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transcripts
Transcripts
September 29, 2003
[This program first
aired August 5, 2003.]
Host: Michael
Grant
Topics:
· Arizona's forest health and management practices
In-Studio Guests:
Harv Forsgren, regional forester, southwest region,
Forest Service;
Charles Babbitt, spokesperson, Maricopa Audubon society;
Joe Feller, Professor of Law, Arizona
State University.
>> Michael: The Aspen fire near Tucson, the Rodeo-Chediski fire
in the White Mountains, experts warn it's only a matter of time
until another out of control fire burns in Arizona's forests.
A number of factor have led to the decline of of our forests,
including drought, the way we've managed our forests and the emphasis
on wildfire suppression. The question facing those in charge of
our forests is how best can they manage them to ensure their healthy
survival, a question we hope to answer tonight. Good evening,
I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to "Horizon." There are some 5 million
acres of Ponderosa pine forests in the southwest, and in just
the past two years you a alone fire and bark beetle infestation
have destroyed more than a million acres in Arizona. Now the agencies
responsible for managing public lands face the task of deciding
what's the best way to restore the health of our forests. In a
moment I'll talk to different parties involved in that pray zest,
but first a look at how a combination of environmental conditions,
management policies and other challenges have created the critical
situation that exists today.
>> Reporter: For millions of years long-needle pines like the
Ponderosa have dominated the landscape in Arizona's higher elevations,
forming what is today the largest Ponderosa pine forest in the
world. But during the last two centuries, the series of man made
circumstances significantly reduced the number of wildfires that
occur naturally in this environment bringing about some very negative
changes. Researcher Wally Covington has been studying forests
and the dynamics that have shaped them for almost three decades.
>> Covington: Forests this dense are real Le unusual. Before
settlement there were only about 20 to 30 trees per acre on these
areas, and most of the trees were these big yellow barked pines
we see here, typically ranging from 180 to maybe 500-plus years
old in age. The forests were very open and park like. The frequent
fires held pine populations in check so that the grasses and wildflowers
could flourish as well as trees. But shortly after fire exclusion,
a tremendous population eruption began of Ponderosa pine trees.
You see these behind me here. There are now almost 1200 trees
per acre.
>> Reporter: For early settlers in places like Flagstaff timber
was a valuable resource, and essential to the areas growth and
prosperity. At the time the goal was to maximize the harvest of
wood. Wildfires were considered wasteful and their importance
to the forests was not understood.
>> Covington: When you read the early forest plans from back
in the early part of the 20th century, early foresters actually
encouraged overgrazing because they fire was such a big threat
to the forest. And that overgrazing removed the grasses and wildflowers
that had allowed fires to sweep across the landscape on that high
frequency.
>> Reporter: Researchers are able to gauge the historical behavior
of wildfire by examining cross sections of old growth trees which
indicate not only the age of the tree, but also how often fires
occurred.
>> Covington: Each of these little arrows you see here represents
a fire scar. This particular tree has a center date of 1692. You
can see steady fire scars up until 1876. And then when the livestock
showed up, that's what stopped fires originally in here. After
the frequent fires were disrupted, then there was nothing to control
pine seedling establishment.
>> Reporter: As the overall number of trees in the forest multiplies
the competition for water and nutrients becomes more intense.
There is an increase in the mortality of old growth trees which
weaken and become more susceptible drought and attack by insects
like the bark beetle. The spaces between the large trees become
filled with dead vegetation and the smaller younger trees create
fire ladders that effectively fuel a very different and devastating
kind of fire.
>> Covington: Instead of fires burning through the surface vegetation
which was the natural fire regime, what we started seeing is fires
getting up into the canopies of these old growth trees and the
fires are getting bigger and bigger.
>> Reporter: According to Forest Service records between 1910
and 1930 the overabundance of trees in combination with drought
conditions, high winds and dry vegetation resulted in a series
of catastrophic wildfires in a number of states, including Arizona.
Consequently, an official policy of fire suppression began to
evolve over the decades that followed.
>> Bruce Greco: During '40s and the '50s when we started to prevent
fires very specific direction in fire policy to suppress fires,
we utilized throughout the Forest Service and particularly on
public lands. During this same time we had very active, very prolific
regeneration in the forest.
