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Threats to Biodiversity

Battle Creek Alliance — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:51:00 GMT

Exploiting the Fear of Fire for Economic Gain

Battle Creek Alliance — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:54:00 GMT

Old Forests Capture More Carbon from Journal Nature

Battle Creek Alliance — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:58:00 GMT

Long Term Impacts of Even Age Timber Management

Battle Creek Alliance — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:32:00 GMT

Water Quality Violations Issued to Sierra Pacific Industries

Battle Creek Alliance — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:12:00 GMT

Sierra Pacific Industries settles Air Quality case with CA State Air Resources Boad

Battle Creek Alliance — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:38:00 GMT

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Forest Herbicides in California --FAQs

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:44:00 GMT

Salvage Logging, Replanting Increased Biscuit Fire Severity

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:41:00 GMT

06-11-07
Media Release
Salvage Logging, Replanting Increased Biscuit Fire Severity

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Biscuit Fire of 2002 burned more severely in areas that had been salvage logged and replanted, compared to similar areas that were also burned in a 1987 fire but had been left to regenerate naturally, a new study concludes.
The analysis, one of the first to ever quantify the effect of salvage logging and replanting on future fire severity, is being published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a professional journal, by scientists from Oregon State University and the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the USDA Forest Service.
It found that fire severity was 16 to 61 percent higher in logged and planted areas, compared to those that had burned severely and were left alone in a fire 15 years earlier. The study was done in areas that had burned twice – once in the 1987 Silver Fire, and again in the massive 2002 Biscuit Fire, one of the largest forest fires in modern United States history.
“Many forest managers in the past have assumed that salvage logging after a severe forest fire, along with replanting new trees, will reduce future fire severity,” said Jonathan Thompson, a doctoral student at OSU in the Department of Forest Science, and lead author on the study. “This is based on the assumption that removing dead trees reduces fuel loads and planting conifers hastens the return of fire-resistant forests.”
“However, those assumptions have never really been tested,” Thompson said. “This analysis showed that, after accounting for the effects of topography, Silver Fire severity and other environmental variables, the Biscuit Fire severity was higher where they had done salvage logging and planting.”
It’s not completely clear from these data, Thompson said, what the causative mechanism is – the tree removal, the addition of more fine fuels to the forest floor during the logging operation, or the growth of new trees that for several decades may be very vulnerable to new fires.
The study is not, researchers said, an indictment of salvage logging – it may still have value for economic purposes or to assure the establishment of desired tree species. However, “the hypothesis that salvage-logging, then planting, reduces re-burn severity is not supported by these data,” the scientists said in their report.
“Young forests in this region are susceptible to recurring severe fires,” Thompson said. “Compared to an older forest with branches high above the forest floor, young trees are very vulnerable, whether they are planted or naturally regenerated.”
However, in the aftermath of a wildfire, removal of large dead trees followed by planting conifer seedlings does not appear to lessen the risk of severe fires in the first 10-20 years, Thompson said. This may be because the logging process leaves more available fuel on the forest floor; the dense, homogenous replantation of young trees provides a good setting for fire; or some combination of these factors over time.
“Dead woody fuel . . . is only part of the fire risk story, and it may not be the most important after a few years,” the study noted.
By contrast, natural regeneration of forests, he said, appears to result in at least slightly – and sometimes significantly – less risk of severe future fires. This could be because the regenerating trees are patchier, have open gaps, more species diversity, or other factors. But the study showed that total consumption of tree crowns in a recurring fire situation is more severe in the managed stands than the natural ones, at least when there are one to two decades between fires.
This research was done with satellite data, government agency records and aerial photography, in the mixed-conifer, mixed-evergreen hardwood zones of the Siskiyou Mountains. It analyzed burn severity patterns with a commonly used metric of fire damage on almost 45,000 acres of the Biscuit Fire that had also burned 15 years earlier.
Among its conclusions:
•   Areas that burned severely in 1987 tended to re-burn at high severity in 2002.
•   Areas unaffected by the initial fire tended to burn at the lowest severities in 2002.
•   The findings are consistent with studies that show site history influences fire severity, and that conifer plantations are associated with high severity fire.
There are some potential environmental and management implications of the research, Thompson said.
“If we do have a warmer climate that leads to increasing frequency of wildfire in this region a positive feedback of high severity re-burns may favor plant species more able to deal with that regime – manzanita, ceanothus or tan oak – that could displace conifer forests,” he said.
Managers may have few options to reduce the risk of future high severity fire within areas that have experienced recent severe burns.
Typical fuel treatments such as thinning do not have much effect on fire risk in young forests, Thompson said. There are ongoing experiments within the Biscuit Fire region to test the effectiveness of fuel breaks for slowing the spread of severe fires.
Co-authors on this study were Thomas Spies, principal investigator of the project and a research forester with the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the USDA Forest Service, and Lisa Ganio, an associate professor with the OSU Department of Forest Science.
The study was funded by the Joint Fire Science Program, a partnership of six federal wildland, fire and research organizations, established in 1998 to provide scientific information and support for fuel and fire management programs.
About the OSU College of Forestry: For a century, the College of Forestry has been a world class teaching and learning center. It offers graduate and undergraduate degree programs in sustaining ecosystems, managing forests and manufacturing wood products; conducts basic and applied research on the nature and use of forests; and operates 14,000 acres of college forests.
Media Contact
David Stauth,
541-737-0787
Source
Jonathan Thompson,
541-758-7759
Thomas Spies,
541-750-7354
News and Communications
Oregon State University
416 Kerr Administration Bldg.
Corvallis, Oregon 97331
541-737-4611
© 2006 Oregon State University

