VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, January 22, 2022
East Oregonian
A5
PEPPER
TRAIL
OTHER VIEWS
A new
predator
stalks the
West
T
he grizzly bear. The wolf. The
cougar. These magnificent crea-
tures, apex predators, how can we
not admire them? People cross the world for
the opportunity to see one in the wilds of
Yellowstone or Alaska.
There, we view them from a distance,
free to indulge our awe in safety. It has been
a long time since Americans lived in fear of
wild beasts.
But now that fear has returned. Fear
felt not just in the woods, but also in cities
and towns: Paradise, California; Talent,
Oregon; and now in suburban Superior and
Louisville in Colorado’s Boulder County.
The dangerous predator we’re facing
these days is wildfire, charging even out of
grasslands to destroy our very homes. And
no one is safe.
As an ecologist, I know that preda-
tors are essential to the health of wildlife
communities, keeping prey populations
in check. They’re also a driving force in
evolution, favoring the faster or stronger
or smarter animals able to escape their
attacks. Of course, civilization long ago
freed us from the evolutionary pressure
exerted by predators. But that freedom has
come at a cost.
When populations and ecosystems grow
badly out of balance, there must come a
correction. Humans and the environments
we have created are not immune to this
rule, and we must recognize that we have
unleashed the fire-predator through our
own choices.
What choices? On the global scale,
we have released vast amounts of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases into
the atmosphere. This was done at first in
ignorance, but for at least the past 30 years,
it truly was a choice made in the face of
increasingly desperate warnings.
The resulting greenhouse effect has
raised temperatures and decreased rain and
snowpack throughout the West, contrib-
uting to “fire weather” like the hurri-
cane-force winds that shockingly bore
down on the suburbs of Denver in the dead
of winter.
We also made land-management choices
that strengthened the threat of fire. First,
we behaved as if we could banish fire from
the landscape, suppressing all wildland
fires everywhere, and ending the use of
prescribed fire in forests as a management
tool. This led to a huge build-up of flamma-
ble fuels.
Second, industrial-scale logging elimi-
nated over 90% of fire-resistant old-growth
forests and replaced them with highly flam-
mable tree plantations. Finally, we vastly
expanded our human footprint, building
houses right where the fire-predator likes to
roam, at the brink of forests and grasslands.
Reconciling ourselves to the depreda-
tions of wildfire requires that we take the
long view – the really long view. The fuel-
choked forests resulting from our (mis)
management need to burn, and they will
burn. The best we can do is to preserve the
old forests that remain and manage younger
forests to increase their resilience to moder-
ate-intensity fire. It could be a century or
more before a new forestland equilibrium
is reached, one with lower fuel loads, better
adapted to the high fire-frequency climate
we have created.
Meanwhile, what about us? Colorado’s
Marshall Fire proved that wildfire is the one
predator we can’t eliminate. Far from any
forest, this was pushed through tinder-dry
grasslands by howling winter winds and
burned more than 1,000 suburban homes in
a matter of hours. So, like any prey species,
we must adapt as best we can. As individu-
als, we can create defensible space around
our homes. We can get skilled at escaping
wildfire by having evacuation plans ready.
As a society, we can adopt sensible poli-
cies to limit sprawling development in fire-
prone areas. Recent events prove that these
include not just remote forestlands, but even
grasslands near suburbs. Faced with pred-
ators, animals try to get into the center of
the herd. We need to do the same, avoiding
exposure to the fire-predator at the vulner-
able edge.
Finally, we can — we must — embark
on an urgent global effort to end the burning
of fossil fuels within the next few decades.
If we do not, the West will face year-round
fire weather, and a future at the mercy of
fire.
Yet there is reason for hope: the uniquely
human capacity for rapid social and cultural
evolution. Let’s harness that strength, and
work toward the day when fire is a preda-
tor no more, but our powerful partner in the
stewardship of the land.
———
Pepper Trail is a contributor to Writ-
ers on the Range, writersontherange.org,
a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively
conversation about the West. He is an ecol-
ogist in Ashland.
