Unfiltered Commentary
Lawsuits Sometimes Necessary While Working on Forest Solutions
By Matthew Koehler, Unfiltered 8-17-06
 | |
|
Recently I had the privilege of testifying before the U.S. Senate during an oversight hearing on the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). Without question, the hearing was dominated by a two-hour grilling Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth received from eleven senators of both political parties. Turns out that despite much cheerleading and self-congratulating about the successes of HFRA, three years since the law was passed little has actually been accomplished. This is especially true here in the Northern Rockies where only 103 acres of fuel reduction has been accomplished under the act, including zero acres in Montana.
Apparently the Missoulian attributes much of this inaction to the fact that our organization filed a lawsuit on one single HFRA project: the Bitterroot National Forest's Middle East Fork project, which proposes to mix some bona-fide fuel reduction work with cutting down large trees in previously unlogged forests miles away from homes within critical elk and bighorn sheep habitat.
Unfortunately, the July 30 Missoulian editorial ignored many facts surrounding this project, including the Forest Service's own analysis, which found this project will increase fire severity for up to three years because the agency has made it a top priority to cut down the largest trees first, while leaving slash and small trees behind. Also ignored is the bungled HFRA-mandated "collaborative" process, including Bitterroot Supervisor Dave Bull's decisions to spend over $208,000 in taxpayer funds marking logging units before a final decision was made and to purge or alter important soils documents. Significantly, the editorial also mentions nothing about opposition to this project from longtime Bitterroot Valley residents, affected East Fork homeowners and prominent Ph.D. faculty members at the University of Montana, who are some of the nation's most renowned experts in their fields.
During my testimony I told the senators that the WildWest Institute is an active participant in a number of collaborative efforts to help protect communities from wildfire and move real restoration work forward on our national forests. Our goal is to work together with diverse interests to help protect communities from wildfire and be a catalyst for the establishment of a new, sustainable restoration economy in our region.
For example, we helped form and serve of the steering committee of the Montana FireSafe Council, which serves as a clearinghouse for homeowners seeking information, resources and assistance on community wildfire protection. WildWest is also an active member of the Salmon Forest Collaborative in Lemhi County, Idaho and the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition in Lincoln County. Together with community members, county commissioners and business leaders we are seeking to find common-ground surrounding community wildfire protection and restoration projects on the Salmon-Challis and Kootenai National Forests, respectively. We joined forces with the DeBorgia Volunteer Fire Department for a tremendously successful community wildfire protection work weekend to create defensible space around the homes of elderly members of that community, along key roads and establishing a safety zone near the firehouse and community center.
While Congress and the administration continue to increase funding for controversial industrial logging - including logging of ancient, old-growth forests and roadless wildlands - we have yet to meet anyone within the Forest Service who believes that Congress is even coming close to properly funding ecologically-based restoration programs.
As I told the senators, this is unfortunate because if Congress is looking to help revitalize rural communities, the best place to start is shift their misplaced funding priorities from more industrial logging into the watershed and road restoration opportunities that abound on our national forests.
For example, right now in the Northern Rockies the Forest Service estimates that 85% of culverts are currently impassible to fish, with a cost of over $220 million to fix just the top priority culverts. The Forest Service's road maintenance backlog in Montana and Idaho is $1.3 billion, with a backlog of nearly $10 billion nationally. With appropriate funding from Congress, watershed and road restoration could not only help provide family-wage jobs for generations, but it would move us all a long ways towards building trust and better working relationships - to say nothing of the significant improvements to our forests, watersheds and wildlife.
Sometimes it's necessary for our organization to file a lawsuit in order to make sure the government uses the best available science and follows their own regulations and the law. Most people don't think this is too much to ask for and in the case of the Bitterroot's Middle East Fork project we believe the government failed to do this. But as you can see, while WildWest may file a lawsuit to hold the government accountable, we are also working hard to develop solutions that will benefit our forests, wildlife, watersheds and communities and help put Montana, and the Northern Rockies, on a path towards a more sustainable future.
Matthew Koehler is the executive director of the Missoula-based WildWest Institute.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
They stir the pot and skim the cream. Meanwhile the beetles and fire perform as nature intended without taking a %tage cut of the action.
