Richard Carlson looks out his Tahoe cabin window at the beautiful view knowing that if he sees forest fire smoke below him, he has 10 minutes to clear out before the fire will block his only exit route. Carlson therefore knows a thing or two about managing forests for optimum fire safety. Why?
Behind my home, it’s nearly impossible to hike off trail because you have to wade through knee-deep piles of dead branches.
The forest is ready to explode. We have too many trees, but no one dares do anything about it.
It’s not a pretty thing, this forest management debate. Lumber company and radical environmentalists have staked out the extreme positions, with the Forest Services, forest residents and mainstream conservationists in between.
Reasonable people know the forest has to be thinned. People educated on the matter know that when the first photographers lugged cameras up the Sierras, the photos they took showed forests remarkably thinner than those today. And environmentalists know they’ll always be able to make a buck by railing against loggers.
Against that backdrop, an agreement was struck to allow the sort of environmentally balanced thinning that might have prevented the Tahoe fire. It didn’t pan out, says Carlson in an SF Chronicle opinion piece today:
Effective but environmentally safe forest thinning requires compromise between environmentalists and commercial loggers. Unfortunately, the new, more ideological environmental movement refuses such compromise. This refusal is exemplified by the Quincy Library Group.
The group drafted an agreement among Sierra conservationists, industry and political leaders that would have allowed enough controlled commercial thinning of Sierra forests to actually make a dent in the deadly growing forest fuel loads. The agreement was killed by lawsuits from the new, more radical urban environmentalists who value money and ideology above science, homes and human life.
The leaders of such groups as California’s chapters of the Sierra Club knew that their urban constituencies could be depended on to contribute to any anti-logging campaign.
Compromise would lose money and support to more-radical groups. Having spent decades creating the image of the evil logger as their favorite fundraiser, the urban environmentalists didn’t dare be caught talking to one. Allied as the Sierra Forest Legacy, these organizations have largely stopped effective efforts to deal with the fast-growing fire danger in Sierra forests.
It’s not like there hasn’t been sufficient time to implement the recommendations of the Quincy Library Group’s agreement; it was inked in 1993, and DiFi submitted legislation in 1998. But nothing has happened except more of the insane status quo:
While the lawyers argue, and the environmental fundraisers happily collect their tribute, the forest fuel loads keep growing.
In Tahoe, the situation is exacerbated by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (known locally as the Tree Nazis). The agency’s rules override fire marshal guidelines and generally make desperately needed tree thinning impossible. Unless you go through an insanely complex, expensive and lengthy permit process, you can’t touch a tree that’s larger than 6 inches in diameter, even if it’s next to your house. And 6- to 12-inch firs are exactly the type of tree that is the greatest fire danger.
It’s the same all over, and not just with the fires that preceded in Arizona and elsewhere. The California Coastal Commission forbids the repair or building of sea walls. A farmer in San Bernardino County was arrested for plowing a fire-break around his home because Stevens kangaroo rats might have been disturbed.
One of my clients recently spent $3 million fighting off (successfully) a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit over air quality. Ironically, the project was able to fully mitigate its air quality impacts for one-sixth that amount, just $500,000, with which they bought new, clean diesel generators to replace dirty generators used by farmers in the area.
The Center didn’t care. This client is a major fundraising source for them and like radical green groups everywhere, solutions aren’t their goal; power and money is.
If people die and cabins burn because of their goals, so what? The world in their view is better without people and cabins anyway.
Credit to Laer, for this article
{ 29 comments }
I sympathize with anyone who lost anything in the Angora. (My own family’s cabin is only about a mile away, at Fallen Leaf Lake, but the winds were blowing the other way.) And I join with those who try to manage their lands in an environmentally responsible fashion. (I recommend reading the book 1491 to find out what forest lands looked in North America before the arrival of Europeans. Hint: Active forest management isn’t a modern invention.)
But I don’t think that anyone is served, nor will any forests or homes be saved, by more of the same old us-versus-them rhetoric.
The fact is that environmentalists–and I’m one of them–were just as horrified by what happened in the Angora fire as anyone else. We don’t want anyone to lose a home. But we also want to preserve the natural beauty and water clarity that makes Lake Tahoe the treasure that it is. I don’t think those two things are contradictory. There are ways to balance human habitation in the mountains with environmental protection. I think we’d all be better off trying to find them, rather than wasting time lobbing rocks at the “other side.”
