Meet our Guests: Brian Brown

Brian Brown

Owner of China Ranch

Tecopa, CA

11/18/21

     Brian Brown is the owner and operator of China Ranch, a date farm and desert oasis near Tecopa, California. In the arid Death Valley, the rarity of water makes China Ranch one of few riparian areas, bursting with cottonwoods, willows, and date trees. Rich with geology, botany, birds, and a long record of human activity, China Ranch preserves the history of the Old Spanish Trail, and the wildlife that rely on the abundant water source of Willow Creek.

     Brian and his late wife Bonnie bought the property and changed its course by planting many varieties of date trees and operating a business selling dates and date-related products. They made a commitment to the land and the species that rely on it through a conservation easement with the Nature Conservancy. The land is protected from further development and will be maintained into the future for a healthy ecosystem.

     After a morning of cleaning up fallen palm fronds from the date trees, Brian took the Westies on a tour of his property. He talked about the impacts of a recent fire that burned over 20 acres of riparian habitat. China Ranch and the Nature Conservancy have made a commitment to restoring the burnt habitat for the many species of wildlife that find solace in one of Death Valley’s few oases.

By Haley Post

Meet our Guests: Matt Radar

Matt Radar

BLM Wildlands Fire Fighter

Shoshone, CA

11/15/21

Matt Radar, a BLM Wildlands Fire Fighter, joined us in our Shoshone California to camp to tell us about his career in natural resource management and firefighting.  After graduating from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a degree in biology, Matt worked briefly in research labs but quickly discovered that he wanted work outside and in conservation.  He trained to become a timber feller, one of the more hazardous jobs in wildland firefighting and also one of the most challenging.

Earlier in the day we met him briefly at the China Ranch, where he was felling and cutting hazard trees from the recent Willow Fire on the Ranch.  Energetic and upbeat, Matt also generously shared his advice about how to get jobs in natural resource fields:  be persistent, take unpaid internships to get your foot in the door, do good work, and people will notice you.  And sometimes, trust serendipity. 

By Phil Brick

Photo credit: Neave Fleming

Meet our Guests: Jason Nez

Jason Nez

Fire Archeologist

Navajo Nation

09/26/21

“I’m always looking at signs and putting together stories,” says Jason Nez, kneeling to examine a sherd of Diné pottery patterned with rusty stalks of corn. As an archaeologist, Jason reads complex stories of people and place from the minutia of human markings and artifacts. As a wildland fire crew manager with the National Park Service, he puts his archaeological literacy to uncommon use.

The process of corralling and extinguishing fires leaves its own scars on landscapes. Fire line trenches and vehicular tracks disturb landscapes in the name of park protection but threaten to erase sites of native artifacts should they collide with the path of fire. Thus, Jason proactively identifies sites and develops plans to spare them from damage by fire crews.

Lasting artifacts have been a vital source of power for the Diné and other indigenous tribes whose nativity, as Jason articulates, is constantly questioned. “So when we see these [artifacts],” Jason emphasizes, “it’s our proof that we were here. They couldn’t take us from this landscape because we were able to argue in court that these were our ancestors’ and it’s indisputable. So having enough respect to leave these things here, protects these connections far into the future in bigger ways than we can ever imagine.”

By Nicki Caddell

Meet our Guests: John Rohrer

John Rohrer

U.S. Forest Service Program Manager

Methow Valley, Washington

8/28/21-8/30/21

     John Rohrer is the USFS Program Manager for Range, Weeds, Botany and Wildlife based in the Okanogan National Forest. John is a soft-spoken, thoughtful biologist who has numerous interests within the Methow valley and battles with a wide range of dilemmas in the ecological and political spheres.

     John’s wide-ranging job description means that he is involved with a variety of forest management decisions and the dilemmas that often accompany those decisions. For example, John has worked with fire rangers in an attempt to address the issue of overly dense forests that need thinning to prevent massive fires that have decimated the valley in recent years. However, thinning is difficult to begin because of the restrictions on cutting trees down due to the presence of the endangered spotted owl who resides in these forests. John also works on other projects such as his effort to reintroduce beavers to Black Pine Lake. Outside of his official job, John is a snake enthusiast who captures pesky rattlesnakes in the valley, monitors them and houses them on his property.

By Wes Johnston

Meet our Guests: Paul Hessburg

Paul Hessburg

Research Landscape Ecologist, U.S. Forest Service

Methow Valley, WA

9/3/21

Paul Hessburg is a fire connoisseur who looks at forests with a deep-rooted knowledge of ecology. He understands and imparts that a healthy forest does not look like the abundance of thick-canopied trees that many people imagine, but instead contains meadows and bare space. He looks at forests through the eyes of fire – thinking of where it would go when it inevitably comes back to the landscape, invited or not. Hessburg speaks of Native Americans’ relationships with fire, one he admits was much more in tune with the landscape. In a landscape impacted by the effects of climate change, Paul shares his knowledge within the U.S Forest Service and his community so that others can begin to understand that the only constant in landscape and fire ecology is change.