Unfortunately the beetles and fire are not at all discriminating in the amount of damage done to an area.
"Actually grazing, the way it is practiced today is beneficial to the landscape. In addition ranchers provide winter grazing and water sources for wildlife."
Absolute hogwash.
Cattle are the number #1 water USER and the #1 water POLLUTER in the West. Livestock are also responsible for more soil loss, riparian degredation, noxious weed infestation and habitat degradation than any other single source.
On the lawsuit issue: If federal agencies would quit breaking the law, interested parties would stop filing lawsuits. This goes for both industry and conservation interests.
What has improved as a result of your lawsuit?
Thsoe of us who live out here are aware, very much aware that what enviros consider the best science is not necessarily so.
We are watching beetles and fires take out forests that have stood thru the cutting of timber companies since the white man came to this continent. Unfortuantely I never see an environmental group take responsiblity for any of the mistakes they make, others pay the price the those who messed it up to begin with.
Regarding recouping legal costs: the lawsuit is still making it's way through the US judicial system so this question doesn't apply.
What has improved as a result of our lawsuit you ask? Again, the lawsuit is still pending so that question really doesn't apply. However, as part of the whole public decision making process for this project, we filed an official HFRA objection on this project. It's interesting to note too that three local families who live right within the project area also filed official HFRA objections to this project, as did two PhD scientists from the School of Forestry at UM as well as other long-time Bitterroot Valley residents. According to Forest Service directly as a result of our objection approximately 1,500 acres were dropped from this project - including logging that was planned in officially designated old-growth habitat and wild, unlogged forests that are miles from the nearest home.
Regarding you comment "those of us who live out here" I see that you live in Wyoming and I live in Montana, as do all our staff and board members...so I'm not sure what your point is. Besides, these are federal public lands and whether you like it or not they belong equally to the plumber in Chicago and the hair stylist in Miami as they do to you and me.
You lament naturally processes in our forests such as beetles and fires. I hear often that wildfires of recent years are the worst on record. The fact of the matter is that last year about 8 million acres burned. The average burned acres in the US during the period of 1935 to 1945 was nearly 35 million acres burned annually. The average burned acres in the US during the past 100 years is 14 million annually. Yet somehow 8 million acres is the most on record...go figure.
Perhaps you would be interested in this report from the the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation called (it's a mouthful): "Logging to Control Insects: The Science and Myths Behind Managing Forest Insect 'Pests.'" A Synthesis of Independently Reviewed Research."
It's a compilation of research that dispels many commonly held misconceptions about forest insect pests and includes a summary of relevant studies on the importance of insects to forest function and the methods used to control forest "pest" insects, and a compilation of summaries of over 150 scientific papers and Forest Service documents.
Key findings in the report include:
Native forest pests have been part of our forests for millennia and function as nutrient recyclers; agents of disturbance; members of food chains; and regulators of productivity, diversity, and density.
Fire suppression and logging have led to simplified forests that may increase the risk of insect outbreaks.
Forests with diverse tree species and age classes are less likely to develop large insect outbreaks.
There is no evidence that logging can control bark beetles or forest defoliators once an outbreak has started.
Although thinning has been touted as a long-term solution to controlling bark beetles, the evidence is mixed as to its effectiveness.
Former US Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck gives report his "highest recommendation" and calls it "the most useful publication on the topic of forests and forest pests that I have seen."
You can download the report at: http://www.xerces.org/Forest_Pest_Myths/Logging_to_Control_Insects.htm.
P.S. While I keep a very neat and tidy house, I much prefer my public lands wild.
First I would like to thank you and your organization for the much needed and important work that has been done throughout the West and internationally. I feel that the conservation groups in the US are sometimes not represented as stakeholders in management decision, largely because their budgets doesn't support a staff to keep up with the work load I assume. Either way your responses have been valid.