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NRDC Review of Sierra Pacific Industries Report

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:34:00 GMT

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Overview of the toxic effects of the Herbicide 2,4-D

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:17:00 GMT

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Commercial Logging for Wildfire Prevention: Facts Vs Fantasies

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:57:00 GMT

Commercial Logging for Wildfire Prevention:Facts Vs Fantasies

— By Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D., WesternFire Ecology Center

The notion that commercial logging can prevent wildfires has its believers andloud proponents, but this belief does not match up with the scientific evidenceor history of federal management practices. In fact, it is widely recognizedthat past commercial logging, road-building, livestock grazing and aggressivefirefighting are the sources for "forest health" problems such asincreased insect infestations, disease outbreaks, and severe wildfires.

How can the sources of these problems also be their solution? This internalcontradiction needs more than propaganda to be resolved. It is time for thetimber industry and their supporters to heed the facts, not fantasies, anddevelop forest management policies based on science, not politics.

FACT: Commercial logging removes the least flammable portion of trees-theirmain stems or "trunks," while leaving behind their most flammableportions-their needles and limbs, directly on the ground. Untreated loggingslash can adversely affect fire behavior for up to 30 years following thelogging operations.

FACT: Commercial logging reduces the "overstory" tree canopy whichmoderates the "microclimate" of the forest floor. This reduction ofthe tree canopy exposes the forest floor to increased sun and wind, causingincreased surface temperatures and decreased relative humidity. This in turncauses surface fuels to be hotter and drier, resulting in faster rates of firespread, greater flame lengths and fireline intensities, and more erratic shiftsin the speed and direction of fires.

FACT: Small-diameter surface fuels are the primary carriers of fire. Currentfire spread models such as the BEHAVE program do not even consider fuelsgreater than three inches (3) in diameter because it is mainly the fine-sizedsurface fuels that allows fire spread. Commercial logging operations removelarge-diameter fuels which are naturally fire resistant, and leave behind anincreased amount of fire-prone small-diameter fuels.

FACT: Timber plantations comprised of densely-stocked, even-aged stands ofyoung conifers are extremely flammable and vulnerable to catastrophic fireeffects. When plantations burn they normally result in 100% mortality of trees,yet have no native seed sources to naturally regenerate stands. Thus, burnedplantations require expensive and repeated management inputs to achievesuccessful reforestation.

