YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest

Stanislaus National Forest signs the SERAL Project ROD-2

SONORA, CALIF. (June 29, 2022) – Over the past few decades, the lands we rely on for clean water, recreation opportunities, habitat, natural resources, clean air and much more have increasingly been impacted by insect, disease and drought mortality, wildland fire, exacerbated by climate change. These impacts have altered ecosystem function and resiliency. While the challenges to reduce these impacts are great, through our research partners and collaborative network, we have enhanced our shared understanding of the type and scale of treatments necessary to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildland fire, insect, disease and drought mortality.

As such, we are very pleased to announce the second Record of Decision (“ROD-2”) titled “A Significant Step Toward Resiliency” of the Social and Ecological Resilience Across the Landscape (SERAL) project on the Stanislaus National Forest was signed by Jason Kuiken this morning (June 29, 2022). This project, developed through wonderful collaboration with Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions (YSS), was designed to restore forest resilience and reduce the landscapes susceptibility to negative effects of natural disturbances.

“The SERAL project was developed through a collective, collaborative effort of numerous community members, collaborative partners, research experts, and Forest Service employees. SERAL came to fruition after many years of individual, smaller scale efforts. And through this collaborative effort we have been able to better understand and address a plethora of varied interests and concerns to leverage all of the knowledge, past experiences, new technologies, new planning tools, and new relationships into a project that is designed to affect real change on the landscape. The actions I am authorizing in this decision chart a new course to success. As is often said, the sum is worth more than the parts and this decision is proof of that philosophical standard,” said Jason Kuiken, Stanislaus National Forest – Forest Supervisor and SERAL’s Responsible Official.

“A healthy and resilient forest holds the key to wildlife conservation, providing world class recreation and attracting visitors to our shared public lands, which is critical to our local and regional economy. For our affected community, the work to achieve and maintain the project’s objectives will provide the raw material for local timber and biomass facilities for years to come. The actions implemented through this SERAL Decision will ensure that the places we work and play in are more able to withstand an uncertain future, and the project will be a model that forests across the western United States can adopt,” said Kuiken.

As part of the NEPA process, the FEIS and ROD were updated during the Administrative Review Process. The total, there is much to be proud of collectively for the thoughtful consideration, engagement, and attention that went into this effort.

To view the updated FEIS and the Decision signed today (“ROD-2”) visit the project website at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=56500

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Millions of State Dollars Coming for Local Forestry Projects

Sonora, CA — California’s Sierra Nevada Conservancy approved spending $21-million for various forest resilience projects, with a big chunk of it coming to the Mother Lode region.

$3.5-million was awarded for phase one of the Social and Ecological Resilience Across the Landscape (SERAL) project. It is taking place in eastern Tuolumne County near the communities of Mi-Wuk, Long Barn and Strawberry.  Read more at:  https://www.mymotherlode.com/news/local/2596991/millions-of-state-dollars-coming-for-local-forestry-projects.html?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)

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Coalition stares down megafires with ambitious plan

A potentially game-changing effort to prevent megafires is rolling out in the woods up past Sonora.

The federal government granted $55 million in April for prescribed burning, selective logging and other work in and near the Stanislaus National Forest.

It grew out of a consensus among local business and environmental groups that the trees and brush have become unnaturally dense.  Read more here:  https://eedition.modbee.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=6ccd3b70-71f9-4165-b28e-5d2893144482

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2022 NACo ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER Preventing Catastrophic Fire through a Master Stewardship Agreement TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CA

CATEGORY: County Resiliency
YEAR: 2022

Tuolumne County is using a Master Stewardship Agreement (MSA) to proactively increase the pace and scale of forest health projects, building local landscape resilience and protecting communities and critical resources from catastrophic wildfire. In partnership with the diverse forest collaborative, Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions (YSS), the Stanislaus National Forest and private industry, Tuolumne County has built a program of shared stewardship that aims to halt the pattern of destructive fire in our area and restore our forested landscape. Using the MSA signed in January 2018 and nearly $30 million received to date from a combination of state and federal grants, Tuolumne County has funding to restore or treat nearly 22,000 acres of the Stanislaus National Forest and is actively working together with our partners to expand our efforts even further in the coming years.

