Have They Started Cutting Trees...

[Shuckins]

...in the national parks yet?

The current administration has taken a lot of heat from environmental activists about advocating this.

According to some experts, the decades-old policy of fighting and controlling every fire in western forests has proven to be disastrous for the environment.  Because of the massive buildup of underbrush and dead limbs, as well as the excessive proliferation of trees for the acreage involved, these forests have become tinder boxes.  Before the enforcement of these policies, fires tended to burn with low-heat, causing far less damage and actually benefitting plant and animal life by putting nitrogen back into the soil.  

After more than half a century of ill-advised fire-fighting and conservation policies, the fires that now break out burn at thousands of degrees fahrenheit, sterilizing the soil and killing seeds that would normally have sprouted after a low-heat fire.

The policies being advocated call for the removal of dead and diseased timber so that the remaining trees would be healthier and the chances of disastrous fires less.

What's happening out west?  Any of you people personally involved in this?

Regards, Shuckins/Leggern

[Lizking]

Well as a person involved in green building, and as a general all around conservationist, I can not see how the harvesting of trees is a bad thing.  It has to be done with knowledge, skill and oversight, but it is crucial to the health of the forest since we can not allow the natural course of events to take place.

Some places and species need to be protected, of course, but this is a very small percentage of the overall forests of the world and does not proclude logging in the area.

[SLO]

Originally posted by Lizking
but it is crucial to the health of the forest since we can not allow the natural course of events to take place.

 

that quote kinda tickles my funny bone.

[capt. apathy]

a couple big sales went through earlier this week.

[Shuckins]

The point is that fighting every fire that comes along isn't "natural."  What do you think happened in North America's forests before Europeans discovered it?  Natural fires kept the underbrush cleared from the forest floor and trees were uncrowded and healthier.

It is our very conservation methods that have proven to be "unnatural" and have led to the current massive conflagrations in the west.  The environmental groups that so rabidly fight any attempt to thin the trees and correct the situation are only making the problem worse.

[Lizking]

The natural state of events would be that we do not fight forest fires.  Is this something you advocate?

[capt. apathy]

I think you're right.  it also seems to be the growing consensus of most experts.

much of what we have thought was good for the last 125 years has turned out to do more harm than good.

things like clear-cutting and replanting a whole area so that all trees are the same size and very close together.
  putting out every fire so there is so much fuel that every fire is a major fire.
  clearing all dead wood from the forest and keeping the streams running clean and unobstructed.  this leaves no rest areas for returning fish and generally a bad and unnatural habitat.

so now a more selective cutting is generally favored.  we are actually intentionally putting debris in the rivers and streams (great for fish but really sucks to run into an intentionally placed log-jam when white-water rafting.

  we're finding it pretty hard to take a hands-off approach to fires though.  in theory it makes good sense.  eventually the ground will no longer be sterile and things can grow naturally.  and yes it would be better if we had let things go more naturally for the last century or so.  but would you want it to be your house or city that was leveled as we allowed the fires to reclaim the forest?  and while we wait for the land to grow back after the fires sterilize it, how much of the top soil will be left on the rock cliffs after erosion takes into the rivers?

what a lot of people who don't life in/near the forest don't understand is that it isn't this garden full of trees.  the pics you see of semi-flat ground are the exception, you see it mostly in pictures because this is the forest you can see from the car.  most of the forest grows on ground closer to vertical than level and the dirt will be gone leaving nothing but rock if you just let the fires have their way.

it looks like we'll get a good look at how the "let it burn" idea plays out.  what with our national guard troops in Iraq, and most of our fire-fighters already deployed at states who's fire season starts sooner, we're going to be looking at a lot of fires this year with no option other than to see what happens if we let it burn.

[Shuckins]

No...I do not advocate that we do nothing.  There are too many people with homes around our western forests to let them burn out of control.  But perhaps a more rational approach to forest management is in order.  

Selective cutting of trees to keep the forests healthy and promote the growth of beneficial understory plants is certainly a worthy goal.  Dead and diseased trees should be removed at any rate.  The reduction of combustible materials might keep some fires from burning with the heat of a blast furnace and racing across suburban communities.

[Lizking]

Did you know that most small to mid size rivers in the US were log jammed prior to the arrival of the white man?  The Red river in Texas had a 100 mile long log jam as an example and most rivers, left to themselves, will not be what we generally accept as "scenic", much less navigable.

Clear cutting is not a valid logging method, I do not think you will find anyone that disagrees with that.  Selective harvest, and the clearing of undergrowth, on the other hand, while not "natural" mimic what would happen naturally.

[Lizking]

Shuckins, do you realise what you imply when you say that diseased and dead trees should be removed?  Do you realize what that entails in an area of 100 acres, much less millions?

[john9001]

smokie the bear now says he was misinformed about preventing forrest fires.

[capt. apathy]

actually they are finding that the dead trees (just not in so big a block as left from our modern fires) are necessary.  these provide habitat for insect life, they've found that the lack of certain bugs is part of the problem.  one of the things newer studies have shown is that with the old clear cutting it left no dead trees and all trees in an area being the same age.  this left them all susceptible to the same diseases, and with no dead trees, there was a lack of necessary insects to break down newly dead trees.  leaving them to be large banks of fuel.

so far it's a trial and error sort of thing.  we know what we have done so far is wrong.  we've taken it too far to just do a hands off.  as I see it, the best approach is to not make any sweeping policy changes.  try different theory's in smaller areas and see what works, avoid committing a new policy to the whole forest until we can be sure that we aren't just screwing it up in a new way.

[Shuckins]

Logging is Arkansas' largest industry Lizking so, yeah, I know what it entails.  Yet changes need to be made.  We can't just wring our hands and say that we don't know what to do.

[Lizking]

There is also a difference between dead trees and deadfalls.  Deadfalls are needed, while dead trees promote unhealthy insects, disease and are a fire hazard.

Shuckins, we know what to do, but we are not allowed to do it.  Forest management requires roads for access, as I am sure you know.

[Shuckins]

Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.