1

(continued on page 2)

Inside

• Research Highlights ................. (p. 4)

• Highlighting Researchers ...... (p. 10)

• Glossary ................................... (p. 14)

• New Publications ............... (p. 13,16)

Finding Common Ground:

Montana Forest Restoration Committee

USDA Forest Service: Rocky Mountain Research Station, Bitterroot National Forest, Region 1 and the University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation

Sharon Ritter, Research/Management Coordinator and ECOReport Editor, BEMRP and the Human Dimensions Science

Program, RMRS, Stevensville, MT

What in the world made Brian Kahn think he could

get consensus among 34 people representing timber,

environmental, government, and off-highway vehicle

groups—especially when the topic was forest

restoration? “Actually,” he said, “ I didn’t believe we

could get 100% consensus. But we did.”

Brian is the head of Artemis Common Ground in

Helena, Montana. He hosts the weekly Yellowstone

Public Radio show, “Home Ground: Changes and

Choices in the American West,” and is skilled in working

with community-based conservation efforts.

In 2006, Dave Bull, Supervisor of the Bitterroot

National Forest, hired Brian to assess whether mediation

could resolve objections to a controversial fuel reduction

and forest restoration project. Brian conducted individual

interviews with representatives of the various sides, and

concluded that things were too far gone for mediation to

work. However, according to

Brian, “I heard through that

experience that there was

common ground. I felt that if you

start with an agreement that our

public lands are in trouble, if you

took restoration as the issue, there

was a shot that you could get broad agreement on what it

should look like on the ground. That’s why Artemis

proposed the initial meeting.”

Brian approached Mary Mitsos of the National Forest

Foundation and in August 2006 they convened a small

group representing timber industry, conservation groups,

national forests, and state forestry. He chose the National

Forest Foundation because it was a neutral party that

understood the issues, and collaboration is a big part of

what the Foundation does.

Restoration Principle #5. Reestablish fire as a natural process on the

landscape. Old growth pine stand after understory burn, Swan Valley,

MT. (Photo by Dave Powell, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org)

The group modeled their work after successful

collaboration efforts elsewhere, including the Front

Range Fuels Treatment

Partnership Round Table in

Colorado and Tongass Futures

Round Table in Alaska. Mary said,

“What we wanted to do was

develop a vision for western

Montana.”

The small group sought wider representation,

eventually agreeing on 34 people who, according to

Mary, “were knowledgeable, had a long-term

involvement with

the National

Forest System,

were considered

key players, and

It takes some groups years to make

agreements through collatoration. This

group did it in nine months.
2

Common Ground . . . ( from page 1)

(continued on page 6)

Restoration Principle #8. Improve terrestrial and aquatic

habitat and connectivity. Elk. (Photo by Terry Spivey, USDA

Forest Service, Bugwood.org)

Montana Forest Restoration

Principles

1) Restore functioning ecosystems by enhancing

ecological processes.

2) Apply adaptive management approach.

3) Use the appropriate scale of integrated

analysis to prioritize and design restoration

activities.

4) Monitor restoration outcomes.

5) Reestablish fire as a natural process on the

landscape.

6) Consider social constraints and seek public

support for reintroducing fire on the

landscape.

7) Engage community and interested parties in

the restoration process.

8) Improve terrestrial and aquatic habitat and

connectivity.

9) Emphasize ecosystem goods and services and

sustainable land management.

10) Integrate restoration with socioeconomic

well-being.

11) Enhance education and recreation activities

to build support for restoration.

12) Protect and improve overall watershed health,

including stream health, soil quality and

function and riparian function.

13) Establish and maintain a safe road and trail

system that is ecologically sustainable.

had the ability to listen, hear, and learn.” This group

became the Montana Forest Restoration Working Group.

The group published the “vision” that Mary spoke of

in September 2007 in a report that can be found at

www.montanarestoration.org. The group agreed on 13

principles of Montana forest restoration (see Sidebar)

and an implementation plan.

Where did these principles come from? “We started

by brainstorming what Brian called ‘restoration vision

categories,’” said Marnie Criley, representing a group

called Wildlands CPR and chair of the Vision and

Principles subcommittee of the Montana Forest

Restoration Working Group. “We came up with 60 of

these and we wanted to be sure to address all of the ones

brought up by the group.” The group then referred to

other similar lists and used them to refine its list, select

language already working for other groups, and be sure

all possibilities were covered.

Marnie estimates they spent 44 hours in

subcommittee meetings working on the vision and

principles, coming back to the full group for approval

throughout the process. They started with the easiest

ones to give people a chance to have success early on and

get to know and trust each other before tackling harder

ones. For them, the easiest were adaptive management

and monitoring (#2 and #4). “The fire ones, numbers 5

and 6, were hardest,” she said.

It takes some groups years to make agreements

through collaboration. This group did it in nine months.

The group’s Code of Conduct was important to its

success. It included individual commitments such as

“help create a respectful and productive working

climate” and “value one another’s experiences.” The

group also committed to making decisions by consensus,

defined as “I can live with it.” If someone couldn’t live

with it, she or he had to come up with something that

would help the group make progress toward a solution

that would work. Sometimes, the two strongest opposing

voices met separately to work out a solution.

Mary stated that “people put in a heck of a lot of

time and effort to get a product that everyone could agree

ECO-Report

Published by the

Rocky Mountain Research Station

800 E. Beckwith St., Missoula, MT 59801

(406) 777-7416

Editor/Writer: Sharon Ritter

BEMRP is part of the Human Dimensions

Science Program of the Rocky Mountain

Research Station.

For more information, see BEMRP’s website at

http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/ecopartner/.

Also visit RMRS’s website at

http://www.fs.fed.us/rm.
3

BEMRP Staff Note

Ward McCaughey stands in front of two-age shelterwood treatments in

lodgepole pine stands at the Tenderfoot Experimental Forest on the

Lewis and Clark National Forest. This is another project BEMRP has

supported that has applicability throughout the Northern Rockies.

(Photo by Matt Wotherspoon)

Greg Jones, Research Forester and BEMRP Program Leader,

and Sharon Ritter, Research/Management Coordinator,

Human Dimensions Science Program, RMRS, Missoula, MT

Sometimes a name says it all, and sometimes a name

is just a name. Joe’s Income Tax and Bookkeeping

Service probably does just what it says. On the other

hand, there’s AT&T. Until 2005, the initials stood for

American Telephone & Telegraph, but in the last couple

of decades when you saw “AT&T,” you didn’t think of

the telegraph. You thought about other services and

products—cell phones, fiber optics, and wireless internet.

