulldozer and the chainsaw, are still not, some four decades later, fully protected for the benefit of this and future generations. The remaining roadless wildlands have not yet been added to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, but a good portion is somewhat administratively protected as Forest Service inventoried roadless areas. Some of the North Kalmiopsis lands have received wild and scenic river status, with more in the offing for the entire Kalmiopsis wildlands. Perhaps the mature and old-growth forests therewill be administratively protected by the Biden administration.

It can take a lot of time to save a piece of nature. Dave Foreman knew this. Dave also knew that given the rate of the human assault on nature, nature doesn’t have the luxury of time.

In my view, Dave Foreman’s greatest contributions to saving the wild were

·      getting conservationists, and then society, to think bigger;

·      popularizing science to save wilderness, when the science was still emerging; and

·      having a large and secure enough ego to let others take credit for and run with ideas he first popularized.

Moving the Overton Window

I didn’t know it at the time, and probably neither did Dave, but Dave’s fundamental course was trying to move what the sociopolitical chattering class now calls the Overton window. The Overton window is the thinking of Joseph P. Overton of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank. According to Wikipedia, the Overton window is “the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time.”

When Dave started his conservation career, wilderness designation was within the Overton window, but generally more because of human recreation than nature conservation. Wilderness also had to encompass relatively large areas, and generally more rock and ice than low-elevation forests or desert grasslands.

The Overton window is not moved by politicians; rather it is moved by think tanks and activists who advocate for policy solutions that start outside the current range of public acceptability. As the unpopular, if not previously unspoken, idea moves to become more popular, the Overton window moves to reflect that that policy solution is now within the realm of political discussion. Politicians only look out of Overton windows.

I recall a conversation with Dave that hit home with me. The public lands conservation movement generally came out of the progressive movement, and more on Republican than Democratic wings. Early twentieth-century public lands conservationists like John Muir, Stephen Mather, Horace Albright, Gifford Pinchot, and their ilk were all white, Republican (things were different back then), and rich. They didn’t want to rock the sociopolitical boat but rather just change its course a bit. Not turn the boat around—and if any rocking was required, not too much rocking.

“Where would Martin Luther King [Jr.] have been without Malcolm X?” thundered Dave, just to me at that point, but it was a line from a speech that he had given or would give many times. The radical Malcolm X did make MLK appear more reasonable in the public arena.

Foreman helped the public lands conservation community think (and act) “outside the box,” another metaphor for the limits of public acceptability.

Dave taught me that while ecological realities are immutable, political realities are mutable. Only if one has one’s idea aperture too small and/or time horizon too short does it appear that political realities cannot be changed.

Figure 2. Dave Foreman inspired many a wildlands advocate, including John Davis, now executive director of the Rewilding Institute. Since I have known him, John has always had one foot in something big and the other in something Adirondacks. Source: The Rewilding Institute.

Presaging 30x30 . . . and 50x50

Foreman was not a scientist, but early on in his conservation career, he knew—in his gut if not yet in his head—if we’re to have functioning ecosystems across the landscape (and seascape) and over time, that at least half of every ecosystem needs to be conserved and, in some cases, restored. Later Foreman came to know this not only in his gut but also in his head. As the discipline of conservation biology emerged, Dave embraced and popularized the science that provided objective evidence for what was previously just his personal testimony.

Today, the conservation buzz is all about 30x30, or conserving 30 percent of the world’s, nations’, states’ lands and waters by 2030. Don’t tell anyone, but 30x30 is simply an interim goal on the way to 50x50, which is where the science points. Yep, 50 percent by 2050. 

Urging Colleagues to Steal His Ideas

As Dave helped move nature conservation’s Overton window, he was genuinely pleased when others took credit for his work—credit either for moving the political window or for taking advantage of the concept/idea/notion/necessity that the moved Overton window exposed. More than one chief executive officer of a national conservation organization told Dave to his face that they were embracing/stealing “his” idea (of course, without crediting him). Foreman’s response was always “Go for it!” rather than “You’re welcome” and never “Hey, that’s my idea!”