To respond to your comment regarding sustainability, I believe that we are inherently biased on this topic and to bicker about it on a blog would be futile. I will say that there has been 50+ years of good science that has gone into State Land Management plans, such as the development of Oregon and Washington's Forest Practices Act. The application of BMP’s, mitigation strategies and SMZ rules has tremendously improved water quality over the past 20 years. Are we still causing impacts.... yes. Is there still areas where we are uncertain about cumulative impacts that science can't provide answers to? Yes. But until we change our basic thoughts and actions as a country from resource extraction and reliance on forest resources, I feel we have very educated professionals who truly care about our forest ecosystems that are implementing the best science and practices to mitigate those impacts. We need to foster working relationships with Non-industrial private foresters, industry, state and federal agencies and conservation groups to truly have what is called sustainable...until then put our forest practices in perspective in a temporal scale and internationally. We have come a long way and are leaders in the global forestry community with much more to learn and adapt to. Thank you for your responce.
Tim up there said it best, and I wanted to put it down here again in case it got lost in the exchanges since: Tim wrote:
On the lawsuit issue: If federal agencies would quit breaking the law, interested parties would stop filing lawsuits. This goes for both industry and conservation interests.
End quote.
There is some kind of prevailing notion--a false one, with alot of powerful backing, that lawsuits
"bog down" timber sales, energy development, and on and on. Yes, they do. If such development breaks the laws of the land, then the lawsuit bogs it down. Of course, there are individuals who post here that seem to believe that there should be no type of environmental regulations at all, and they object to the existence of the laws that the lawsuits seek to uphold. That's fine, too. There are plenty of places on earth where the gov't does not have or enforce enviro regs. And the real estate is really cheap there, too. Just don't get run over by all the folks who are fleeing those places trying to get here where they can raise non-asthmatic, cancer-free children or drink the water out of the tap, go fishing or hunting, or simply survive and get a job.
Nope, you can’t go cut down all the trees on the National Forest, sell them, and wreck the watershed. Nahhhh, we’d prefer it if you didn’t pour all that coal smoke out on our town.
Sir, please don’t kill fifty cutthroat trout from the West Fork for your fish fry. Mam, your cows are yarded up in the creek on the National Forest and they’ve grazed off all the willows so that now the creek is flooding downstream and filling with silt. We used to get our water from that creek. Can something be done? Do you really need to put those gas well-pads every forty acres on what used to be mule deer winter range on the BLM? And pump the aquifer full of fraccin’ fluid? Is that really the right thing to do? Isn’t there a law about that?
Yep, there is. But only if the citizens are willing to stand up for it. Think long and hard about what you are arguing for when you argue against these lawsuits and the citizen’s groups that bring them.
thanks,
Hal Herring
None of the scenarios you mentioned occur, but I can give you at least one instance of damage done by these self serving lawsuits. Several years ago just over the line in Colorado there was a blow down, and the lumber mill in Saratoga,Wy got the contract to clear it. Three years later they were able to finally go in and clear it out....after beetles had colonized not only the down timber, but spread to live timber that will eventually die and burn. That is where you get the smoke and the ruined watershed from floods. Some of the things they were suing for? Use of helicopters instead of roads, and....solar chain saws! So they were not only not saving anything, they caused even more damage.
It isn't compliance with existing laws that they are pushing it is making new laws that are designed by the particular group.
Nope you don't represent me!
The fires do not discriminate between old and young trees. Millions of acres of old growth burned up this summer. Millions more last summer. The notion that No Touch, Let It Burn, Watch It Rot policies "protect" old growth is laughably absurd, and no screen for the enormous tragedy inflicted on America;s priceless, heritage forests by lawsuit happy arsonistic pseudo-environmentalists.
How many acres of Montana and Idaho old growth forest have been catatstrophically destroyed by forest fires this summer alone?
Come on. If you really cared about old growth, you would know this number off the top of your head. You would be all agast about it. If you really cared.
And you dodge the question. If you were really into protecting old growth, you would be concerned about how much is burning down. But obviously, you aren't.
I do not accept your rhetoric about "working to protect old growth" when it is obvious and evident and demonstrable that you do not care how much burns up.
Your policies and actions directly promote catastrophic forest fires. How is that not arsonistic?
The so-called "environmental movement" does not really give a rat about forests, young or old. It is all a false front used to promote a political agenda that has nothing to do with forests.
They don't what burns catatstrophically. They care who is President, who has political power, who holds the purse strings, and how much money they can get their dirty little hands on.
Their rhetorical concern for forests is a Big Lie.
