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An Ecosystem Management Strategy for Sierran Mixed-Conifer Forests (PSW-GTR-220)
A New Report from Pacific Southwest Research Station
We applaud this new technical report, just released from the Forest Service Sierra Nevada Research Center, Pacific Southwest Research Station. Authors Malcolm North, Peter Stine, Kevin O'Hara, William Zielinkski, and Scott Stephens present a clearly articulated restoration strategy for the mixed-conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada, based on synthesis of an important large body of recent research from a variety of scientific disciplines, including forest ecology, silviculture, wildlife biology, and fire science. This new platform for refining ecological restoration in the Sierra Nevada is precisely what is needed at this juncture.
The ecosystem management strategy presented represents an enlightened approach to managing Sierra Nevada ecosystems that is firmly rooted in core ecological principles.
Emphasis goals of the strategy include increasing heterogeneity at multiple scales, greater use of fire for multiple benefits, increasing connectivity (reducing fragmentation), and facilitating greater resiliency of forest landscapes to withstand climate impacts and other changes. The suggestions for thinning would move the agency away from reliance on outmoded and uniform silvicultural prescriptions, and would result in more diverse configurations of cohorts of trees in clumped spacing and retention of multi-aged stands. Guided by ecological thinking, the researchers suggest a management approach that mimics natural processes.
If implemented across the mixed-conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada, the strategy should result in preservation and restoration of vital wildlife habitat for species like the imperiled Pacific fisher and California spotted owl, and the many associated plants and animals that require complex, old forest habitats. This ecological approach would also ensure the continuity of the entire succession of diverse plant communities and wildlife in Sierran forest landscapes.
Sierran mixed conifer forests today are highly disturbed and fragmented from overly aggressive fire suppression practices and forest management policies. The result has been an entrainment towards homogenous landscapes and loss of biodiversity. New, evolving fire policies and thoughtful ecosystem approaches to management are currently being debated and largely embraced by the conservation community. Increasing the level of ecology-focused scientific research that can inform management is a key goal for Sierra Forest Legacy and our partner groups.
The authors include a list of research and monitoring needs to further refine the strategy specific to Sierra Nevada forests. The report is a welcome breath of fresh air in the haze of ideological wrangling obscuring the urgency of reaching sustainable management goals for Sierra Nevada forest ecosystems.
Download the GTR here (1.9 MB PDF) and you can also order a hard copy of the report from the Forest Service, details at this website.
North, Malcolm; Peter Stine, Kevin O'Hara, William Zielinski, and Scott Stephens. 2009. An ecosystem management strategy for Sierran mixed-conifer forests. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-220. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. 49 p.
2008 Fires -- Did Fuel Treatments Help?
In the spotlight - American River Complex Fire
Tahoe National Forest
A study of fire severity effects in the region of the American River Complex Fire on the Tahoe National Forest was recently released by Forest Service Regional Ecologist Hugh Safford. The lightning ignited fire burned approximately 20,000 acres from June 21 through August 1, 2008. The study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of previous stand treatments designed to reduce fire severity. The report confirmed the great importance of treating surface fuels with prescribed fire in order to reduce future fire severity and spread. Thinning alone was not sufficient to prevent high levels of mortality and fire spread. Stands which had been mechanically thinned, and then treated with prescribed fire to reduce the surface fuels, were significantly more resistant to severe fire effects. The report confirms earlier research conducted by Scott Stephens and Jason Moghaddas (2005) at Blodgett State Forest which predicted these very outcomes.
Grapple piles, or piles of logging slash that are supposed to be burned after logging but which frequently are left unburned, also contributed to high stand mortality. The report provides additional confirmation that fuels treatments must be considered a part of every timber harvest removal, regardless of the scale or objective. These treatments must be conducted before any forest project is considered complete.
In some instances, the use of mechanical thinning alone increased fire mortality.
In addition, plantations which contained live, dense green shrubs resisted fire significantly better than plantations that had been mechanically masticated. Safford notes, "In a number of cases, the persistence of dry surface fuels in the masticated units appears to have abetted rather than resisted fire." Such surface fuels can persist in the Sierra Nevada's dry forests for decades.
The report confirms basic Sierra Nevada forest ecology principles that Sierra Forest Legacy and our partners in the conservation community have long sought to bring to national forest planning and policy making. Fire is a critical ecological driver in middle elevation Sierra Nevada forests and it has shaped these forests' structure and resilience, and species composition, for millenia. In this century, it is imperative that we move ahead with enlightened forest management policies that incorporate fundamental scientific principles at every juncture.
Read the full report here (3.85 MB).
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it does otherwise."
~Aldo Leopold