While Foreman did radical things on behalf of nature, in his chest beat the heart of a reactionary deeply opposed to any so-called progress that came at a cost to the wild. It is not that he opposed civilization or was misanthropic. Rather, Foreman realized that for there to be fine cigars and exquisite liquors and the many other economic goods and services that we enjoy, and for our children to inhabit the earth and prosper, that the earth must continue to provide fundamental ecosystem goods and services. 

Figure 3. In 2004, Dave made the case for rewilding (a term he coined) the continent. By today’s scientific standards, his vision was rather conservative. Dave knew the Overton window doesn’t move all at once. Source: Island Press.

So did Dave Foreman end up damning or praising me when he came to southwestern Oregon? Depending on his audience, either one. It worked for me, it worked for him, and most important, it worked for nature.

Foreman moved the needle.

Thanks, Dave.

Bottom line: No one can replace Dave Foreman. But others must and will carry on working for the wild.

For More Information

Astor, Maggie. February 26, 2019. “How the Politically Unthinkable Can Become Mainstream.” New York Times.

Foreman, Dave. 1991. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. Crown.

———. 1992. The Big Outside: A Descriptive Inventory of the Big Wilderness Areas of the United States. Three Rivers Press.

———. 2004. Rewilding North America: A Vision for Conservation in the 21st Century. Island Press.

———. 2004. The Lobo Outback Funeral Home: A Novel. Bower House.

———. 2011. Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife. Raven’s Eye Press.

———. 2012. Take Back Conservation. Raven’s Eye Press.

———. 2012. “The Great Backtrack,“ in Philip Cafaro and Eileen Crist (eds.), . Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation. University of Georgia Press.

———. 2014. The Great Conservation Divide: Conservation vs. Resourcism on America’s Public Lands. Raven’s Eye Press.

Rewilding Institute. “Dave Foreman (1946–2022).”

Risen, Clay. September 28, 2022. “David Foreman, Hard-Line Environmentalist, Dies at 75.” New York Times.

Wikipedia. Dave Foreman.

Zakin, Susan. September 21, 2022. “Dave Foreman, American.” Journal of the Plague Years.

The Futility of “Fighting” Wildfire: Elemental—A Film Review

Top Line: “It’s a home ignition problem, not a wildfire control problem.” —Jack Cohen, USDA Forest Service fire scientist

 Figure 1. If you care about forests and/or people, you must see the new documentary Elemental. Source: elementalfilm.org.

 We may generally know these things:

•       Humans and their infrastructure are the cause of the vast majority of wildfire ignitions.

•       Logging forests to reduce wildfire severity doesn’t work.

•       Logging forests to prevent structure fires doesn’t work.

•       Embers—not flame fronts—ignite most houses.

•       With proper vegetation management within 100 feet of a building and attention to making that building fire resistant, said building will not burn.

•       The only way to prevent forest fires is to prevent forests.

•       Old natural forests burn less intensely than young unnatural plantations.

•       Carbon emitted to the atmosphere from burning a forest is a tiny fraction of that emitted by logging a forest.

•       Fires in the backcountry are generally good, while fires in the frontcountry are bad.

•       Fire is either the rebirth or continuation of a forest, while salvage logging is the end of a forest.

•       Taxpayers spend ungodly amounts of money “fighting” fires, doing no good and causing much harm.

•       Doing the same stupid things over and over is stupid.

 Still, most of the public believes a set of myths about wildfires that are contrary to the facts.

Figure 2. Part of the solution to the fire problem: less fire in the wrong places. The unhardened house (with wood siding, open soffits, and vegetation adjacent) on the left will soon ignite, while the hardened house (with nonwood siding, double-pane windows, a vegetation-free buffer, and closed soffits) survived this scientific onslaught by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety. It’s just physics. Source: @TripJenningsVideo.

 Comes now a documentary film from Balance Media that seeks to rebalance our narratives about wildfires. The film deconstructs several common myths about wildfires, building fires, forest ecology, forests and carbon, and many more topics. Then Elemental offers actual solutions that would require society in the American West to co-exist with fire rather than continue futilely fighting it.

