Graphic: The Forest Advocate

Fuels reduction treatments are the Forest Service’s primary strategy for reducing high severity fire and increasing “resilience” in dry forests. These treatments typically involve cutting large amounts of trees and understory from forests, followed by repeated prescribed burns. But do the benefits of such treatments outweigh the substantial ecological and social risks and costs? This question should be comprehensively considered in a cost/benefit analysis for each proposed vegetation reduction project. Conservation strategies should be developed that ensure forest restoration projects are a net benefit.

The Forest Service claims that it is not required to compare the ecological and social costs and benefits of its large-scale cutting and burning project proposals under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Whether this contention is legally defensible or not, failing to weigh the benefits of large-scale fuels treatments against the risks and costs is an egregious violation of the agency’s responsibility to the public. The costs of potential ecosystem degradation and escaped controlled burns require careful consideration. As the climate becomes warmer and drier, it is increasingly difficult to design dry forest vegetation treatment plans so that they provide net benefits. NEPA requires that the public be informed about the potential consequences of projects, and a cost/benefit analysis is key to understanding the relative importance of consequences.

Fire — including high-severity fire — is a natural and important aspect of forest ecology. Under the right conditions, fire can promote biodiversity and ecosystem renewal. However, in recent decades, acres burned at high severity have been increasing, although there is still a historical fire deficit. Climate transition has made conifer regeneration after high-severity fire much less certain: it is often delayed, and sometimes appears to fail altogether, resulting in some forested landscapes type-converting into shrublands. Fuels reduction treatments can reduce the number of acres that burn at high severity for a period of time, but this benefit must be weighed against serious tradeoffs.

The agency claims that vegetation management treatments improve ecosystem resilience, but their treatments often appear to degrade ecosystems. Cutting and burning treatments frequently cause substantial ecological damage, such as soil erosion and compaction, damage to the trees that are left standing, bark beetle infestation, tree blowdown (because removing trees from a grouping decreases structural support for the remaining trees), sediment flow into waterways, and disruption of wildlife habitat. Cut areas are subsequently treated with prescribed fire at overly-frequent intervals. The natural understory tends to not return, and uncharacteristic understory often develops, including invasive species. Or little understory grows back at all, except for some grasses. The remaining landscape often becomes overly open, dried out, and ecologically stunted and dysfunctional.

Trees are already dying from drought stress and other impacts of climate change, which in many cases may amount to substantial vegetation reduction. Also, when considering how many fewer trees may burn during a high severity fire within treated areas, that estimate should be counterbalanced by the number of trees cut and burned during treatments. Often, more trees are destroyed by fuels reduction treatments than by wildfires.

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