>> Covington: The main duty of public land managers was to protect
the forest -- they thought they were protecting them from the
fire. In fact, they were just delaying fires is all they were
doing.
>> Greco: Through the '50s, '60s, even 70s, we were very successful
in most cases of suppressing fire. The vegetation in the forest
discontinued to grow and become established. During that period
of time, here Northern Arizona forests on many of these forests,
we could easily harvest 150 million board feet a year and still
have wood fiber growing more rapidly than what was harvested.
So in the management of the forest we were not even keeping up
with the growth, even by harvesting the timber at that time.
>> Reporter: During another 70s and '80s the environmental movement
became a powerful force. Legislation was enacted that allowed
the public to take on a significant role in natural resource management
and as people began to take a greater interest in environmental
quality issues, activists began to challenge many of the traditional
practices in the public forests.
>> Covington: On our wood production industry concentrated on
big old growth trees and a tremendous amount of money was made,
of course, out of harvesting those old growth trees. By the 1960s
and '70s, the old growth trees, these older yellow bark trees,
were becoming rarer and rarer. There was such a concern about
overcuting of forests globally as well as in Arizona, that a lot
of environmental activists groups started working to try to eliminate
the wood products industry, especially that section that used
the large old trees.
>> Sandy Bahr: When the Sierra Club in particular and environmental
allists really engaged in forest planning activities, looking
at timber sales, really started in the beginning of the 1980s
and over time, you know, the involvement has increased. We have
5% or less of our old growth forests left in the southwest. So
if it's going to involve old growth logging you can bet that people
are going to be very interested and very concerned.
>> Greco: When we got into the mid-'80s, a lot of litigation,
lawsuits, other reasons that the timber industry basically went
away. Because we don't have the timber industry available or the
tools available to harvest the timber and to thin these stands
out, we've had to really change the policy and the tactics, if
you will, of how we manage a forest and how we protect it from
wildfire.
>> Reporter: The debate continues as to whether or not commercial
logging can play a role in sound forest management, but in the
early days of the 21st century, most agree that Arizona's pine
forests will require considerable help if they are to be restored
to health and catastrophic fire is to be avoided.
>> Bahr: What I hope happens is that you will see a more thinned
forest around communities where they will have taken out the smaller
trees, done some prescribed burning. Beyond that, you know, what
we want is for a more natural system to come back.
>> Greco: The challenge that we have is to physically reduce
the amount of fuel that's going to contribute to wildfire, defeating
that monster. We need to make sure that in that process the publics
involved, all interests, all agencies, together, to move forward.
But we have to move very quickly to do that. Our landscape in
Arizona is at extreme risk.
>> Covington: We basically have room along the Mogollon Rim
through Flagstaff for about four Rodeo-Chediski-size burns to
occur before it's all gone. In practical human terms, it's a permanent
loss. So the -- we owe it not just to ourselves, but also to the
rest of the nature to restore forest health.
>> Michael: Earlier I talked to three people who represent three
very different perspectives on forest management, Harv Forsgren,
regional forester for the southwest region of the Forest Service,
Charles Babbitt, spokesperson for the Maricopa Audubon society
and Joe Feller, professor of law at Arizona State University.
Here is that interview.
>> Michael: What I wanted to first is try to figure out how
much agreement or disagreement we've gate about the problem we've
got in Arizona's forests. How do you see the condition of Arizona
forests right now? How bad is it?
>> Forsgren: Well, it's pretty bad. Of course, it depends on
your perspective and how you define bad, but if you're interested
in the health of the forests and the function of those forest
and the ability of those forests to deliver a variety of goods
and services it's pretty bad. If you live in a community adjacent
to those forests and have fear, reasonable fear of your community
or your home being threatened by wildfire, it's pretty bad.
>> Michael: Gross numbers, we've lost, what, 800,000 acres to
fires in the past year and maybe more than that to the bark beetle?
>> Forsgren: Well, probably close to that to bark beetle, a
little more than that across the southwest to fire. Last year
we lost over a million acres to fire. This year we're only at
perhaps two to 400,000 acres burned thus far this year.