The Bitterroot Ecosystem Management Research

Project is kind of like AT&T in that research we conduct

reflects more than our name implies. The executive

committee has Bitterroot National Forest representatives,

but our decisions on what research to conduct follow our

mission statement: “Strengthen the scientific theory and

practice of managing Rocky Mountain ecosystems.” This

applies not only to the Forest Service, but also to the

public and other resource managers.

Much of the research we conduct does not take place

on the Bitterroot National Forest. More importantly, all

of the research we conduct applies elsewhere and has

been used by managers to benefit private and public

lands. Here are just a few examples of BEMRP-funded

multi-disciplinary research valued locally and elsewhere.

BEMRP’s first big research project did start locally at

the Lick Creek Demonstration/Research Forest in 1993.

Following a prescription designed jointly with scientists,

the Forest conducted thinning and prescribed fire

treatments to reduce probability of stand-replacement fire

and improve tree health. Monitoring shows that

physiological performance of trees improved, and both

BEMRP: Beyond the Bitterroot

canopy and surface fuels were reduced. These results are

applicable elsewhere in dry ponderosa pine forests.

Managers throughout the Intermountain West hope to

protect and enhance rare old-growth stands, so they’re

interested in results of another BEMRP study. This one is

taking place in an old-growth ponderosa pine/western

larch stand that historically experienced frequent fire

regimes but has been at increased risk of insect

infestation and high intensity fires due to fire exclusion.

The study demonstrated that thinning and prescribed fire

results in improved vigor of old trees and reduced

probability of stand-replacement fire.

Due to concern over global climate change, there is

world-wide interest in how we can reduce our use of

sequestered carbon and decrease our release of carbon

and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. A study

in the Bitterroot looked at the quantity, cost, and carbon

balance associated with utilization of biomass from fuel

reduction and forest health restoration treatments. The

concepts and methodology are applicable West-wide.

This study led to working with the Northern Region to

develop a way to estimate net carbon effects of fuel

reduction and restoration treatments.

BEMRP modeling efforts have found application

beyond the Northern Region. The private Vermejo Park

Ranch in New Mexico is using MAGIS, SIMPPLLE, and

FLAMMAP models to look at long-range benefits of fuel

and forest restoration treatments to the ecosystem.

Models developed with BEMRP funding have been used

for planning projects in Alaska, California, New Mexico,

Colorado, and elsewhere in Montana.

(continued on page 6)

Banding a chipping sparrow to study the effects of invasive plants on

songbird breeding productivity. (Photo by Chris Templeton)
4

Research Highlights

Alan Watson, Research Social Scientist, Aldo Leopold

Wilderness Research Institute, RMRS, Missoula, MT

Picture a favorite area where you hike, hunt, ride

your 4-wheeler, seek solitude and renewal, or maybe just

appreciate for its wildlife habitat. How would you feel if

that area was burned over, the understory trees were

thinned out, or a road built through it? Would you feel

that your favorite area has been harmed or protected?

We’ve been conducting research on the Flathead

Indian Reservation in Montana to understand the values

that Tribal and non-Tribal members attach to the Mission

Mountains Tribal Wilderness and its bordering 22,000-

acre Buffer Zone (see map above). To successfully

improve forest health within that Buffer Zone and restore

fire in the Wilderness, the managing agency and public

must work together to find solutions to increasingly

threatening fuel buildups. We used qualitative, culturally

sensitive research and a computer-based mapping

exercise to understand tradeoffs Reservation residents

describe in relation to potential Buffer Zone fuel

treatment actions.

Mapping Social and Cultural Values

in the Mission Mountains

The Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness and Tribal Buffer Zone

extend north to south along the eastern border of the Flathead

Indian Reservation. (Map prepared by Brett Davis)

This composite map (across five layers of meanings described by

community residents) for overall averaged results (Jenks method, 10

categories) demonstrates how the scale and intensity of social and

cultural values can be mapped for a landscape. (Map prepared by

Brett Davis)

Fire management focuses on reinstating natural fire

regimes through fuel treatment—thinning and burning—

and allowing fire to return to function, as nearly as

possible, in its natural ecological role. Forest managers

use thinning and burning to reduce fuel loads so that

natural fire regimes can be allowed to operate. Instilling

trust and accomplishing resource management objectives

require a high degree of collaboration and participatory

planning with the public. From previous BEMRP

research on the Bitterroot National Forest, we know that

a key contributor to trust in fire and fuel management

decisions is procedural justice, or the perceived fairness,

equity, and legitimacy of decisions managers make.

People want to be assured that managers understand the

values they attach to forest lands and that these values are

at least considered in decision making.

(continued on page 12)
5

Research Highlights

Wildfire, Research, and a Climate Station

Ward McCaughey, Research Forester, Forests and Woodlands

Ecosystems Science Program, RMRS, Missoula, MT

In August, the human-caused Tin Cup Fire took off a

few miles to the north of where the Fire Sciences

Laboratory crew was busy collecting fuels data on the

Trapper Bunkhouse study site west of Darby. The fire

demonstrated how quickly wildfire can escape initial

attack in untreated stands, especially under extremely dry

conditions, and how treated areas helped moderate fire

intensities, especially important around homes. These

kinds of treatments are a goal of the Trapper Bunkhouse

Land Stewardship Project where BEMRP is conducting

research to document the ecological effects as well as the

effectiveness of fuel treatments in the wildland-urban

interface.

As the BEMRP representative from the Forests and

Woodlands Ecosystems Science Program, I participated

on the Trapper Bunkhouse Treatment Development Team

since 2004. This team included RMRS scientists and

Bitterroot National Forest managers tasked with

developing a study design to test fuel reduction

treatments. Early in the year we installed temporary pilot

plots to determine within and between stand variability

for early grouping of proposed treatment units and

determine statistical reliability of the study design. We

then worked with Mick Harrington’s and Steve

Sutherland’s crews from the Fire Sciences Laboratory

and Forest personnel to establish a grid of permanent

plots in proposed treatment units, then collected

overstory, regeneration, and understory data. When all

pre-treatment data have been collected, we’ll be ready if

and when the Forest can implement the treatments, which

we hope will happen in 2008.