I couldn’t disagree with this posting more if it had claimed bush was the best president we ever had.
First, I know those forests up in Tahoe fairly well. It was not the environmentalist nor the Loggers who created the tender box that burned so ferociously these past several days to weeks. It was the mismanagement by the California and United States Departments of Forestry.
Does anyone here remember the fire in 1985 that burned around the whole of Ojai. When I was a kid growing up here, I hiked many of these mountains. Usually I made my own trail. I remember one particular hike where the plan was to hike straight up starting on Drown St., go straight up over Tarantula Hill–(which has been lopped off for a house that was never built)–then over Shelf Road,–(which few ever used except us boys and some grown men. In fact, we used to be able to walk with our guns right up drown, grand, signal up shelf to the Shooting Range without ever raising an eyebrow. Now days that would be unheard of.)– We had access in those days to do just that. Before we finished the first hill, we were walking 5, Five feet off the ground due to underbrush, I’m not exaggerating. This was not fun. I kept asking myself how the hell do the animals get around here.
That experience opened my eyes to the great negligence of our forest management. Unlike most in that time, when the fire started, I was relieved to see that the forest around Ojai was getting what nature intended for along time but thwarted by Man for far too many decades. I know many were scared and that hurt to hear some of them sharing their fear. Yet, I was confident of the positive outcome for the nature that was a long missing part of the Ojai Valley.
Yellow Stone had a policy of any naturally started fire was not to be artificially suppressed. Several years ago, a fire started by Nature was to be let alone per policy. People were outraged that the beauty was let to be consumed by fire, particularly any part near the tourist hot spots. The media had a field-day. Those in charged were ridiculed for allowing the forest to burn. Predictions of utter destruction and mismanagement, such folly was the beholding of such a nonsensical approach to forest management. Irrevocable harm hath wrought this fire.
Years later, we see beautiful recovery as nature intended: Animal life in the Ojai Valley increased, dear were being seen where they haven’t been seen in years. Bear, bison and many other animals increased in numbers in/at Yellow Stone. So much new growth, without disease.
Now the forests all about the Tahoe Basin are some of the most beautiful you will ever encounter anywhere in the world. But it is a severely sick forest habitat. One of the problems is that there are stands of trees dead, due to the dreaded Bark Beetle, that infested the area a few decades back. The U.S. & CA Forest Dept.s were stumped, and apparently still are, as to what to do about it. So they did nothing. There was talk of pesticides, and maybe even a trial of the idea.
We Californians are quite used to seeing fires and the crews who march up to fight them. I saw many a fire in the Tahoe Basin and up and down Interstate 80 (that leads to Reno)and Highway 50 (that leads to Tahoe) on tv reports, some in person, saw the standard bearers tactics and application to thwart nature over and over again.
Fire is the ultimate disinfectant for a forest with disease. It rids the forest of overgrowth that pushes out animals. Creates fertilizer for the new growth to follow.
I bet most of you when you think of our pioneering ancestors who traveled across America, that they saw forest more lush and thicker than we have today. It was quite the opposite. Forest mismanagement has unnaturally thickened our forests, increased the size of some. In fact, there are stands of trees encroaching what was naturally open prairie or grassy knolls in our ancestors time.
Nature needs to do her job without interference.
I’m familiar with some of the homes that burned in this fire, and feel bad for anyone who loses a home. But what did they think was going to happen, that fire would simply go around their homes. Many of these homes were fire traps in their own right, being of wood, some with wood shingles. Over growth that they could have lessened but didn’t. Some built smart and cleared brush away. Yet, there are too many trees in the forest, and too many houses next to them.
