Group Petitions Forest Service to Reconsider Forest Plan for Viability of Forest Wildlife in Light of Beetle Outbreak

Read the petition (doc)

Laramie, WY— Last Friday, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance filed a formal Petition under the Administrative Procedures Act requesting that the Medicine Bow National Forest put logging on hold pending new study on how the current mountain pine beetle outbreak and clearcutting may be working together to harm interior forest wildlife. The petition asks the Forest Service to amend its Forest Plan in light of the changing forest conditions that accompany a large-scale beetle event.

“Pine beetle outbreaks like these happen periodically across the West, but given that the Medicine Bow National Forest had already been badly fragmented by 50 years of clearcutting, the health and resiliency of forest habitat has been artificially reduced,” said Duane Short of Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “Since there are no types of logging available that can slow the beetle outbreak, forest managers need to start planning for the post-beetle forest, and especially consider how to provide habitat where the interior forest species are going be able to maintain a foothold. It would be irresponsible to charge ahead with major logging projects that could wipe out the remaining tracts of surviving forest while the beetle outbreak runs its course.”

Interior forest wildlife that are facing habitat alterations as a result of the mountain pine beetle outbreak include the pine marten, Northern goshawk, Canada lynx, and many others. Interior forest wildlife require the protection of large stands of mature to old-growth forests of spruce, fir and lodgepole pine. For Northern goshawk, every nest used by this species on the neighboring Routt National Forest in Colorado has been found in lodgepole pine. The Canada lynx, for example, uses lodgepole forests for hunting, mating, occasional denning, and secure passage to other areas.

Scientists and Forest Service officials have publicly declared that nothing can be done to prevent further spread of the beetle infestation in lodgepole pine forest stands, and Forest Service science shows that fuels-reduction logging far from houses is a waste of time and the taxpayers’ money. Jack Cohen, a Forest Service wildfire scientist, has found that fuels treatments done outside home ignition zones, 100-200 feet surrounding structures, do little to protect homes and other private property from wildfire.

Duane Short of Biodiversity Conservation Alliance explained, “Given that essentially nothing can be done to stop the beetles, the Forest Service should stop logging the backcountry in the name of fire reduction until the areas immediately surrounding buildings and communities at risk have been taken care of.”

Short added, “Because many lodgepole pine stands stand to be thinned by the beetle outbreak, our Petition requests that the Forest Service halt logging projects until it reevaluates them under current and expected future conditions and applies the best and most recent science. To move forward with thousands of acres of clearcuts and thinning will only create greater impacts on interior forest wildlife while doing nothing to stop the beetles or to save private property.”

Rocky Smith, Forest Watch Program Director for Colorado Wild, said, “In light of conditions that are far different from those evaluated when most of these Medicine Bow logging projects were approved, the Forest Service is obligated by National Environmental Policy Act directives to reevaluate their impacts.”  Short further notes that some of the projects were approved five or more years ago, which means that analyses of impacts need to be reviewed to make sure they are current even without the significant changes posed by the current mountain pine beetle outbreak.

BCA has petitioned the Forest Service to take the following steps to help ensure wildlife viability:

• prepare a Species Viability Analysis in light of new scientific information on current conditions, beetle dynamics and the needs of interior forest wildlife;
• issue a moratorium on all timber sales targeting lodgepole pine that may be unaffected by the mountain pine beetle epidemic; and
• amend the current Forest Plan revising the Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ) for the Forest Plan to a lower level that is economically and ecologically sustainable after the beetle outbreak.

In the interim (until a Forest Plan Amendment has been approved), the Petition requests the Forest Service to:

• cancel all timber sales that have received no legal bids; and
• suspend offering all Timber Sales approved but have not been offered for bid, pending new Species Viability Analysis with ASQ adjustments incorporated as required.

The Forest Service is being asked to reconsider the amount of timber that is allowed to be cut each year, in light of the fact that large tracts of mature trees are expected to be affected by beetles, taking them out of the available timber base for the Forest.

The Petition also requests the Forest Service to make available to the public maps showing the spatial distribution and extent of beetle activity as well as distribution of remaining mature interior forest habitats, and present to the public a best case / worst case scenario for the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest’s future and its recommendations for achieving the best possible scenario.