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In era of climate change, agency faces new challenges |
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History will judge today's leaders by how well they respond to the
challenge of climate change, Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell told
journalists at a conference last week. That judgment will include an
assessment of the Forest Service's efforts to combat global warming,
she added.
Kimbell, who was named chief in January, has set several ambitious
goals for the agency. First, she wants to double U.S. forests' capacity
to soak up carbon emissions by 2020. Federal, state and private
forested lands currently sequester about 10 percent of the nation's
carbon emissions per year, about 700 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Additionally, Kimbell said Forest Service scientists have
determined that as much as 15 percent of the United States' current
gasoline consumption could be replaced with ethanol produced from wood,
creating a use for brush that must be cleared to prevent forest fires.
She acknowledged that the agency's task will not be easy.
As global warming increases, the Forest Service must contend
with longer fire seasons and hotter fires, prolonged insect outbreaks
and reduced water supplies. Because these phenomena not only result
from but also contribute to climate change, the Forest Service faces an
uphill battle. "If current trends continue, forested landscapes will be
absolutely changed for future generations," Kimbell warned.
According to a Government Accountability Office report
released last week, the Interior Department has "not made climate
change a high priority." The report also said the Bush administration
has not provided managers of national forests with effective guidance
on how to manage the effects of climate change on public lands.
Some of those landscapes have already seen indelible changes,
GAO said. For example, since 1850 the number of glaciers in Alaska's
Glacier National Park fell from 150 to 26, and temperatures in the park
are continuing to increase.
Alaska is also experiencing the effects of climate change in
the Chugach National Forest and on the Kenai Peninsula where as many as
1.4 million acres are dying off at higher rates than usual due to an
epidemic of spruce bark beetles.
And, in the Florida Keys, rising sea levels have contributed
to saltwater washing onto land, threatening fresh water areas and the
species that live there.
Other drastic changes may be on the way. Sean Cosgrove, a
national forest policy specialist for the Sierra Club, cautioned that
even a slight increase in temperature at high altitudes in the
Appalachians could threaten species with very localized habitats, like
salamanders and other amphibians. They would simply have nowhere else
to go, he said.
In the face of these challenges, Kimbell emphasized that the
Forest Service must focus on protecting existing carbon sinks through
forest conservation and increasing carbon sequestration through
reforesting carbon degraded land, improving forest health and
supporting sustainable forest management.
She identified three specific ways the Forest Service must
respond to climate change: by attempting to mitigate its effects and
forecast its effect on ecosystems; by reducing the agency's own carbon
footprint; and by using forests to reduce the buildup of greenhouse
gases.
To help realize that last objective, Kimbell said the Forest
Service is participating in the Carbon Capitol Fund plan, a
collaboration with the nonprofit National Forest Foundation through
which donors can contribute to reforestation projects (see story
below).
Reforestation and preservation efforts could positively affect
the nation's dwindling water supply, Kimbell said. Although national
forests cover 8 percent of U.S. land, 18 percent of the nation's water
supply originates from those acres. The Forest Service is currently
attempting to manage vegetation that protects watersheds and is heading
restoration efforts at high mountain meadows in the Rockies and the
Sierra Nevada.
Money doesn't grow on trees
The Carbon Capitol Fund donations would help the Forest Service
with reforestation projects it does not have the resources to complete.
The White House's overall fiscal 2008 budget request for the agency is
$4.13 billion, a $64.25 million decrease from fiscal 2007.
Additionally, in recent years the agency's budget for climate
change has dropped. In 1991, the agency was allotted $21.1 million to
mitigate and research climate change, but the fiscal 2006 budget only
earmarked $19 million to combat global warming.
Increased fires across the nation also take up the agency's
resources, both in funding and in personnel, which is particularly
troubling as those resources do not appear to be set for an increase.
Cosgrove said the administration has done "an awful job" with
funding national forests. He also believes some of its initiatives are
undermining forest preservation.
"Everywhere they have had the opportunity to do fairly simple
and positive things and have turned around and tried to reject
[improvements] at every turn," Cosgrove said. "The national forest
system and other federal public lands have had some of the
best-functioning carbon sinks in the country. All we need to do is
allow ecological processes to continue and ... there are other places
in the country where the Forest Service can focus on ... restoring
previously logged areas."
But Cosgrove said those concepts were lacking in the Bush administration's climate change agenda.
"What is their agenda to address climate change?" he asked. "I
don't see that they have one except for the same proposals to log and
sand and build more roads." Cosgrove also criticized what he described
as a public relations campaign to convince the public that more logging
was necessary to prevent forest fires and curb global warming, noting
that it is smaller trees and brush that usually spark fires.
Along with suggestions noted by Kimbell, Cosgrove highlighted
the importance of preserving old-growth forests, calling attempts to
log the Tongass National Forest "ludicrous."
Protecting roadless areas and preventing unnecessary logging
are the key to maintaining the nation's "amazing" carbon sinks, he said.
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