Bush has rolled back Clintons landmark policy that reduced logging in 11 million acres of national forests across Californias Sierra Nevada. Furthermore our governer (ah-nuld) did not even lift a finger to stop this from heppening. In his campaign he pledged he would stop it. I don't understand how Bush still has so many supporters, i have lost all faith in america. This all makes me sick, check out this link:

(Click on Smiley)


This is an older story

i like trees and tarmac equally.

Bush sux

I'm a strong enviromentalist.
I say we should rape Bush.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Despite my love of concrete....

NO! Redwoods own.

lol

We've been through four years of Bush, and that makes you lose faith and sick?

it pushed me over the edge.

You can always move to Canada...or Mexico if you're in So. CA.

dosnt heal the trees

i voted for bush

::dodges empty pop can::

but but michigan went D anyway

Damn, this story is from 2001? I think 9/11 took Bush's focus off war on trees.

no, its not. the real story is in the

You may be shocked, but there is actually a reason for this policy change and I support it fully. Of course, I probably have a better perspective on this one that anyone else here seeing as this is my field of study and I have actualy had a chane to speak with Jack Blackwell, the regional forester with hte Forest Service, and Dale Bosworth, the Chief Forest of the Forest Service. The policy change allows for a more dynamic management plans rather than a blanket policy being placed over the 11 million acres of National Forests in the Sierra.

I case you hadn't noticed, the 11 million acres of National Forests in the Sierras are not all the same. There are dozens of different forest types in the mountains, varying based on altitude, north/south and east/west location in the mountains. What you need to do to manage a douglas fir forest is not the same as what is needed to successfully manage a ponderosa pine forest which will not be the same as what's needed for a mixed evergreen stand which will not be the same for a redwood stand. This policy allows for local managers the develop their own policies on a much smaller scale, which I believe wlll be more effective at improving the health of our Sierra forests. Some of them are in very bad shape.

Now to address the cutting down of larger trees. The main purpose of this is to fund the management itself. I didn't have the numbers on the top of my head, but the Forest Service has a very small budget for fire management. Cutting down larger, commerciable trees is the only way they can affoard to actively manage, as in remove dead and dying trees, brush and generally thin out the over-grown stands. The construction of new roads is another issue that gets a lot of bad press, but it will also grant more access tio firefighters when the next wildfire starts.

Overall, there may be issues with the policy, but I see it as a step in he right direction. It would actually allow the Forest Service to reduce the fire risk to these forests so that we don't have these catastrophic wild fires that take out entire stands. As it stands now too many of our California are over grown. There are too many stems per acre which greatly increases the risk of fire and creates unnatural competition for resources, and make the stands more susceptible to insect and disease damage, which again increases the risk of fire.

Most Western Sierra forest types evolved with persistant, low intensity fires that burned off smaller trees and undregrowth. 100 years of "Fire is bad" policy has allowed the forests to grow unnaturally, creating an extremely high fuel load. Many of the 11 million acres are ready to go up in smoke and that's exactly what would happen if Clinton's plan had stayed the way it was.

Now, if you'd rather the state's forest burn down, then that's fine, but I suggest that you look into the actually changes that were made to the policy. Furthermore, the two links are incredibly biased. They don't even speak anyone on the Forest Service side of the issue. The article I read in the SF Chronicle spoke to both the environmentalist side and the top people in the Forest Service.

Um....you need to be a registered member to see the article.

A factor in the wildfire storms of Southern California in October of 2003 was the large undergrowth that had not been burned away. In fact, there was some heat (pardon the pun) given to some San Diego County officials about the Ceder fire (the biggest one) and why it burned so much. After spending a week of inhaling smoke, I can see why we need to better manage forest and brush.

This is true, but we do not have to log these forest away. The undergrowth is piling up and that is the stuff that be removed. Trees are not starting fires, the dead leaves and bushes should be logged. the 100 years of fire is bad because we stoped every fire we could and now the forest would go up in flames because of the UNDERGROWTH not trees.