Elemental’s executive producer, Ralph Bloemers (perhaps best known as a co-founder of Crag Law Center, whose mission is “legal aid for the environment”; now with Green Oregon), told me years ago he was going to make a film about forests and fires. My thoughts turned to several heartfelt but low-production-values environmental documentaries I’d seen in the past. I am pleased to report that Elemental is not in that class. Ralph put together a tremendous team that put together a tremendous film.

Stars of the film include, but are not limited to:

•       Jack Cohen, a Forest Service researcher who long ago determined that the reason buildings burn during wildfires is that they are not built and maintained to be resistant to radiant heat from the flame front and to resist the inevitable embers that fall far away from the burning forest.

•       Beverly Law, an Oregon State University researcher who tracks carbon as it fluxes between atmosphere and biosphere (forest) and counts up the atmospheric carbon consequences of humans logging a forest versus nature burning a forest. (Spoiler: the former dwarfs the latter.)

•       Tim Ingalsbee, wildland firefighter turned astute critic of the fire-industrial complex that drives forest management where the only management is logging.

•       Chris Dunn, an Oregon State University researcher who studies the underlying conditions of fire as it relates to forests and biodiversity.

•       Tania Schoennagel, a University of Colorado researcher who studies the causes and consequences of fires and insects in western forests.

Figure 3. After a natural stand-replacing forest fire, if there is no salvage logging, there is a level of biological diversity comparable in importance to—but different in expression from—that of an old-growth forest. Source: Ralph Bloemers.

Director Trip Jennings says he is “deeply committed to changing the national conversation around wildfire” and believes that “we can have healthy forests and safe communities, and that we can prepare for and adapt to fire.” He’s correct on the latter and will have succeeded on the former if enough people watch Elemental.

If you are a person susceptible to evidence, Elemental will open and change your mind.

How to Enjoy Elemental

Elemental will be at several upcoming film festivals, and showings are scheduled now in Mill City, Salem, Ashland, and Sonoma, and soon to be in Bend, Corvallis, Lincoln City, Eugene, John Day, Baker City, La Grande, Enterprise, and other Oregon locales. Like any good wildfire, showings of Elemental will soon spread to other states in the American West. A streaming deal is in the works to allow people to enjoy the documentary without leaving their fire-hardened abode.

Figure 4. Area burned by the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Several already-in-place fire lines (two paved two-lane roads, Interstate 84 with median strip, two railroad lines, and a damned river) failed to stop embers from the Oregon side from igniting fires miles away on the Washington side (just out of the frame on the left). Source: elementalfilm.com.

Figure 5. Part of the solution to the fire problem: more fire in the right places. Source: elementalfilm.com.

Bottom Line: “What this all means is that we . . . don’t have to control the extreme wildfire in order to keep the house from igniting and burning. And we don’t have to live in a concrete ammo bunker.” —Jack Cohen, USDA Forest Service fire scientist

Oregon’s Glaciers: Going but Not Forgotten

Top Line: Glaciers are history, in Oregon and everywhere.

Figure 1. The late Lathrop Glacier on the north side of Mount Thielsen. Source: W. E. Scott (Wikipedia).

In 1850, in what is now Glacier National Park in Montana (est. 1910) there were ~150 glaciers. In 2019, there were 25. Scientists project in 2030 there will be zero. Congressional legislation is in order to rename the protected area Glacierless National Park. The same goes for Glacierless Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska, not to mention the 1,220 geographic features in the United States that include “glacier” in their names.

Due to climate change, the American West is dramatically warming. Glaciers are dying and snowpacks are declining as well. Ironically, this rapid melting is artificially keeping stream flows up in basins served by glaciers. When the glaciers no long melt because there is nothing else to melt, stream flows will precipitously decline.

Researching this Public Lands Blog post was akin to mourning the death of loved ones now gone and fearing the death of loved ones now here. Oregon’s glaciers, like the rest of the glaciers in the American West, and indeed the world, are doomed. At current rates of global warming, it is not a matter of whether but rather of when all the glaciers will be gone.

