Restoring national forests to prepare them for climate change and to protect water resources will be the overarching goal of U.S. forest policy, Tom Vilsack, who heads the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), announced today. USDA includes the U.S. Forest Service, which manages 78 million hectares of forests and grasslands.
In a speech in Seattle, Washington, Vilsack emphasized that climate change is putting stress on forests through increased fires, disease, and outbreaks of destructive insects. Restoring forests, by removing excess wood for example, will help them better resist climate stress.
Water quality is also a top goal. Just over half the water supply in the United States comes from forests on public and private land. Some 66 million people in 33 states drink water that comes from land managed by the Forest Service. Trees help regulate the flow of streams and prevent soil erosion that reduces water quality.
"The message was a good one," says forest ecologist Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington, Seattle. "It is what the Forest Service needs to be doing now: restoring the functionality of these forests and preparing them for climate change." Franklin says the task will require restoring past cuts to the Forest Service's staff and budget.
Dominick Della Sala of the National Center for Conservation Science & Policy in Ashland, Oregon, also supports the new vision. "It's really encouraging to hear an emphasis on water," he says, especially as climate change impacts water supplies. "The conflict over timber will pale in comparison to the conflict we'll see over water."
But Della Sala hopes that Vilsack will emphasize the ability of old growth forests to store carbon from the atmosphere. "If Vilsack is serious about climate change, those forests should be managed for optimal carbon sequestration."
—Erik Stokstad
This is a 180 degree turn for the Forest Service, but it will take much more work to make any of this a reality on the ground. The Secretary's speech, with its reference to "new markets", also tees up one of the big unresolved issues in the Waxman-Markey climate bill -- whether EPA should play the compliance and enforcement role for all offsets, or whether USDA should play that role for domestic forest and agriculture offsets only. Let's hope we dont end up with the sme kind of split we have with the existing derivatives market.
David Moulton
Director, Climate Policy
The Wilderness Society
I know this is somewhat off-topic but I'd like an answer to this article admittedly involving Faux Noise and a conservative think tank but troubling none the less given the Obama Administration's penchant for bush-like behavior: "Suppressed EPA scientist breaks silence, speaks on Fox News"
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Suppressed-EPA-scientist-breaks-silence-speaks-on-Fox-News-49513762.html