FACT: Commercial logging spreads invasive weeds and stimulates the growth of"chaparral" brush which are much more flammable than the originalforest cover. Once the commodity timber outputs have been removed, federalagencies have no economic incentives to manage the vegetation that colonizessites disturbed by logging operations; thus, fires will continue to burnthrough logged areas.

FACT: Watersheds that have experienced extensive logging and road-building alsoexperience greater fire severity than unlogged and unroaded watersheds.

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Beyond Kyoto: Forest Management in a Time of Rapid Climate Change

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:13:00 GMT

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California's native fish going extinct

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:34:00 GMT

State’s native fish going extinct

Report offers dire prediction; DFG agrees to limit stocking

By Robert Speer
roberts@newsreview.com
Morestories by this author...

STOPPING STOCKING
The state Department of Fish and Game has agreed to curtail its stocking of many California streams and lakes with hatchery-raised fish while it does an environmental analysis of the practice. Fish stocking is one of the causes given for a precipitous decline in native fish populations.

Two-thirds of California’s native fish species—salmon, steelhead and trout—may be extinct by the end of the century, if not sooner.

That’s the dire prediction contained in “SOS: California’s Native Fish Crisis,” a report released Nov. 19 that is based on a two-year research study by a team of UC Davis scientists. They received support from the fish and watershed advocacy group California Trout.

If the report proves correct, it would mean that of the 32 native salmon and trout species, only 10 or 11 would still exist in 2100. Of those 32 species, 65 percent are found only in California. And of the state’s nine living native inland species, seven are in danger of extinction.

The report’s author is UC Davis professor Dr. Peter Moyle, a widely known expert on California’s water systems and the fish that inhabit them.

It’s not just the fish we should be concerned about, Moyle states. That their stocks are in unprecedented decline and teetering toward extinction, he writes, is “an alarm bell that signals the deteriorating health of the state’s rivers and streams that provide drinking water to millions of Californians.”

One species, bull trout, became extinct in the 1970s, and four others—pink and chum salmon, southern steelhead and coho salmon—are in grave danger.

“The fish don’t lie,” Moyle stated. “The story they tell is that California’s environment is unraveling. Their demise is symptomatic of a much larger water crisis that, unless addressed, will severely impact every Californian.”

The fish crisis is plenty big enough, however. Sport fishing in California is a $2 billion business and is a crucial income source in rural counties.

The report lists numerous causes for the fish’s decline, including dams, agricultural and grazing practices, development, mining, railroads, logging, some recreational uses, illegal harvesting of native fish, reliance on fish hatcheries, and invasive species such as the northern pike.

In addition, the report states, global warming will accelerate the decline of many of the fish, as salmonids are particularly sensitive to changes in water temperature. Rapidly changing ocean conditions also contribute to the stresses on the fish.

The report argues for increased funding for the Department of Fish and Game to revitalize and strengthen it and for the DFG to partner with local communities to protect regional fish populations and their habitats.

In a Nov. 21 op-ed piece in the Sacramento Bee, Moyle notes that some native species—he cites the Goose Lake redband trout—are thriving because of watershed restoration projects. New projects on Clear Creek and Battle Creek promise to increase habitat for the four runs of chinook salmon, and a court has ordered restoration of the chinook salmon to the San Joaquin River.

“Providing a future for our iconic native fishes and their waters … requires a fundamental shift in the way our society treats its streams and natural lakes,” Moyle writes.

To read the “SOS” report, go online at www.caltrout.org.

Local sport fishers should know that the report’s inclusion of fish hatcheries as a cause of the decline is echoed by a new DFG agreement to curtail stocking in many lakes and streams.

In 2006, two conservation groups, Pacific Rivers Council andthe Center for Biological Diversity, sued the DFG, charging that stocking streams and lakes with hatchery-reared fish—a DFG practice for a century—was having deleterious impacts on native fish species and several species of frogs.

In May 2007, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled that fish stocking has “significant environmental impacts” on “aquatic ecosystems” and “in particular, on native species of fish, amphibians and insects, some of which are threatened or endangered.”