The post above is mine
Thanks for the interesting comments. I was up on Shelf Road today and talked to the C.R.E.W. who were clearing 20 feet to either side of the road for a fire lane. I said I hated to see them cut down those beautiful mansenita trees. A young woman, the leader with the white hat, said it was to protect the homes, but that some of the property owners had asked them not to cut on their land. Sounds like a contradiction there. I am renting in one of the homes that was affected by a fire a few years ago and I sympathize with the owner’s fear of another fire. Yet, I also agree with the idea of nature being the wisest guardian. There has to be some kind of balance. I remember a friend of mine talking about the fiasco taking place out on the Channel Islands. In his view, the agencies who were managing the plant and wild life were crazy, and he made a good case. How did the Indians here manage to live with nature, including the fires? As a general rule, I think we need to live more lightly on the land, and if you’re going to build in a fire zone, take all due precautions, like fire resistant materials. I still can’t see how clearing away growth twenty feet on each side of Shelf Road will do much to stop a raging wind driven fire but I guess it would help. I just hate to see the sterile look that the C.R.E.W. has created. -Dennis
Mr. Carlson specializes in being a witness regarding economics and the environment. He’s the go to guy if you are a logging firm and you’ve just been hit with a suit to stop clear cutting because of some pesky “endangered” species. Or perhaps you are an energy corporation interested in “de-regulating” energy so you can step in and really start stealing money. Mr. Carlson will do a superb work-up in the economics of deregulation and sell it to the courts for you. It’s little wonder that he would take the pro-logging stance. The rest of the above post appears to come from the SF Chronicle. Sorry Brian, but if you insist on posting this blatant propaganda, I’ll have to continue exposing it for what it is. There may be an argument for responsible forest thinning in Tahoe, but there is absolutely no way this can be blamed on environmentalists. I’ll remind you that the increased bark beetle infestation that has killed so many of our trees is also to blame for fire. And the reason the bark beetles have exploded is because it is warmer longer. They can breed longer and the cold doesn’t come and kill them. Hmmmm…can you say global warming?
Let me add and remind. The Bark Beetle was there, in the forest of and near Tahoe, long before global warming began. Their numbers increased each year, for the only thing that can get rid of them or keep them in check, is fire, fire that was dutifully snuffed out over and over again. But, now, with increased temps, which doesn’t have to be that much of an increase, comes, as SPK mentions: “…it is warmer longer.”, which is great for most insects, good or ?bad?.
The Tahoe Lake and Forest areas are under the control of so many differing authorities, it is impossible for some of the more responsible home owners to get things done to protect their piece of the forest. I’ll give them that. But many others are living out of a chapter of Mary Poppins, expecting nature to give them Sugar to help make the fire go down easier.
Many of the so called thinning programs administered in the region actually made the risk of fire greater. Allot of the wood that was cut was bulldozed into piles, piles that have been sitting for years, drying out, ready to create the infernal we saw on tv.. Another tactic of thinning by loggers was to pick what they wanted and leave behind a stand of trees whose size, were not as profitable, but more conducive to catching on fire, surely more readily than the bigger trees. Another result of this tactic was it allowed for increased growth of underbrush that would have been kept in check by the shade of the larger trees that were consumed by man, not fire.
I’m not a strict naturalist, I accept my presence and yours, the whole of civilization, is going to leave an imprint on earth, but where we can be smart in husbandry, even when it means to do nothing, let’s do it.
For ecological, biological and moral reasons, I oppose the ban on timber harvesting in National Forests. Those who support the ban seem to believe it will prompt natural restoration of pre-settlement forest conditions. I think that is highly unlikely. Biologically speaking, eliminating harvesting, while continuing to control wildfires, would have significant adverse effects on bird and mammal species that thrive on early succession forest conditions.The Yellowstone fire was a wakeup call for many scientists, including me. Unless we soon begin the long process of dealing with diseased forests that are prone to very hot stand-replacing fires – restoring natural ecosystems as we go – Yellowstone-scale fires are a serious probability. I know many people distrust thinning, fearing a return to the days when too much harvesting was occurring in National Forests, but I don’t see how it could happen. Far greater risks lie in accepting the idea that the best way to protect National Forests is to set them aside in no-harvest reserves. I’m a wilderness fan and would favor adding appropriate lands to the Wilderness system, but major portions of the National Forest System are not suitable for Wilderness designation and ought to be managed for multiple benefits, including commercial timber production.
Dr. Jack Ward Thomas, retired Chief, U.S. Forest Service, now teaching at the graduate level at the University of Montana School of Forestry, Missoula, Evergreen, Winter 2000
The proposed ban on harvesting – however well intended – chases an unachievable ideal. It says that if we leave forests alone the result will be a more natural landscape. But reality presents a much different picture. Our forests are byproducts of 12,000 years of dominance by Native Americans, mainly through their use of fire. Removing human influences – by imposing a harvest ban in National Forests – would have horrendous impacts on native forests and species. Many early and mid-succession plant and animal communities would be lost, creating very unnatural landscapes, a significant decline in biological diversity and a significant increase in the size of wildfires, resulting in further losses to native forests.
