FOREST FLASH June 2022
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. Subscribe here.
Every five years, California revises its roadmap to reaching its climate goals through an update to the Air Resources Board Scoping Plan (SPU). Historically, the Scoping Plan has focused on measures to reduce fossil fuel emissions. This year’s SPU is unusual for its focus on forests and other natural climate solutions. It is also appropriate, given the significant attention focused on forest conservation and restoration at the Glasgow COP 26 meeting under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The draft SPU recommended goal for forests and other lands is appropriately ambitious, improving conditions and climate resilience on 2.3 million acres annually. However, it needs significant refinement to foundational modeling, lacks clarity for implementation, and does not integrate with the state’s 30×30 or water goals. The linkage of the climate crisis with the biodiversity crisis is clear and recognized globally. California’s water security is also linked directly to the health, function and persistence of its forested watersheds. As such, these omissions are significant.
PFT, as many stakeholders, is urging the ARB to address these shortfalls in an otherwise laudable draft Scoping Plan Update by three actions:
- Refine its statewide modeling to focus on specific case studies to better understand how management changes will impact forest carbon stocks as well as climate resilience.
- Include specific conservation goals to ensure the persistence of climate benefits and help fulfill the state’s biodiversity protection goals of “30×30” as well as enhance our water security.
- Clarify the implementation pathways for achieving the SPU goals beyond the generalities in the strategies outlined. The state is not meeting its current goals of treating 1M acres annually. As doubling this would require a tenfold increase over today’s actual actions—this SPU’s recommended pathways will remain a hope rather than a reality without specific funding and actions outlined.
Additional recommendations on forests for California’s climate goals are also highlighted in a recent radio interview with PFT President Laurie Wayburn on Environmental Directions Radio – “Preserving Forests to Solve Climate Change & Saving Private Forest Lands in California.”
Across the U.S., there are one to two million collisions between vehicles and large animals each year. Wildlife crossings are a critical, life-saving solution.
In this time of deep divisions across the country, it is remarkable to acknowledge that the love of land and wildlife can still bridge our divides. Oregonians, Californians, and others around the country have joined across political lines to pass major new investments to protect wildlife—especially through voluntary, private conservation action. With strong bipartisan support at both the national and state levels, advocates from across the political spectrum have come together to score important victories for wildlife. The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (HR2773) passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation would provide the largest investment in wildlife in a generation by funding proactive voluntary conservation efforts for at-risk wildlife and providing significant support for conservation on private lands to ensure critical habitat is protected. It now awaits passage in the Senate, and signals are that the President will sign if it does. We thank Senator Padilla, (D-Ca) for his co-sponsorship of the bill.
In California, the Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act (AB2344) would require the Department of Transportation to identify wildlife movement barriers and implement at least 10 projects per year to improve wildlife connectivity. Passed by the State Assembly with overwhelming support, it awaits action on the Senate floor. And in Oregon, which approved $7 million for improving wildlife crossings earlier this year, the Southern Oregon Wildlife Crossing Coalition (SOWCC), of which Pacific Forest Trust is a member, has taken several important steps towards implementing improved wildlife passage across the I-5 corridor near the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. The SOWCC has chosen to focus its initial project at Neil Creek, the headwaters protected by PFT on the slopes of Mt. Ashland. Our conservation projects in this area provide crucial safe passage for wildlife to surrounding protected public lands in this most biodiverse region of the country.
While the Trinity Headwaters provides home and refuge for charismatic fauna, from wolves to Spotted Owls to Cascade Frogs, it is also home to many rare plants, such as this Manzanita, Howellanthus, and Iris.
In 2020, Pacific Forest Trust embarked on a journey with the Watershed Research and Training Center of Trinity County, California to conserve and restore 11,000 acres in the upper Trinity River Headwaters. Encompassing almost 10% of this watershed, which provides critical supplies to the federal Central Valley Project, this project will also protect endangered wildlife and plants, some of which are found nowhere else in the world. We are thrilled to announce that Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA), who represents this region, included a request for support to the project that was selected by the House Appropriations Committee for inclusion in the Fiscal Year 2023 House Appropriations legislation. The Fiscal Year 2023 Appropriations request is now to be considered in the full House and, if successful, move on to the Senate. The Trinity Headwaters project represents a new model for the conservation and stewardship of our natural water sources, which is key to California’s, and the overall West’s, water security. The health and function of our watersheds is fundamental in delivering water to our reservoirs, and thus to our farms, spigots, and glasses. Please join us in thanking Congressman Huffman for his work on this important project and urge Senators Padilla and Feinstein to support it as well.
For more information, contact Angus McLean at amclean@pacificforest.org. To help support this extraordinary project and others like it, visit pacificforest.org/donate.
Give with confidence. Charity Navigator awarded Pacific Forest Trust a perfect score in finance and accountability.