Restoration of the Sierra Nevada

REPORT ON THE ECONOMICS OF FOREST RESTORATION IN THE SIERRA NEVADA December 1998 revised February 2002 by Dominic Roques and Tom Gaman
East-West Forestry Associates, Inc.
` tgaman@forestdata.com
www.forestdata.com

This report was prepared for and funded by a national non-profit organization. Recognizing the importance and timelinessof this information that organization, which wishes to remain anonymous,hasauthorized its release for consideration by the various groups whomay findit useful. The report consists of the enclosed report, attachedtables, anda number of watershed maps, showing land ownership, use, urbanization,fireprobability, and impacts of mapped roads on mapped riparian systemsin the26 major Sierra watershed. The information herein issolely theresponsibility and the work of its authors and does not reflectan agreementwith the opinion, policy, or position of anybody except theauthors.

Preparing the report lead us to identify several issues and to offer the
following recommendations:

The permanent conversion of the forest canopy resulting from residential
development is the greatest single threat to Sierra Nevada forest
environments.

Recommendation: Lobby county supervisors and local planning agencies to prepare planning guidelines that promote less destructive settlementpatterns.

The report offers ample evidence that, due to the magnitude of past and
anticipated settlement of the region, the greatest challenge inmanaging
fuels is in areas where people live.

Recommendation: educate landowners in how to minimize loss of forest habitat
while maintaining fire safety; lobby county supervisors and localplanning
agencies to prepare planning guidelines that promote more
biodiversity-sensitive settlement patterns.

Grazing is allowable over a far greater portion of the landscapethan is
reasonable given the sensitive nature of the Sierran landscape.Grazing
in many Wilderness Areas on national forests occurs at an intensitywhich
conflicts with other uses of these areas.

Recommendation: intensify efforts to restrict grazing in Wilderness Areas
and in other sensitive localities.

The loss of big, old stands of oaks is occurring on private landsthroughout
the Sierra Nevada foothills, and with greatest intensity in thesouthern
and central portions of the range.

Recommendation: integrate the protection of oak woodlands with theCampaign
to Protect Ancient Forests. Consider the use of state regulation as a tool to help protect and regenerate California's oak woodlands. Educate county planning agencies of the need to protect oaks when considering development proposals.

Issue: Fuel Management and Ancient Forest Protection.

These two conservation goals are not closely linked and continuingto address
them together creates ambiguity and will not lead to clear policydirection.
Among many differences between these two goals, ancient forest protection
requires strategies focused almost entirely on federal lands wherethevast
majority of such forests occur. Fuel management is required extensively
on both federal and private land and is rarely a problem in theancient forests.

Recommendation: attempt to isolate these issues in developing conservation
strategies for the Sierra Nevada.

Conservation planning at the regional scale in the Sierra Nevadawill
increasingly rely on optimization models like that used by FrankDavis
in the BMA strategy for SNEP. Our report focused on a separate issue--forest
restoration, as opposed to forest preservation--but, we considerthe BMA
approach to be the best available option for implementation of practical and politically feasible comprehensive conservation planning.

Recommendation: integrate the findings of such analyses, or, develop the
capacity to perform them internally, as the foundation of a strategyfor biodiversity protection in the Sierra Nevada.

The analysis of forest restoration was structured around a watershed
approach in hopes that subsequent analyses and environmental action
would use this logical analytical unit. The watershed approach
leverages the powerful linkage of water resources planning, aquatichabitat
protection, and terrestrial ecosystem management, toward protectingthe
Sierra Nevada.

Recommendation: continue to pursue forest restoration and protection goals
on a watershed basis and insist that land management agencies dothe same.

Given the current structure of the resource economy of the SierraNevada,
funding for restoration cannot be self-generating. Additionally,the federal
and state governments cannot be expected to provide funding foranything but
the most localized efforts. With few exceptions, we expect fundraising for
restoration to be pursued on a case by case basis, by local groupsoperating
at the watershed level. Additionally, forest restoration will beintegrated
with broader watershed restoration goals raising overall costs substantially. The cost estimates generated in the report broadly characterize the costof the forest restoration portion of protecting the Sierra Nevada environment. While not comprehensive they give a good sense of the scale of investment which will be required and point to the need to diversify funding sources.

Recommendation: recognize the dispersed manner in which restoration proceeds
in the region and devise a fundraising strategy that offers themaximum
degree of flexibility and diversity, including the recognition that
water is the only natural resource product that can be expectedto payfor a
significant portion of the costs.