Our program crew included two volunteer students

from Germany—Johannes Kopp and Andreas Roeger—

who were studying forest engineering at the University of

Applied Forest Sciences of Rottenburg, Germany. Others

on the crew included Janelle Anderson, a work/study

student from the University of Montana, and two term

employees—Karen Stockmann and Matt Burbank.

We have another project at the Tenderfoot Creek

Experimental Forest on the Lewis and Clark National

Forest where we study the lodgepole pine forest type (see

http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/ecology/demo/tenderfoot/).

Because Tenderfoot is known for its past and current

research efforts, it has been selected along with the

Fraser Experimental Forest in Colorado, Sierra Ancha

Experimental Forest in Arizona, and Glacier Lakes

Ecosystem Experiments Site in Wyoming to receive a

$36,000 International Cooperative Program (ICP) Level

II specialized climate station. This climate station will

monitor and measure critical loads of nitrogen, sulfur,

and ozone, as well as standard meteorological parameters

such as wind speed, wind direction, solar radiation,

precipitation, relative humidity, and temperature. Bob

Andreas Roeger taking a diameter measurement on a Douglas-fir in a

research unit in the Leavens Gulch area of the Bitterroot National

Forest in July of 2007. (Photo by Ward McCaughey)

Matt Burbank (right) explaining understory tree measurement

procedures to Johannes Kopp in a research unit in the Leavens Gulch

area of the Bitterroot National Forest, in July of 2007. (Photo by Ward

McCaughey) (continued on page 15)
6

Common Ground . . . ( from page 2)

Restoration Principle #9. Emphasize ecosystem goods and services

and sustainable land management. Stream improvement, Kootenai

National Forest. (Photo by Paul Hooper, USDA Forest Service,

Bugwood.org)

on.” Bob Ekey, representing The Wilderness Society,

agreed and expressed his appreciation that “a lot of

people really rose to the challenge to stretch themselves.

Many of them had never really sat down at the table

together before.”

Brian said that dealing with hard issues like

reintroducing fire requires focusing on areas of

agreement, not disagreement: “Think of two overlapping

circles, with the overlap representing areas of agreement.

The more people talked and really listened, the more

they found that the overlap, the area of agreement, was

bigger than they thought.”

“Where the rubber hits the road,” said Mary, “is the

implementation, what it looks like on the ground.” The

next step will be to apply the collaborative model and

principles on some actual projects. They want to replicate

the diversity of their group within local working groups,

and find projects that will show results fairly quickly.

Julia Altemus, representing the Montana Logging

Association, said that getting a project in its early stages

will be the key to success. That means “bringing an area

that is ‘out of balance’ to the Forest Service as a project,

an area that hasn’t already started in the NEPA process.”

Julia said that a bundled project is preferable—for

example, one that combines fisheries improvements, has

some timber harvest, and improves roads and trails.

The group selected the Lolo and Bitterroot National

Forests for pilot projects. According to Mary, “The time

is right. People are willing to come to the table to find

solutions.” Brian, Mary, Julia, and Bob agree that success

in these forest-level efforts would be getting good

projects designed and implemented on the ground. That

includes finding funding to get the work done. Nonprofits

and the Forest Service’s Regional Office are interested in

providing some funding, but eventually they would like

Congress to step up to the plate to provide serious

support on a much broader scale.

Mary feels that success at the local level will come

because there is a high level of trust in the representatives

that were on the original working group. Thanks to them,

she expects a high level of buy-in to the forest restoration

principles. The group, now called the Montana Forest

Restoration Committee, will oversee these local efforts.

They hope to see their hard work pay off, and because

they set the example on collaborating and have provided

a carefully designed framework, it just might.

Beyond the Bitterroot . . . (from page 3)

BEMRP-funded social science research has focused

on understanding how people interact with the Forest

Service and how the agency can more effectively

communicate with the public. Research that started in the

Bitterroot Valley on understanding the meanings people

place on public lands has since expanded to the Flathead

and Blackfoot Reservations, the Kootenai National

Forest, and will appear in a textbook for land managers

elsewhere interested in using this methodology.

Similarly, BEMRP work to develop a toolkit for offhighway travel planning was circulated nationally by our

Washington Office and a paper summarizing findings on

the historical, ecological and social implications of dams

in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness was presented at an

international conservation congress.

Research on invasive weeds and biocontrol impacts

on small mammals has documented previously

unrecognized side effects of biological control in natural

systems, examined ways to reduce those nontarget effects

in biological control programs, and illustrated how to

mitigate this problem within knapweed-infested systems

in the West. This information is applicable to the practice

of biological control worldwide.

Other research showed that spotted knapweed has

very significant impacts on native ecosystems by

reducing abundance and richness of native plants and

invertebrates and by reducing recruitment of native

songbirds. Information gained is directly applicable to

grasslands and savannahs of the northern Rocky

Mountains but has generic ramifications for

understanding how invasive weeds impact native systems

across North America.

The Bitterroot Ecosystem Management Research

Project is more than its name implies. We are proud of

the quality of multi-disciplinary research we have

produced by focusing research locally but with an eye to

widespread applications, by taking advantage of longterm study sites, and by fostering relationships with our

partners.
7

Research Highlights

Mick Harrington, Research Forester, Fires, Fuels, and Smoke

Science Program, RMRS, Fire Sciences Lab, Missoula, MT;

Erin Noonan, Fire Ecologist, Systems for Environmental

Management, Missoula, MT

Many land managers are attempting to lessen the

probability of severe wildfire behavior and impacts,

especially near communities, by manipulating canopy

and surface fuel characteristics. Various interest groups

have questioned the value of fuels treatments. In reality,

apart from fire exposure when a real fire went through a

treated stand, effectiveness of fuel treatments has not

been quantifiable until the recent development of

protocols for canopy fuels assessment and crown fire

behavior modeling.

The Bitterroot National Forest recently implemented

the Sheafman Fuels Reduction Project to reduce the

probability for high intensity crown fire impacting the

watershed and community of Pinesdale, Montana. Much

of the Sheafman treatment area was heavily logged a

century ago, resulting in a dense Douglas-fir stand.

We conducted a study to evaluate pre-and posttreatment fuels at the Sheafman project and model the

effects of the treatments on anticipated fire behavior.

