Lincoln County Commissioners
Misrepresent Black Ram Logging Project
Misrepresent Black Ram Logging Project
Note: The following letter is in direct response to an Opinion piece titled “Support For the Black Ram Project” written by Lincoln County commissioners Jerry Bennett, Josh Letcher, and Brent Teske. Their article was published across multiple Montana newspapers on Monday, July 24th, 2022. An abridged version of the following response-letter circulated online and in-print across the same Montana newspapers under the title "Lincoln County Commissioners misrepresent Black Ram Logging Project" on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2022. The issue is ongoing.
An opinion piece written by Lincoln County commissioners and published across Montana’s news outlets on Monday, July 25th sought to garner support for the U.S. Forest Service and Department of Agriculture’s Black Ram logging project in the northern Yaak. While the contents of the piece did address the public’s major concerns about the project—including climate change, grizzly habitat, and fire mitigation—it is important for citizens to know that it did not represent these issues in a complete or responsible manner.
Beginning in the first paragraph, the commissioners stated that 12,000 acres in the lower Yaak burned in 2021. They used this solitary statistic to claim that it underscored, “the need for active forest management to reduce future wildfire risks.” This claim was not further substantiated, nor is it supported by a scientific understanding of basic fire ecology. Healthy forest ecosystems burn regularly and cyclically. While the wetter temperate rainforest regions of the far-northern Yaak are ecologically dependent on a cycle of rot, the dryer southern regions are ecologically dependent on a natural fire cycle.[1] The commissioners’ statement also failed to address how the extractive and degenerative practices of industry have imbalanced our natural forest ecosystems, leaving them less fire hardy while subjecting them to increasingly more intense burns.
The commissioners went on to recognize the dangers of wildfire to human safety. They did not, however, mention that the Black Ram project encompasses an area fifty road miles or further from the nearest incorporated town. They also failed to represent recent and pressing research led by Oregon State University and published in Nature’s scientific reports showing that, “ignitions on Forest Service lands accounted for fewer than 25% of the most destructive wildfires,” and that—contrary to popular agency narrative—it is not fires that start in national forests that are the predominant threat to populated areas, but rather that it is fires originating in privatized and populated areas that are a threat to our national forests. “Of all ignitions that crossed jurisdictional boundaries, a little more than 60% originated on private property, and 28% ignited on national forests. Most of the fires started due to human activity.”[2]
The Lincoln County politicians then stated that the “treatments” proposed by the Black Ram forest project would, “protect and maintain old growth, improve big game winter range, promote huckleberry growth for grizzlies, and improve aquatic habitat.” These claims were also left unsubstantiated. Old growth forest networks—essentially by definition—are self-managing. These forests do not require government or timber industry “treatments.” Secondly, winter range for elk and berry forage for bears are natural by-products of the forest’s fire ecology. When the understory burns, grasses and berry-producing shrubs are amongst the first plants in the forest’s regenerative cycle to remerge and thrive. Again, this does not require government or timber industry “treatment.” Stating that their thinning and harvesting project will “improve aquatic habitat” also goes wholly unsupported and seems to directly contradict their statement that this project will improve public access and recreational activities. Logging, public access, and recreation all mean road building. Road and trail building are amongst the most detrimental practices to wild watersheds. The abundance of sedimentary runoff from Forest Service roads clouds watersheds and has devastated native fish populations for decades.[3] Furthermore, road boundaries have long been known to have a direct and adverse effect on grizzly populations by confining their natural movements and isolating them within island ecosystems defined by road boundaries.
Near the article’s conclusion, Lincoln County commissioners stated that, “Black Ram’s ecologically based treatments will help the Yaak’s forests adapt to conditions of climate change.” They failed, however, to mention that Black Ram calls for the harvest of nearly 60 million board feet without first obtaining an Environmental Impact Statement.[4] In the wake of massive Oregon wildfires, the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University found that wildfire emissions were not the leading source carbon emissions, but that the logging and wood product industries were. The study concluded that, “Forests are carbon-ready and do not require new technologies or infrastructure for immediate mitigation of climate change.”[5]
While Lincoln County commissioners did a thorough job of covering the issues, they did so in name only. If it’s fire mitigation they want, they should not be promoting an increase of human and recreational access into this remote forest ecosystem. If it’s human safety they care for, proponents of Black Ram would redirect this project’s resources to making private land fire safe, concentrating their efforts in areas where towns and neighborhoods border forest lands. If it’s grizzlies they care about, they should not allow crews, equipment, or road building in the Yaak’s interior. If climate change is their primary concern, they should be leaving the forest to do its own work sequestering carbon, retaining water, generating oxygen, and building soil.
Alliance For The Wild Rockies, the Yaak Valley Forest Council, WildEarth Guardians, and the Center for Biological Diversity are all actively working to hold the U.S. Forest Service and Department of Agriculture accountable for their actions while fighting to protect the last of Montana’s old growth forests. I encourage you to contact these organizations, follow up with your own independent research, and help us all to make responsible and informed decisions for our public lands.
1. Rick Bass. Yaak Valley Black Ram Project. https://www.rickbass.net/yaak-valley-black-ram-project
2. Downing, W.M., Dunn, C.J., Thompson, M.P. et al. Human ignitions on private lands drive USFS cross-boundary wildfire transmission and community impacts in the western US. Sci Rep 12, 2624 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06002-3
3. Christopher Ketcham. This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption and Ruining the American West. Penguin Random House. 2019. (Chapter 18)
4. Yaak Valley Forest Council. Stop The Black Ram Project. http://yaakvalley.org/stop-blackram/
5. Beverly E., Tara W. Hudiburg, Logan T. Berner, Jeffrey J. Kent, Polly C. Buotte, Mark E. Harmon. et al.Land use strategies to mitigate climate change in carbon dense temperate forests. March 19, 2018. 115 (14) 3663-3668. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720064115
2. Downing, W.M., Dunn, C.J., Thompson, M.P. et al. Human ignitions on private lands drive USFS cross-boundary wildfire transmission and community impacts in the western US. Sci Rep 12, 2624 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06002-3
3. Christopher Ketcham. This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption and Ruining the American West. Penguin Random House. 2019. (Chapter 18)
4. Yaak Valley Forest Council. Stop The Black Ram Project. http://yaakvalley.org/stop-blackram/
5. Beverly E., Tara W. Hudiburg, Logan T. Berner, Jeffrey J. Kent, Polly C. Buotte, Mark E. Harmon. et al.Land use strategies to mitigate climate change in carbon dense temperate forests. March 19, 2018. 115 (14) 3663-3668. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720064115