Tag: Logging
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Should We Garden Our Forests?
A new study published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management “Significant mortality of old trees across a dry forest landscape, Oregon,” found that older larch and ponderosa pine are suffering increased death rates. The main author, James Johnston, formerly at Oregon State University Forestry School, now at the University of Oregon’s Institute for Resilient Organizations, Communities, and…
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Roadless Rule and Wildfires
Brooke Rollins, US Secretary of Agriculture with the Trump administration, rescinded the Roadless Rule. The Roadless Rule was established during the Clinton Administration to protect nearly 59 million acres of undeveloped land from resource extraction. In general, these roadless lands were deemed uneconomical to develop or had other values. They are prone to erosion or…
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How Common Were Low Severity Blazes in Western Ecosystem?
A recent article in the Arizona Republic, “The only way to save Arizona forests is to let them burn,” repeats the misguided idea that low-severity/high-frequency fires keep the forest open and park-like, with limited fuels to sustain tree-killing wildfires. In other words, if a fire kills most trees, it is “lost” and “destroyed.” In the…
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Fix Our Forests Act Doesn’t Fix Forests
Senators Curtis, Hickenlooper, Padilla, and Sheehy introduced Senate 1462 Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA) legislation. Similar legislation has already passed the House of Representatives. FOFA is a solution looking for a problem. Unfortunately, our forests do not have problems; even if they did, FOFA would not fix them. The idea that logging and prescribed burns…
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Trump’s Executive Order To Speed Logging
In March, President Trump declared a national emergency by Executive Order to speed up the logging of our national forests. The order affects more than 112 million acres, larger than the entire state of California. It would remove or nullify most environmental safeguards on our national forests. Trump’s order exempts objections to timber sales by…
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South Cottonwood Proposed Wilderness Threatened
The South Cottonwood drainage in the northern Gallatin Range proposed wilderness lies immediately south of Bozeman, to the west of Hyalite Canyon. The Forest Service’s nearly 8,000-acre Hyalite Cottonwood Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project threatens some of the proposed wilderness. Keep in mind that one acre is approximately equal to a football field. So, imagine what…
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Conservation Groups File Lawsuit to Protect Elk Hunting, Wildlife Corridors and Old Growth Forests in Montana
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council and Council on Wildlife and Fish filed a lawsuit in federal court in Montana against a road-building and commercial logging project on public lands in the Big Belt Mountains of Montana. The challenged Wood Duck project is located in a wildlife corridor that is critical for…
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The Fix Our Forests Act – A Trojan Horse For Logging
Congress is considering Fix Our Forests legislation. The legislation is a Trojan Horse that seeks to increase fuel reductions on public lands through logging and prescribed burns. However, large wildfires are ultimately not controlled by fuels. Fires need fuel to ignite, but they only spread when the climate/weather is conducive to ignition and the spread…