>> Michael: Joe, do you see the situation any different than
that? Is this real bad, critical, not so bad, or what?
>> Feller: We have a serious problem, a very serious problem,
both with the fire risk and with the bark beetles. There's no
question about that. I think one has to be careful in characterizing
that problem because what we have is a combination of drought
and a very high density of young relatively small trees. The drought,
of course, is something that's beyond our control, and it's sometimes
hard to sort out how much of the problem is the drought and how
much of the problem is the excess density of trees. With regard
to those trees, it is the young ones, it is the small ones, that
are the big problem. When you look at the older, larger trees,
we actually have the opposite problem. We have too few of them.
Most of them are gone. And I think that's an important distinction
to keep in mind.
>> Michael: I guess what I don't understand about that statement,
though, we keep hearing about canopy fires, the ones that burn
at the top of the forest and burn at tremendous temperatures and
move. So why is it the young trees are the problem?
>> Feller: Well, it's because we have such large numbers of them,
and when I say young trees, I'm not talking about little short
trees. These are trees which may be anywhere from 6 to 15 inches
in diameter, and they are tall and they contribute to the canopy
and if you go up, say, around Flagstaff or around Show Low on
the Apache-Sitgreaves or the Coconino national forest, most of
that canopy is those relatively young trees with a relative --
with a much smaller number of the larger trees scattered among
them.
>> Michael: Charlie, I think, I don't want to speak for you,
because you're more than capable of doing that for yourself, but
I think you think the problem is being overstated?
>> Babbitt: I do think the problem is -- has been overstated
to some degree. Probably the most striking thing about our forest
today is the lack of the big tree component. 95% of our big old
growth large Ponderosa pines have been logged off. Across the
landscape, that's the most striking thing. In terms of our forests
being too dense with too many young trees, that's clearly the
case in some areas. But I think that's been overstated to some
degree because that's clearly not the case in -- for example,
on the north Kaibab. You don't have that kind of dense tree growth
on much of the north Kaibab, on certain areas on the Sitgreaves.
>> Michael: What about the Prescott, though --
>> Babbitt: Sure, I'm not saying that that is not a problem.
It's clearly a problem. But we also have large areas where we
-- Arizona forests are not just forests. Arizona forests are made
up lots of different types and compositions of forests within
the specific forests. On top of that we've gone pinion juniper,
we have mixed conifer, we've got spruce fir and these conditions
don't exist in lot of the other forest types.
>> Forsgren: But if you look across the landscape of the southwest,
we've got about 36 million wooded acres. Two-thirds of that acreage
is classified at being at high to moderate risk of catastrophic
fire and it's tied to that overly dense stands of largely small
younger trees. It's those younger trees that provide the access
for the fire to move up off the floor forest floor and get into
the canopy and become a stand replacement fire killing everything
in its path.
>> Michael: Charlie, all of us, particularly with the Rodeo-Chediski
fire last year, became familiar, some of us for the first time,
with the fact that this was the largest stand of Ponderosa pine
in the world. Aren't we in danger of no longer having the largest
stand of Ponderosa pine in the world?
>> Babbitt: I certainly don't think that at all. And we can certainly
hopefully get through this severe drought. It's the drought --
last year was probably the driest year we may have had in 200,
500 years for what we know. That was -- that year was embedded
in a five-year ongoing drought. It's clearly the drought that
is driving these fires, the big fires, and we may continue to
see big fires if the drought continues. I think it's all pretty
much depends on what happens. If the drought continues and the
severity deepens, we may see significant additional areas burned
off and there's really not much we can do about it.
>> Michael: Let me rotate back to the start, Harv, at least now
that we've tried to put the condition into some context. What's
solution in your opinion? What do we need to do in terms of urban
interface, forest management, forest thinning, those kinds of
things?
>> Forsgren: Well, clearly given the magnitude of the problem
and available resources, we've got to set some priorities and
I think that that priority starts with the wild land urban interface.
Our first priority has to be protecting people and private property.
Contributing to that.
>> Michael: What do you mean -- put in that English. What is
protecting the urban interface?
