Well, since you asked…Here is Sierra Clubs positions on what needs to be done (as well as other related info on the fire issue from them): http://www.sierraclub.org/logging/fire_protection.asp See, in particular, the proposed plan released by a coalition of environmental groups including Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, and the Oregon Resources Defense Council.
The statistic is from a report by the non-partisan General Accounting Office. There was then a subsequent re-analysis carried out by the Forest Service at the request of some Republican senators that reached a different conclusion by being very selective in choosing which projects to count (and got much publicity by these Republicans and the editorial page of the WSJ). Here is a press release from the Sierra Club last month about this: http://LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?A2=ind0207&L=ce-scnews-releases&D=1&T=0&H=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=859
For completeness, here is a link to a Sierra Club press release today that highlights the differences between the approach that Sierra Club advocates and the Bush administration proposals: http://LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?A2=ind0208&L=ce-scnews-releases&D=1&T=0&H=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=1150
We, as a society, have mismanaged forests by trying to put out every fire as soon as it begins for years. However, I’m a little surprised at the faith that people have that lumber companies will operate national forest lumbering projects for the purpose of preventing fires. It is quite touching, especially in view of the level of chicanery to amass profits, real or imagined, in order to earn bigger bonuses that a number of business executives have demonstrated.
The cost of policing how the lumber companies stick to their agreements to clear undergrowth in return for being allowed to log won’t be small. And who believes that GW will be assiduous in funding the Forest Service and BLM to do that policing?
The Sierra Club plan is short-sighted and exclusive. It calls for the Forest Service to devote the major part of fire prevention efforts in creating 500-yard buffer zones around communities, while ignoring the rest of Forest Service land. It has always been the policy of land management agencies to protect human life above anything else, but I fail to see how the Sierra Club can claim a better plan than Bush’s corporate gravey train when the Club only concerns itself with Forest fringes. By ignoring the human-caused accummulated undergrowth issues forest-wide, we will still have major fires across the country.
Taking divemaster’s comments further, “it makes perfect sense to thin areas that need it. Bush’s plan does not seem different from what (professional) forest ecologists have been recommending for years now,” but have been stymied by red tape, politicians and uniformed people with their own political baggage.
The crust of the biscuit is Bush wants to save the forest from fires by cutting them down before they burn down. Bush can only think of his corporate friends while ignoring a national legacy.
FYI - The Bush Administration continues to cut the budgets for land management agencies. Don’t expect this to change for the better, but expect to get worse.
In fact, Bush has so far refused to pay for federal fire fighting efforts this fire season. The federal fire fighting budget for FY 2002 was around $400 million. It is expected that actual costs may approach $2 billion. It has been the unofficial policy that the sitting president requests additional monies from Congress to make up the unforeseen shortfall.
Not Bush. The land management agencies are being forced to cut their current operating budgets to pay for this excess fire fighting bill. There is already talk of land management agency federal layoffs (without pay) to pay for this year’s fire fighting efforts. Call up your local Forest Service, BLM or NPS office and ask them. They’ll tell you, if they’re not afraid, that only salaries and utilities are being paid right now. Every other expense is forbidden. Many travel on official business (if they obtain permission) in their own vehicles because some agencies won’t allow their employees to use government vehicles – the government credit cards to pay for the gas in the vehicles have been taken away.
There is even speculation of a government-wide shutdown after the November elections (again without pay) to makeup additional budget shortfalls. With no real Congress between November and January, Bush may do an end run around to further squeeze federal agencies because there will be no one in Washington to object.
With fewer land management agency professionals, Bush wants corporate America to manage public lands and make those lands make a profit, for corporate America.
Geez, talk about a fire sale … 
Duckster,
The Sierra Club explains why it believes a forest-wide fire suppression program is counterproductive and why mechanical thinning operations are not necessarily that effective in this article: http://www.sierraclub.org/logging/fire_whitepaper.asp See, in particular the parts headed “Mechanical Thinning and the Community Protection Zone” and “Restoring the Historic Role of Fire”.
Source: From the above link. BTW, it has always been the policy to protect lives ahead of eveything else. The Sierra Club now wants to add urban sprawl communities to the list. So the Sirra Club now supports urban sprawl?
The Sierra Club believes it’s OK to to allow undergrowth to continue, resulting in large fire forest-wide, as long as the fringes are thinned? How does one equate this with good forest policies by not managing entire forests; instead just near urban sprawl communities?