Conservation, in a world with a rapidly changing climate, must be thought of in much broader terms, Paul says. He believes that requires looking at the history of fire management, understanding the present social problems communities face, and diligently studying ecology. With this holistic view, Paul explains that “fire in this landscape is non-negotiable, so finding a way to invite it back so that it does good things: burn up dead wood, thin out trees, is the goal.”

By Jade Strapart

Meet our Guests: Matt Ellis

Matt Ellis

Fire Management Officer, Methow Valley Ranger District, U.S. Forest Service

Methow Valley, WA

08/30/2021

Standing amongst an old-growth forest stand in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, Matt Ellis, Fire Management Officer for the Forest Service’s Methow Valley Ranger District, speaks to the dilemmas in managing National Forest land from a wildfire management perspective. When looking at this dense, multi-layered old-growth forest, Matt sees a continuous availability of fuel and the potential for high-severity fire. However, Matt’s Forest Service colleague, wildlife biologist John Rohrer sees an ideal habitat for the northern spotted owl, an animal that was listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) due to loss of habitat. The spotted owl’s status under the ESA means that the Forest Service has to prioritize preserving its habitat. Nevertheless, Matt knows that without thinning the vegetation in old growth stands, fire will blacken the landscape on a large scale.

Dilemmas such as this often don’t have easily defined answers. Matt emphasizes that there’s not one person or agency that fully gets their way in the management of forest lands. In the old growth stand Semester in the West visited only small diameter trees were thinned to reduce fire risk, while the large ponderosa pines that provide habitat for the spotted owl still stand tall.

Despite the demanding nature of reconciling fire safety with the variety of uses on forest lands, Matt continues to believe “one of the coolest things about the Forest Service is we offer opportunities for all these different users.”

By Claire Warncke

Meet our Guests: Matt Howard

Matt Howard

Fire Manager, Oregon Department of Forestry

Wallowa County, OR

8/24/2021

Standing in the hot sun on a bed of dry pine needles, Matt Howard, Fire Manager with the Oregon Department of Forestry, emphasizes that this place, the Lostine Canyon in northeastern Oregon, is only accessible by a one-lane road. The nature of the road and its users means that a wildfire evacuation would be difficult and slow. Traffic could create a bottleneck at the bridge and block emergency vehicles. Matt describes that thinning the forest around the road by cutting small diameter trees would give firefighters a chance to hold back a blaze during an evacuation.

Working with homeowners in the area, Matt educates on fire preparedness. About half of the residents in Lostine Canyon participate in the Firewise Community program which involves creating a “defensible space” without burnable debris around their homes so that wildfire or flying embers do not ignite the building as easily. Why don’t more people take action to protect their (and their neighbors’) homes? Matt explains in a resigned tone that people just do not think fire will come to them. He also mentions that it is hard to get second homeowners to care for a property they only visit one or two weeks in a year. Matt speaks from experience when he says “I can educate, I can regulate, but people aren’t going to do things unless they believe in them.”

Matt loves these woods, and understands why people would risk living here. Even considering the persistence of fire in the area, Matt believes that “people can live here and be safe…knowing there’s inherent risk.”

By Reya Fore

Meet our Guests: Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly

Restoration Director, Greater Hells Canyon Council

Lostine, OR

8/22/21

The Lostine River Corridor is a place of great tension for many residents of Wallowa County. For Brian Kelly, Restoration Director for the Greater Hells Canyon Council, a regional environmental advocacy group, this is an area of devastation and disappointment. Brian is a transplant to northeastern Oregon, the native New Yorker discovered his love for the West on a hitchhiking trip straight out of high school and came back to his home state eager to return. He soon got his chance in the form of a full-time position with the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon; however, after a year with the federal agency he became disillusioned with its forestry practices.

Brian believes in a holistic and forward-thinking approach to forest management that emphasizes minimal intervention and natural aesthetics. Much of Brian’s work revolves around advocating for land managers to follow those principles, but it can be a struggle to convince them. Recently he has advocated against the Lostine Corridor Project, a tree-thinning project conducted by the Forest Service meant to reduce fire danger along a heavily-trafficked forest road. The Forest Service exempted this project from a full environmental analysis for public safety reasons, but Brian argued that it deserved a thorough assessment. Looking over stumps and debris between the remaining trees, he said “this would be a great treatment for a dry, pine forest. Unfortunately, it’s not a dry pine forest.” The transition from the thinning site to the wet undisturbed canopy further from the road provides confirms Brian’s assessment of the forest. In most of the clear-cuts that Brian has worked on, he believes it was unnecessary to clear the area in the first place. “If you’re doing that kind of forestry, let’s just say that I don’t agree with you”.

By Elio Van Gorden