Idaho has suffered this year, to date, 1,647 wildland fires covering 844,535 acres, 185 "prescribed fires' on 28,171 acres, and 97 "wildland use fires" on 28,841 acres, for a total of 901,547 acres burned.
This information comes from National Year-to-Date Report on Fires and Acres Burned by State, Wildand Fire Statistics, National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, Id.
http://www.nifc.gov/stats/ytd_st.htm
Mike makes some valid points about the lack of caring by environmental groups. They are never willing to look at what is happening with their plans instituted and modify things. No matter what happens as a result of their programs they blindly push on and insist the facts aren't facts, or that it is someone else's fault.
I did not realize just how clueless you are regarding North American forests. Our forests post-date the Ice Ages. They are less than 12,500 years old, not "millions and millions of years" old. Let's reread your "scientific statement":
--Millions and millions of acres of forests and grasslands burned every year in North America for million and millions of years.--
Absolute hogwash. Apparently your 12 years as a political activist didn't teach you anything about real forest history. Here's a tiny lesson from someone who has actually managed real forests for over 30 years, me:
North American forest species like ponderosa pine and western red cedar do not show up in the pollen record until as recently as 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. However, evidence of human occupation extends back at least 11,000 years. That means human beings predate the forests in North America, by as much as 5,000 years.
People set fires frequently and regularly for thousands of years. Anthropogenic fire gave rise to open, park-like forests where individual trees grew to great ages. That is where the old growth component in most multi-cohort western forests came from.
Following the American Holocaust, wherein possibly as many as 100 million residents of the Western Hemisphere died from Eurasian diseases and genocide (see 1491 by Charles Mann), regular anthropogenic fire largely ceased. In its absence, a new doghair thicket of trees sprang up under the open-grown old growth.
The thicket is incendiary, and when it catches fire it kills all the trees, young and old. The obvious solution is to remove the 150 years of accumulated fuels and reinstitute regular, frequent, anthropogenic fire. See Pyne, Tending America's Forests.
That is science. It is not based on who I like in the Super Bowl. It is not based on which Idiots I want elected.
If you Idiots would get off the political kick, and actually study real forests, you might accidentally figure out what is going on out there.
In the meantime, grief verifies affection. If you really held affection for forests, you would grieve their demise. Try to fake it, at least.
And this discourse is civil from my point of view, although it is not in civil court, where you are most comfortable.
I think I'm going to have to agree with Mike when it comes to your use of "facts" and the "best available science." I also have to agree with him on your apparent lack of knowledge regarding North American forest history, wildfire history, and western historical ecology. Probably on your apparent motives, too, but I am less certain in that regard.
I'll just use your purposeful and entirely innacurate use of the word "catastrophic" as an example. You (and your "best available science" sources?) say that Mike is using a fearful (unmeasureable emotion) defintion of the word to scare his audience. That is both untrue and just plain stupid. I have a PhD from Oregon State University Forest Science Department in part for my study of "catastrophic forest fires." Catastrophic is defined as 100,000 acres or more per event; or 100,000 acres or more within a region during a single year. Measureable terms. Scales; not emotions.
Matt, Mike's language might be harsh and even a bit over-the-top at times, but he is speaking with real conviction, actual experience and education, and factual information. You are just making shit up, albeit much of it comes from others in your organization. Compared to Mike's rants, your drivel is little more than the self-serving New Age babble he claims. You might love forests a real whole lot, as you repeatedly state, but people should pay guarded attention to those such as yourself who spout litanies of fabricated "facts" or attempt to ridicule the valid points of others rather than engage in real rebuttal or debate.
Go to school or get a job and learn about forests when you do. Then after five or ten years read what Mike has written, and reconsider some of the nonsense with which you have responded. God advice, and I'm a doctor.
Trees do not grow underneath mile-thick ice sheets. Nor do trees grow atop continental glaciers. Just the facts, ma'am.
But the history of our forests, how they got here, what they have been doing, and where they are going is too much for a comment thread. It takes an entire blog. You can Google these subjects, or just go directly to SOS Forests dot com and learn the real, scientific truths about our forests.