Fair Warning: The Oregon Glaciers Institute

We need more Oregonians like Anders Eskil Carlson. Carlson is a glacier evangelist warning us of what we have lost, are losing, and will lose. He is the president and founder of the Oregon Glaciers Institute (OGI) as well as an accomplished academic with masters and doctorate degrees in glacial geology. He has authored or coauthored (so far) seventy-seven scientific papers and recently formed Carlson Climate Consulting to advise industry (including insurance companies, enterprises based on summer and/or winter recreation, and those concerned with agriculture, fisheries, and forestry) and government on what climate disruption is and what it will do to them.

Carlson founded OGI in 2020 to “document and study the causes of glacier change in Oregon” and “produce projections of each glacier’s future to aid in environmental and economic planning for the citizens of Oregon.” Among other things, OGI is keeping a systematic deathwatch over Oregon’s glaciers.

According to OGI, “Depending on the model used, Western North America could lose 60 to 90% of its glaciers by 2100” (Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 2. The end of glaciers in western North America: not whether but when. All scientific models project their demise but differ as to the date of extinction. Source: Oregon Glaciers Institute.

Figure 3. Glacier country in the American West. Source: Glaciers of the American West.

Just What Is (or Was) a Glacier?

Rather than attempt to explain the basic physics and hydrology of a glacier, I shamelessly quote verbatim from a very informative page on the Oregon Glaciers Institute website.

A glacier is an ice body that deforms under its own weight. To do this, the ice must be at least 30 m (100 feet) thick so that its weight causes the bottom ice to deform like toothpaste.

A glacier forms when snow lasts through the summer for many summers. Over time, that snow compacts into ice and the ice turns into a glacier once it is over 30 m thick. At that point, the ice then flows downslope to a lower and warmer elevation where it melts.

A glacier is divided into two zones: the accumulation and ablation zones. The accumulation zone is where snow survives through the summer, which will eventually turn into ice and feed the glacier. The accumulation zone is where the glacier gains mass. 

The ablation zone is the region where all prior winter snow is melted and the underlying glacial ice is also melted (and sublimated directly into the atmosphere). If there is a lake in front of the glacier, then it can calve off icebergs as well. The ablation zone is where the glacier loses mass.

The dividing line between the accumulation and ablation zones is called the equilibrium line. The equilibrium line altitude (ELA) roughly corresponds with the summer snow line as well as the elevation where the mean annual temperature is 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).

When a glacier gains more mass in its accumulation zone than loses in its ablation zone, its mass balance is positive. After several years of positive mass balance, the glacier will grow and advance downslope, increasing in size and length. If a glacier loses more mass than it accumulates, then it will retreat.

Figure 4. The accumulation and ablation zones on a glacier, separated by the equilibrium line (shown here as a dashed line). Source: Oregon Glaciers Institute.

Table 1 is my grossly simple attempt to explain what distinguishes a glacier from a mere stagnant ice body or snowfield. A glacier is a living body, while a stagnant ice body is but a corpse that will soon be consumed by elements.

The Decline of Glaciers in Oregon

Forty-three Oregon place-names include “glacier.” Most are named glaciers, but “glacier” is included in the name of a lake (in Union County), a pass (Wallowa County), a ditch (Hood River County), two mountains (Baker and Wallowa Counties), a creek (Lane County), and a headwall (Clackamas County).

If we go back 20,000 years to the last serious ice age, in addition to the Cascade Range and the Wallowa Mountains, glaciers also grew in what we now call the Strawberry Mountains, the Blue Mountains, and Steens Mountain in what we now call Oregon. But for about as long as there has been a State of Oregon (since 1859), Oregon glaciers have been in retreat. Many Oregon glaciers are already extinct.

OGI has determined that at the end of the Little Ice Age (~1300 to ~1850), Oregon had fifty-one glaciers. (What helped end the Little Ice Age was a massive increase in fossil fuel consumption, which contributes atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide.) Today, twenty-seven glaciers remain on eleven mountains (actually, it recently went down to ten).