The court ordered the DFG to prepare an environmental analysis by the end of 2008, but the DFG came back to court seeking an extension until January 2010. In exchange, the DFG last week agreed to the interim stocking plan.

The agreement will not stop all fish stocking, but it will be limited mostly to reservoirs and lakes that are not connected to a river or stream known to contain endangered native species. Stocking will be curtailed in waters where any of 25 native fish and amphibian species considered sensitive to fish stocking are known to occur.

For lists of sites where stocking will and will not be done,go to www.dfg.ca.gov/news/stocking.DFG spokeswoman Jordan Traverso advises, however, that the lists are subject to change.

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Weed killer kills human cells. Study intensifies debate over 'inert' ingredients.

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:49:00 GMT

Weed killer kills human cells. Study intensifies debate over 'inert' ingredients.
Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” — the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

By Crystal Gammon
Environmental Health News
June 22, 2009
Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.
The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” — the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is the most widely used herbicide in the United States. About 100 million pounds are applied to U.S. farms and lawns every year, according to the EPA.
Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns.
One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”
“This clearly confirms that the [inert ingredients] in Roundup formulations are not inert,” wrote the study authors from France’s University of Caen. “Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death [at the] residual levels” found on Roundup-treated crops, such as soybeans, alfalfa and corn, or lawns and gardens.
The research team suspects that Roundup might cause pregnancy problems by interfering with hormone production, possibly leading to abnormal fetal development, low birth weights or miscarriages.
Monsanto, Roundup’s manufacturer, contends that the methods used in the study don’t reflect realistic conditions and that their product, which has been sold since the 1970s, is safe when used as directed. Hundreds of studies over the past 35 years have addressed the safety of glyphosate.
“Roundup has one of the most extensive human health safety and environmental data packages of any pesticide that's out there,” said Monsanto spokesman John Combest. “It's used in public parks, it's used to protect schools. There's been a great deal of study on Roundup, and we're very proud of its performance.”
The EPA considers glyphosate to have low toxicity when used at the recommended doses.
“Risk estimates for glyphosate were well below the level of concern,” said EPA spokesman Dale Kemery. The EPA classifies glyphosate as a Group E chemical, which means there is strong evidence that it does not cause cancer in humans.
In addition, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both recognize POEA as an inert ingredient. Derived from animal fat, POEA is allowed in products certified organic by the USDA. The EPA has concluded that it is not dangerous to public health or the environment.
The French team, led by Gilles-Eric Seralini, a University of Caen molecular biologist, said its results highlight the need for health agencies to reconsider the safety of Roundup.
“The authorizations for using these Roundup herbicides must now clearly be revised since their toxic effects depend on, and are multiplied by, other compounds used in the mixtures,” Seralini’s team wrote.
Controversy about the safety of the weed killer recently erupted in Argentina, one of the world’s largest exporters of soy.
Last month, an environmental group petitioned Argentina’s Supreme Court, seeking a temporary ban on glyphosate use after an Argentine scientist and local activists reported a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people living near crop-spraying areas. Scientists there also linked genetic malformations in amphibians to glysophate. In addition, last year in Sweden, a scientific team found that exposure is a risk factor for people developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Inert ingredients are often less scrutinized than active pest-killing ingredients. Since specific herbicide formulations are protected as trade secrets, manufacturers aren’t required to publicly disclose them. Although Monsanto is the largest manufacturer of glyphosate-based herbicides, several other manufacturers sell similar herbicides with different inert ingredients.
The term “inert ingredient” is often misleading, according to Caroline Cox, research director of the Center for Environmental Health, an Oakland-based environmental organization. Federal law classifies all pesticide ingredients that don’t harm pests as “inert,” she said. Inert compounds, therefore, aren’t necessarily biologically or toxicologically harmless – they simply don’t kill insects or weeds.
Kemery said the EPA takes into account the inert ingredients and how the product is used, whenever a pesticide is approved for use. The aim, he said, is to ensure that “if the product is used according to labeled directions, both people’s health and the environment will not be harmed.” One label requirement for Roundup is that it should not be used in or near freshwater to protect amphibians and other wildlife.
