Forest Flash: Fire-resilient Landscapes, Habitat for Salmon, UN Supports PFT Approach
In Pacific Forest Trust’s e-newsletter, Forest Flash, we send you the most recent PFT news and updates on forests, clean water, climate, and wildlife, no more than once or twice a month. Subscribe here.
Building Coalitions to Advance Fire-Resilient Landscapes
Fire season has begun across the West, and with it is a growing recognition that we must implement a new approach to building fire resilient landscapes and communities. Expanding and strengthening coalitions is essential to achieving this, and it is an integral part of how PFT works. Now, thanks to a generous grant from the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, and in partnership with the Resource Legacy Fund Foundation (RLFF), PFT is doing just that, expanding the engaged stakeholders advocating for this new approach and the increased investment needed to restore and maintain fire-resilient landscapes with safer, healthier communities.
Key groups involved in this effort include tribal representatives, county government organizations, and public health and environmental justice advocates — a significant broadening of the science and conservation-based groups historically more involved in such efforts. Our initial work in this arena resulted in massively increased early spending this year, enabling immediate action in 2021. Future investments will need to build on this scale and engage more voices reflecting the diversity of the stakeholder community. Learn more about our roadmap to fire resilient landscapes and consider supporting our future efforts.
Restoring Tidal Habitat for Salmon in an Era of Climate Change
The van Eck Oregon forests, conserved and managed by PFT since 2002, provide habitat for 7 species of salmon and sturgeon, and the tidal sloughs on the property are critical for these species’ survival. Over 95% of Oregon’s tidal sloughs have been lost, so restoration of sloughs like those on van Eck is critical. To do this, PFT has partnered with the Mid-Coast Watersheds Council and The Wetlands Conservancy to restore tidal marsh and swamp habitat. We are removing road barriers to reestablish tidal connectivity, placing large wood to act as nurse logs, seeding and planting native species, and removing invasive plants.
Chinook Salmon
With sea level expected to rise approximately 5 feet higher than it is today, this will restore critically important fish habitat and enhance the ability of juvenile salmon and other estuarine species to thrive now and in the future. This project will re-establish key ecological processes and accelerate the accumulation of sediment in the Landward Migration Zone, with native plants that can tolerate brackish salinity, such as Sitka spruce, Pacific crab apple, black twinberry, and Hooker’s willow. Because tidal swamps exist at higher elevations than tidal marshes, they will persist longer in the face of sea-level rise.
We invite you to explore more about our work in the Van Eck Forest.
New UN Report Supports PFT Approach to Climate Change and Biodiversity
Restoring and conserving forests is the single most immediate and large-scale natural climate solution, one which contributes immediately to biodiversity conservation. Pacific Forest Trust has long recognized that the climate benefits of forests are many, and our work integrally addresses biodiversity loss and contributes to healthy watershed function (read my recent CalMatters OpEd, and about Healthy Watersheds California). But the climate and biodiversity crises are tackled in isolation, bringing unintended consequences. A new report issued by the United Nations (UN) supports PFT’s approach, concluding that neither the biodiversity loss nor climate change crises will be solved unless they are tackled together.
Populations of the iconic Monarch Butterfly have plummeted in the last decade due to habitat loss.
The UN report conclusions are directly in line with PFT’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience project, which provides a basis for adaptation and resilience planning over 10 million acres in the Sacramento River Headwaters region — California’s primary headwaters, crucial for the state’s water supply. The UN report and recent federal and state Executive Orders to conserve 30% of our land by 2030 (30×30) are major acknowledgments of the need to swiftly scale up conservation to save the Earth’s stunning array of biodiversity. PFT is committed to this goal through conserving well-managed, working forests. Learn more about how PFT’s work helps heal the climate and saves biodiversity.