Dr. Tom Bonnicksen, Professor of Forestry and noted author, Texas A&M University, Evergreen, Winter 2000
And now, first and foremost, you can never afford to forget for a moment what is the object of our forest policy. That object is not to preserve the forests because they are beautiful, though that is good in itself; nor because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness, though that, too, is good in itself; but the primary object of our forest policy, as of the land policy of the United States, is the making of prosperous homes. It is part of the traditional policy of home making in our country. Every other consideration comes as secondary…You yourselves have got to keep this practical object before your minds; to remember that a forest which contributes nothing to the wealth, progress or safety of the country is of no interest to the Government, and should be of little interest to the forester. Your attention must be directed to the preservation of the forests, not as an end in itself, but as the means of preserving and increasing the prosperity of the nation.
Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, at a Society of American Foresters meeting, Washington, D.C., March, 1903, Evergreen, Winter 1994-95
No single forest practice – not timber harvesting, not road building – can compare to the damage wildfires are inflicting on fish and fish habitat. It is a paradox that the very fish we are trying to protect from extinction are now being threatened by fires many so-called environmentalists believe should be allowed to burn unchecked.
Dr. Victor Kaczynski, Limnologist, Evergreen, March-April 1993
Most of the raw materials consumed by the industrialized world – including the United States – come from impoverished countries that lack the money, technology and political will needed to regulate their own extractive industries. In the emerging global economy, nations should be increasing, not decreasing, their dependency on wood fiber because wood is renewable, recyclable, biodegradable and far more energy efficient in its manufacture and use than are products made from steel, aluminum, plastic or concrete. Furthermore, growing forests and the lumber they provide store large amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere, adding to the potential for global warming.
Dr. James Bowyer, noted author and Director, Forest Products Management Development Institute, University of Minnesota, Evergreen, September 1993
I was in Yellowstone a couple years ago and saw areas that had been burned years before. The rate of recovery was amazing and many plant species that lay dormant awaiting the heat of a forest fire sprang to life.
Mike McMurray, Oregon
I’ve been a forest /eco-system photographer for over 20 years. I travel all over the country and have photographed forests in 32 states. I must say, you have hit the nail on the head. Good for you! I started out as a “good environmentalist” proud of my heritage and the groups I supported: i.e., The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Wilderness Society, The Earth Justice League and others….. soon I considered myself a conservationist, and over the last 13 years, I distanced myself from any environmental organization….for the same reasons that Ansel Adams denounced the Sierra Club and resigned his “lifetime heritage” statue with them and other groups.
I became tired of their lies and deceit. Yellowstone has always been a “heritage” area for me…..the last great ‘lower 48′ wilderness…. much the same as the book “Playing God in Yellowstone” by Alston Chase described it. I have visited Yellowstone perhaps 30 times in 53 years and have found out why it changed…..the environmentalists were on the “Board” and wanted to show how their management philosophy could be used in other eco-systems. Boy did they screw up! And, not only haven’t they apologized for it….they continue to demonstrate just how little they know of natural processes and the eco-system.
I cover forests….many types and fires. I have photographically covered perhaps 40 “project” fires over the last 15 years and many smaller fires. Fires today are not natural. Fuel loads in our forests are 10 to 20 times natural levels and that is not caused by past logging practices….it is caused unfortunately by the lack of management practices. I have read some of the comments by your readers….oh to be young and ignorant and full of passion!
First of all…we live here now. You may not like it but the fact remains. In fact there are 280 million of us now. When the Pilgrims arrived, there were perhaps 20-40 million native Americans…..so who gets to check out? If you want to return to natural conditions….1 out of 10 of you get to stay and the rest get to go away….who will that be? I’m a native American, so I guess by rights….I can stay!!!!
Sorry folks….but no matter what we do or try to do, we cannot get our forests back to their natural “pre-settlement conditions”, that’s impossible. Too much has changed and not all of it was bad. (I now have cable and CNN…..couldn’t get that in my teepee before and I now have internet….and a whole lot of dumb-ass white do-gooders to help us remember the past….) Get Real!
You wouldn’t be here today without the progress that was made by all of our ‘forefathers’ and the accomplishments they made…and part of our heritage was the utilization of our forests and will continue to be so. Trying to protect them is the most idiotic idealization you white people have yet come up with. You can’t “protect” them…they and the naturally evolving conditions of the universe are not under your control….the very best we can try to do is to ‘manage’ them and make the best use of them as good stewards of the land and pass that understanding of how to use them ‘wisely’ onto our next generation. And yes, we must utilize them…that is the preservation of the universe and of us.