I am opposed to total fire suppression in forests because it is counter-productive on many fronts. This summer is the classic example. The problem arises because forest professionals are being hamstrung by politics and special interest groups - logging interests and environmentalists alike. Why can’t we mange forests for their own sake first, then implement ecologically sound programs to harvest timber in those areas where it is safe to do so?
---- I do not know the specifics of how this all works, but I have heard more than once that responsible cutting can reduce the risk of forest fires. —
That is not what is being proposed. What Bush is proposing is essentially that lumber companies run rampant free from challenge to their methods or results. But lumber companies have an interest only in cutting down the biggest, thickest trees: they commonly (and historically) leave behind the highly flammable smaller growth and underbrush, which quickly carry fire in every direction.
In virtually every major state in which supposed fire prevention funds have been allocated, almost all those funds have been put into funding pure commerical lumber farming, not thoughtful fire reduction. This is the present MO of most states: not the purported legislative backup, which has apparently been the case in less than 1% of logging requests (without even debating the actual legitimacy of the various controversies). The money allocated simply almost always goes to funding commercial logging, with little or no oversight as to how it will affect fire prevention.
Now, most ecologists think think commerical lumber farming is are a legitimate approach to fire prevention in some cases: but it’s just one or many thoughtful approaches: yet the Bush plan focuses almost exlucisvely on making unsupervised logging the forefront of fire prevention (ignoring entirely the risks it poses: leaving vast tracts of land with no large trees, but plenty of slash and underbrush to spread fires).
Far from this being the sort of plan that ecologists have supported, this plan is the usual subterfuge: a program that adverstises itself as a fuels reduction program, but is nothing more than a go-ahead to commericial logging that has little to nothing on its mind related with fire reduction (and could even create greater fire hazards).
No different than Alaska or taxes. When the economy is strong, the solution is a huge tax cut. When it’s weak: the solution is a huge tax cut. When we need oil: Alaska. When we don’t: Alaska. No matter what happens: anything and everything is simply a sign that the administration’s original policy preferences were always 100% correct, damn the objectors, damn any particular state of reality.
Just to save you a bit of googling Cervaise, here is theGovernment Accounting Office report on the appeals and litigation of fuel reduction projects.
That’s what worries me about this. On the surface of it, the proposal is a good idea: both the Forestry Service and logging companies haven’t been able to manage national forests in an ecologically sound way, and eliminating red tape would help.
BUT, I lived in Washington State most of my life, and did a great deal of hiking and camping in Washington and Oregon, and so saw the impact of logging there. Very, very rarely could the logging performed be considered “thinning.” Clear-cutting is very common, leaving behind what I described in my OP-- stumps, sawdust, young trees, and dense underbrush and deadfall. I don’t see evidence in the proposal that logging practices will be changed, only that they will be easier to perform. And that being the case, I’m very skeptical of Bush’s claim that increasing logging will prevent forest fires or make them more managable. The fuel is still there, and the budgets to maintain a healthy forest or save a burning one are dwindling.
Thanks for all the information you’ve supplied in this thread, guys. I’ve learned a lot.
Apos, other than propaganda from both sides, I do not know what Bush’s plan is. Bush’s people say there are reasonable changes; his adversaries say the changes would be unreasonable. E.g., here are some questions:[ul][]Which agency or agencies approve the logging now? []Which ones would have to approve this logging under Bush’s proposal?[]What standards or requirements do these these agencies apply?[]Would the standards be changed?[]What types of judicial review are allowable?[]What types of judicial review would be eliminated by Bush’s proposal?Does the current appeal process really cause paralysis?[/ul]
Duckster,
Well…Sierra Club has been working hard to fight sprawl (see http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/ ), but I think they’ve probably decided that a “let the wildfires burn down the sprawl communities” is probably not the most realistic way to fight it (certainly not from a political point of view).
Well, the question is how realistic and effective it is to try to cut out undergrowth in entire forests. As you note, it is the total fire suppression policy that has allowed this buildup to occur more than not aggressively going in and thinning. The environmentalists have argued that they are in agreement with the forest professionals but that these professionals are often not being listened to by forest service managers who are under a lot of pressure to cater to the timber interests. I must admit that I am not up on all of this enough to know exactly how true this is…But, in my opinion, you have yet to present a compelling case for how your proposal to manage the forests is better for the forests than what the Sierra Club is talking about.
