Re: Politics, Fires and Trails

["Sandy Bolinger" <bolinger@bigsky.net>]

AMEN
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: hikryrdg <hikryrdg@evansville.net>
To: Ridecamp <ridecamp@endurance.net>
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2000 7:55 PM
Subject: RC: Politics, Fires and Trails


> 
> 
> 
> >>
> >>Fire or chain saw cleanups inevitable
> >>Source: The Spokesman Review
> >>Publication date: 2000-08-17
> >>
> >>Late-summer fires and smoke were a part of our
> >>region's ecosystem long before white settlers arrived
> >>and started plowing the grasslands and chopping down
> >>the forests to build their cities.
> >>Modern nature lovers who gripe about smoke as if a
> >>pristine world would spare them from breathing the
> >>stuff need perspective - and need to be careful what
> >>they ask for. By demanding freedom from smoke, they
> >>might make smoke more likely.
> >>
> >>Fire is nature's way to clear underbrush, insects and
> >>disease from forests - and, by the way, from
> >>grasslands as well.
> >>
> >>The fires that now rage across the Inland Northwest's
> >>national forests are, primarily, the result of an
> >>unusually dry summer. In that respect, they are
> >>similar to fires that cleared and renewed our region's
> >>forests for thousands of years. It ought to be noted
> >>that some of this summer's fires are in wilderness
> >>areas where logging has never been allowed. Surely, we
> >>all recall the 1994 fires that swept through
> >>Yellowstone National Park, likewise shielded from
> >>logging.
> >>
> >>But it also is a fact - documented by forestry
> >>research following the 1994 fire season - that the
> >>past century's forest management practices have made
> >>modern conflagrations worse.
> >>
> >>After logging operations, some forests have been
> >>densely replanted with species that aren't as
> >>resistant to healthy, brush-clearing fires as were the
> >>native trees such as white pine.
> >>
> >>Protests rooted in ideology, not forestry, have
> >>attacked attempts to spray tree-killing insects or log
> >>trees that are infested, diseased and dying.
> >>
> >>When forest fire crews extinguish a blaze, they plant
> >>the seeds for larger conflagrations. A century of fire
> >>suppression has left national forests filled with
> >
> >>brush, dead branches, small trees - tinder for
> >>firestorms of unnatural intensity.
> >>
> >>As a result, foresters now favor prescribed burns to
> >>prevent disaster. And yet, when fires do occur, what
> >>happens? Out come the fire crews. This is
> >>understandable, given the desire to protect cities,
> >>homes, timber and Bambi. But the contradiction speaks
> >>for itself.
> >>
> >>Foresters face a difficult choice: Let fire cleanse
> >>and renew the forests while rural homes burn and skies
> >>fill with smoke. Or, suppress fires and clear forests
> >>with chain saws, instead.
> >>
> >>Loud voices oppose either choice. On federal forests,
> >>where management policy is subject to political
> >>interference, this leads to the worst of all worlds:
> >>Fires are suppressed, insects and disease run rampant,
> >>and thinning operations are opposed. The result?
> >>Firestorms - worse than the wildfires that are
> >>nature's norm.
> >>
> >>After the 1994 fires, researchers warned that national
> >>forests are a tinderbox. Already, some compare this
> >>fire season to 1910, when massive fires swept across
> >>Idaho and Montana. But forest conditions in 1910 had
> >>not been altered by a century in which managers erred
> >>and politics made the errors worse. Pray for rain.
> >>And, for common sense.
> >>
> >>Publication date: 2000-08-17
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 19:43:03 -0700 (PDT)
> >>Subject: Environmental Politics Have Been a Disaster for Our National
> >>Forests; Guest Editorial 8/21 Salt Lake Tribune
> >>
> >>Environmental Politics Have Been a Disaster for Our
> >>National Forests
> >> Monday, August 21, 2000
> >>
> >>
> >>BY ANNE M. HAYES
> >>
> >>
> >> Back on March 15, President Clinton traveled to
> >>California's Sequoia National Forest to declare
> >>328,000 acres as a national monument and cast himself
> >>as the "savior" of these noble forests.
> >> But the truth about the state of our national
> >>forests is another story, and unfortunately it is
> >>being told in a very graphic and destructive fashion
> >>as the latest summer heat wave is sending major
> >>wildfires in 10 Western states out of control.
> >> The Sequoia National Forest, for example, was
> >>never in jeopardy -- until now. In all of 1997, the
> >>last year for which the Forest Service has tallied its