Wise-use provides for today and tomorrow….or would you still want to keep ‘robbing the resources from third-world countries? (those that advocate preserving and protecting our forests are some of the worst environmental degraders of world resources yet known…. the not-in-my-back-yard syndrome should have been outgrown by the end of the third grade). Instead we should be utilizing wood – and trees and showing other countries how to do the same…. it is after all the only renewable resource we have…..and yet 3/4 of the world population uses it to heat their dwellings and cook over it….Does this begin to get through to some of you elitists, self indulgent, eco-centric know nothings?
Unless we help the rest of the world climb out of their poverty, you are only prolonging it. And unless we utilize our forests and it’s resources, you are only destroying it and the habitat for it’s wildlife…. the Great Spirit, God or whatever you want to call him, had a plan for us and that is why he provided everything we need to survive and thrive here for us. Our problem seems to be understanding what to do with his gifts…..it is only you who are confused.
I’m afraid the cut and paste name-calling is lost on me:
“lies and deceit
ignorant
dumb-ass white do-gooders
elitists, self indulgent, eco-centric know nothings
should have been outgrown by the end of the third grade
it is only you who are confused”
I was just telling you what I saw first-hand, without taking sides or offering rhetoric or opinion.
This writer is expressing his feelings, it is directed to those who are destroying the forest. As in “Seething”.
I don’t know who this Mike McMurry is, (an interesting name for a native American). But he doesn’t know anything about forestry nor do the others who’s words were pasted, including the comment attributed to Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy was an ardent environmentalist, but didn’t always have the right facts.
Brian, I’m all for logging. Why? Because I don’t care to live in a tent, cave or under a pile of carefully stacked rocks. But logging companies, large and small, have a legacy of destruction, consumption without regard of consequence of and to our forests. It was the environmentalist who forced more eco-friendly extraction policies upon this industry. It was Environmentalist that have kept greed from striking down the last of old growth forests. I will say the “Greanies” go a bit far sometimes, but who set the stage for their action and success-those whose legacy, betray, belie and portend what they foster in our forests.
One more thing, these post contradict each other, and one contradicted himself. Their ignorance is appalling, and not worth regarding further.
I’m certain that most people don’t have a clue that forest and foothill landscapes are in a generally unnatural condition due to the exclusion of fire playing its natural role within these ecosystems for the last 100 years. This situation has created overcrowding of trees, along with other associated vegetation.
Forest ecologists have determined that before European settlement, a range of 40 to 70 conifer trees per acre existed in the western regions of this country. Low-intensity fires, burning on a regular basis, thinned the forest.
In comparison, forested areas today contain as much as 400 to 500 trees per acre. Overcrowded forests create an environment where individual trees have difficulty competing for limited sunlight, soil moisture and nutrients.
As a result, trees become stressed and are more susceptible to premature mortality from extended periods of drought and from attack by insects and other forest pathogens.
Another unwanted condition from fire exclusion is that more shade-tolerant trees become established on each acre due to tree density. White fir and incense cedar are two shade-tolerant tree species common in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
In contrast, Ponderosa and Jeffrey pines are less tolerant to shade as they grow. The foliage of young fir and cedars extend close to the forest floor, which creates a “fuel ladder” where fire can quickly climb low-hanging limbs and become established in the upper reaches of the tree canopy.
What should have been a low intensity ground fire becomes a crown fire potentially leading to a stand (forest) replacing event.
A more dramatic consequence from unnatural forests is the abnormal number of catastrophic fires that have occurred over the past 30 years. Excessive tree density, in combination with abundant dead and down vegetation and old, decadent brush fields, has created a formula for disaster. Catastrophic fires have adversely affected millions of acres over the last several decades well beyond what occurred historically.
To compound the problem more recently, a significant number of homes have been built within and immediately adjacent to forested areas. This is called the urban interface. Land management planners predict that this trend will continue into the foreseeable future.
Simply put, the urban interface and wildfire don’t mix. Urbanization within fire dependent ecosystems has introduced ever-increasing complexities to land management planners. Managers must carefully plan and implement strategies and tactics that would best prevent the loss of human life and property while maintaining an acceptable level of risk to firefighting personnel charged with suppressing wildfires within these interface communities.