Fuels treatments within the 475-acre project area were

called either understory cutting (UC) where only small

trees were cut, or overstory thinning (OT) which left a

semi-open stand with 50 to 80 large trees/acre. We

established 40 plots for pre-treatment (2002) and posttreatment (2004) sampling of fuels and stand structure.

We then used fire behavior models to evaluate the preand post-treatment level of wildfire hazard and assess the

effect of the fuel treatments.

What Kind of Cutting and Thinning

Can Prevent Crown Fires?

With the fuels treatment, the densities in OT plots

were reduced from 580 to 73 trees/acre, while the UC

plots were reduced from 380 to 154 trees/acre because

only small trees were cut. There also were changes in

canopy fuel base height and canopy fuel quantity which

determine, in part, the initiation and spread of crown fire.

The higher the crown base and the lower the canopy fuels

amounts, the less the chance of crown fire. The canopy

base heights were raised from 17 to 32 ft in the OT plots

compared to an increase in the UC plots from 12 to 19 ft.

The high, pre-treatment stand densities produced

substantial canopy fuel quantities that were reduced by

75% in the OT plots but only 15% in the UC plots. Pretreatment surface fuel loadings averaged 4 tons/acre and

increased by 1 and 4 tons/acre due to thinning in the UC

plots and OT plots, respectively. Surface wind speeds

(measured at eye level), which are affected by stand

density and which, in turn, greatly influence fire

intensity, are expected to double in the more open stand

of the OT plots but increase only by 25% in the UC plots.

Based on these changes, the model predicted that fire

intensity measured by surface fire spread rates and flame

lengths wouldn’t change significantly as a result of

treatments until tree-top wind speeds exceed 20 mph. The

torching index (wind speed at which a surface fire will

become a crown fire) exceeded 80 mph for the OT

treatment for both pre- and post-treatment, a condition

which is highly unlikely. For the UC treatment, the mean

torching index was raised from 27 mph to 50 mph with

treatment, changing the likelihood of torching from

(continued on page 12)

Fuel reduction treatment in the Sheafman Creek drainage. The left photo shows pre-treatment conditions, and the right photo shows the same area

after treatment. (Photos by Mick Harrington)
8

Rafal Zwolak, Kerry

Foresman, and Elizabeth

Crone, Division of Biological

Sciences, University of

Montana, Missoula, MT;

Dean Pearson and Yvette

Ortega, Wildlife Biologists,

Wildlife and Terrestrial

Habitats Science Program,

RMRS, Missoula, MT

Wildlife, even

miniscule mice, can play

an important role in forest

regeneration and

composition by

consuming seeds,

seedlings, and saplings.

Mice can, through sheer

numbers, consume a

tremendous number of

seeds. We wanted to learn

if deer mice could affect

how ponderosa pine

forests regenerate after

fire.

In the late 1800s, ponderosa pines commonly

formed open, park-like forests at lower elevations in the

West. Today, these forests are often overrun with shadetolerant Douglas-fir trees that suppress the pines and

increase the risk for stand-replacing fires. Historically,

frequent, low-intensity fires were thought to maintain

the dominance of ponderosa pines by periodically killing

Douglas-firs. Although efforts are underway to return

Are Mice Eating Up All the Pine Seeds?

fire to the landscape to restore

ponderosa pine forests and reduce the

risk of stand-replacing fires,

widespread house building around

forests limits the use of fire and

therefore limits the modern role of fire

in these systems. This exclusion of fire

requires that we understand how other

forces may influence the composition

of trees and rate of succession.

In the West,

small mammals like

deer mice are

voracious seed

predators that could

greatly influence tree

regeneration and

forest composition.

Deer mice numbers

increase following

disturbance and deer

mice tend to select

larger seeds over

smaller ones.

Therefore, they could affect both the rate of tree

regeneration following disturbance and the relative

abundance of Douglas-fir versus ponderosa pines by

targeting the larger ponderosa pine seeds. To better

understand the role of these mice in affecting tree

regeneration and tree species composition following

disturbance, we monitored deer mouse populations

(above) Rafal Zwolak recording data on

seedling establishment in a pair of

experimental cages. In 2007, seedlings

emerged only in those cages that excluded

mice. The experiment will be continued in

2008. (Photo by Leigh Ann Reynolds)

(left) Don’t be misled by their small

stature! Abundant and voracious, deer

mice are capable of exerting strong

ecological influences. (Photo by Rafal

Zwolak)

(continued on page 12)

Meet BEMRP’s Executive Committee

BEMRP is a multi-disciplinary partnership that brings together scientists from the U.S. Forest Service Rocky

Mountain Research Station and the University of Montana, together with managers from the Bitterroot National

Forest and Northern Region.

Greg Jones—RMRS Human Dimensions Science Program

Krista Gebert—RMRS Human Dimensions Science Program

Mick Harrington—RMRS Fire, Fuels, and Smoke Science Program

Ward McCaughey—RMRS Forest and Woodland Ecosystems Science Program

Alan Watson—Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute

Dean Pearson—RMRS Wildlife and Terrestrial Habitats Science Program

Jim Burchfield—The University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation

Sue Heald—Bitterroot National Forest

Chuck Oliver—Bitterroot National Forest

Dan Ritter—Bitterroot National Forest

Kerry McMenus—Northern Region Office

Research Highlights
9

Research Highlights

What Pollutes More: Burning Logging Scraps

On-Site or Hauling Them to Boilers?

A truck dumps biomass to be ground for use as fuel in burners in

northern California. (Photo by Han-Sup Han)

A grinder in northern Idaho reduces biomass to the size needed for

use in biomass burners. (Photo by Han-Sup Han)

(continued on page 14)

Greg Jones, Research Forester, Human Dimensions Science

Program, RMRS Missoula, MT; Dan Loeffler, Research

Associate, College of Forestry and Conservation, The

University of Montana, Missoula, MT

Publicity and debate about global climate change has

fueled interest in the role forests and forest management

activities play in carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas

emissions. Our previous ECO-Report contained an article

on greenhouse gas emissions released when woody

biomass from forest residues are used for energy (see

page 9 of 2007 ECO-Report at www.fs.fed.us/rm/

ecopartner/ecoreport.shtml). That article compared the

overall emissions of: 1) transporting woody residues from

forest treatments to burn in a boiler for heat energy

(including emissions from collecting, chipping, and

hauling) with 2) leaving those residues on-site and

disposing of them by open pile burning and using fossil

fuels (fuel oil or natural gas) instead of biomass in the

boilers. For the Bitterroot Valley, the results showed that

following the first option (rather than the second option)

would reduce average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by

50%, particulate matter emissions less than 10 microns in

size (PM-10) by 75%, and methane emissions by 90%.

