NAU improves the

Ground-breaking research is being developed at NAU’s School of Forestry and Ecological Restoration Institute (ERI), with the intention to improve forest health and combat climate change.

The United Nations issued its latest climate change report on March, which warned the “climate time bomb is ticking.” It renewed the initative for many nations, including the United States, to take more aggressive actions to curb carbon emissions.

The report concluded that sustained global fossil fuel usage has caused the world to warm 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This is edging closer to the emergency temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius, pushing the world closer to a point of no return.

As climate change and droughts cause increasingly severe wildfires and degrade forest health throughout the Southwest, researchers at the ERI are working on sustainable solutions that support forest restoration and long-term economic health.

Han-Sup Han, the ERI director of forest operations and an NAU biomass utilization professor, said overcrowding of trees can create an unhealthy environment.

“Trees are fighting each other for nutrients, light and water,” Han said. “That then exposes [them] to become more vulnerable to insect attack and disease. When the trees are killed, they become dry fuel for big fires.”

One of the solutions to address this issue is the mechanical thinning out of forests through controlled burns. Han is heading a group to create the Forest Operations Training Center in Coconino County. This project aims to increase the workforce needed to operate machines that cut trees and use the material for purposes like lumber for construction or furniture making. Controlled burns help limit the amount of flammable material, such as pine needles and tree seedlings on the forest floor.

“I think it’s been shown that mechanical thinning treatments are very effective in reducing the risk of fire, but also, when the fires happen, you can easily suppress the fires because there’s [fewer] fuel to be burned,” Han said.

After thinning operations, biomass, — a by-product made up of small logs and forest residues — linger on the site. Due to a lack of businesses that can use the material and high hauling costs that inhibit transportation, biomass is often piled on site and left in the forest. It later can become fuel when a forest fire breaks out.

The ERI pilot program Chip-and-Ship evaluated the possibility of breaking down and shipping biomass remains by railway transportation and cargo shipments to overseas bioenergy markets in South Korea.

“It has shown a very strong promise, and there are a lot of people interested in getting involved,” Han said. “We tested a good concept, and there are a lot of people behind it. We just need to work toward all the requirements needed for the infrastructure.”

Diseases among white pines have been spreading for nearly 100 years. A fungal disease called white pine blister rust has steadily spread from Canada across U.S. western forests and along the Atlantic Coast.