Re: RC: RE: Politics, Fires and Trails

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/25/00 3:48:07 PM Pacific Daylight Time, RDCARRIE writes:

<< So what to do?  The simple answer, that most agree on, is to reduce the 
fuel load.  "How" to best do that is the million-dollar question.  The 
problem of fuel loads getting so high didn't happen overnight, and it won't 
be fixed overnight.  Prescribed burning is one answer...get fire back into 
the ecosystem to restore the forest to what it once was.  But - the lack of 
fire for so many decades means that it's very difficult to restore the forest 
with just fire, without including more "drastic" means.  That means some sort 
of harvest, preferably directed at reducing fuel loads, rather than just 
harvesting a certan number of board feet of timber.  Has there been 
mis-management by the Forest Service?  Depends on what you call 
mis-management.  Believe me, I have yet to see the day when the FS 
voluntarily errs on the side of not harvesting trees!  But timber harvests 
are somewhat market-driven.  >>

All very true.  The problem comes when initially the USFS's hands were tied 
by so-called "environmental" groups who do not understand that care of the 
environment includes active involvement with it (just as care of your 
domestic animals means feeding, watering, training, etc., rather than simply 
turning them in the street to be "free"), and thus also came pressure from 
politicians who wanted to pander to that segment of the voting public.  The 
USFS when I was growing up was very much involved with multiple use and with 
the concept of "sustained yield" of timber harvest--in other words, 
continually harvesting the right amount to keep fuels down and to maintain a 
perpetual source of trees.  This concept has been greatly eroded in recent 
years.  Sadly, a great many of USFS employees on the lower rungs of the 
ladder are all too aware of this, but they are not the ones making policy...  
<sigh>

Heidi