These average reductions in emissions computed for

biomass use in the Bitterroot Valley indicate that using

these forest residues for energy can substantially reduce

both greenhouse gas and particulate emissions. However,

we wondered how increasing distances for hauling

biomass affects these results. In other words, to what

extent do the increased diesel emissions emitted by

longer haul distances overshadow the decreased

emissions of burning this biomass in a boiler for heat

energy instead of pile-burning the biomass in the forest

and relying on fossil fuels for the equivalent heat energy?

We also wondered about the wisdom of expending

fossil fuels to collect and deliver biomass for heat energy.

Recently there have been scientific reports and

newspaper articles criticizing the use of agriculture

products such as corn to produce ethanol for fuel because

they provide a low energy return for the required energy

inputs. We wondered how this woody forest biomass for

heat energy stacks up with regard to this question,

especially as haul distance increases.

We used the spatial landscape treatment/

transportation model, MAGIS, to analyze how emissions

and fossil fuel energy (diesel) consumption change with

increasing average distance of hauling biomass from the

forest to the site where biomass energy is used. To add

(CO2) PM10

47-mile average haul distance:

Harvest & Grind Activity 2.5% 3.0%

Hauling 1.0% 1.5%

Total 3.5% 4.5%

85-mile average haul distance:

Harvest & Grind Activity 2.5% 3.0%

Hauling 2.0% 2.5%

Total 4.5% 5.5%

Diesel emissions as a percentage of total emissions in

the biomass-for-energy option.
10

Highlighting Researchers

KRISTA GEBERT

The “Spotlight”...highlighting researchers at work

“The Beauty of Economics”

Janie Canton-Thompson (left, former ECO-Report

editor) and Krista Gebert. (Photo by Carol Pyle)

Sharon Ritter, Research/Management

Coordinator, Social, Economics, and

Decision Sciences Program, RMRS,

Missoula, MT

“Economics is the science of

allocating scarce resources among

unlimited wants.” That was Krista

Gebert’s response when I asked

her to define economics for me.

Having taught several economics

classes at the University of

Montana after graduate school,

Krista had the definition down to

its essence. As an economist with

RMRS in Missoula, Krista applies

economics to a variety of scarce

forest and human resources. Krista

is the newest executive committee

member of BEMRP, representing

the Human Dimensions Science

Program of RMRS.

Krista grew up in and around Dillon, Montana. She

inherited a strong work ethic from her parents. After high

school, Krista attended two years of college in Dillon in

business administration before getting married and

starting her family. Her husband, John, is a math and

physics teacher. During the early years they lived in

Helena, then Chester, Montana. She stayed home with

her young sons but she always knew she would

eventually go back to school and work. John prepared

her by teaching her trigonometry and pre-calculus to

boost her math skills. Then a great teaching job came up

for John in Missoula.

When her youngest son was 4, Krista went back to

school. I asked her why she went into economics. She

said she started in business classes, figuring she would

go into accounting. “But I felt sick to my stomach every

time I opened up my accounting book.” However,

economics excited her, and she had always been good at

math and science, so despite there being “no jobs” in that

field, at least not in Missoula, John encouraged her to

switch. So she went for it.

Landing a job with RMRS was “serendipitous.” In

1996, during her last week of graduate school, she

applied for a job at the Forestry Sciences Laboratory in a

temporary, entry-level economist position. Her

supervisor, Erv Schuster, served

as her mentor. He gave her lots

of responsibility early on, and

urged her to move up. “Erv was

great. He hired people who

could do the job, then left you

alone to do it.” Krista held

several temporary and term

positions until 2000, then

moved over to the University for

a year and a half working for the

Bureau of Business and

Economic Research. She

enjoyed her time with the

Bureau and it was not easy

making the decision to go back

to RMRS when a permanent job

opened up. However, she loves

working for the Forest Service

and with all the great people she

has met over the years, “I’m impressed with the caliber

of people I’ve met and work with in the Forest Service

and Department of Interior. They’re dedicated, hardworking, and really involved.”

Krista’s research in the past few years has focused

on fire economics, especially wildland fire suppression

and suppression costs. One piece of that is providing

forecasts for the Forest Service and Department of

Interior on what they’re likely to spend on fire

suppression for the coming year. The forecasts produced

early in the fiscal year in collaboration with researchers

at the Southern Research Station use climate information

and time trends to make predictions of suppression

expenditures for the upcoming fire season. During the

summer, personnel at the National Interagency Fire

Center in Boise forecast anticipated fire activity using

their best professional judgment. Those predictions then

go into the economics models that Krista uses to

produce monthly updates of anticipated suppression

spending. Krista finds her work both rewarding and

challenging. “I can email the forecasts of suppression

expenditures to the Washington Office at 5:30 at night

and the next morning I see it in the paper.” This is nervewracking (the challenge), but also evidence that her

work is actually getting used (the reward). Krista’s

(continued on page 13)
11

y 

Sharon Ritter, Research/Management

Coordinator and ECO-Report Editor,

BEMRP, RMRS, Stevensville, MT

Ward McCaughey has spent

99% of his career in forestry

research. It appears the aptitude

test he took in high school was

right; he should be in forestry.

Ward is a research forester in the

Forests and Woodlands

Ecosystems Program for RMRS.

He has been on BEMRP’s

executive committee since 2002.

However, his association with

BEMRP goes back to its inception

in 1994 when he worked for Clint

Carlson, Project Leader and the

original lead scientist for the team that initiated BEMRP.

Ward’s association with the Rocky Mountain Research

Station goes back to 1974 when he supervised summer

crews.

Ward grew up in Pierre, the capitol of South Dakota,

a small city surrounded by farms, ranches, and Missouri

River breaks. He fished the Missouri, hunted deer and

antelope in the breaks and ranches, and pheasants in the

fields. He worked summers either for his father’s floor

covering business or on ranches. This background gave

him a love of the outdoors, but it was vacationing in the

ponderosa pine forests of the Black Hills that stimulated

his interest in forestry.

