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In an Era of Change, Collaboration Helps Idaho’s Forests
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE IDAHO FOREST PRODUCTS COMMISSION
In Idaho, working forests are managed for sustainability—a forest management philosophy based on treating all resources in the forest in a way that doesn’t compromise their present and future social, economic, and environmental values. Idaho depends on its forests in so many ways.
BY JODIE NICOTRA
Drought. Insect infestations. Disease. And, of course, fire. Idaho forests face a host of challenges in the age of climate change. But forest managers in the state are working together to ensure that while forests in the future may look different, they’ll still be here and thriving.
Forest Changes
To say that Idaho’s forests, which cover 40% of the state, are important would be an understatement. The forests provide clean water and wildlife habitats. They sequester carbon and offer both recreational and economic opportunities.
Climate change affects forests directly by creating hotter, drier conditions.
These conditions stress mature trees, slow seedling establishment, and allow populations of insects like bark beetles, which attack trees, to flourish.
Stress on trees means likely changes to the composition of forests themselves.
Jeff Hicke, a professor in the Department of Earth and Spatial Sciences at the University of Idaho, recently co-authored a report on the effect of climate change on Idaho forests.
The report found that the range of some tree species may constrict as conditions grow hotter and drier, while others may thrive. For instance, species like the Gambel oak that traditionally thrive in hotter conditions may become more established in Idaho, while the range of Douglas r trees may shrink.
“Everything’s moving upslope in response to climate change,” Hicke said. “It’s kind of a complicated situation, and you can’t unfortunately just think about the effects of one tree species. Longer, hotter growing seasons will stress out ponderosa pines at the lowest elevation but it will benefit whitebark pines at 6,000 feet.”
The report suggests that strategic forest management might respond to these likely changes by planting tree species that thrive at lower elevations further up the slope.
Landowners are required to reforest after harvest and to comply with Best Management Practices to assure sustainability of water quality, soils and wildlife habitat.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE IDAHO FOREST PRODUCTS COMMISSION
FIRE AND THE WILDLAND-URBAN INTERFACE
While it has some direct effects on forests, climate change also exacerbates underlying issues. In the case of Western forests, more than a century of re suppression has led to a buildup of fuel. When res can start more easily, the potential grows for catastrophic wild res like those in California and other states.
But it’s not just the changes to forests themselves that heighten re-related risks. Another contributing factor is the increasing number of people and homes in the wildland-urban interface, or WUI.
Jo Ellen Force, an emerita professor of forest policy at the University of Idaho, points to the change in the types of people who live in rural areas as one issue with the WUI.
“In the past, people who lived in rural areas, forested areas were loggers, miners, ranchers,” Force said. “ They knew what to do about re if they lived with the natural environment. They didn’t expect everybody else to come in and help them if something caught on fire.”
Now, Force said, the most typical example of people living in the WUI are those who work in town, not on their land. at presents a problem when it comes to fire.
“Most don’t have a concept of creating defensible space around the house, or building a house with the most advanced re-resistant materials,” Force said. “That’s not related to climate change. But that’s what the problem is when it comes to fire.” The increase in the number of second homes in Idaho and the number of people who moved during the pandemic to telecommute intensifies the issue.
“People who come for a few weeks or months in the summer or winter don’t want to spend that time creating defensible space,” Force said. “It’s hard work, labor, climbing up on roofs and clearing out gutters and cutting back all kinds of vegetation. I wouldn’t want to do that for the two weeks I spend on vacation either.”
Seedlings are grown and replanted in harvested forests every year. The Idaho’s Forest Practices Act makes renewability a legal responsibility on private and state lands.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE IDAHO FOREST PRODUCTS COMMISSION
Collaborating For Forests
Even before climate change, the state and federal entities responsible for managing Idaho forests recognized the importance of working together to help forests thrive. Federally owned forests have good neighbor authority and shared stewardship agreements with state land.
Jennifer Okerlund, director of the Idaho Forest Products Commission, believes that this spirit of collaboration has made Idaho’s forest management a model for other Western states.
“It’s allowed us to do a lot of things other states haven’t,” she said. “Other states hear about our state and federal agencies working together, and they say ‘oh, that’s preposterous, it’s impossible.’ I think it worked in Idaho because in their heart, all these entities shared the same value systems and the same intentions.”
A landowner’s choice of harvest and regeneration method is based on landowner objectives, regulations, economics, site characteristics, effects on nature, and more.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE IDAHO FOREST PRODUCTS COMMISSION
And it’s not just the government. Industries like logging and wood products have operated in Idaho forests for over 150 years, and share best management practices with the government agencies. Okerlund thinks this economic relationship is one of the reasons Idaho forests are in such good shape.
“You have entities that are actively managing forests for a purpose,” she said. “It’s a cycle. In Idaho it’s always ‘manage, harvest, plant, repeat.’ For every tree that’s taken, there’s seven growing for the future.”
And the future, Okerlund said, is what everyone has their eye on.
“The ideal is that our forests in Idaho will last forever, and we’re all sharing that value,” she said.