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Stanislaus National Forest Awarded $55M

Based on results of years of scientific research and planning, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service released “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis:  A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests” in January 2022. As outlined in the Implementation Plan, the goal of this process was to identify landscapes that (1)have projects that are at scale or can be built out to scale, (2) are outcome driven, (3) are collaboratively
developed with communities and ready for implementation, (4) allow for investment in underserved communities, (5) could leverage current partner investments, and (6) could maximize use of existing authorities. Read more here:  WCS-Initial-Landscape-Investments

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The Forest Service Has a Vision

YSS News

The USDA Forest Service recently announced a 10-year strategy to confront the wildfire crisis and improve forest resilience. The agency will work with partners over the next decade to treat up to an additional 20 million acres on National Forest System lands and up to an additional 30 million acres of other Federal, State, Tribal, and private lands. This article highlights how partners come together to reduce risk of extreme wildfire and benefit local communities. Read more at: The Forest Service has a vision

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Thinning is Needed by John Buckley

As an environmentalist, I am deeply frustrated by misinformation in the Feb. 15 Bee opinion piece by anti-logging activist Chad Hanson. The thrust of his claims was that a highly publicized new study by forest scientists intentionally omitted key information and that large Sierra Nevada wildfires supposedly kill few mature trees. He claimed the scientists who authored the study were funded by the U.S. Forest Service, and that the agency will benefit from the commercial logging promoted by the scientific study. Read more at: John Buckley Answers Chad Hanson 22-3

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Forest Service takes major step forward on historically massive Tuolumne County project

The big project is named Social and Ecological Resilience Across the Landscape, or SERAL, and it’s been born from an ongoing partnership between the federal Forest Service, the collaborative Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions group, and Tuolumne County. Other partners include Sierra Pacific Industries, the Tuolumne River Trust, and the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte. Read the full article at: Forest Service takes major step forward on historically massive Tuolumne County project 22-2

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Working Together

YSS News

Representatives of Tuolumne County’s government and Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions are touting collaborative fuels reduction projects intended to protect communities in and near the Stanislaus National Forest, including Cedar Ridge and Big Hill. Read more here:  Cedar Ridge Union Democrat 21-9

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Eight years after Rim Fire, partners remain united for reforestation

August 17th marks the 8th anniversary of the Rim Fire, which, at the time, was the third largest fire in the history of California. The fire started at the confluence of the Tuolumne and Clavey rivers and burning 257,314 acres in forest and shrublands including 154,530 acres on the Stanislaus National Forest. Read the full press release here:  Rim Fire 8th Anniversary (1)

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Partnership Brings Dollars to the Forest

Sonora, Calif.— August 13, 2021. Tuolumne County and Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions received
$5 million for a CAL FIRE Healthy Forest grant to begin implementation of the Social and Ecological
Resilience Across the Landscape (SERAL) project designed to make local communities and forests
resilient to largescale fire, insect, and drought disturbances.  Read more in this press release: YSS_TC_STF Partner NR_Final20210814

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CAL FIRE Grants $10 Million for Forest Resilience Projects

About $5 million was designated to Tuolumne County and Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions, a local collaborative work­ing group of industry and environmental interests, which Peterson said will involve the installation of fuel breaks within the Stanislaus National For­est to slow or contain po­tentials fires within that region. Read more here:  union democrat calfire grant 13aug21 (2)

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Conservation groups call for more thinning, biomass removal and prescribed burning in national forests

The Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte and 14 other conservation groups are urging Randy Moore, the former Pacific Southwest regional forester who is now chief of the U.S. Forest Service, to increase prescribed burning, thinning of surface and ladder fuels, and biomass removal in the face of unnaturally severe megablazes and climate change.