For college, he headed west to the University of

Montana in Missoula for his bachelors and masters, and

Montana State University in Bozeman for his PhD. While

majoring in forestry at the University of Montana, Ward

worked summers and falls for Wyman Schmidt and Ray

Shearer of the Intermountain Research Station. It was a

long-lasting relationship, morphing from work as a

seasonal summer crew leader to mixing work and

schooling to conduct his master’s research on subalpine

fir and Engelmann spruce, and later his PhD research on

whitebark pine.

His study of whitebark pine was one of the first to

look at factors affecting natural and artificial

regeneration. He also worked on whitebark pine cone and

seed studies, again relating his research to natural

regeneration and nursery problems. The mid-1980s

Highlighting Researchers

The “Spotlight”...highlighting researchers at work

WARD MCCAUGHEY “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”

One of Ward’s summertime fish sampling excursions

in western Montana. (Photo by Randy Boehnke)

marked the beginning of interest

in forest ecology approaches to

whitebark pine research, with

Station scientists including Ward,

Steve Arno, and Bob Keane

looking into this formerly

underappreciated species. Ward

continues his interest in whitebark

pine research. He also continues

monitoring spruce/fir forests he

studied while conducting his

master’s research. “These longterm studies are key to

understanding forest ecology and

effects of management activities,”

 Ward takes special pride in

his lodgepole pine research on the

Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest located on the

Lewis and Clark National Forest. The Research Station

conducted silvicultural treatments there in 1999 and 2000

to study the effects of restoring two-age lodgepole pine

forest structure similar to what historically occurred on

much of the area. However, work toward conducting

those treatments actually began in 1988 when he, Wyman

Schmidt, the Northern Region Office, and the Lewis and

Clark National Forest planned research there. They

assembled a team representing several National Forests,

the University of Montana, Montana State University,

Rocky Mountain Research Station, Northern Region

Office, and Natural Resources Conservation Service.

One of the key issues in the West is water, so they

installed 10 flumes and collected several years of water

quantity and quality data prior to doing any cutting. They

measure stream flow, sediment production, water

temperature and nutrients, and other measures of water

quality and quantity. They also set up two SNOTEL sites

(SNOw TELemetry) for monitoring snowpack and

related climatic data. The SNOTEL sites included snow

pillows, which are 10-ft diameter bladders that measure

water content of snow.

Ward has found it very rewarding taking Tenderfoot

Creek EF from an experimental forest with no studies to

the level where so many people want to use the site for

hydrological, climatological, and ecological studies. Said

(continued on page 13)
12

Research Highlights

On the Reservation, we found that the primary

meanings Tribal members associate with the Buffer Zone

are wilderness protection, wildlife and water quality,

access and functional attachments (such as a source of

medicinal plants), recreation and scenic values, and

personal and cultural meanings symbolic of long-term

associations with nature in the Northern Rockies. We

used a computer-based mapping exercise to develop 154

community resident maps of important places in the

Buffer Zone across these five types of meanings. The

map on the bottom of page 4 represents an overall

average of those maps.

We also asked study subjects to identify major

threats they perceive to these meanings. Initial analysis

reveals that residents perceived four primary categories

of threats to the meanings they attached to the Buffer

Zone: wildfire, intense logging, roads and development,

and off-highway vehicle use. The threat of wildfire was

broadly recognized by many subjects and blamed on

years of fire restriction, resulting in the feeling that now

uncontrolled fires would be disastrous due to overstocked or dense vegetation.

Logging also was commonly listed among threats,

giving rise to the dilemma that Tribal resource managers

face. Specifically, people expressed fears about intense

logging, extreme logging, commercial logging, and large

scale logging, suggesting that people are more

threatened by the scale and intensity it might entail than

the logging itself.

Residents are also concerned about other threats to

the Buffer Zone such as perceived increases in road

access, subdivision of property, and ATV and motorcycle

use on and off roads. Some miscellaneous threats

attached to specific areas in the Buffer Zone were cattle

grazing, recreation over use, horses, litter, weeds,

impacts to water quality, and insect outbreaks. While

many of these threats exist at a large scale, many were

attached to specific places in the Buffer

Zone, providing opportunity to base

discussions with the public about

priorities for future management

actions. BEMRP scientists will

continue to facilitate

interaction between forest

managers and the public as

proposals are developed in

2008 to reduce fire hazard,

increase forest health, and

restore the natural role of

fire on Tribal lands.

Mapping Cultural Values . . . (from page 4) Mice . . . (from page 8)

following natural wildfire, evaluated deer mouse seed

predation on Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine seeds, and

determined whether seed predation affected tree

regeneration.

At two different sets of study sites on the Lolo

National Forest, we confirmed that deer mouse

populations increase dramatically in the first years after

forest fires. At one set of study sites, we put out

ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir seeds in trays to evaluate

deer mouse seed selection. We also placed seeds on the

ground in cages that either allowed or precluded mouse

access to evaluate the effect of seed predation on

seedling recruitment. Our preliminary data indicate that

1) mice did not exhibit size-dependent seed selection,

i.e., mice consumed Douglas-fir seeds as readily as

ponderosa pine seeds, 2) mice consumed large numbers

of both seed species, and 3) seed predation by mice

greatly reduced recruitment of seedlings for both

species. Thus, mice may influence the rate of post-fire

regeneration, but not the trajectory, meaning the

direction the system is going such as toward a forest

dominated by one tree species over another. When

finished, our study will improve our understanding of

animal-plant interactions in western forest succession

and determine whether deer mice warrant special

management in regenerating forests.

possible to improbable. The crowning index (wind

speed at which fire will spread in the tree crowns)

almost tripled in the OT plots from 12 to 34 mph with

thinning but changed minimally (17 to 19 mph) in the

UC treatment. This contrast reflects the large and small

canopy fuels changes for the OT and UC plots,

respectively.

Therefore, models show that surface wind speeds

increase as a result of thinning, which in turn leads to an

increase in surface fire intensity. However, this expected

fire intensity increase should not result in increased

crown fire potential. Instead, reductions in canopy fuel

quantities and increases in canopy base heights in the

OT treatment results in a low probability of crown fire

spreading or even initiating. Increases in canopy base

heights with removal of ladder fuels in the UC treatment

greatly reduce the chance of crown fire initiation. But

with the overstory fuels virtually unaltered, the

likelihood of crown fire spread remains unchanged. So,

the trade-off for increased fire intensity is a substantial

decrease in crown fire potential.