As a former member of a national incident management response team, I witnessed extreme fire behavior in many parts of the country that took human life, personal property and destroyed ecosystems that will not fully recover for several lifetimes even under ideal conditions.
The Manter (2000) and McNally (2002) are local examples of unusually large and devastating fires. The McNally was the largest recorded fire to occur on the Sequoia National Forest.
What is the solution? Professional land managers, with the assistance of researchers, must continually identify areas of concern, assess ecosystem function and health, and implement a number of management strategies.
One common practice is to mechanically thin selected forested areas to reduce the number of trees to within acceptable limits. Other management actions within the forester’s tool bag include, but are not limited to, introducing fire back into the ecosystem where appropriate to reduce density of trees and brush, promote regeneration and establish younger age classes of vegetation mixed with the older age classes.
Favorable outcomes are fewer catastrophic fires; endemic, rather than epidemic insect and disease intrusions; more succulent food sources for a variety of wildlife species; and improved cattle grazing opportunities.
There are currently two acceptable methods of introducing fire back into the ecosystem. One method is prescribed burning, which is the intentional ignition of fires within selected areas, by highly skilled fire professionals. Prescribed burning can only be initiated when air temperature, humidity, fuel moisture, wind speed and direction, optimum smoke lofting, etc. are within acceptable limits.
A more recent technique being used on public lands is called wildland fire use. When a naturally caused fire starts by lightning, wildland fire use can be approved under strict criteria and within predetermined areas. Federal land management agencies intend to expand wildland fire use as a viable technique to allow fire to play a more natural role in the ecosystem for a variety of resource and social benefits.
Through a combination of appropriate mechanical thinning, prescribed burning, wildland fire use, along with extensive fire hazard reduction on private lands, fire resistant materials used for home construction, and an effective public education program, land management professionals have renewed hope to transition forested areas back into an acceptable natural and healthy condition, more resilient to unwanted catastrophic events.
Though this public and private partnership will take many decades to make a noticeable difference, it’s the best chance we have to turn the corner.
– David Freeland lives in Lake Isabella and is the former Kern River district ranger of the Sequoia National Forest.
brian cox is gun but he don’t know what it means. he erases comments that show his mental scene.
I am thankful for this discussion and it all came at a critical time for me. I am trying to learn how to work with a timber/forested property we inherited in the south. At first I was horrified by the concepts of clear-cutting partial or whole and regulated burnings. I wanted to help promote the co2 exchange and keep the trees growing ‘as is’.
Then I learned about wildlife management and timber management and alternative means in-between clear cutting and just leaving it alone. I learned that certain natural species can’t grow and animals lose their food source if light can’t hit the floor of a forested area during critical growing times. I also researched and found people who are doing things in other ways with uneven management, selective thinnings, partial controlled burnings, etc. I am still pondering, along with my siblings, the best way to go about things.
Timber /forested properties can be big business and, if managed poorly can strip the land. Wildly growing, unmanaged forests can tend to harbor beetles and create huge problems with lightening strikes and unmanaged fires and make havoc for animals.
I want to be a good steward to the land and it’s fascinating to understand that for me at least that doesn’t always mean the most happy, gentle approach. And it also is so perplexing because of the balance of nature and how everything one does creates other changes. We can’t always know the consequences and certainly not on every species or biological habitat. I feel like it’s good that we are all becoming conscious of the changes we create and trying to steward well even if we can’t ultimately know all the effects.
I thank you all for the discussion. It’s all enlightening to me and very timely.
I blame the conservationist’s and the ignorant people who do see what they are actually doing to mother nature. Liberals, conservationist’s and these tree huggers have alot to answer too.
I’ll bite, I don’t know if Thom Kennedy is for real. But what do they have to answer for?
For protecting the last stand of Old Growth Forests?
For saving habitat such as that of the Spotted Owl?
For pushing the feds/state to help bring back the Condors and the bald Eagle? BTW, the Bald Eagle has, or is about to be released from the Endangered Species List.
For stopping Strip Foresting?
For the fish ladders throughout the state and country?
Those SOBs do have a great deal to answer for.
I think the right wing who control most dept.s in our state and in the federal govt. have more to answer for in regards to the decline of our forests than anyone else. It is they who control the overall policy, direction in the mismanagement of our lands, forests and all.