Can you name the Oregon mountains with still extant glaciers? (See Figure 5 for clues.)

Figure 5. Mountains in Oregon that still have glaciers. Source: Oregon Glaciers Institute.

In 1993, I spent six weeks hiking the Oregon section of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail and took note of many glaciers along the way. One was Lathrop Glacier (Figure 1) on the north side of Mount Thielsen. It was small even then, consisting of two bodies of ice at 8,500 feet elevation that were “discovered” in 1966 as the then southernmost glacier in Oregon.

I was vaguely aware that glaciers were generally in decline, but I didn’t know why. I did know that Lathrop Glacier was a small glacier. Thanks to OGI, I now know that Lathrop still had crevasses in 2013, which are indicative of glaciers, but as of 2020 Lathrop Glacier was no more.

In the late 1890s, Sholes Glacier on Mount McLoughlin held the title of Oregon’s southernmost glacier. With the demise of Lathrop Glacier on Mount Thielsen, the southernmost glacier in Oregon is now Crook Glacier on the south side of Broken Top, 66 miles north of Mount Thielsen. Alas, as OGI notes:

Crook Glacier is a very small glacier on the south side of Broken Top. It resides in a very deep cirque and receives large amounts of accumulation from avalanches. It is this shaded setting with additional avalanched snow that allows the glacier to persist as the southernmost glacier in Oregon. That said, it lacked an accumulation zone in 2021. If such phenomena persist into the future, then Crook Glacier will thin and stagnate.

It likely won’t be long before the southernmost glacier in Oregon is on the north side of Mount Hood (Figure 6).

Another Hydrological Havoc

Coincidental with the loss of glaciers is another hydrological havoc: the loss of beavers. Beavers used to inhabit almost every water body in North America, but between trapping and watershed destruction by activities such urbanization, agriculture, logging and grazing, the great riparian sponge offered by streams and lakes has been greatly diminished.

Anders Carlson writes:

Nowadays, with low snowfall winters and summer heatwaves, the snowpack either begins the summer already depleted, rapidly vanishes during the summer, or both, as was the case in the summer of 2021. Glaciers therefore play an outsized role in keeping streams flowing that would otherwise run dry. And those streams that had only snowfields in their catchment? They cease to flow.

The return of beavers at scale to watersheds can somewhat mitigate the loss of stream flow from the loss of glaciers and snowpacks (see the Public Lands Blog posts “Leave It to Beavers: Good for the Climate, Ecosystems, Watersheds, Ratepayers, and Taxpayers (Part 1)” and “Leave It to Beavers: Good for the Climate, Ecosystems, Watersheds, Ratepayers, and Taxpayers (Part 2)”).

Giving Glaciers a Chance

Only if we rapidly decarbonize our economy—in most particular, by first ending fossil fuel leasing and production on federal public lands (see the Public Lands Blog post “Keep It in the Ground”)—do any glaciers have a chance. We also need to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A great start would be to allow mature and old-growth forests and trees to grow even older and store even more carbon (see the Public Lands Blog posts “Biden’s Executive Order on Forests, Part 1: A Great Opportunity” and “Biden’s Executive Order on Forests, Part 2: Seize the Day!).

OGI should annually publish a list of current formally and informally named glaciers with a projected date of glacial death (conversion to a stagnant ice body on its way to a no-ice body), not unlike the Doomsday Clock published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Knowing the projected extinction date of Oregon glaciers can help society adapt to their loss.

One must never forget to never forget. I recommend you make a donation to OGI (I am). Besides money, OGI is interested in receiving photographs of Oregon glaciers pre-2010 to aid in documenting glacier loss. If you have any, please send them along.

For More Information

• Carlson, Anders E. 2021. “What Is a Glacier?” Mazama Bulletin 103:6.

• Glaciers of the American West (website) and Glaciers of Oregon (web page)

• O’Connor, Jim E. 2013. “Our Vanishing Glaciers: One Hundred Years of Glacier Retreat in Three Sisters Area, Oregon Cascade Range.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 114:4.