Statehouse security beefs up
DICK
HUGHES
OTHER VIEWS
W
hen I began covering the Oregon
Legislature full time, I could
enter the state Capitol anytime I
wanted.
As a member of the Capitol press corps,
I had a key. For example, that key once
allowed me into the basement pressroom
on a Saturday morning to catch up on work,
accompanied by our son supposedly sleep-
ing in his baby carrier. Oops. It seems our
vocal son did not share my parenting vision
of quietly bonding while working.
Still that around-the-clock access has
been handy. I beat other reporters on stories
not because I had more talent or smarts — I
don’t — but because I outworked them. In
the 1980s, I learned to be the last one in the
pressroom each day, especially on Friday
nights when state regulators tended to drop
off press releases announcing the latest
closures of insolvent banks. I sometimes
came in on weekends to write in quiet or to
check the press release dropbox.
Savvy state officials, such as Secretary
of State Norma Paulus, periodically strolled
through the pressroom to share news tips
before heading home. Back then, secu-
rity was so relaxed that Gov. Vic Atiyeh
often ate lunch in the Capitol cafeteria with
everyone else. If I wanted different food
options, I could walk through the Capitol
Mall tunnels to cafeterias in adjacent state
buildings.
And because state Senate President John
Kitzhaber was not easy to catch, at the end
of the day I’d occasionally hang out by his
SUV — long before they were called SUVs
— in the Capitol’s underground park-
ing garage, hoping for a brief interview.
Kitzhaber always grinned to see me, and
sometimes he’d talk.
I still have a Capitol exterior key, an elec-
tronic one, as do hundreds of elected offi-
cials, staff members, journalists and others.
But I long ago lost entrance to the tunnels
and to the Capitol basement garage. I’ve
encountered locked hallway doors into the
legislative office wings. And around-the-
clock access into the Capitol may disap-
pear, although that’s no longer a journalistic
necessity.
Legislative officials this week confirmed
what had been reported previously:
“Anyone entering the Capitol will be
required to pass through a security check-
point.” That entails walking through
metal detectors staffed by security guards
and having bags checked by hand or sent
through an X-ray machine.
It’s about time. I’ll have to train myself
to leave my little Swiss Army pocketknife
behind.
The changes take effect Thursday, Jan.
27. Despite the inconvenience, Oregon’s
Capitol will remain comparatively open.
In travels around the U.S., I’ve wandered
freely into some state capitols but found
others almost inaccessible. Thirty-three
state Capitols already use metal detectors,
according to the National Conference of
State Legislatures.
The Capitol security changes were
expected after the 2021 Legislature banned
holders of concealed weapons permits from
having their firearms in the Capitol. By the
way, I hear legislative management was not
keen on some security upgrades suggested
by the legislative employees’ new union.
As for state government coverage, it too
evolves. Fewer reporters work out of the
Capitol pressroom, press releases arrive
via email and social media, and anyone
can watch legislative proceedings online.
Though I drive by the Capitol every day
or two, I’ve rarely been inside since the
2020 legislative session and the subsequent
pandemic lockdowns.
Meanwhile, the Legislature’s presid-
ing officers — House Speaker Tina Kotek,
D-Portland, who is resigning as of Jan.
21, and Senate President Peter Courtney,
D-Salem — ordered legislative employees
to work remotely whenever possible during
this week’s Legislative Days and the 2022
Legislature, which convenes next month.
The reason: COVID-19.
Their memo to legislators and employ-
ees said: “The Capitol is diligently working
to limit exposure of staff and community
and to only designate staff as essential when
necessary. This means your manager could
determine that you are essential to be in the
Capitol for a particular day or activity and
then be returned to nonessential status.
“In order to keep the Capitol community
safe, each of us needs to follow the safety
and health rules including wearing face
coverings at all times and avoiding close
contact (closer than 6 feet for 15 minutes or
more in a 24-hour period) whenever possi-
ble. Many of us are fortunate and able to
work remotely and are not exposed, yet we
are key to protecting those who must report
to the building.”
Another positive COVID-19 case in the
Capitol was reported last week.