Yes, you are "busted." People who live next to hospitals aren't necessarily doctors, and people who attend presentations aren't necessarily educated. Read the literature if you think these people you are going to hear are major authorities. Now if you had Stephen Pyne, Bob Boyd, Charles, Kay, or Kat Anderson at your conference, THAT would be something!
Your arguments have sounded political rather than biological from the beginning, and now your current post confirms the fact. You are far more a political activist than a forest conservationist; and probably more politician than "preservationists," too, for that matter. That's why serving on political panels is important to you, and forest management is important to Mike; you are each playing to your personal strengths and interests.
What do "Bush & Co." have to do with catastrophic wildfire, and how does that tie into Clinton, and why are you assuming that either Mike or I have some kind of political insight in this regard? I think it's a stupid diversion and is ridiculous to infer that I (Mike can speak for himself, and does, of course) think this has anything to do with presidential elections.
Wildfires are indiscriminate. Of course a 1,000 acre "thin" (your quotes) has nothing to do with catastrophic-scale wildfires. Popsicles can't cure cancer, either. What is the point in stating the obvious? This is a local problem with federal roots that goes back 30 years to NEPA, ESA, and several other "Central Government" resource management acts. Whoever the President is or was is irrelevant. We are talking about biological fuel loads that have been allowed to build up on millions of acres of federal lands over the past several decades. Is Jimmy Carter responsible? Lyndon Johnson? Smokey Bear?
Catastrophic wildfires result from widespread and unprecedented fuel loads that have been allowed to accumulate on millions of acres of federal lands. So you're saying the answer is to elect someone else President next time and attend lectures by obscure "forest ecologists" toiling at isolated colleges and universities? Or am I missing soemthing?
I stand by my earlier advice to get a job or an education in the field of forestry before continuing to vocalize your theories on Presidents, forest history, wildfires, and "healthy forests."
Why should I be informing you about which old growth forests burned up this summer? I thought you were the one all agog to save old growth forests.
How can you claim to be concerned, and be proudly clueless at the same time?
Is it my responsibility to inform you about forests? Don't you owe it to yourself to investigate the very thing you claim to be so moved by that you mount lawsuits on behalf of? Your whining is just more proof of my original contention: you do not really give a rat about real forests.
Check my website out for pictures of dead old growth trees killed by wildfire. The photos are not doctored by secret operatives in the Bush Administration.
And more nonsense science. You won't give it up. You say
--wildfires (including "catastrophic" fires) have been a natural and essential part of healthy forests and grassland ecosystems since the beginning of time--
And when exactly do you place the beginning of time? Are we talking Big Bang here? Because if you are, your statement is wrong. There are facts, a fossil record, a geologic record, a paleo-climatic record, and much is known about paleo-forests and fire. Use of some facts would help your image.
And this
--If you want to think that we have no science on our side, that's fine by me--
What a weird thing to say. Do you think science like a football league? You have your team and I have mine? Again, it is all a political game to you. Everybody is "on a side". Moreover, you feel compelled once again to state the obvious, which is that you don't care.
The truth is the truth, regardless of who says it or doesn't say it, and regardless of who cares or doesn't care.
When you go to your meeting, ask the speakers if they mind your dropping their names, as supporters and mentors of your "scientific" views on forests. Ask them if they are "on your side". And report back to us. Or better yet, have them report back to me directly. Your veracity on other issues has not been 100%, so I need more than your word to confirm.
Thanks for the unsolicited advice. Not only did I not put words into your mouth, I was careful to use quotation marks and direct quotes in reference to your multiple comments and unfounded claims (e.g., "Bush & Co.," "fear," etc.). Besides, these are written words, and not spoken words at all.
Apparently you know about as much about ventriloquism as you do forestry. Can it be that you make light of my suggestion because it has hit home so hard, and you really do not have any forestry job experience or formal education backing your assertions? That's what it seems like.
Your "point" remains wrong and still does not "hold" regarding North American forest, grassland, and fire histories. You keep leaving out the bipeds and that's your primary source of error. Try and tell me "healthy forests" is not a political term. Or keep trying; you seem to have lots of time on your hands promoting these myths.