But some inert ingredients have been found to potentially affect human health. Many amplify the effects of active ingredients by helping them penetrate clothing, protective equipment and cell membranes, or by increasing their toxicity. For example, a Croatian team recently found that an herbicide formulation containing atrazine caused DNA damage, which can lead to cancer, while atrazine alone did not.
POEA was recognized as a common inert ingredient in herbicides in the 1980s, when researchers linked it to a group of poisonings in Japan. Doctors there examined patients who drank Roundup, either intentionally or accidentally, and determined that their sicknesses and deaths were due to POEA, not glyphosate.
POEA is a surfactant, or detergent, derived from animal fat. It is added to Roundup and other herbicides to help them penetrate plants' surfaces, making the weed killer more effective.
"POEA helps glyphosate interact with the surfaces of plant cells," explained Negin Martin, a scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, who was not involved in the study. POEA lowers water's surface tension--the property that makes water form droplets on most surfaces--which helps glyphosate disperse and penetrate the waxy surface of a plant.
In the French study, researchers tested four different Roundup formulations, all containing POEA and glyphosate at concentrations below the recommended lawn and agricultural dose. They also tested POEA and glyphosate separately to determine which caused more damage to embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.
Glyphosate, POEA and all four Roundup formulations damaged all three cell types. Umbilical cord cells were especially sensitive to POEA. Glyphosate became more harmful when combined with POEA, and POEA alone was more deadly to cells than glyphosate. The research appears in the January issue of the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
By using embryonic and placental cell lines, which multiply and respond to chemicals rapidly, and fresh umbilical cord cells, Seralini’s team was able to determine how the chemicals combine to damage cells.
The two ingredients work together to “limit breathing of the cells, stress them and drive them towards a suicide,” Seralini said.
The research was funded in part by France’s Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering, a scientific committee that investigates risks associated with genetically modified organisms. One of Roundup’s primary uses is on crops that are genetically engineered to be resistant to glyphosate.
Monsanto scientists argue that cells in Seralini’s study were exposed to unnaturally high levels of the chemicals. “It's very unlike anything you'd see in real-world exposure. People's cells are not bathed in these things,” said Donna Farmer, another toxicologist at Monsanto.
Seralini’s team, however, did study multiple concentrations of Roundup. These ranged from the typical agricultural or lawn dose down to concentrations 100,000 times more dilute than the products sold on shelves. The researchers saw cell damage at all concentrations.
Monsanto scientists also question the French team’s use of laboratory cell lines.
“These are just not very good models of a whole organism, like a human being,” said Dan Goldstein, a toxicologist with Monsanto.
Goldstein said humans have protective mechanisms that resist substances in the environment, such as skin and the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, which constantly renew themselves. “Those phenomena just don't happen with isolated cells in a Petri dish.”
But Cox, who studies pesticides and their inert ingredients at the Oakland environmental group, says lab experiments like these are important in determining whether a chemical is safe.
“We would never consider it ethical to test these products on people, so we're obliged to look at their effects on other species and in other systems,” she said. “There's really no way around that.”
Seralini said the cells used in the study are widely accepted in toxicology as good models for studying the toxicity of chemicals.
“The fact is that 90 percent of labs studying mechanisms of toxicity or physiology use cell lines,” he said.
Most research has examined glyphosate alone, rather than combined with Roundup’s inert ingredients. Researchers who have studied Roundup formulations have drawn conclusions similar to the Seralini group’s. For example, in 2005, University of Pittsburg ecologists added Roundup at the manufacturer’s recommended dose to ponds filled with frog and toad tadpoles. When they returned two weeks later, they found that 50 to 100 percent of the populations of several species of tadpoles had been killed.
A group of over 250 environmental, health and labor organizations has petitioned the EPA to change requirements for identifying pesticides’ inert ingredients. The agency’s decision is due this fall.
“It would be a big step for the agency to take,” said Cox. “But it’s one they definitely should.”
The groups claim that the laws allowing manufacturers to keep inert ingredients secret from competitors are essentially unnecessary. Companies can determine a competitor’s inert ingredients through routine lab analyses, said Cox.
“The proprietary protection laws really only keep information from the public,” she said.