Moore’s promotion to Forest Service chief was announced June 28. He is the 20th person and first African American to serve as Forest Service chief.

Moore was sworn in on July 26.

“Dear Randy,” the Aug. 2 letter begins, “As many of us have already communicated to you on behalf of our conservation organizations, we applaud your selection as the new Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Over the 14 years that you served as Regional Forester in Region 5, our groups worked closely with you on a broad range of issues.

“With this letter, we urge you — as the new Chief — to apply your leadership so that the Forest Service ramps up the pace and scale of needed actions to effectively address the pressing challenges of high-severity wildfires, climate change, and loss of biodiversity.”

Moore’s start as Forest Service chief coincides with the possibility that Congress is about to provide the agency with significantly increased funding that could enable it to more effectively address many challenges facing national forests and communities that rely on them, the conservationists note in their letter.

“We look forward to working with the Forest Service, national and state policymakers, tribes, and diverse stakeholder interests to ensure that taxpayer-funded investments are applied so that agency actions are carefully prioritized and science-based and provide beneficial social and ecological outcomes,” the open letter states. “By focusing on ecological restoration and science-based actions, the Forest Service can continue building trust so that individual national forests can ramp up the scale of forest treatments while minimizing controversy.”

Asked Tuesday to quantify how much conservationists want to see prescribed burning to increase, Jamie Ervin with Sierra Forest Legacy said, “The Forest Service and the state have set a goal of ramping up pace and scale forest restoration including prescribed burning to a million acres a year. That would be a good start. The actual fire regime — calls for more than that.”

Fire regime refers to the kind of fire and how much fire a particular ecosystem experiences historically, before European settlers arrived, Ervin said.

“Our best estimate is California would have had about 4.5 million acres burning annually,” Ervin said. “From lightning strikes and indigenous people burning intentionally for forest clearing and hunting.”

Prescribed burning right now is about 100,000 acres a year statewide, Ervin said, speaking from Nevada City, about 125 miles north of Sonora. It varies every year. An estimate of prescribed-burn acreage statewide so far this year was not available. Eighteen months ago, the California Air Resources Board reported there were 125,000 acres of prescribed burns statewide in 2019.

Fire is natural in California, and we need fire in the forests, Ervin emphasized. The issue right now is we’re experiencing unnaturally severe fires due to the fact we have suppressed fires for over a hundred years. Conservationists want more forest management, especially significant investment in federal and state prescribed fire programs.

The gigantic, 645-square-mile Bootleg Fire in Oregon, the 395-square-mile Dixie Fire in northern California, and other fires burning statewide are proving again that exceptionally dry weather conditions and extremely rugged terrain are creating giant wildfires of unprecedented size and intensity, John Buckley, executive director of CSERC, said Tuesday.

With their letter to Moore, the conservation groups share their collective agreement that it’s essential to significantly ramp up all three kinds of forest treatments — science-based thinning logging in appropriate areas; carefully planned prescribed burning during mild weather times of year; and the removal where economically possible of excess biomass fuels, Buckley said.

“This letter is a relatively unique sharing by a variety of conservation groups,” he said. “While our local organizations have been broadly supportive of those treatments, this is a strong sharing of agreement by groups that normally don’t emphasize endorsement of logging or biomass removal.”

Other groups that signed the letter with CSERC and Sierra Forest Legacy were the California Wilderness Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife, the Foothill Conservancy, Friends of the Inyo, the Training and Watershed Center, California Native Plant Society, Sierra Nevada Alliance, the Nature Conservancy, South Yuba River Citizens League, Sierra Business Council, the Tuolumne River Trust, American Rivers, and the Fire Restoration Group.

Moore was Pacific Southwest regional forester from 2007 to 2021. Since his promotion, Jennifer Eberlien is the new regional forester for the Pacific Southwest, which includes the Stanislaus National Forest and 17 other national forests in California.

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