Natural Solutions

The 2016 Hunter–Smuggler prescribed burn triggered new growth in aspen and gambel oak, helping to restore ecosystem health by improving wildlife habitat and creating age and species diversity.

PROTECTING OUR FORESTS TAKES ON A NEW MEANING IN THE ERA OF CLIMATE CHANGE

In the quest to prevent warming from reaching two degrees Celsius above pre–industrial levels, the emphasis has largely been on reducing man–made emissions. But in recent years, natural solutions – Mother Nature’s ways of sequestering atmospheric carbon – have gotten increasing attention from scientists and other climate advocates.

Natural solutions to climate change include restoring wetlands and mangroves, improving soil quality, and a gamut of strategies around forests.

Most people know that trees are good at taking in carbon, but not all forest solutions are created equal. Planting trees in areas where none were before (afforestation) and restoring cut down or degraded forests (reforestation) are bandwagons even the Trump administration has embraced – when he pledged the US to the World Economic Forum’s One Trillion Trees initiative earlier this year.

But forests grow very slowly – plant a tree now and it could be decades before it matures – and we need to draw down carbon immediately. Other hurdles: Afforestation and reforestation require large amounts of land not currently managed as forests, and planted forests do not achieve the critical biodiversity found in natural, intact forests.

The most important thing we can do is to protect the forests that we have.

This idea of proforestation – that forests pulling the most carbon from the atmosphere are old, intact forests, and that keeping those forests intact offers the most immediate benefit for the climate – is supported by scientists broadly and forest managers locally.

The most important thing we can do is to protect the forests we have.

In a June 2019 paper published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, Tufts University professor William Moomaw and his co–authors write: “Proforestation provides the most effective solution to dual global crises – climate change and biodiversity loss. It is the only practical, rapid, economical, and effective means for atmospheric carbon dioxide removal among the multiple options that have been proposed because it removes more atmospheric carbon dioxide in the immediate future and continues to sequester it long–term.”

It’s a solution that the Roaring Fork Valley, surrounded by thousands of acres of public land that hold swaths of intact forests, is particularly suited to focus on. According to ACES’ 2014 State of the Forest Report, local forests absorb on average more than 280,000 tons of carbon per year.

On our timescale, we want to preserve the carbon that’s on the landscape right now, and there’s value in that here in the Aspen area.

Preserving forests in the Roaring Fork Valley watershed has been a longtime goal of many local government agencies and nonprofit organizations, but only in recent years has climate become a component of the partners’ objectives.

Launched in 2014, the Hunter–Smuggler Plan is a 20–year effort to improve forest health and habitat (and recreational opportunities) on some 4,700 acres adjacent to Aspen, on Smuggler Mountain, and in the Hunter Creek Valley. Proposed by ACES, the plan’s partners include the City of Aspen, Pitkin County Open Space, and the US Forest Service. Projects have included work on a lodgepole pine forest to repair damage from and prevent future pine beetle infestations, manually thinning out old gambel oak stands to encourage new growth, and a prescribed fire in spring 2016. The fire, which treated about 900 acres of gambel oak and aspen forest, stimulated new plant growth, produced a mosaic vegetation

Shyla Raghav, Vice President of Climate Change at Conservation International, speaks to a sold–out crowd in Aspen on “Reimagining Climate Change: How We Can Turn Our Despair Into Hope” as part of ACES’ Jessica Catto Dialogues speaker series.

pattern for diverse habitat, returned needed nutrients to the soil, and cleared out hazardous fuels. A scientist monitoring results of the fire found that burned aspen tree plots produced nearly 37 times more suckers, or shoots, than unburned plots.

Four years later in the burn area, it’s obvious where the burn was because there’s a ton of new growth there. It’s more difficult to see the carbon benefits – which come from preventive measures such as staving off beetle outbreaks and large wildfires.

Jim Genung, the zone fuels specialist for the White River National Forest, and his team have conducted prescribed fires with similar results in many parts of the White River National Forest, including around Basalt Mountain, Avalanche Creek in the Crystal River Valley, up Cattle Creek, and outside of Rifle and Eagle. Big game returned to the hillsides of the Basalt Mountain prescribed fires, he notes.

Pitkin County Open Space is another partner in natural habitat planning. A 2015 prescribed fire on Filoha Meadows, an Open Space property near Redstone, ushered in plenty of regrowth among the gambel oak and aspen that is prime elk and bighorn sheep habitat.

Gary Tennenbaum, Director of Pitkin County Open Space, notes that while it’s not possible to restore the land completely to what it was before human habitation – climate change has already depleted natural water supplies to some extent, for example – the Open Space program is adapting to include a climate focus.

“When I started 17 years ago, the whole thing was about habitat and wildlife, but we’ve since realized that all these things are connected to climate,” he says. “Now, our world is finding a metric to address climate change through open space management while protecting scenery and wildlife.”

While results are encouraging on a local level, it’s important to keep in mind that natural solutions – even on a global scale – won’t resolve climate change on their own. To truly address climate change, we must take a holistic approach, which includes dramatic reductions in fossil fuel and other greenhouse gas emissions paired with natural solutions.

But Shyla Ragav, Vice President of Climate Change for Conservation International, is optimistic about the potential of natural solutions because they haven’t been considered that seriously until recently.

Ragav, who helped negotiate the Paris Climate Accord and has been working on climate change mitigation and adaptation for over a decade, offered this message of hope in February when she spoke as part of ACES’ Jessica Catto Dialogue Lecture Series.

“One of the most encouraging things about climate change is we have these solutions at our disposal – we know what they are,” she told the Aspen audience.

As much as one–quarter of global emissions come from poor agricultural practices and deforestation, Ragav said – so changing those bad habits can help turn things around.

In fact, restoring native cover could account for one–third or more of the solution: reducing emissions to zero by 2050. Ragav also emphasized that these solutions can and need to start on a local level, which means everyone can get involved in some way in their own backyard.

In a nutshell, says Ragav, “When we invest in nature, we’re not only investing in climate change solutions. We’re investing in our resilience. We’re investing in a more stable and secure future for humanity.”

Our Forest & Climate Work

ACES’ Forest & Climate Program was founded to better understand and address the alarming trends we see in Colorado’s forests. Our work includes restoration, education, research, and monitoring. On–the–ground restoration projects are located in the Hunter–Smuggler area, education and monitoring utilize Colorado’s Forest Health Index (foresthealthindex.org), and ACES conducts research with the help of our Forest Forecast Model (forestforecasts.org). In 2019, ACES completed the first–ever species inventory or “Bioblitz” of the Hallam Lake nature preserve. Over a three day period, scientists from the Colorado Natural Heritage Program documented over 300 species, creating a valuable set of baseline data. Moving forward, this information will help ACES’ staff to become better stewards and educators of the nature preserve.

In addition, ACES guided adults and children into the Lake Christine burn area following the 2018 wildfire to see how local forest ecosystems respond to that type of disturbance. Through these community education programs, ACES provided a window into the diversity created by wildfire and the amazing capacity for ecosystems to recover. ACES’ Forest & Climate Program also continues to produce educational material to help the local community connect with our forests. This year, ACES published our first local tree guide, as well as the sixth annual State of the Forest Report for the Roaring Fork watershed.

The Numbers

38 individual Forest Health Indices for watersheds across Colorado 70 people guided through the Lake Christine burn area 144 species of plants at Hallam Lake 300 species documented in 2019 Hallam Lake Bioblitz