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Greatest Value of Forests is Sustainable Water Supply

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:42:00 GMT

7-14-08

Media Release

New Report: Greatest Value of Forests is Sustainable Water Supply

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The forests of the future may need to be managed as much for a sustainable supply of clean water as any other goal, researchers say in a new federal report – but even so, forest resources will offer no “quick fix” to the insatiable, often conflicting demands for this precious resource.

This new view of forests is evolving, scientists say, as both urban and agricultural demands for water continue to increase, and the role of clean water from forests becomes better understood as an “ecosystem service” of great value. Many factors – changing climate, wildfires, insect outbreaks, timber harvest, roads, and even urban sprawl – are influencing water supplies from forests.

Preserving and managing forests may help sustain water supplies and water quality from the nation’s headwaters in the future, they conclude, but forest management is unlikely to increase water supplies.

“Historically, forest managers have not focused much of their attention on water, and water managers have not focused on forests,” saidJulia Jones, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University, and vice chair of a committee of the National Research Council, which today released a report http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/forest_hydrology_final.pdf on the hydrologic effects of a changing forest landscape. “But today’s water problems demand that these groups work together closely.

“Because forests can release slightly more water for a decade or so following timber harvest, there have been suggestions that forests could be managed to increase water supplies in some areas,” Jones said. “But we’ve learned that such increases don’t last very long, and often don’t provide water when you need it most.”

The science of how forest management affects water quantity and quality, Jones said, has produced a solid foundation of principles. But forests in the United States are changing rapidly, and additional research may reveal ways to provide a sustainable flow of fresh, clean water.

Changes in water supplies from forests due to climate change, the researchers said, are a particular concern, and water supplies may already be affected by increased fire frequency and insect or disease epidemics. Many such factors require more study, they said.

Among the findings of the report:

· Forests cover about one-third of the nation’s land area, and although they have roles in timber production,habitat, recreation and wilderness, their most important output may be water.

· Forests provide natural filtration and storage systems that process nearly two-thirds of the water supply in the U.S.

· Demand for water continues to rise due to population growth, while forest acreage is declining and remaining forest lands are threatened by climate change, disease epidemics, fire and global climate change.

· Forest vegetation and soils, if healthy and intact, can benefit human water supplies by controlling water yield, peak flows, low flows, sediment levels, water chemistry and quality.

· Increases in water yield after forest harvesting are transitory; they decrease over time as forests re-grow,and in the meantime water quality may be reduced.

· Impervious surfaces such as roads and road drainage systems increase overland flow, deliver water directly to stream channels, and can increase surface erosion.

· Forest chemicals, including those used to fight fire, can adversely affect aquatic ecosystems, especially if they are applied directly to water bodies or wet soil.

· One of the biggest threats to forests, and the water that derives from them, is the permanent conversion of forested land to residential, industrial and commercial uses.

The report also outlined a number of research needs for the future, especially to improve specific predictions about the implications of forest harvests, disturbances by fire, insects and disease, climate change,land development, and shifts in forest species composition.

Modern forest practices have helped to protect streams and riparian zones, but more needs to be learned about the implications of such practices as thinning or partial cuts – development of “best management”practices could help balance timber harvest with sustainable water flow and quality.

And global warming, which affects timing and amount of snow melt runoff, wildfires, and insect and disease outbreaks, is a huge variable.

The study also cited the value of watershed councils and citizen groups in getting more people involved in water, stream and land management issues at a local level, increasing the opportunities for all views to be considered, and conflicts avoided.

Support for this project, which involved numerous representatives from academia and private industry in the U.S. and Canada, was provided by the U.S.Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture. The National Research Council is operated by the National Academy of Sciences. This is oneof the first major studies on forests and water since a U.S. Forest Service project in 1976, the authors noted.

“Times have changed,” the authors wrote in the report.“Thirty years ago, no one would have imagined that clearcutting on public lands in the Pacific Northwest would come to a screeching halt; or that farmers would give up water for endangered fish and birds; or that climate change would produce quantifiable changes in forest structure, species and water supplies.”

