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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2022
Whitebark pine seedlings planted
atop peak in eff ort to save species
Beetles, climate change
contributed to decline
By MICHAEL KOHN
The Bulletin
On a windswept promontory
in c entral Oregon, the embattled
whitebark pine is being given a
second chance to thrive.
Around 100 seedlings of the
threatened tree were carefully
planted Thursday on Paulina
Peak as part of a project to bring
back the species, which has suc-
cumbed to blister rust disease at
an alarming rate. Bark beetles
and climate change have also
contributed to their decline.
U.S. Forest Service employ-
ees planted the 6-inch tall white-
bark pine trees near rocks and
logs, which will provide shade
for the trees and a better chance
to grow. The seedlings are the
off spring of whitebark pines that
were found to be genetically
resistant to the white pine blis-
ter rust, a nonnative fungus that
slowly kills the pines.
The planting work was the
fi nal stage in a two-year project
that has seen thousands of white-
bark pine seedlings planted on
Paulina Peak. The planting of
the current round of seeds was
funded by San Francisco-based
tech fi rm Salesf orce.
Thousands more seedlings
resistant to blister rust have been
planted in recent years across the
Deschutes National Forest.
As of 2016, half of all stand-
ing whitebark pine trees were
dead, according to the Forest Ser-
vice. They are now being consid-
ered for an Endangered Species
Act listing by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, which oversees
such protections.
The Forest Service hopes that
the whitebark pine seedlings will
one day grow to be the photoge-
nic trees known for their gnarled
appearance.
“It’s one of these species that
you see in these really iconic
western spaces. Crater Lake,
Banff , the High Sierra, Glacier
National Park are in part iconic
because of their whitebark pine,”
said Elizabeth Pansing, a for-
est and restoration scientist with
American Forests, the oldest con-
servation group in the U.S.
Pansing has traveled widely
across North America, visiting
Gary Kazanjian/AP Photo
Thousands of sequoias have been
killed by wildfi res in recent years.
US solicits help
as it defi nes
old growth and
mature forests
Associated Press
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
U.S. Forest Service silviculturist Michael Dominguez plants whitebark pine seedlings Thursday on top of
Paulina Peak south of Bend.
whitebark pine forests that have
been decimated by the fungus
and beetles, as well as forests that
still thrive. Dead areas are just
silent, she says. By contrast, for-
ests that have survived are bus-
tling and full of life.
“You hear nutcrackers all over
the place. It’s alive with energy.
You have squirrels that are har-
vesting the cones from the trees.
You have bears that are rummag-
ing around. It’s this living embod-
iment of energy,” said Pansing.
A plan to restore whitebark
pine forests, spearheaded by the
Forest Service and American
Forests, covers seven states. In
the Pacifi c Northwest, restoration
is happening in 16 national for-
ests, as well as Bureau of Land
Management land and national
parks. Restoration work is also
underway in parts of Canada.
The work to restore white-
bark pine forests dates back to
the late 1990s. The projects rely
on foresters searching for healthy
whitebark pines that thrive amid
dying pines aff ected by the blis-
ter rust. Seeds from these healthy
trees, known as “plus trees,” are
collected and grown at nurseries.
The nursery trees are exposed
to blister rust and those with high
levels of resistance are called
“elite trees.” Seeds from elite
trees can be grown and planted in
areas slated for restoration.
The process is essentially
speeding up natural selection.
“If seedlings from a given tree
do well in the trials, we collect
more seed from those trees in the
fi eld and use that seed to produce
seedlings for reforestation,” said
Matt Horning, a geneticist with
the Deschutes National Forest.
The agency takes advantage
of the naturally occurring resis-
tance found in some trees to
replant in areas where whitebark
pine has been lost due to fi re or
disease.
Andrew Bower, also a Forest
Service geneticist, said it’s too
soon to start breeding the resis-
tant trees because whitebark
pines grow very slowly and will
not start producing seeds until
they are 50 or 70 years old.
“Our best option is to identify
those individuals that have resis-
tance and return back to them to
collect the seeds that they pro-
duce naturally every few years to
build an inventory of seeds,” said
Bower.
Around 80% of the seedlings
are expected to survive, said
Bower.
“The majority of them will be
able to withstand the rust disease
and grow and become the new
forests,” he said. “I feel like these
rust-resistant seedlings are our
best hope for perpetuating white-
bark pine on the landscape.”
While some of the results are
expected in a few years, Bower
notes it will take several hundred
years for the seedlings to grow
into new forests. And humans
will need some help from birds to
make it work, specifi cally Clark’s
nutcracker.
The nutcracker — a gray
bird with black wings — has
co-evolved with the whitebark
pine. The tree provides a food
source for the bird, and in return,
the nutcracker disperses and bur-
ies the tree’s seeds. Whitebark
pines are almost completely reli-
ant on the nutcracker because
their cones do not open when the
seeds are ripe — they need the
nutcracker to extract and bury the
seeds.
The Forest Service is taking
advantage of this relationship by
planting the seedlings in concen-
trated core areas that can serve
as dissemination centers for nut-
crackers to collect and disperse
seeds into surrounding areas.
Bower said the survival of the
trees will have widespread bene-
fi ts and will help to support entire
ecosystems, providing food and
shelter for wildlife. The trees are
also good for the earth — their
roots hold the soil in place, pre-
venting erosion, and their canopy
provides shading for snowpack,
slowing melting.
“It has a number of cascading
eff ects,” said Bower. “Whitebark
p ine is a keystone species where
it is found.”
BILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. offi -
cials have solicited outside help as
they craft defi nitions of old growth
and mature forests under an execu-
tive order from President Joe Biden.