>> Forsgren: It means that we've got to thin those forests immediately
adjacent to developed areas so that we provide firefighters the
opportunity to have some opportunity to protect those structures
when we get a fire come roaring out of the forest.
>> Michael: Is there any disagreement at the table with that
is priority number one?
>> Feller: I don't disagree with that. I think most environmental
groups would not disagree with that. I think that's pretty universally
agreed upon, that the so-called wildland urban interface should
be first priority.
>> Michael: Do you get disagreement on how big that clearance
area ought to be? Should it be 100 meters, 500 meters, two miles?
>> Feller: There is some disagreement over that, but the real
conflict comes in when timber cutting projects go on that are
way outside that urban interface, miles into the back country.
So outside the interface by anyone's definition and there continue
to be quite a few major timber cutting projects way in the back
country, some of which are cutting not just the small trees, but
some of the big old growth trees. Those are the ones that are
creating controversy. Those are the ones that lead to sometimes
administrative appeals, and in rare occasions, litigation.
>> Michael: Charlie, here's what I heard, though, during the
Rodeo-Chediski fire last year and I heard it from a variety of
different sources, that in areas of the Indian reservation where
thinning and forest management techniques had been followed through
on that I don't think you support and I think, Joe, you're a little
ambivalent about, that when the fire hit those areas the fire
cooled, it slowed down, they worked and those were deep in some
forest areas.
>> Babbitt: Yeah, there were a lot of anecdotal stories to that
extent. I think a lot of times people were seeing what they really
wanted to see, and I also heard that areas that had been previously
logged thinned, that the fire would lay down. There are so many
variables in a big fire like that. You know, a fire will naturally
lie down at night. A fire will naturally lie down when there's
a decrease in wind velocity or it hits a different type of topography.
>> Michael: Here's what I heard, I heard this was at noon with
prevailing winds. And it dropped.
>> Babbitt: Well -- the regardless of whether or not -- you know,
the fire was laying down or not, you know, it's doubtful that
any sort of treatment, in my opinion, or any type of activity
prior to that on those forests probably would have made any difference
given the size and intensity that that fire was burning.
>> Michael: Let me go back to the urban interface question,
though, do you agree on the urban interface, but in your opinion
is fire the only way to do, not trimming?
>> Babbitt: Well, yeah, I -- I agree wholeheartedly with Harv
and Joe, that the urban interface is where we've got to do the
work. There's still a problem out there with defining what exactly
is the urban interface and what you're going to include. I mean,
you know, some people want to extend that out and consider, you
know a small group of houses or a ranch out there as part of the
urban interface. We've got to define that. And it's been defined
in some documents. A number of people per acre or number of structures
per acre. But in general, we agree that that our first priority
and our funding priority should be to protect communities, and
much of the Forest Service's own research shows that can be done
by creating a defensible barrier of about 500 meters, you know,
around --
>> Forsgren: I think at this point I want to say something else
that's really important that needs to be done and that is to define
and try to reach agreement on what values it is we're trying to
provide for. The research is clear if is if all we want to do
is protect structures, we have to deal with a relatively narrow
area. But who wants to have a home saved that sits in a blackened
landscape. We live on this landscape because of the other values,
the scenic beauty and water quality and wildlife habitat that
is going to take us addressing this at a much larger scale and
dealing with much a larger piece of the landscape.
>> Michael: Harv, the governor keeps hammering and I think to
a certain extent appropriately so, the federal government needs
to open up more resources for trimming and trimming deeper in
the forest, but realistically, taxpayer money can't do this, can
it?
>> Forsgren: If you look at the situation out there, the number
of acres that would need to be treated to address both the ecological
restoration as well as community protection, it is unrealistic
to assume there will ever be enough federal resources allocated
to do that job. I really believe that the only way that we're
going to address it, if we reach agreement that we want to address
on it that broader scale of both ecological restoration and community
protection so that we encompass all the values, if we want to
do that, it's going to take some private sector involvement. We're
going to have to be able to capture some of the value in that
biomass that needs to be removed so we can offset the cost of
the treatment.