By the way, there is an interesting article on the Bush plan and particularly the issue of “salvage logging” in the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-me-salvage23aug23005051.story?coll=la-news-science. Particularly interesting are the stories of two environmentalists who have looked at proposed salvage logging projects actually seeing which trees were marked for removal and which weren’t:
I am certainly not a forest management specialist. Even I can see that it is out of the question that enough money will be allocated to thin the underbrush in all forests everywhere. Nor do I believe that timber companies would do it if GW’s plan is implemented.
It is equally unrealistic to remove housing that is already existing in forested areas. So, in order to avoid political pressure to fight fires when that isn’t a good thing to do, perhaps it is best to thin around existing built up areas and let the fires do the thinning elsewhere. I don’t think that is what GW has in mind.
Anyone who thinks that the timber industry will confine their operations to those areas needing thinning only for fire reduction is living in a dream world. The national forests belong to me just as much as they do Georgia-Pacific. I believe, from what I’ve read, that past forest “management” has allowed poor forest management practice by the timber industry and the money paid by the timber companies hasn’t covered the cost to the government of allowing the timbering.
can’t you just bring in animals like goats or deer or other grazing animals to do the job of thinning why do you have to cut or burn ?
Well, I can’t say as I’ve ever seen a goat eat an oak tree.
Thinning is not just clearing seedlings, brush, and grasses. It also means removing a certain percentage of mature trees in a forest stand. Which trees? A forest ecologist would likely concentrate on diseased, damaged, and medium-sized trees in the most crowded areas. A logging company would want the ones best suited to commercial production.
Please read the thread carefully. I think the issue of why thinning/burning is necessary is pretty much established: fire prevention policies have led to unnatural ecosystems and overly heavy fuel loads.
The question more suited for debate is how the thinning occurs, who gets to do it and for what end purpose, and to what extent the Federal government will regulate the process.
Forest for living - living forest
Some of You might know that I am in the forest business. (So I can write a book about this. Just try to bear with this rant).
As far as I know, the forest has always given a living to different spices - including man. I do not know about US forest, so I tell You about North European (and some Russian) forests.
We, in Finland, have roughly divided forests in three different types, (I do not know the official English names of each):
- Economical forest (whereof farmers/Big Industry can get their living by logging etc.)
- National parks (where everybody can go hiking etc.)
- Scientific National parks (where only the science people should go, You should not pick berries or mushrooms etc.)
Warning: Next paragraph is nationalistic propaganda:)).
In Finland we have lakes and forest, almost only that. Not very much metal, no oil and so on. Just clean water and forests. We call the forest “Our Green Gold”.
We have saw-mills and make cellulose, we make paper. That was our main export up to some 10 years ago. Now we have also NOKIA, that is the world’s biggest firm within the cellular-phone business.
We also had a president, that put up a program, some 8 years ago, that every school has to have computers, computers and more computers for the kids, (beginning from age 6). So now we are, or were some years ago, the leading country in Internet connections, counted per capita. I think Sweden is now in the lead, but I am not sure.
We are number one when it comes to cellphones: 76 persons out of 100 have a cellular phone. (End of nationalistic propaganda).
Just wanted to point out that we earlier were very depending on forest, so the discussion has been “high and low” the last 90 years or so.
Even if I am born in the capital, I remember that I was 7 or 8 years old when our teacher begun to speak about “the very essence of forests.” And that is more than 40 years ago.
Economical forest:
- You own the land. If You want to cut, You contact the local forestal administration, which is a local association. I believe something like 99% of the forest owners are members of a local association.
The local association comes to Your forest and marks every tree, that has to be, or can be cut. This depends on if You want just to have some more light in the forest or maximum profit that year. They give You all information, teaching You in Your work if needed etc. These guys are paid by the government.
When You are logging, You pay a “forest tax” for this, so You are in fact paying the government.
OK. Lets say that You want maximum profit from Your forest this year (or You are a big company that wants maximum profit):
- The guys comes and marks which trees you are not allowed to cut: that is the best trees every 50 meter, tall, straight etc. (seed-trees for the next generation). You can cut them later when it is seen that the next generation has begun to grow.