> >>records, timber was cut on only a total of 1300 acres
> >>in the entire forest. But already this summer, over
> >>63,000 acres of the Sequoia National Forest have gone
> >>up in smoke. In fact, the government's poor record of
> >>federal land management in the name of "saving" these
> >>forests from the chain saw may ultimately be
> >>responsible for destroying all of them.
> >> Years of federal mismanagement to appease
> >>environmental interests -- mainly,
> >> refusing to cut or clear any trees at all -- have
> >>left the national forests in a state where overcrowded
> >>and dead and dying trees have created a disastrous and
> >>precarious situation. Trees and debris have created
> >>fuel ladders that threaten even healthy trees; that
> >>is, an older, healthy forest can withstand and survive
> >>a fire if the fire merely clears low-lying brush and
> >>grasses but leaves the crowns of larger trees intact.
> >> But the same is not true when dead and dying trees
> >>are not cleared. Fires that would normally stay close
> >
> >>to the ground can "climb" up these trees and reach the
> >>crowns of healthy trees, consuming them. Second, fires
> >>that burn too hot can leave land barren by destroying
> >>the organic materials necessary for forest
> >>regeneration. Finally, when the fuel load is too high,
> >>fires are hard or impossible to control -- just ask
> >>the land managers in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
> >> These fires don't just "burn out." They rage so
> >>hot and so large that they can "leap" across vast
> >>expanses of land and burn whole landscapes.
> >> For all the direct costs of such fires -- lost
> >>forests, evacuated communities, lost houses -- there
> >>is a tremendous cost on our environment. Burning trees
> >>release tremendous amounts of toxins and particulate
> >>matter into the air, and the smoke and ash can travel
> >>for many miles, affecting the air quality of
> >>communities hundreds of miles away.
> >> The fires destroy habitat for wildlife, including
> >>the habitats of threatened and endangered species such
> >>as spotted owls and salmon. Forest fires can create
> >>unstable soil conditions, leading to mudslides and
> >>other sediment runoff that affect our streams and
> >>rivers, and, ultimately, the coast. In other words:
> >>unhealthy forests are bad environmental policy. And
> >>the Western States are suffering the brunt of this
> >>damage.
> >> The Western states contain 70 percent of this
> >>nation's national forests. Just last year, 735,000
> >>acres of California forest land went up in smoke. And
> >>the numbers are mounting again this year. So what has
> >>this administration done about this pressing
> >>environmental problem? Worse than nothing. It has
> >>implemented a "hands off" policy.
> >> According to the General Accounting Office, some
> >>39 million acres in the Western states have been at
> >>risk of catastrophic wildfire. And despite the fact
> >>that the Forest Service has been aware of this problem
> >>for years, the GAO concluded: "To date, we have not
> >>seen the strong leadership or the marshalling of funds
> >>and resources within the agency that would indicate to
> >>us that the Forest Service feels a sense of urgency
> >>and assigns a high priority to reducing the threat of
> >>catastrophic wildfire."
> >> In short, the topic is not getting serious
> >>attention because restoring forest health -- through
> >>selective thinning and other active management
> >>techniques -- does not conform to the environmental
> >>extremist agenda of "preserving" every single tree.
> >> Make no mistake -- the effects of these policies
> >>on our forests will last for decades.
> >> Land and lives will continue to be damaged unless
> >>the federal government starts to manage our national
> >>forests based on science and sense, not sound bites
> >>and photo-ops. True conservation and environmental
> >>politics are two different things. We cannot afford to
> >>confuse them any longer, or our real environment --
> >>the one real people actually live in -- will pay the
> >>price.
> >> _________
> >>
> >> Anne M. Hayes is an attorney with the Pacific Legal
> >>Foundation, a public interest law firm with
> >>headquarters in Sacramento, Calif. She can be reached
> >>at amh@pacificlegal.org Website:
> <http://www.pacificlegal.org/>www.pacificlegal.org
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> 
> 
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.    
> Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp   
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>