• Oregon Glaciers Institute (website)

Figure 6. Mirror Lake and Mount Hood. In a few decades Mount Hood will no longer be snow-capped in summer. Source: Wikipedia.

Bottom Line: Glacial extinction can be somewhat mitigated by addressing global warming, and the loss of stream flow from the loss of glaciers can be somewhat mitigated by introducing beavers at scale.

Biden’s Executive Order on Forests, Part 2: Seize the Day!

 This is the second of two Public Lands Blog posts on the president’s executive order (EO) on forests, which, among other things, unambiguously directs the federal forest agencies to conserve the remaining mature and old-growth forests. Part 1 dissected the order. Part 2 places it in the current political context and makes recommendations to various key interests on how best to ensure that the potential of the EO is fulfilled.

Figure 1. Old-growth Douglas-fir and young-growth human. Source: Gary Braasch. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

The Political Context for the Executive Order

Biden’s forest EO must be read and understood in the context of a few major political considerations. Following are some observations on this context.

The international context. Because the nations of the world didn’t make enough commitments to keep global warming to below 1.5°C during 26th Conference of the Parties in Glasgow last November, they will meet again in Cairo this November. The Biden administration needs and wants to go into COP27 with additional commitments. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made it all the more difficult for the United States to pledge to dial back its fossil fuel emissions. However, the administration can easily pledge to protect our remaining mature and old-growth forests and trees, thereby significantly reducing the nation’s atmospheric carbon emissions due to logging. It is not only politically popular at home but also places the US in a better political position to pressure other nations (including, but not limited to, Brazil) to end deforestation and protect their forests.

Figure 2. A mature, going-on-old-growth forest on the Willamette National Forest, Oregon. Source: Kurt Jensen. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

Keep it in the forest. While campaigning, candidate Biden pledged to “keep it in the ground,” shorthand for ending the sale of fossil fuels from federal public lands. Between Ukraine, high (but not actually as high as they’ve ever been) gasoline prices, a Trump-appointed judge in Louisiana blocking an administrative ban on new leasing, and the absolute spinelessness of staff, President Biden has—at least for now—effectively reneged on his “end new fossil fuel leasing” pledge. However, he can keep ecosystem-based carbon on federal public lands where it is now—safely locked up in vegetation. It is vital to keep more carbon out of the atmosphere by keeping it in the biosphere and lithosphere.

Mature and old-growth forest. Wisely, the president’s EO calls for the conservation of not only old-growth forest but also mature forest stands. We’re short on old growth now, and the quickest way to get more is to let the mature forest grow into old growth. As a forest reestablishes after a stand-replacing event, when the canopy closes it is a “young” forest. When the forest has reached its peak of annual growth of biomass, carbon, or wood, the forest begins its mature phase. Self-limbing due to canopy closure, individual tree deaths, and other factors cause the stand to mature. Eventually, a mature forest stand becomes an old-growth forest stand.

Pyrophobia. Lordy, are most Americans absolutely irrational about forest fires. Elected officials are more often reflectors than leaders, and this EO reflects Americans’ irrationality about fire. Fortunately, old-growth trees are the most resistant to fire.

Figure 3. Old-growth Douglas-fir in the North Fork Smith River watershed (Umpqua Basin), Oregon. Source: David Stone, Wildland Photography. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

Existential threat to Big Timber: only in my dreams. If all federal logging on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands were to come to an end, it wouldn’t significantly affect the nation’s wood consumption. The current total wood production from federal public lands is 646 million cubic feet, or just 4.4 percent of total US consumption. In 2017, 672 million cubic feet of unprocessed wood (logs and chips) was exported from the United States. Each year, 1,152 million cubic feet of wood from urban forests is now landfilled and not made into useful wood products. A regulation protecting mature and old-growth forests will still leave plenty of federal trees available for logging.