Mind you, as I’ve said, I’m for logging, smart logging. I’m a tree hugger who will cut down a tree if it will keep me out of the rain. In other words, I’m a realist and I believe these forests about us are for us to use, to use smartly.
A post above gave some, what I believe to be very accurate figures as to the changing density of our forests due to our not allowing nature to play her hand in sculpting the landscape. In the beginnig as the post accurately said is the we had a policy of protecting our forest from fire to leave more trees for housing and other needs, that were expanding at exponential rates, particularly after WWII.
Have you ever wondered why the houses throughout Ojai that were built in the 40s, 50s had such short over hangs or eves. It was due to the high cost of lumber, that was in such short supply, due to this exponential growth. Contractors needed the wood for the next house, it was that simple. So I can see the reasoning and logic behind it. But we see the problems now, so we must change course, allowing nature to do her job without interference.
The bright light in all this is that the Right Wing is declining and soon will qualify for the Endangered species List. I think they will see what they wanted for so long from the left and middle, non interference.
I might add, small business’s have rapidly declined due too the democrats, liberal and yes environmentalists, look at our taxes.. See , Ive been in Ojai since 97 and I must say I miss Omaha. Reasonable ,business friendly people reside there. Making a honest dollar is evil. Get a life and some respect.
Please stay on topic please. The issue is management of our forests. Please back up comments with facts, and stay on topic. Thanks you.
No one has spread more lies than Brian Cox his gun. Back up your facts with more than quoting proven liars.
I don’t always agree with Brian, but on his 4:47 post, I couldn’t agree more.
Brian, before this post goes into the archives, I wanted to ask if you could do a report or write up on what’s going on with the bees and how it is affecting your business?
It looks like the culprit in the “colonie collapse sindrome” is a fungus called Nosemea. This is what researchers in Spain have come up with anyway. It’s something that is more prevolent in wetter climates, hence we haven’t had the problem out here in the west. However this new strain can supposedly survive in warmer climates as well. This new strain is an Asian variety, it is very easily treatable. I’m not sure if I will need to treat for it or not. We have another variety in the US that is not as virulent. Of course the varroa mites are still the main problem and add to the stress factor on the bees. Last year I was using formic acid ( a naturally occurring acid that ants also produce) but that stuff is very nasty to work with. This year I’m using a different approach which is very low tech and passive which I may try to document.
That is interesting, and I’m relieved that they seem to know what is going on. There were so many theories out there when I first heard of the collapses of the colonies. Thanks Brian. I’m glad it doesn’t seem to affect your hives. I would be interested in hearing how the new technique works on the mites. Thanks for replying.
The latest from NPR on this discussion…
NPR : Stronger Wildfires Part of Emerging Global Pattern
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12488328&sc=emaf
The point is would you rather have all the forests go up in smoke or maybe we should manage the forests so they can sustain wildlife and so that we can use the lumber. Sure some fires that burn the low brush help certain areas. The problem exists where the entire forest is destroyed along with all the wildlife. Please read “july 22, 2007 8:12PM. We are endanger of losing our forests. The idea that the forest “needs” fire to open the seed pods is not true.
Brian
Earth warming is no doubt a factor in increased growth of forests. But forest fires will contribute tremendously to a possible increase of greenhouse gases. Using trees locks up those greenhouse gases in the form of lumber. We need to change the present policy that is prevelent in Sacramento or we will lose more and more forest in California. Last year I was back packing in the Golden Trout wilderness and there is an area up there where nothing grows, the fire was so hot that it totally destroyed that forested area. Good article Kate, How is your property doing where you have some forest land?
I don’t see a burned forest as destroyed. It’s in a natural state that will give way to new life without disease. These forest fires are huge, not due to global warming but due to mismanagement, not letting naturally started fires do the job of thinning, removing excessive brush, destroying fungus and molds that weaken trees, destroying insects such as the dreaded Bark Beetle, making room for animal life that has been squeezed out due to overgrowth.
A forest that goes up in smoke comes back healthier than it was before the fire. In areas that have regular occurring fires, without man’s intervention, the fire doesn’t do the amount of “destruction” as it does in an area that has been manipulated by man.
Maybe some sort of compromise is needed, for I’m for logging, smart logging.
Dana and Alyeska, Which ever of you responded to this, you apparently have not read any of the above posts. You are simply repeating yourself.
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