The U.S. Forest Service and
Bureau of Land Management issued
a notice seeking public input for
a universal defi nition framework
to identify older forests needing
protection.
Biden in April directed his admin-
istration to devise ways to preserve
older forests as part of the govern-
ment’s eff orts to combat climate
change. Older trees release large
volumes of global warming carbon
when they burn.
Biden’s order called for the Forest
Service and Bureau of Land Man-
agement over the next year to defi ne
and inventory all mature and old
growth forests on federal land. After
that, the agencies must identify the
biggest threats those forests face and
come up with ways to save them.
There’s disagreement over which
trees to count. Environmentalists
have said millions of acres of pub-
lic lands should qualify. The timber
industry and its allies have cautioned
against a broad defi nition over con-
cerns that could put new areas off
limits to logging.
The Forest Service manages
209,000 square miles of forested land,
including about 87,500 square miles
where trees are older than 100 years.
The Bureau of Land Management
oversees about 90,600 square miles
of forests.
Johnson: Campaign told Willamette Week that Gallentine was paid $43,000
Continued from Page A2
On Johnson’s campaign
website, her to-do list includes
“hold government account-
able to deliver for the rest of
us.” She recently released
a campaign ad focused on
homelessness in Oregon,
showing Johnson driving past
people and tents in Portland.
“We should expect personal
responsibility,” Johnson says.
On the day of the crash in
April 2013, Gallentine was
driving south on U.S. High-
way 30 in Scappoose and
slowing to a stop behind other
drivers who were lined up
at a red light. It was around
7 a.m., according to a news
report.
“While applying her
brakes, Gallentine viewed
Johnson’s sport utility vehicle
bearing down on her in her
rear-view mirror,” according
to the lawsuit Gallentine later
fi led against Johnson. Ear-
lier, Gallentine had noticed a
child moving in the backseat
of a small Geo Metro car in
front of her and she said the
thought fl ashed through her
mind that the child might
not be wearing a seatbelt.
“That was one of the very
fi rst things I thought, ‘Oh
my God, that kid’s going to
die in a Geo Metro,” Gallen-
tine said this month . Gallen-
tine steered her Audi sedan
into a neighboring lane; John-
son drove her Chevrolet Trail
Blazer into the same lane and
smashed into the back of Gal-
lentine’s car, according to the
lawsuit.
When Johnson’s SUV hit
the Audi sedan, “it exploded
the gas tank and took all of
the doors in through the trunk
and broke my seat,” Gallen-
tine said .
Johnson said she was
commuting to the Capitol at
JOHNSON SAID SHE WAS COMMUTING TO THE CAPITOL
AT THE TIME, AND AFTER GALLENTINE SUED JOHNSON
FOR PERSONAL INJURY IN MARCH 2015, JOHNSON’S
LAWYERS ARGUED THAT AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF
STATE GOVERNMENT SHE HAD IMMUNITY FROM BEING
SUED UNDER OREGON’S TORT CLAIMS ACT.
the time, and after Gallentine
sued Johnson for personal
injury in March 2015, John-
son’s lawyers argued that as
a representative of state gov-
ernment she had immunity
from being sued under Ore-
gon’s Tort Claims Act. “At
the time of the accident,
defendant was in the perfor-
mance of duty and/or acting
within the course and scope
of her public employment as
an Oregon state legislator,”
lawyers Jeremy R. James and
Paul A. C. Berg wrote.
Johnson’s lawyers also
argued that due to a clause
in the Oregon Constitution
that prohibits anyone from
suing lawmakers during leg-
islative sessions, the Colum-
bia County Circuit Court had
no jurisdiction over John-
son until the 2015 legisla-
tive session concluded. At the
same time, Johnson’s lawyers
argued that Gallentine would
miss the two-year statute of
limitations if she fi led her
lawsuit any later.
Gallentine’s
attorneys,
Mario Nicholas and Jan
Sokol, countered, “The legis-
lative immunity granted under
the Oregon Constitution is not
carte blanche for legislators to
act with impunity,” in a court
fi ling in May 2015.
A Columbia County judge
ultimately allowed Gallentine
to refi le her lawsuit against
Johnson after the legislative
session, and she did so in fall
2015, naming both Johnson
and the state as defendants.
It was during that lawsuit that
Johnson’s lawyers argued that
We want to thank everyone
who called, sent cards,
donated to organizations,
& visited after Philip’s
(Abbie’s) death. We
appreciate everyone’s
thoughts & prayers.
Nettie Blair & Sons
the judge should drop John-
son as a defendant in the law-
suit and leave the state as the
sole defendant. Gallentine,
Johnson and the state ulti-
mately settled the lawsuit,
according to court records,
and Johnson’s campaign told
Willamette Week that Gallen-
tine was paid $43,000.
Gallentine said she felt the
physical eff ects of the crash
for years. “My neck and my
back were pretty messed up
for years” and she also suf-
fered mild traumatic brain
injury, according to the law-
suit. Gallentine said that
reduced her ability to multi-
task at a high level as required
for her job as an execu-
tive-level sales representative
and it took her years to return
to the performance level she
had attained prior to the crash.
“I was almost fi red because
my numbers went down so
drastically,” said Gallentine,
who now runs an equestrian
center in the Portland area.
Nearly a decade later, Gal-
lentine said she does not feel
anger over the incident. She
feels that Johnson “should
own up to the responsibil-
ity aspect,” but Gallentine
said she does not want to dis-
parage the former longtime
Democratic lawmaker. Gal-
lentine said she signed an
agreement not to do so.
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