Figure 4. This Douglas-fir is perhaps a thousand years old. The only way to know for sure is to cut it down and count the rings. Counts on nearby stumps showed more than six hundred rings on trees that were 3 feet in diameter at their base. If the human is ~5.5 feet high, then the tree is ~11 feet in diameter. In the name of forest “health,” the Forest Service is contemplating cutting down this tree to make more room for a younger (but still rather old for a) ponderosa pine nearby. Source: Umpqua Watersheds. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

Existential threat to the Forest Service and the BLM—as they have defined themselves. Ending the logging of mature and old-growth forests and trees would force the federal forest agencies to reinvent themselves and become relevant to the twenty-first century. (They seem stuck at the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth.)

Figure 5. Old-growth Douglas-fir and other species sequester (remove from the air) and store vast amounts of carbon. Source: Gary Braasch. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

Figure 6. A mature, not old-growth (trees not as large, bark not as furrowed) stand of Douglas-fir in southwest Oregon. Source: Ken Crocker. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

My Recommendations

Here are my major recommendations to the various players (including you) in this opportunity to conserve and restore mature and old-growth forest and trees.

Figure 7. An old-growth ponderosa pine in a stand of ponderosa pine that the BLM won’t likely consider a stand that the Biden executive order directs it to protect. The big yellowbelly is within a few feet of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail in Jackson County, Oregon, but national trail status is conferred only on the trail, not any of the trail’s habitat. Source: Elizabeth Feryl, Environmental Images. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

To the Federal Forest Agencies

1. Admit you are the problem. You also need to admit that the single greatest threat to mature and old-growth forests is the duo of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. For more than a century (and almost as long for the BLM), the Forest Service has offered up logging as the way to execute a federal forest policy, including addressing forest crises caused by earlier logging by the agency.

2. The only adequate course of protection is a permanent administrative rule codified in the Code of Federal Regulations.Merely revising land and/or resource management plans will not do. Issuing a slick PR document saying that the agencies are now protecting mature and old-growth forests while not changing any existing behaviors will not do. Renaming timber sales to pose as mature- and old-growth-forest restoration projects will not do.

Figure 8. Old-growth ponderosa pine in the Metolius watershed, Oregon. Source: Elizabeth Feryl, Environmental Images. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

3. While an inventory of mature and old-growth forests and trees is a good idea that is long overdue, you need not wait until you’ve done your inventory to start the protection effort. The final administrative rule must be in place before the 2024 election. The agencies don’t know exactly where the older forests and trees are. (Reports an article in the New York Times on January 9, 2001: “The exact extent of old-growth timber has never been mapped, despite directives to do so under the last Forest Service policy statement, issued in 1989.”) But they don’t need to know to do a rule. We already know what needs to be protected and how much mature and old-growth forest is left.

4. The rule should protect all mature and old-growth trees, be they living or dead, standing or fallen. There is more life in a dead tree than a live one. When a tree dies, whether by fire or wind or insect or volcano, most of the tree’s carbon remains on site and out of the atmosphere. When a tree is logged and sent to the mill, most of the carbon soon ends up in the atmosphere.

Figure 9. Whitebark pine on the Fremont National Forest, Oregon. The Biden executive order calls for the protection of all mature and old-growth stands. Will the Forest Service classify this congregation of whitebarks as a stand? Source: George Wuerthner. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

5. The rule should also protect relic mature and old-growth trees that are not within mature and old-growth stands. Leave no old tree behind.

6. The rule should result in there being much more mature and old-growth forest in the future than there is now. A large component of the excessive carbon in the atmosphere now is due to previous logging and forest conversion. The absolute best and cheapest carbon-capture-and-storage technology ever invented is a forest allowed to continue or allowed to be old.

7. The rule should respect the ticking clock. Joe Biden’s first, if not only, term ends at high noon on Monday, January 20, 2025. So as not to be vulnerable to a simple (pronounced “simplistic”) potential congressional override, this protective final rule must be published in the Code of Federal Regulations by no later than the end of March 2024.