Also, I'd like to ask you and Bob a real key question. What, in your views, would need to be done to make "catastrophic" fires on a landscape level a thing of the past. I'd be really curious to know what your solution and your vision for the management of our public lands really is. It's clear that you two believe that I have no idea what I'm talking about, despite the fact that a strong - and growing - body of science supports our positions. I'd really like to hear from experts such as yourself. So again, what needs to be done to make "catastrophic" fires on a landscape level a thing of the past and what are your solutions and vision for the management of our public lands. With a website like sosforests, clearly you believe our forests are in dire straights.
Bob, I have in fact held jobs in forestry. I paid my way through college working at a lumber mill in Wisconsin and as a wildland firefighter in Oregon. I've also worked on crews doing legitimate fuel reduction work and - oh my - I've even used chainsaws to cut down trees. True I don't hold the almighty PhD in forestry, but then again the vast majority of the Forest Service "experts" planning timber sales on national forests only have their BS degrees. My educational training is in history and English and I'm a certified teacher. However, most of our staff do have at least masters degrees in science fields. Perhaps if some in the Forest Service and logging industry would scale back their efforts to log more roadless wildlands, old-growth forests and wild, unlogged forests I could take a break for a few years and hang out in the Ivy Tower and collect a masters in forestry. Would I learn a thing or two? Certainly. But would I come away from that experience convinced that your view of how our public forests should be managed is the gospel truth? Certainly not.
Mike is doubting that their could possibly be PhD scientists that agree with our us or share our perspective. You accuse me of "dropping names" and don't trust my word Again, if you want to believe this, that's fine by me. . Why don't you contact them directly yourself. A simple "google" search will lead you right to them.
Finally, I'll sign off by providing you with a link to a letter signed by 546 scientists that was sent to Senators a few weeks ago warning about the negative impacts of logging after fires and other natural disturbances. A copy of the scientists' letter is available at <http://americanlands.org/documents/1154442267_ScientistsletterHR4200-S2709_546_8.1.06.pdf>http://americanlands.org/documents/1154442267_ScientistsletterHR4200-S2709_546_8.1.06.pdf. But hey, I guess these 546 scientists don't know much either.
I have discussed all the points you raise at length on my blog, SOS Forests dot com. There are over 300 posts there that detail the history of forests, the creation and demise of old growth, and the causes and solutions to our current crisis of forest destruction.
If you would read those posts, you might get a handle on my views. Until then, your accusations are perforce wrong and self-admittedly uneducated.
The "scientists" letter you proffer is about old growth. It was written in response to a bill in Congress that proposes increased salvage logging after fires. The trees which the letter purports to value are large, old, standing dead snags and dead down logs. The key word here is dead. The old growth trees were alive, then the fires came, and now they are dead.
The letter is not about dead plantations or dead young growth. It is about dead old growth. The fires killed the old growth, and now the old growth trees are dead. If this were not true, there would be no letter, and no bill either, for that matter.
Did you think all the lawsuits and protests over salvage logging were about dead young growth? Do you think there will not be similar lawsuits over salvaging dead old growth after this fire season? I'm guessing you will probably mount one, because you will not want to see your local, recently incinerated old growth trees logged.
So don't point ill-informed, super-hypocritical remarks at me. Look in the mirror. Today you are stunned to find out old growth burns up. Tomorrow you will be suing over the dead trees. But all this phoniness has been going on for years, decades even. I am not fooled, and I'd be surprised if anyone else is either.
If you wish to continue this debate on my site, please do. Bring all your so-called experts, too. I am smarter and more knowleadgable about forests than they are, and can prove it in open debate. You don't need to go back to school to get an education about forests. I have provided it free-of-charge at SOS Forests dot com.
Because I care about forests.
You addressed some snide and misleading remarks toward me within the body of your post to Mike. Lucky I read through other people's mail or I might have missed them.
Yes, I have a PhD in forest sciences (specifically Indian burning, catastrophic fire, and reforestation aspects of forest history), but no, I do not live in an ivory tower. If you think you can get a PhD in exchange for "taking a break for a few years hanging around the ivory tower" I'd say you've been studying English too long. It took me 12 years and a couple hundred thou to get my masters and doctorate, while working full time and being a single parent. Science isn't something you pick up while taking a "few years break." Maybe Forest Ecology is, though.