Those changes demanded a new assessment of current conditions, an understanding of rising tensions, and an evaluation of future needs, the researchers said.

About the OSU College of Science: As one of the largest academic units at OSU, the College of Science has 14 departments and programs,13 pre-professional programs, and provides the basic science courses essential to the education of every OSU student. Its faculty are international leaders in scientific research.

Media Contact

David Stauth,
541-737-0787

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Extinction Rate Across The Globe Reaches Historical Proportions

Battle Creek Alliance — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:02:00 GMT

Extinction Rate Across The Globe Reaches Historical Proportions
ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2002) — AUSTIN, Texas -- Half of all living bird and mammal species will be gone within 200 or 300 years, according to a botany professor at The University of Texas at Austin.

Although the extinction of various species is a natural phenomenon, the rate of extinction occurring in today's world is exceptional -- as many as 100 to1,000 times greater than normal, Dr. Donald A. Levin said in the January-February issue of American Scientist magazine. The co-author is Levin's son, Phillip S. Levin, a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist who is an expert on the demography of fish, especially salmon.
Levin's column noted that on average, a distinct species of plant or animal becomes extinct every 20 minutes. Donald Levin, who works in the section of integrative biology in the College of Natural Sciences, said research shows the rate of current loss is highly unusual -- clearly qualifying the present period as one of the six great periods of mass extinction in the history of Earth.
"The numbers are grim," he said. "Some 2,000 species of Pacific Island birds (about 15 percent of the world total) have gone extinct since human colonization. Roughly 20 of the 297 known mussel and clam species and 40 of about 950 fishes have perished in North America in the last century. The globe has experienced similar waves of destruction just five times in the past."
Biological diversity ultimately recovered after each of the five past mass extinctions, probably requiring several million years in each instance. As for today's mass extinction, Levin said some ecologists believe the low level of species diversity may become a permanent state, especially if vast tracts of wilderness area are destroyed.
Other experts, in contrast, say breaking up today's vast ranges into smaller habitats could promote the evolution of new species. That's because populations of the same type of organism that are separated from each other may diverge over time. As populations are reduced in size, genetic changes may accumulate more rapidly. Another reason diversity may rebound -- as it normally does after a major extinction episode -- is that disturbances caused by human beings do not eliminate habitats, but merely change them.

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Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'

Battle Creek Alliance — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:32:00 GMT

Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Barcelona
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm
The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.
It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.
The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.
The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.
It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World Conservation Congress.
Some conservationists see it as a new way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection rather than allowing the decline in ecosystems and species, highlighted in the release on Monday of the Red List of Threatened Species, to continue.
Capital losses
Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.
"It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year," he told BBC News.

"So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year."
The review that Mr Sukhdev leads, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), was initiated by Germany under its recent EU presidency, with the European Commission providing funding.
The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP. The second phase will expand the scope to other natural systems.
Stern message
Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.
So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.
Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.
The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.
The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.
Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting or not halting the slide in biodiversity.
"The numbers in the Stern Review enabled politicians to wake up to reality," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an organisation concerned with directing financial resources into forest preservation.
"Teeb will do the same for the value of nature, and show the risks we run by not valuing it adequately."
A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade, although it is clearly very early days.
Some have ethical concerns over the valuing of nature purely in terms of the services it provides humanity; but the counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the intrinsic worth of nature have not worked, so something different must be tried.
Whether Mr Sukhdev's arguments will find political traction in an era of financial constraint is an open question, even though many of the governments that would presumably be called on to fund forest protection are the ones directly or indirectly paying for the review.
But, he said, governments and businesses are getting the point.
"Times have changed. Almost three years ago, even two years ago, their eyes would glaze over.
"Today, when I say this, they listen. In fact I get questions asked - so how do you calculate this, how can we monetize it, what can we do about it, why don't you speak with so and so politician or such and such business."
The aim is to complete the Teeb review by the middle of 2010, the date by which governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm

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