What Kind of Cutting . . . (from page 7)
13

Krista Gebert . . . ( from page 10)

forecasting work earned her the Forest Service Chief’s

Award in 2003.

Another rewarding and challenging line of research

is the Stratified Cost Index. This compares the estimated

cost of the fire with what was actually spent. She reviews

costs and sends a list of the fires that cost significantly

more than estimated to the Fire and Aviation

Management office in Washington, D.C. and they follow

up with fire managers to learn why they were so

expensive. This results in better tracking of fire

expenditures by the fire managers and helps all

participants understand what causes higher costs.

Krista is looking forward to working on ecosystem

management research with BEMRP. She got a taste for it

when she helped out with the Trapper-Bunkhouse

project. In a project like that with multiple goals, there

are always budget constraints. “That’s the beauty of

economics; providing information helps managers make

decisions about tradeoffs. You can’t do everything with

the land, you have to make choices,” she said. At

Trapper-Bunkhouse there are fish culverts to install,

trails to fix, hazardous fuels to reduce, roads to

rehabilitate, and more. Yet there aren’t enough funds to

cover all of that. That’s where economics comes in to

help with those choices.

As a new BEMRP team member, Krista looks

forward to branching out into a new realm and working

more with field folks. She likes knowing when research

she does is applied on the ground. Sometimes,

researchers conduct their research, write their journal

articles, and are not sure if anyone is actually using the

results. That’s one of the reasons she likes doing applied

research: “Over the years, there’s been a lot of direct

interaction with management and that’s given us a lot of

research ideas. Working with managers is how most of

our research topics came up, and we can see it put to

use.” She is excited that being involved with BEMRP

will give her the opportunity to do more of this type of

collaborative research.

Ward: “Development of the entire hydrology, vegetative,

and climate monitoring system on the Experimental

Forest has drawn researchers from all over the U.S. to

install collaborative studies.” He’s excited about a new

$36,000 climate station that will collect data on

hydrology, atmospheric oxygen, daily and seasonal

carbon exchange, snow melt, atmospheric deposition,

pH, particulates, and more. Ward has also been

approached by the National Oceanic Atmospheric

Administration to use Tenderfoot as one of eight sites in

the United States to calibrate a Geostationary Satellite

Server (GOES) atmospheric weather satellite using

climate and snow data.

Setting up experiments and learning from them is

intellectually stimulating. “Scientists go into the science

field because it’s their nature to learn through

experimenting,” he said. Ward loves working in Forest

Service research, explaining, “We have flexibility and

latitude in the types of studies we work on.”

He also enjoys working with resource managers in

the National Forest System, including the Northern

Region Office, the Bitterroot National Forest, the Lewis

and Clark National Forest, and BEMRP. He says that

“Forest Service people are great people to work with.

It’s the best ecological organization in the world, wellknown and respected in Europe because of our research

publications and how we manage our forests.”

Ward looks forward to the intellectual challenges

coming up with the Trapper-Bunkhouse project,

Northern Region Aspen Working Group, Whitebark Pine

technical committee, and National Experimental Forests

Managers Working Group, and ballroom dancing.

Ballroom dancing? “I used to dance a lot in Bozeman

and I’m looking forward to doing more of it here in

Missoula.” Ward’s advice to everyone is, “Don’t sweat

the small stuff. Go out and do the best you can.” That

would apply to work, play, and dancing.

Ward McCaughey . . . ( from page 11)

Highlighting Researchers

New Publication Available

The Rocky Mountain Research Station’s leadership team recently awarded its Outstanding Scientific

Publication award to Dean Pearson for his role as principal author and team leader of the publication Biological

Control Agents Elevate Hantavirus by Subsidizing Deer Mouse Populations (Ecology Letters 9(4): 443-450,

published in 2006, co-authored by Ragan Callaway of the University of Montana).

The paper looks at indirect risks of using exotic insects to control weeds. See the 2002-03 ECO-Report for an

article about this research and last year’s ECO-Report where we reported on an interview with Dean in which he

talked about the surprising response to his findings (http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/ecopartner/ecoreport.shtml).
14

Getting the Word Out

Glossary – “What Do You Mean By That?”

Despite our efforts to write ECO-Report articles in “jargon-free” language, we still have

to use terminology unfamiliar to some readers. Should you not recognize a term in ECOReport, this glossary may help. If you don’t find the word here, visit BEMRP’s Glossary

web page at http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/ecopartner. Remember some definitions change

over time as new information develops. Periodically, we revise our web glossary page to

reflect these changes.

BIOCONTROL—The use of living organisms, such as

predators, parasites, and pathogens, to control weeds,

pest insects, or diseases.

FLAME LENGTH—The distance between the flame

tip and the midpoint of the flame depth at the base of the

flame (generally the ground surface); an indicator of fire

intensity.

FLUME—A flume is an instream structure used to

measure the rate of flow. Flumes can also be designed to

collect water quality data and other measurements such

as temperature.

SNOTEL—A SNOTEL is an automated station that

collects information on snowpack and climate. They

are usually set up in areas difficult to access in the

winter. SNOTEL sites record data on snow water

content, precipitation, and sometimes other

information. The acronym stands for SNOw

TELemetry. Anyone with internet access can get

readouts from SNOTEL sites at http://

www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/.

TRAJECTORY—A trajectory is a path that a moving

object follows. In forest ecology terms, it is the

developmental pathway of the forest ecosystem over

time.

reality to these computations, we assumed that the forest

biomass is hauled from various locations in the Bitterroot

Valley to the paper mill near Frenchtown, which has a

boiler for generating energy from woody biomass. We

used the same published diesel consumption and

emission factors used in the previously reported results.

Diesel consumption and emission amounts are based on

the round trip, because one must first get the empty truck

to the forest site where the biomass is located.

Our analysis found that when forest residue biomass

is used for energy on only the northern portion of the

Valley, the average haul distance is 47 miles, increasing

to an average of 85 miles when utilization is extended to

the entire valley. At the 47-mile average distance, diesel

CO2 and PM10 emissions from hauling each represent

only about 1% and 1.5%, respectively, of the total

emissions for the biomass-for-energy option (see table).