Before returning to collidge I worked for 25 years in the woods, running a successful reforestation business for most of those years. My crews did over 80,000 acres of reforestation work during that time, and I personally planted millions of seedlings and cut (fell, slashed, and pre-commercialy thinned) thousands of acres of land during the process. Not many ivory towers to be seen in the entire landscape. None, in fact.
So far as offering practical solutions to you through a blog: please! Anyone who takes "science by vote" seriously (every signer on that note should be embarrassed) and can't tell the difference between an old-growth tree and a snag (you are not the first!), doesn't deserve the time and attention need to respond to such a request. I have written extensively on the topics you raise and continue to take actions that I hope will help mitigate the terrible shape our federal forests have grown into over the past 35 years.
People who file lawsuits and worry about Presidential elections in regards to forest management are largely to blame for the current mess. Actions speak louder than words. Louder yet if the words are false.
I'd just like to point out that, once again, you fail to answer some pretty simple questions. Apparently for someone such as yourself answering the following question on a blog is below you. The question is this: What, in your views, would need to be done to make "catastrophic" fires on a landscape level a thing of the past. I'd be really curious to know what your solution and your vision for the management of our public lands really is.
You say that since 1971 our federal forests have grown into terrible shape. I couldn't agree with you more. You do of course realize that the high cut levels on our national forests were during the 1970s to early 1990s. The all time single high cut year was 1989 with almost 13 million board feet of trees cut down. Added to this is a logging road network (that exploded during the 70s and 80s), which now stretches some 440,000 miles. And even today the Forest Service has never dealt with that unsustainable logging and roadbuilding levels of the past (for example, we have a $10 billion maintenance backlog on these logging roads), but still continues to plan large-scale logging projects in some of the remaining pockets of unlogged forests.
Yet, apparently none of this over-exploitation resulted in any negative impacts to forests, wildlife, soils, watersheds, etc. Apparently, it is because our organization believes that the US government should follow the law and their own regulations when logging and roadbuilding on the public's forests, we "are largely to blame for the current mess." Talk about not accepting responsibility.
Regarding the 546 scientist that signed the letter, apparently they "should be embarrassed" simply because Bob says so.
Finally, it was you, the Great Ventriloquist, and Mike who took any mention of the name of our current or past president as me being political. Truth be known, I never even voted for Clinton and certainly didn't vote for any of the Bushes. I see very few solutions coming from either the GOP or the Dems on the federal level.
Finally, I believe your response to the 546 scientists and researchers who signed that letter says a lot about what type of person you are. You said: "Bring all your so-called experts, too. I am smarter and more knowleadgable (sic) about forests than they are." That's a classic!
Your juvenile name-calling and verbal baiting have grown tiresome. This will be my last post to you. You are basically an idiot with a megaphone that likes to play politics. Forestry just happens to be a sexy and timely topic, in your eyes.
I've written numerous articles and editorials and given several lectures and presentations on the topics you name, many of which have been avalalble on the Internet for years. Try google your own damn self, since you recommend it so highly to others.
Still, I'd be inclined to give you a brief summary of my oft-stated and well documented positions on these topics, but your ridiculous inferences, childish name-calling, and nutty "science" assertions are just too irritating to accomodate. Your rabid anti-logging bias and self-important know-it-all pronouncements just make it worse.
Good luck in pursuading the local people of the Rockies that you are an important person, have their forests and other best interests in your heart, are a proponent of good science and the courts, and need to be listened to. Good luck. You're on the wrong path.
National Forests are a national treasure and we should start treating them that way by opposing efforts by the administration and Congress to return to the rampant exploitation of the 50's-early 90's. I've lost a great deal of respect for the Forest Service and foresters for so completely failing to address the restoration needs caused by the last logging binge - and to now pretend it doesn't exist and to say we can go back to business as usually is grossly irresponsible - future generations of Americans deserve better.
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 15:58:32
To: Matthew Koehler <koehler@wildrockies.org>
From: Mike D <mike@sosforests.com>
"What a lying sack. I see through you, arson boy, and will tell the world all about your ugly little arson game."
So, while Mr. Dubrasich accuses me of arson (which is just an absolutely crazy notion and completely false) all of us are still waiting for him to provide any documentation to back up his statement that "millions of acres of old-growth burned up this summer."
