{"id":613936,"date":"2018-08-14T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=613936"},"modified":"2018-08-13T18:44:57","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T00:44:57","slug":"after-the-fires-what-do-we-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/08\/after-the-fires-what-do-we-want\/","title":{"rendered":"After the fires: What do we want?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_613941\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-613941\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_1656-771x578.jpg\" alt=\"UNM's Matthew Hurteau\" width=\"771\" height=\"578\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_1656-771x578.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_1656-336x252.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_1656-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_1656-1170x878.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_1656-800x600.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Laura Paskus \/ New Mexico Political Report<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">UNM&#8217;s Matthew Hurteau.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Matthew Hurteau spends a lot of time on the eastern flank of the Jemez Mountains, checking on seedlings and dodging a sunburn. On a mid-July afternoon, rain drops from monsoon clouds in the valley south of us. But here, up above 7,000 feet, it\u2019s sunny and hot.<\/p>\n<p>Until recently, this craggy landscape was carpeted by a dense pine forest. But today, as we look across the thousands of acres where the 2011 Las Conchas fire burned at its hottest, we\u2019re taking in a panoramic view of the Sangre de Cristos to the north and Cochiti Reservoir and the Sandia Mountains down the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/868484\/after-the-fires-what-do-we-want-en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Mexico Political Report<\/a>,\u00a0a nonprofit news organization\u00a0focused on promoting a greater public understanding of politics and policy in the state of New Mexico.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>All told, Las Conchas devoured 156,000 acres, about 30,000 of which will never be a pine forest again. At least not within a timespan involving you and me, our grandchildren or great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re doing the project to try and understand \u2014 if society decides that we want to invest the resources to reforest the system \u2014 how can we use those resources efficiently?\u201d says Hurteau, a biology professor at the University of New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>As part of a three-year research project, Hurteau and his students in the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hurteaulab.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Earth Systems Ecology Lab<\/a>\u00a0planted about 2,000 pine and Douglas fir seedlings in different microclimates within the burn scar, on north- and south-facing slopes, for example, and in open areas and beneath brush. By tracking which ones survive, Hurteau wants to help land managers and policymakers know what to do in the wake of other western wildfires, which are growing in size and intensity as the planet continues to warm.<\/p>\n<h3>\u2018Relatively small window\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>Globally, temperatures have been rising for decades, affecting mountain snowpack, drying out soils and altering both the supply and demand of water. Since the 1980s, warming has also led to a longer wildfire season, and more big fires across the western United States.<\/p>\n<p>To be sure, fires like Las Conchas \u2014 and the Whitewater-Baldy Fire in the Gila National Forest, which burned almost 300,000 acres in 2012 \u2014 were exacerbated by overly-dense forest conditions due in part to 20th\u00a0Century fire suppression policies.<\/p>\n<p>But the same warming trend that contributes to larger wildfires also makes it harder for some forests, including in the Jemez, to return once the flames are extinguished.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists have been studying this for years. In\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/pnas\/107\/50\/21289.full.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2010<\/a>, a peer-reviewed paper showed how intense drought, insect outbreaks and wildfires slow tree growth and increase tree die-offs in southwestern forests. Another in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nclimate1693\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2012 noted<\/a>\u00a0that if warming continues as predicted, Southwestern forests will suffer changes \u201cunfamiliar to modern civilization.\u201d And a 2016\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nclimate2873\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">paper<\/a>\u00a0in \u201cNature Climate Change\u201d projects that by 2100, pine-juniper forests in the Southwest will be gone \u2014 and more than half the northern hemisphere\u2019s evergreen trees will have died due to warming and its associated stresses.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_613942\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-613942\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_2128-sm-771x513.jpg\" alt=\"Las Conchas\" width=\"771\" height=\"513\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_2128-sm-771x513.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_2128-sm-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_2128-sm-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_2128-sm.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Laura Paskus \/ New Mexico Political Report<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Seven years after Las Conchas<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We see that happening here in this swath of the eastern Jemez, where pine forests couldn\u2019t regenerate after Las Conchas. Too few mature pines survived to re-seed a new generation of trees. In some places aspens and New Mexico locusts are filling in the landscape. In other areas, scrubby oaks are spreading.<\/p>\n<p>But once the tallest, oldest trees \u2014 the overstory, which provides shelter to seedlings \u2014 are gone, the environment becomes hotter and drier.<\/p>\n<p>Hurteau crouches to readjust the netting that keeps elk from nibbling on the tiny Douglas fir and pine seedlings, and points out a nearby weather station that gathers information on temperature and humidity.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ve got a lot more sunlight hitting the surface of the Earth &#8212; and as a result, that creates a fairly hostile environment for a pine seedling to try and establish,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cAnd even when the seeds do germinate, the chance they\u2019ll grow to become a seedling, and then from a seedling to a sapling, is really miniscule.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Studying this transition \u2014 seeing which species persist here now, and understanding which can survive \u2014 will help people decide what to do next, says Hurteau: \u201cWe can use that information to better understand how we can more effectively plant seedlings after one of these large, hot fires to accelerate reforestation of these environments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What happens here in the watershed matters to everyone below: If you live in the Rio Grande Valley, your water comes from forested landscapes, like those here in the Jemez. Trees provide shade and help retain snowpack in the winter, he says, and canopy cover helps slow the rate of melting snow in the spring. That means decisions about the watershed affect everyone below, too.<\/p>\n<p>And each year with above-average or average snowpack should be put to good use, he says. That\u2019s because the climate projections for the Southwest show the region will keep getting warmer and drier.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe warmer and drier it gets, the less likely we\u2019re going to be able to establish seedlings in these areas,\u201d he says. \u201cGiven the rate at which the climate is changing, if we want to establish trees on these landscapes, we need to take advantage of this relatively small window.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>This story was reported with New Mexico In Focus. To watch last Friday\u2019s episode of \u201cOur Land: New Mexico\u2019s Environmental Past, Present and Future,\u201d visit\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nminfocus\/videos\/10156178113538889\/?hc_ref=ARRyd8y9oM3fncRwuqcyhdIJRjPw5SeQGCb16dXTzSAzUxeROfUMl-_M3f-00Unx2Ko\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a><strong>. You can also learn more about the series at the New Mexico In Focus\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/our-land\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>website<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<strong>and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC1Y3Wkd0uVoHUnfCPNCc9zQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A UNM research project aims to help land managers and policymakers know what to do in the wake of western wildfires that are growing in size and intensity as the planet continues to warm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":613941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[147],"class_list":["post-613936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}