So, You cut everything, except the just upcoming trees and the seedtrees.
or - even them, because there is growing spruce, but You want it to put birch there, because it is a very wet place. Birch is soaking up a lot of water, up to 700 liters per day.
But here comes the rub: If You cut everything, You need to replant. If You do not replant the association will do it and forward You quite a bill. If You do not pay, You go to court. and so on.
There are special plantation-firms that grow small plants, what-ever plants You wish, so You can choose what will grow for Your children to harvest.
The plants You get almost free, the government pays the rest (with Your tax-money).
The totally cut areas are usually max. about 150 meters x 300 meters. This is because if You make bigger “holes”, the next storm can fell the trees at the bordering forests.
If You need to make tractor roads from one spot to another and to the main road, You need to draw a plan, a map, where You would like to make these roads. Then the association guys comes and look at the forest and Your plan. They can make some corrections, but usually You have planned it very well, because it is Your forest.
This is more so that there can not be some heavy investors, cutting the forest, selling the land and leave it as they wish. (The Big Industry does also not want “heavy investors that rape the forest).
And everybody is happy, including our Big Industry.
Note that You pay taxes, but then get everything back in form of professional help and plants, is sometimes “heightening the eyebrows of some foreigner visitors” (calling it governmental interference = brink of socialism).
I can assure You that not even the Big Industry think like that, quite the opposite, the law sees to that even a lazy farmer or a firm buying land will renew the forest for the next generation (and The Big Industry).
(Every time the Nordic countries are called “socialistic”, it brings a smile on our lips. Some guys are just amusing.)
Now we begin more and more use pellets for heating. It goes like this:
You have a “pellet-manufacturing unit” on a lorry. The branches and bushes (not referring to the Bush family) are grained and pressed to pellets. No glue is needed, because the lignin in the tree will work as glue.
The pellets are drying trough the process and You can automatisize the heating of Your house, the community hospital, etc. A good heating system gives over 900 degrees Celsius and there is no harming ingredients coming out from Your chimney.
The price today is about 90 - 100 USD/ton.
I can assure You that this is a good business!
Just make a law in US, that all the branches and bushes has to be collected after harvesting, and the business will begin there also within no time. If the price there is too low, because You have cheap oil, ship it to Europe. Here is no oil, except under the sea-bottom in the Atlantic.
National parks:
Community/governmental forest. I think everyone knows what a National park is:
No power-lines, no buildings, no roads, (if there is ancient roads they are closed, so You walk).
There can be some buildings, very small, at special places where campers can put up fires. Just were the governmental people keep their equipment for keeping everything in order etc. I think there is this kind of places also in the Yellowstone park?
The Green party is in charge of the Ministry of Ecology (or whatever it is called), so if there needs to be some fire-roads etc., they are not cut by harvesters, etc…
And I think that the timber gained out of this, is sold on auction, so there is no way for the big industry and the government to “make deals”.
OK, there is always a way to go around everything, but the knowledge of fishy things usually ends up in boycotts, so there is no use. (The Finns are a crazy bunch and protests without effect, sums up to rebellions in the streets).
National parks are the heritage, so no politician wants to make a suicide, and I do not think there is a politician that would (even dare to) think in those lines.
Scientific National parks I know there is this kind of parks also, but have never been in one.
The law can not forbid You to go there, because Your right to walk in any forest is an old Viking law, some 1000 years old, and we have put it in our constitution.
There is no roads at all. There is no cutting at all. You are asked not to go to this forests and if You go, You should not pick berries, mushrooms etc.
The scientists go there, the wild life photographers and that kind of people. There is no discussion of the purpose of these forests. everyone seem to agreed to this.
We simply need to know more and more about forests, because it is still our main bread!
The Big Industry
Our wood/cellulose companies are within top ten in Europe. They are big.
But they never give politicians money, the politician would be dead quite soon, I mean politically dead. They can, maybe pay some trips, or so, but there is no use to pay them, because this kind of guys would always be in minority and very bad for any political party, if caught.
The youth is very fast on the streets protesting, and do not believe it is only some kind of “hippies”.
I do not know in how many protest marches our president, in her youth, were but I do think it would sum up somewhere between 10 - 30 protest-marsches. We have many Ministers that has been arrested etc… The Mayor of the capital, Helsinki, was brought to court for protesting. I think it was a protest against the Shah of Iran visiting. The point was, that yes, we need to buy oil, but not from the first torturer that gives a fair price.
