Forest Service Offers Planning Tools for Fall Colors Viewing

The U.S. Forest Service is urging people to get outdoors, spend time in rural communities and urban forests, and enjoy one of nature's most spectacular seasons with its Fall Colors 2013 campaign.

"America's public lands, particularly our national forests, are among the most spectacular venues to view the changes in fall colors," said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. "The Forest Service offers numerous resources to help you plan your experience. Nature is closer than you may think."

The Forest Service has launched an online map to help visitors see if trees are peaking in their state. The map will be shaded in green (not peaking) to bright red (peaking) to brown (past peak). Another map will help visitors find a national forest nearest them to enjoy the colors of fall.

For a more analogue approach to trip planning, the Forest Service is once again offering its Fall Colors Hotline – 1-800-354-4595. The hotline provides audio updates on the best places, dates and routes to take for peak viewing of fall colors on national forests.

Fall colors provide an economic boost to communities across the United States. The New England area alone receives an estimated $8 billion annually in local revenues from fall visitors. In the Midwest, millions of visitors hit the road to enjoy the sights, and in the West, the mountains offer destinations filled with tourists seeking views of shimmering gold aspens.

To visit the new USFS fall color map page, please click here.


Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com

GAO Report Identifies Maintenance Gaps on National Forest Trails

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) was recently asked by members of Congress to review the U.S. Forest Service's trail maintenance activities. The study, published in late June, concluded that while the Forest Service does a good job overall of offering trail-users recreational opportunities and maintaining the most popular trails, there remains a significant maintenance backlog, the result of a growing gap between trail maintenance needs and available resources.

The study points out that the Forest Service has more miles of trail than it has been able to maintain, resulting in a persistent maintenance backlog with a range of negative effects. In fiscal year 2012, the agency reported that it accomplished at least some maintenance on about 37% of its 158,000 trail miles, and that about one-quarter of its trail miles met the agency's standards. The Forest Service estimated the value of its trail maintenance backlog to be $314 million in fiscal year 2012, with an additional $210 million for annual maintenance, capital improvement, and operations. Trails not maintained to quality standards have a range of negative effects, such as inhibiting trail use and harming natural resources, and deferring maintenance can add to maintenance costs.

The Forest Service relies on a combination of internal and external resources to help maintain its trail system. Internal resources include about $80 million allocated annually for trail maintenance activities, plus funding for other agency programs that involve trails. External resources include volunteer labor, which the Forest Service valued at $26 million in fiscal year 2012, and funding from federal programs, states, and other sources.

Collectively, agency officials and stakeholders GAO spoke with identified a number of factors complicating the Forest Service's trail maintenance efforts, including:

1) Factors associated with the origin and location of trails

2) Some agency policies and procedures

3) Factors associated with the management of volunteers and other external resources

For example, many trails were created for purposes other than recreation, such as access for timber harvesting or firefighting, and some were built on steep slopes, leaving unsustainable, erosion-prone trails that require continual maintenance. In addition, certain agency policies and procedures complicate trail maintenance efforts, such as the agency's lack of standardized training in trails field skills, which limits agency expertise. Further, while volunteers are important to the agency's trail maintenance efforts, managing volunteers can decrease the time officials can spend performing on-the-ground maintenance.

Agency officials and stakeholders GAO interviewed collectively identified numerous options to improve Forest Service trail maintenance, including:

1) Assessing the sustainability of the trail system

2) Improving agency policies and procedures

3) Improving management of volunteers and other external resources.

In a 2010 document titled A Framework for Sustainable Recreation, the Forest Service noted the importance of analyzing recreation program needs and available resources and assessing potential ways to narrow the gap between them, which the agency has not yet done for its trails. Many officials and stakeholders suggested that the agency systematically assess its trail system to identify ways to reduce the gap and improve trail system sustainability. They also identified other options for improving management of volunteers. For example, while the agency's goal in the Forest Service Manual is to use volunteers, the agency has not established collaboration with and management of volunteers who help maintain trails as clear expectations for trails staff responsible for working with volunteers, and training in this area is limited. Some agency officials and stakeholders stated that training on how to collaborate with and manage volunteers would enhance the agency's ability to capitalize on this resource.

In commenting on a draft of the report, the U.S. Forest Service generally agreed with GAO's findings and recommendations. You can read the full report by clicking here.


Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com

Forest Service grants $52.2M to protect working forests, rural economies

Earlier in the week the U.S. Forest Service announced that it is granting $52.2 million for 17 conservation and working lands projects across the U.S. in 2012.

The Forest Legacy Program has protected 2.2 million acres through public-private partnership using federal and leveraged funds of more than $562 million. The program works with private landowners, states and conservation groups to promote sustainable, working forests. Forest Legacy is an important component of the President’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative’s goal of conserving rural working farms, ranches, and forests by accelerating locally-driven landscape conservation priorities.

Intact forest lands supply timber products, wildlife habitat, soil and watershed protection, aesthetics, and recreational opportunities. However, as these areas are fragmented and disappear, so do the benefits they provide. Roughly 57 percent of the nation's forests are privately owned yet the country has lost 15 million acres of private working forests in the last 10 years with an additional 22 million acres projected to be at risk from development, wildfire and other threats in the next decade.

The Forest Legacy Program uses a competitive process to strategically select ecologically and socially important projects facing the greatest threat of conversion to other land uses. Projects that protect clean air and water, provide recreation, protect wildlife habitat, supports large-scale land conservation partnerships, and provide forest-related rural jobs receive strong consideration.

The state of Montana is the recipient of one the 13 major projects announced:

The Stimson Forestland project ($6.5 million) will permanently protect, through a conservation easement, 28,000 acres of highly productive timberland near Troy, Montana. The project area contains some of the best wildlife habitat in Montana, supporting eight federally listed or candidate threatened or endangered species and numerous other rare, sensitive and game species and is an America’s Great Outdoors priority landscape-scale conservation partnership. The proposed conservation easement would preclude development, ensure continued timber management, sustain local wood-product jobs, protect incredible wildlife habitat and key landscape connectivity and provide permanent public access to extraordinary recreation lands.

To view information on the other projects receiving grants, please click here.


Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com

Forest Service Chief signs record of decision for aerial fire retardant application

Earlier in the month U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell signed a record of decision establishing new direction for the use of fire retardant applied from aircraft to manage wildfires.

The new direction, initiated as a result of litigation in Montana, will help the Forest Service better protect water resources and certain plant and wildlife species on National Forest System lands when fighting wildfires. It will allow the Forest service to aggressively fight fire with the use of airtankers while protecting aquatic ecosystems.

Working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries), the Forest Service identified and mapped waterways and habitat for certain threatened, endangered, and sensitive species in order to avoid applying retardant in those areas.

To decide when or where to drop fire retardant, fire managers now have roughly 12,000 maps identifying avoidance areas on 98 National Forest System units that identify locations of waterways and areas for hundreds of plant and animal species.

When fire managers determine retardant is the right tool to use on a wildfire, they will direct pilots to avoid applying fire retardant in the newly-mapped areas. All other firefighting tactics will be available in the avoidance areas.

The Forest Service has avoided the use of fire retardant in waterways since 2000. Guidelines used since 2000 provided three exceptions that allowed fire managers to drop retardant within 300 feet of waterways. The new direction allows one exception: when human life or public safety is threatened. However, this represents little change with how the agency fights wildfires.

“These new guidelines strike a balance between the need to supplement our boots-on-the-ground approach to fighting wildfires while protecting our waterways and important plant and animal species at the same time,” Tidwell said. “Our new approach will benefit communities, ecosystems and our fire crews.”

Forest Service research has demonstrated that fire retardant, used since the 1950s, is twice as effective as water at reducing fire intensity. The agency continues to work with industry to develop more environmentally friendly fire retardants.

In July 2010, in response to a lawsuit, the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana ordered the Forest Service to fully comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and to re-consult with USFWS and NOAA Fisheries to comply with the Endangered Species Act.

The Forest Service involved the public in the development of the new direction, including hosting five community listening sessions, several stakeholder webinars, three technical listening sessions, a science panel discussion, and several Tribal engagement events.

The new direction includes procedures for monitoring and reinitiating consultation with USFWS and NOAA Fisheries if aerially-applied fire retardant impacts certain species or habitat. The direction also provides greater protection for cultural resources including historic properties, traditional cultural resources, and sacred sites through closer coordination with states and Tribes.

Tidwell issued the decision after reviewing the analysis of three alternatives in the October 2011 Final Environmental Impact Statement and the results of the consultation with USFWS and NOAA Fisheries.


Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com