>> Feller: That's, of course, where you get into very dangerous
territory. If you can capture volume from the biomass, biomass
meaning any kind of wood material, yes, that would be terrific.
>> Michael: In other words, the commercial logger needs to get
some bang for the buck, he needs to get board feet, he needs --
>> Forsgren: Really the commercial logging is -- would be extremely
small component of the solution. Because I don't -- I don't disagree
with the statement that was made earlier that the biggest component
of this problem is small diameter trees. It's small trees that
don't have a saw log value, don't have a board value. It has to
be other kinds of uses that require a lot of small material, like
generating electricity, like generating synthetic fuels.
>> Feller: Because if you go just for the traditional saw timber
value, that means cutting the big trees. These small trees may
have value for making some kind of fiber board or Chip board or
for burning for energy. They're not very good for saw timber.
>> Michael: But I think what you're concerned about, and I think
what you, Charlie, are concerned about is that this will turn
from a forest health management initiative to a commercial enterprise?
>> Babbitt: Precisely. There's no -- nothing out there in terms
of bioGEN plants anything that looks realistically right can that
handle a large volume of these small diameter trees. Fee for services
contracts, the kind of things that Harv has been talking about
and, you know, is now in some legislation that the Congress is
considering, we think are just going to provide an incentive for
the logging contractor to go in and just take the last of the
big trees. That's where the value is.
>> Michael: Why can't he police that contract? Why can't he make
sure that that doesn't occur?
>> Babbitt: The Forest Service doing the policing for the last
three decades has been unable to do that when they've been the
direct policemen. How can we trust them when giving that to a
third party?
>> Michael: Harv?
>> Forsgren: I think the only way that we can have that trust
is to earn it, and that's going to take involvement of communities
of both and place interest up front in defining what we want our
forests to look like and what values you want them to provide
--
>> Babbitt: Harv, I don't think we can trust the Forest Service
to do the responsible thing when the last six timber sales on
the north Kaibab ranger district have resulted in the cutting
of 55,000 old growth trees in excess of 18 inches in diameter,
which includes over 20,000 trees 24 inches in diameter. That is
a priceless resource and the Forest Service continues to cut old
growth trees on the north Kaibab ranger district.
>> Michael: But, Joe, while we have this debate are we not literally
fiddling while -- it's not Rome, but the State of Arizona is burning.
>> Feller: We do have to get moving on some of these projects.
I think trust can come through transparency. I don't think that
Charlie would trust, and I don't think that Harv would ask Charlie
to trust just, you know, turn the other way and count on the Forest
Service to do the right thing. What we need is environmental documentation
of exactly what is going to be happening so that the public can
see this timber sale is going to be cutting trees of certain sizes
in certain numbers so that they can judge for themselves. I think
as long as we have that kind of clear environmental documentation
so that people can see what the Forest Service is doing, then
there's the possibility of building trust.
>> Forsgren: I think that's absolutely right. I think the other
piece of that is the follow through on the back end, that to the
extent that we engage independent third parties in monitoring
the results, that will also build trust and support.
>> Michael: Do you have to go to long-term commercial contracts?
Do you have to give a commercial operation some assurance that
if you invest this capital we'll allow you to do this for a term?
>> Forsgren: Because we don't have a restoration infrastructure
in place in Arizona, I believe that we have to. These are business
decisions that have to be made and people have to get loans to
invest in the machinery to process this material. That doesn't
happen if there isn't some kind of assurance of a sustainable
supply of raw material for that facility.
>> Michael: Are we going to remain at loggerheads on this issue
for a lot longer?
>> Babbitt: Well --
>> Michael: If you'll pardon the expression?
>> Babbitt: Well, I don't know about that, but -- but the issue
that we see as of paramount importance is trying to preserve what
is left of Arizona's big trees and old growth forests, and we
will be at logger heads as long as people, be they private parties
or the Forest Service or whoever, continues to log that valuable
resource.
>> Michael: Charlie Babbitt, thank you very much for joining
us. Joe Feller, good to see you. Harv Forsgren, our thanks to
you as well.
>> Forsgren: Thanks for the invite.
>> Michael: Thank you very much for joining us this evening.
I'm Michael Grant. Have a good one. Good night.
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