To: <koehler@wildrockies.org>
From: Mike D <mike@sosforests.com>
Subject: Re: Someone just responded to your comment
Looks like I'm locked out at New West, so I'll just have to respond on my own site, in my own way, at my own pleasure. I noticed you failed to inform your little crew about your own involvement with dead old growth. Could be you have quite a bit to hide, eh, Matt?
Mike: You're emails to me have taken on an increasingly threatening tone. So now you are accusing me of having something to hide. Apparently you believe that I said "Tell me, Mike, where does fire ever kill old growth?" Truth is, I've never said this to you or anything like this to you. I've never even inferred it. You stated above that "millions of acres of old-growth burned up this summer." That's not true.
I spend quite a bit of time in recently burned forests, whether morel hunting, hiking with family and friends, looking for birds, backpacking and hunting deer and elk. I realize that wildfires burn old-growth forests and I've seen examples of this throughout the west.
However, I also realize that fire is a natural and essential process and that these recently burned forests, especially wild, old-growth forests are incredibly important ecologically. Some species rely almost entirely on burned forests and are found nowhere more abundant than burned forests.
True, we believe that post-fire salvage logging is one of the most ecologically destructive forms of logging. The 546 scientists who signed the recent letter to Congress opposing the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act have expressed serious concerns not only about post-fire logging, but about industrial logging following other natural disturbances such as insect and disease outbreaks.
They wrote: "We are concerned that H.R. 4200 will bind us to land management practices that, perhaps logical in the past, are no longer tenable in the light of recent scientific understanding. Neither ecological benefits nor economic efficiency result from post disturbance logging. Although logging and replanting may seem like a reasonable way to clean up and restore forests after disturbances like wildland fires, such activity would actually slow the natural recovery of forests and of streams and creatures within them."
I've spoken and written quite a bit about this topic over the years and my organization has held the government accountable for failure to follow the law and it's only regulations when conducting post-fire logging operations. So, it's odd that you would accuse me of having something to hide.
I think you might be referring to our lawsuit challenging the Biscuit Logging Project on the Siskiyou National Forest in Oregon. We've been a vocal critic of this post-logging project, so again, it's strange that you'd accuse me of having something to hide.
The so-called Biscuit “recovery” plan called for logging 370 million board feet of trees from 30 square miles of the Siskiyou National Forest - enough trees to fill 74,000 log trucks lines up for over 600 miles. It's one of the largest industrial logging projects ever proposed in the 101 year history of the U.S. Forest Service That's over 20 times greater than the annual logging levels on the Siskiyou National Forest during the past decade.
And just consider where the logging is slatted to take place: 19,000 acres of ancient, old-growth forest and pristine roadless wildlands in a forest of global ecological significance. To make matters worse, 90% of all acres proposed for logging are within the watershed of the spectacular National Wild and Scenic Illinois River - a source of clean water for wild salmon and pride and tourism dollars for local residences and businesses.
So, yes, we are opposed to the Biscuit logging project and we do have serious ecologically- and scientifically-based concerns with post-fire and post-disturbance logging. If you want to have an open and honest debate about this topic I'm fine with that and would actually appreciate that. But making stuff up, calling me "arson boy" and accusing me of playing an "ugly little arson game" has gotta stop.
It is strange how people try to twist an enviros love for the forest and use it against them when it comes to forest fire in old growth. Soryy, we know that at some point, everthing dies.
The only worry about old growth burning is that there isn't enough of it around. Well, that's because we have logged too much. Yes, there are consequences to logging to much old growth, and yes they will hurt. But you do not fix a mistake by making another mistake. We must accept that old growth forest will die, it must be left on the landscape to fullfill it's role, and forest areas that are developing old growth attributes should be identified and protected. That is our generations role.
As for lawsuits, think about why they're filed in the first place.
Because a government agency charged with enforcing a law choose not to.
And that has more often been the case with the latest incarnation of a federal government.
As for public land ranchers, Tim is right. Yes, there really are a few conservation-minded ranchers out there trying to scrape a living off the land. But they're the exception. More often than not, BLM and Forest Service rangelands are cow-and-sheep blasted disaster areas home to flies and maggots, not native wildlife.