Logging is not the answer.

that sucks bad .... i like trees. *hug tree*

Thank you avenger, for educating us on this topic. It drives me crazy to see people get mad about logging. Logging is good for forests. Today we can log smartly and efficiently, in ways that benefit both us and forests. The pictures of huge mud fields where forests once were, were taken years ago. Today, we log in an environment-friendly manor that makes the forest healthy, and allows for more trees to be logged later on. When we log, we clear out the undergrowth, and selectivly cut certain trees that will benefit us now, and leave certain trees to grow up, so we can harvest them later.

Removing the undergrowth is part of the policy. They are using logging to pay for the removal. The Forest Service doesn't have enough money to do anything, otherwise. They are not going to go into a stand an clear cut under this policy but rather cut a few commerciable trees per acre to pay for the rest of the managment on that acre.

Clear cutting is more an eye sore than anything else, though. Given time, the forest does regenerate. Much of the Sierra forests are second growth now since it was heavily logged in the mid to late 1800s.

Wow Avenger, that's some really impressive knowledge. Thanks for sharing that with me as I really didn't understand it beforehand.

Clear cutting is also detroying thousands of animals habbitats and maybe killing off endangered speicies.

I would rather let a forest burn than let it get logged. When it burns the trees grow back within 30 years but when it is logged they tkae over 100 years. Some trees can only have offspring if there is a fire. Logging also causes erosion. i would rather hike in a burned forest rather then no forest.

Do you have any facts? I'm going to go with the innocent until proven guilty that we now have safe and economical ways to carefully log like he said. Until you can find proof to back up your accusations that loggings a few trees per acre will destroy life as we know it. Not just an isolated instance where someone broke the rules once either of their own will and against policy.

That'd be fine for lodgepole pine stands in the Rockies as they are adapted for stand replacing fires. Sierra forests are not adapted to high intensity, stand replacing fires. It'll take a lot longer than 30 years for a stand to regenerate after a catastrophic fire. A mixed conifer stand would not see tree growth for some time, except around the edges, because the seed bank is also decimated by the fire.

With selective logging, that's what we're talking about here, only a few stems are taken from a stand, which creates open space, which is needed for natural forest regeneration. This technique emulates the low intensity burns that the Sierra forests are apadted to. It's not exactly the same, but it's better than nothing.

The logging is designed to stop this and this

Unless you like living through that stuff...

DUDE! We are not talking about clear cutting! No clear cutting will happen. Clear cutting is not economical anymore in the US, and US companies rarely, if ever do it. Especially in national forest land.

This thread is a wonderful example of people intentionally ignoring the facts just to rant at Bush.

Thanks, Avenger, for setting the facts straight. It really annoys me when people make conjectures contradicting something when they have no real knowledge of the topic. To these people, the just see the word logging and think: LOGGING. TREE KILLING. BAD. MUST PROTEST. SAVE OUR TREES.

when your house burns down in a forest fire run amok, you might feel differently. The fires we had here last year took down lots of homes in the mountains, and had the potential of burning all the way to the coast. All because of a stupid bunch of liberals wouldn't let the debris be removed beforehand. You guys may mean well, but your idealism is no match for the facts.

A lot of the pine trees in cali's mountains have some sort of beetle infestation and are either dead or dying. These trees simply have to be removed. Pine trees are extremely flammable even when they are alive, and are like cans of gasoline waiting to ignite when they are dead. Removing these trees will not harm many animals. They would simply migrate someplace else.

if you lived in those mountains, you wouldn't care as much about the welfare of nonsentient animals if your house was on the line.

Man, how did forests ever manage before people came along?

I supposed they just burned, that's the natural way a forest cleans itself. Except we don't like that.

Where?

What's an enviromentalist?

WTF is that.

Captain Planet! He's a hero! Gonna take pollution down to zero!

No. Not Captain Planet. Evil.

He always reminds me of Colossus.

I love how the typical "strong environmentalist" has no knowledge of the subject of environmental management. Not sayng that you don't since I don't know you personally, but in my experience, most of them know squat. You mention logging and they automatically assume clear cutting millions of acres. They think that logging is the doom of a forest when they are only hurting the forest in the long run.