Where does Kristof reside: The Oregon
Supreme Court has agreed to take up the
case of whether would-be Democratic
gubernatorial candidate Nicholas Kristof
qualifies as an Oregon resident. Secretary of
State Shemia Fagan and the state Elections
Division declared him ineligible to run.
Molly Woon, a spokesperson for Fagan,
disputed the notion in last week’s column
that there was a political push to declare
Kristof ineligible. “She received no pressure
whatsoever, except from the public relations
campaign his campaign ran,” Woon said of
Fagan.
In contrast, a reader in central Oregon
felt the description was accurate, writing:
“In our view (over here!), he is a legitimate
candidate, and represents new hope for
Oregon — certainly in terms of dismantling
what has become a 30-year Democratic
bureaucratic monster.”
Another reader, a tax accountant, wrote:
“When I think of the definition of a resi-
dent, I center in on residency as defined
for income tax purposes. … In none of the
media stories I’ve read or heard do any of
Mr. Kristof’s stated attributes of Oregon
residency add up to him being a quali-
fied Oregon resident for income tax filing
purposes.”
Kristof said the residency issue comes up
“surprisingly rarely” in his discussions with
voters. “People want to talk about affordable
housing. They want to talk about homeless-
ness. They want to talk about wages,” he
told me.
———
Dick Hughes has been covering the
Oregon political scene since 1976.
Logging and carbon
GEORGE
WUERTHNER
OTHER VIEWS
O
ne of the arguments alleged by
proponents of thinning or logging
forests is that it would preclude
wildfires and reduce carbon emissions from
wildfire. Proponents argue that more trees
survive a fire if there has been “active forest
management.”
The problem with such ebullient
pronouncements is that they fail to provide
a full accounting of the carbon losses and
emissions.
A number of studies that reviewed carbon
emissions conclude that logging and wood
processing emits far more carbon than a fire.
For instance, one study estimates that
logging in the United States releases five
times the carbon as wildfire, bark beetles,
wind thrown, land use conservations, and
drought combined.
Another Oregon study calculates that
35% of the carbon emissions in the state
results from the wood products sector, while
wildfires average approximately 4%.
Making matters worse is that logging
advocates fail to consider that in thinning
the forest, you are killing trees. The prob-
lem is that where and when a fire will occur
is unpredictable. The majority of all thinned
acres never encounter a fire. Some estimates
suggest less than 1-2% of all thinned acres
experience a fire when they might potentially
influence fire behavior and tree mortality.
As one group of researchers concluded:
“Thinning forests to reduce potential
carbon losses due to wildfire is in direct
conflict with carbon sequestration goals.”
They go on to conclude “the amount of
carbon removed to change fire behavior is
often far larger than that saved by chang-
ing fire behavior, and more area has to be
harvested than will ultimately burn over
the period of effectiveness of the thinning
treatment.”
In fact, one estimate suggests it may take
100 years to replace the carbon loss resulting
from forest management.
Thinning larger areas to decrease the
probability of high-severity fire ensures
decreased carbon stock and net carbon
balance over the treated area.
Let us say 50% of the trees are removed in
a thinning project, that is 50% of the stored
carbon. So even if a thinned stand burns
at lower severity and most trees survive a
fire, the net result is still a significant loss of
carbon due to tree removal because of the
logging.
Plus, in logging the trees (killing them),
you reduce the future carbon storage that
would have otherwise occurred had the trees
remained in the forest.
So, we get a guaranteed removal of
carbon and carbon emissions with logging/
thinning that contributes to climate warm-
ing, which is, in turn, contributing to more
fires.
Even if a forest stand burns in a high
severity fire where the majority of trees are
killed, most of the carbon remains on the site
as snags, branches, charcoal, and roots in the
soil.
A further problem is an assumption that
logging the forest will preclude large high
severity blazes (where most trees are killed).
However, there is abundant scientific and
anecdotal evidence that logging does little to
prevent large wildfires.
The best management for our forests and
climate is to stop logging our public forests.
———
George Wuerthner is an ecologist who
specializes in fire ecology and livestock
issues.