These increase to about 2% for CO2 and 2.5% for PM10

of the total emissions at the 85-mile average haul

distance. This means that reduction in emissions

associated with using forest residues for heat energy is

little affected even at relatively long haul distances.

Emissions from harvest and grinding represent a slightly

larger portion of the total emissions, around 2.5% for

CO2 and 3% for PM10. Summing the two components

for CO2 , total diesel emissions represent 3.5% at the 47-

mile average, increasing to 4.5% at the 85-mile average

haul distance. Total PM10 emissions from diesel range

from 4.5% to 5.5% of the total biomass-for-energy

emissions, indicating the difference in emissions is

minimal over this range in haul distance.

What about the amount of fossil fuel (diesel) energy

needed to harvest, grind, and haul the forest residue

biomass to produce the heat energy? At the average haul

distances we used, diesel energy consumption represents

4.7% to 5.7% of the total biomass energy produced. That

means at the shorter haul distance about 21 units of

biomass energy are produced for each unit of diesel

energy used to get it. At the longer distance this drops to

17 units of biomass energy for each unit of diesel energy.

To determine if this is a good return of energy for the

energy expended, we can use the breakeven point, where

it takes one unit of energy for each unit produced. Getting

a return of 17 to 21 units of energy for 1 unit of energy

expended is clearly well above the breakeven point.

We thought it would be interesting to compare this

with uses of other types of biomass for producing other

forms of energy. Researchers at the Argonne National

Laboratory have published that 1.35 units of energy of

ethanol made from corn are produced for each unit of

fossil fuel energy used. Compared to ethanol, 17 to 21

units of biomass heat energy for 1 unit of diesel energy

used to produce it is a good energy return. However, we

recognize that using ethanol for fuel and burning biomass

for direct heat are not substitutes for each other.

Burning or Hauling? . . . (from page 9)
15

Getting the Word Out

Sharon Ritter, Research/Management Coordinator and ECOReport Editor, BEMRP, RMRS, Stevensville, MT

While it wasn’t quite as good as actually going to

Jamaica, visiting with Jamaican forest managers on the

Bitterroot was still fun. In late September 2007, the

Northern Region hosted a visit from Marilyn Headley—

Conservator of Forests, Keith Porter—Senior Director

(both from the Forestry Department) and Lorna JonesLee from the Cabinet Office in Jamaica; Karyll

Aitcheson, Coordinator for the joint USFS/ USAID

Protected Areas and Rural Enterprise Project in Jamaica;

Dana Roth, Caribbean Program Specialist for Forest

Service International Programs; Kirsten Kaiser, Forest

Planner on the Kootenai National Forest; and Tom

Rhode, Regional Planner for the Northern Region.

In spring 2007, Kirsten and Tom visited Jamaica to

help Forestry Department consultants and local forest

management committees develop a land management

plan and identify sustainable livelihood projects for one

of their protected areas. This trip to the Northern Region

was an opportunity for members of the Jamaican

Forestry Department and government to learn how the

Forest Service conducts its land management programs

and coordinates with other entities.

Greg Jones and I represented BEMRP by taking

them to the Lick Creek Demonstration/Research Forest.

We talked about how and why RMRS established the

BEMRP partnership and how researchers and managers

work together. We emphasized the importance of

research and in particular having the research and

management branches as separate, independent entities

Tour guests included: Kneeling: Tom Rhode. Standing left to right:

Keith Porter, Kirsten Kaiser, Marilyn Headley, Dana Roth, Karyll

Aitcheson, Lorna Jones-Lee. (Photo by Tim Love)

Marilyn Headley (second from left), Conservator of Forests,

Jamaican Forestry Department, asks questions about the role of

research in the U.S. Forest Service. (Photo by Dana Roth)

within the Forest Service (see Len Ruggiero’s article in

last year’s ECO-Report at http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/

ecopartner/ecoreport.shtml).

With the newly available Lick Creek autotour

brochure and last year’s ECO-Report in hand, we also

talked about how we share research results with the

public and resource managers. The visitors weren’t shy

about asking questions. Their warmth and openness

made for an enjoyable morning.

Wildfire, Research, Climate . . . (from page 5)

Musselman, RMRS Research Plant Physiologist, will

help with installation on all RMRS sites. According to

Bob, “Level II Critical Loads stations were initially

established more than 20 years ago in Europe by the

European Union International Cooperative Program as

part of the Convention on Long-range Transport of Air

Pollutants, of which most European countries and the

United States and Canada are signatories. This is the first

network of ICP Level II stations to be established

in the United States as a coordinated effort

by the U.S. Forest Service.” We feel

honored and lucky that

Tenderfoot was selected as

one of the locations and

look forward to making use

of the additional data it will

provide.

BEMRP and Jamaica?
16

ECO-Report

Bitterroot Ecosystem Management

Research Project

USDA Forest Service

Rocky Mountain Research Station

800 E. Beckwith St.

Missoula, MT 59801

The U.S. Department of Agriculture

(USDA) prohibits discrimination in all

its programs and activities on the basis

of race, color, national origin, sex,

religion, age, disability, political

beliefs, sexual orientation, or marital or

family status. (Not all prohibited bases

apply to all programs.) Persons with

disabilities who require alternate means

for communication of program

information (Braille, large print,

audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s

TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600

(voice and TDD). To file a complaint of

discrimination, write USDA Director,

Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W,

Whitten Building, 1400 Independence

Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-

9410 or call (202) 720-5964 (voice and

TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity

employer.

New Publication Available

A new, colorful brochure leads visitors on a 7-mile

roadside tour of the Lick Creek Demonstration/Research

Forest in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. Fourteen years

ago, the Bitterroot National Forest and scientists from

the Rocky Mountain Research Station and University of

Montana conducted thinning treatments and prescribed

burning at Lick Creek. Several stops on the autotour

allow visitors to compare several treatments at once and

learn about research results. The autotour also features

history, geology, wildlife, and vegetation in the Lick

Creek area. Brooke Thompson, a contractor for RMRS,

rewrote and redesigned the brochure with the help of

Peter Kolb, Montana State University Extension.

Lick Creek was the site of one of BEMRP’s first

research projects. Researchers are still monitoring the

effects of treatments on vegetation development, snag

survival, wildlife forage and cover, tree growth, weeds,

and soils. Pick up the brochure at the Darby, MT,

district office or visit our website:

http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/ecopartner/.