When I sell pulpwood from Russia to Finland, I have to give papers and maps to the Finnish Big Industry showing were it is cut.
The history goes like this:
The German Green Party asked the German printing industry where the pulp-wood they use comes from. They got some kind of answer but did not really know…
The Greens said: “If You do not see to that it comes from and only from economical forest, that is cut according to the law, we will begin to boycott Your products!” (the big newspapers and magazines.)
Middle Europe is quite keen on “voting with their wallets”, so the threat was not just a joke.
The Big Industry in Germany contacted Finland and told them that they need documents. The Finnish industry did not first take it very seriously, but when the Big Business directors from Germany actually came to Finland and openly told them, “that we buy from Sweden or Canada, if You not…”, they fast changed their mind.
This story was very frankly put in a Finnish right wing magazine, and a “softer” version was shown on a (governmental) television channel.
Nowadays the Big Industry has inspectors in Russia who goes to the forests, according the maps, inspecting the stumps etc.
The Russians were cutting some National park…
The Greens put small chips in the bark of living trees and in the logs in Russia, at the National Park and then sat outside the Big Industry saw-mills and checked with electronical equipment that there is not this kind of wood coming…
They got the culprit, or more correctly, the buyer.
This is told to me by one director of the Big Industry. I have not seen the story in any Finnish papers, but I believe it is true, because these guys are paranoid about the question of “the origin of the wood”.
The story is much longer, but I have to stop my rant somewhere…
When I follow the discussion in USA, it seem to me that You think that You can only affect the community by voting? I would say that a common “voting with wallets” is very legal and if “The Money talks to You” it can’t be wrong to answer…, with Your wallet.
My opinion is that there has to be fire roads, but they have to be closed so that people do not go there with their cars.
Hikers are usually quite serious people, but drivers are just putting their cigarette out of the window without thinking so much about it.
P.S. You probably did not know that there was tree big fires, hundreds of sq. km:s burning around a community last year here in Russia?
The stupid box showed each evning how it grow nearer and nearer this community.
Every summer here is big fires, but the exceptonal thing about this community was that it was a nuclear power-plant. They did, after two weeks of fighting the fire, got the upper hand. Otherwise You would have known!!!
If only the federal and state governments would sell off all wild lands to the Sierra Club, logging companies, etc. so that they would have a strong incentive to care for and sustain their property.
The Sierra Club and other like-minded groups would focus on conservation and managing the land for tourism and research. What a great way to fund their organizations.
The logging companies would focus on sustainable business since the land would be theirs. If they destroy the land, no more profits.
Governments should not be in the business of owning massive parcels of land. They don’t have enough incentive to take care of it. People with differing usage views will never be satisfied in a public ownership model. So much energy and money is wasted in perpetuating the debate when private ownership could allow all sides to do what they want.
Dekel:
(1) And who would decide who gets what land? [The timber companies have a lot more money to throw around to buy land than does the Sierra Club.]
(2) Why do libertarians always assume that companies are wise and think about their long-term profitability? We have plenty of evidence that this is in fact not the case. There are superfund sites all over the place on lands that were privately owned! And, of course, it is not particularly difficult to understand why companies are so short-sighted when you consider the actual incentives that exist on the various managers and CEOs.
The thing that makes me nervous about Bush’s proposal, is that he and Gale Norton, his Secretary of the Interior, have been looking for a way to open up logging. The massive fires this year give them a perfect platform on which to get their bill passed, while they usher chainsaws in through the back door. Outside Magazine article.
As Duckster pointed out, there’s little in the way of funding for USFS and BLM staffing, much less an increase in staffing to appropriately monitor what’s being taken and what’s being left behind. I doubt that the material that could be gleaned from overgrown tinder-box forest stands would be enough to justify the effort to loggers. There must be a larger incentive there. The stands that contain the most dry kindling are tightly-packed 20-40 year old regrowth timber. Just getting single trees (say 30-50%) out, only to turn them into pulp, would be very prohibitive. Here we’re not even talking about all the flammable slash, such as vine maple and soap bush, which has no economic value, and tends to die and become very, very dry once the tree canopy closes above it. They’re not clearcutting, so there’s no open, safe place to clear the slash, and in a marginally-profitable-at-best operation, there’s no way they’re going to haul this slash off to a place where it can be safely burned.