Figure 10. Those old-growth ponderosas on the Fremont National Forest may not be protected under the Biden executive order, because they are not in a “stand” of trees. Source: Sandy Lonsdale. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

To the White House

1. You will have to force the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to do what is best for the climate, for nature, and for President Biden’s legacy. The agencies really don’t want to protect mature and old-growth forests. It goes against the very nature of bureaucrats, who loathe to have their discretion limited. The agencies will continue to lie, spin, and prevaricate in hopes that your administration will fail to conserve and restore America’s mature and old-growth forests for the benefit of this and future generations.

2. 30x30. Only if the final protections are strong and enduring enough—and the protected forestlands are also withdrawn from the application of the mining laws—will the new protections qualify as conserving 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030.

Figure 11. Old-growth incense cedar on the Umpqua National Forest, Oregon. Source: Sandy Lonsdale. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

To the Conservation Community

1. Recognize that amidst a huge amount of hedging, pandering, misdirecting, and/or ass covering in the executive order lies an opportunity to fundamentally change the course of federal forest management in the United States by permanently conserving the last of the nation’s mature and old-growth forests and trees, and to restore much that has been lost. Don’t be paralyzed by what in your mind is a less-than-perfect executive order. Don’t fall for the misdirection.

Figure 12. Young Sitka spruce growing out of a very old and long-dead Sitka spruce on the Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon. Source: Elizabeth Feryl, Environmental Images. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

2. Get involved by signing up for updates from the Climate Forests Campaign. At nearly a hundred organizations and growing, the campaign has most major national conservation organizations (aside from The Wilderness Society) on board, as well as an increasing number of regional and local organizations (which deserve your financial support—earmarked for mature and old-growth forest conservation).

Figure 13. Bald eagles enjoying a stand of mature lodgepole pine on the Deschutes National Forest, Oregon. Source: Sandy Lonsdale. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

Seize the Day!

We are about to embark on a great crusade, one we have striven toward for lo these many years. The eyes of the nation—nay the world—are upon us. The hopes and dreams of forest-loving people everywhere march with us. In company with our brave allies and siblings-in-arms on other political fronts, we will save the last of the nation’s mature and old-growth forests—and restore what has been lost. 

Our task will not be an easy one. The timber industry, along with the rest of the fire-industrial complex, is well trained, well equipped, and battle hardened. But so are we.

Figure 14. Western larch on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. As a deciduous conifer, the larch has a contrary nature. Each autumn, the needles fall off. Source: Sandy Lonsdale. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

This is the year 2022! Much has happened since Big Timber’s triumphs in the 1980s. We have inflicted great defeats on Big Timber. Federal logging levels are down from obscene historic highs but have been creeping up. We have overwhelming superiority in public support and scientific justification. It’s time to end the chronic continued logging of mature and old-growth forests. The tide has turned, not only in metropolitan areas but also in micropolitan and even rural areas.

Figure 15. Old-growth ponderosa pine forest in the Lookout Mountain area on the Ochoco National Forest. The long-dead and downed ponderosa pine tree still holds the vast majority of the carbon it stored while standing and alive. Source: Larry N. Olson. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004).

I have full confidence in the ability of the public land conservation and climate protection communities to convince the Biden administration. We need not accept less than full victory!

This is a great and noble undertaking.

Bottom Line: For President Biden to permanently conserve the nation’s remaining mature and old-growth forests, everyone who cares has to show up and not only pull their own weight but also do some heavy lifting.

Figure 16. I have no faith that Forest Service chief Randy Moore will do the right thing and actually conserve the remaining mature and old-growth forests in the National Forest System. His underwear has been Forest Service green for forty-four years and counting. He epitomizes all that is wrong conservationwise with the Forest Service. Source: USDA Forest Service.

Figure 17. I have some faith that Bureau of Land Management director Tracy Stone Manning will do the right thing and actually conserve the remaining mature and old-growth forests on public lands administered by the BLM. She is not a career BLMer, comes from a history of conservation activism, and has served in various conservation and environmental protection policy roles in state and federal government. She is astute enough to realize that this could be her great legacy. Source: USDI Bureau of Land Management.