Our Forests and Climate Change

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Robert Bonnie, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment and Anne Castle, Assistant Secretary for Water & Science at the Department of the Interior, on September 12, 2013 at 10:45 AM

Cross posted from the White House Council on Environmental Quality blog:

Americans know the importance of forests to our communities and our economy.  They provide jobs and recreational opportunities, filter our air and water, and make up essential habitat for wildlife and natural resources.  But increasingly, we’re also recognizing that forests play an important role in mitigating climate change.

Recently, President Obama announced a Climate Action Plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare for the impacts of climate change on our communities and economy, and lead international efforts to combat global climate change. This plan recognizes that America’s forests play a critical role in addressing carbon pollution, absorbing as much as 14 percent of our country’s greenhouse gas emissions each year.  Over the last several decades, forest regrowth on former farm lands, reforestation, and maturing forests have kept our forest growth rates high, helping us absorb even more carbon.

At the same time, development of forest lands is reducing the amount of carbon we can absorb now and in the future.  Carbon pollution is also taking a toll on our forests – heat waves, wildfires, pests and drought are all worsened by climate change, reducing our forests’ ability to sequester carbon.

It is difficult to predict precisely how much these impacts will reduce the potential of our forests to combat climate change – but we do know that we must start now to find new ways to enhance forests’ ability to absorb carbon and become more resilient. As part of the President’s Climate Action Plan, the Administration is bringing Federal agencies together to tackle this challenge.  An interagency Task Force is working to provide more accurate and consistent annual updates of carbon fluxes from forests and other lands.  This will help us ensure that we have up-to-date information on how major disturbances like wildfires, as well as land development trends, impact the capacity of the nation’s forests to absorb carbon. It will also provide the tools we need to make more effective policy decisions, ensuring land managers are able to take into account the carbon sequestration value of our forests.   The Task Force is also developing new approaches to retain and restore our forests and other important landscapes like grasslands and wetlands.

This initiative will build on the significant work the Administration already has underway to ensure healthy, thriving forests. For example, the Department of Agriculture announced this year the creation of seven new regional hubs to provide research and timely information to farmers and forest landowners as we work together to combat climate change. This work will complement research by DOI Climate Science Centers, in areas such as evaluating management options, projecting forest conditions and carbon storage under climate change, evaluating the effects of changing rainfall and snow conditions, and studying the effects of changing forests on particular species and ecosystem services. This information is helping to inform restoration efforts undertaken by the Forest Service and its partners to make our forests more resilient. And DOI and USDA are working together with other Federal agencies, states, tribes, and private landowners to engage in historic, landscape scale conservation projects that will put critical ecosystems on a stronger footing for the future.

Climate change poses a tough new challenge for the forest ecosystems that provide so much for all Americans. Following President Obama’s lead, we’re getting ahead of the game – focusing on new partnerships, strengthening interagency collaboration, and ensuring that the best science is available as we take on climate change in the years to come.

Robert Bonnie is Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment

Anne Castle is Assistant Secretary for Water & Science at the Department of the Interior

Reducing Wildfire Risk and Protecting Our Drinking Water in a Changing Climate

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Tom Tidwell, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service and Mike Connor, Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, on July 19, 2013 at 12:00 PM

Cross-posted from the White House Council of Environmental Quality blog:

Americans are all too familiar with the devastation catastrophic wildland fires can wreak on the landscape. Fire takes lives, destroys homes, impacts wildlife, and devastates millions of acres of valuable forests and grasslands every year. But what is lesser known is that these fires also severely damage watersheds—the very lands that provide clean and abundant drinking water for millions of Americans every day.

To address this problem, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell this week announced an historic agreement between the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service and the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation to focus on proactively restoring forest lands around important watersheds and preventing costly, destructive wildfires in these areas.

The partnership is included in President Obama’s Climate Action Plan as a means to reduce wildfire risk, protect critical infrastructure, and lessen the impacts of climate change, which include higher risks of large and destructive wildfires. The damage caused to rivers, dams, and irrigation systems after a wildfire can be tremendous. Clearing out the sediment and ash left behind is costing the nation millions of dollars every year, and the impacts of climate change are expected to continue to intensify.  Climate change also exacerbates dry conditions, which can slow the natural recovery time after a wildfire.

Through this Western Watershed Enhancement Partnership, our two federal agencies will begin working with water users on both the local government and private sector level to restore healthy forested watersheds across the West. In cooperation with regional Colorado government agencies, our first effort in this partnership will start in the Upper Colorado Headwaters and Big Thompson watersheds. Our goal is to ensure these important watersheds are kept reliable and clean for the hundreds of thousands of people who depend on them for drinking water, farming and electricity.

Heavy rains after a wildfire caused this heavy sediment deposit (Photo Credit: R. H. Meade, U.S. Geological Survey)

On a national level, our partnership will work to restore forest and watershed health and conduct planning for post-wildfire actions and responses. We will strive to protect municipal and agricultural water supplies and water delivery systems from future threats and we invite cities, towns, and rural communities to partner with us.

As land managing agencies, we share an interest in the long-term sustainability of our Nation’s water supplies. These waters are the life blood for American agriculture, the source of drinking water for millions of Americans, and a key component of healthy local economies. By working cooperatively across agency lines, we can keep our forested and grassland watersheds safe for the millions of Americans and wildlife that depend on these clean and abundant water sources.

Tom Tidwell is the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

Mike Connor is the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation.

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