Tag Archives: Forestry

Misconceptions about disruption of fire cycles

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“I would like to point out a typical bias that I see and hear all the time. The Forest Service often promotes the idea that lodgepole pine stands are “overstocked”. Actually lodgepole and many other species always grow that way after a disturbance. There is frequently a significant amount of natural regeneration that is gradually whittled down by natural thinning agents like beetles or fire.

“It baffles me that the FS tries to prevent beetles from “thinning” the forest when indeed, they believe they are “overstocked”. Beetles, disease and fire will thin them naturally, and these agents are much better at selecting which trees should live and die than any forester.” —George Wuerthner  Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.thewildlifenews.com

GR:  Many excuses for logging are offered as scientific justifications just as hunting is said to be good wildlife management. This article offers several solid counterpoints to the Forest Service’s effort to justify logging as forest management.  Recommended.

Extinction Resources: Information, Opinion, Ideas, & Questions

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Extinction Information Resources

PassengerPigeon

Passenger Pigeon

Stopping human-caused extinction of Earth’s plant and animal species is the greatest challenge of our time. This post provides access to the latest articles on extinction. The first item (Ceballos et al. 2015) is the latest detailed report on what we know and how we acquired the information.

 Ceballos, Gerardo, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle, and Todd M. Palmer. 19 June 2015. Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances Vol. 1, no. 5 (e1400253, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1400253). Corresponding author. E-mail: gceballo@ecologia.unam.mx.

More than a thousand recent articles are linked to my blog (http://garryrogers.com/blog):

Causes of Extinction

My blog covers the things that people do to cause extinctions and reduce biodiversity. These deeds of ours are woven into individual and our collective habits and beliefs. Stopping them will alter our society and our culture. It will be difficult. Our population must be reduced, our food choices must change, and our resource harvest must decline. Nothing less will succeed. Search the blog using the following terms for recent reports:  Burning, Coal, Construction, Deforestation, Desertification, Energy, Farming, Fishing, Fracking, Grazing, Hunting, Invasive Species, Logging, Mining, Oil, Pesticides, Pet Trade, Pollution, Population, Roads, and Soil.

Climate change will become the major cause of extinction.  Here’s its search link on my blog:  Climate Change.

For more reading, my Internet newsletters include a wider variety of articles than my blog.

Drought, beetles preying on weakened California forests | The Sacramento Bee

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Frank Cody wasn’t surprised to learn that at least 12 million trees across California recently have died from a lethal mix of bugs and long-term drought. Business is booming for the South Lake Tahoe tree service business owner.  Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.sacbee.com

GR:  Instead of addressing the source of the problem, the USDA Forest Service and the timber companies that control its decisions will see this as an opportunity to gain access to protected forest areas.  They need to thin the forest and clear areas to create barriers to insect spread, right? Wrong. The USDA needs to focus on stopping livestock grazing and timber harvest in the forests, and it needs to do what it can to reduce CO2 emissions. The agency has various means to block fossil fuel mining and encourage renewable energy,

Groundtruthing the Westside Timber Sale

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While the Klamath National Forest finalizes its Environmental Impact Statement, and prepares to auction off our public forestlands to the highest bidder, citizens are beginning to organize and get out on the ground to explore the land that is targeted for what could be the largest timber sale in Klamath National Forest history. The Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion is rich with biodiversity, hosting more conifer species than any other temperate forest in the world. The region is considered an area of Global Botanical Significance, and is proposed as an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site.

Most of the timber units proposed in the Westside project include Late Successional Reserves that are set aside for the development of old growth forests, and many of the units are within riparian reserves, and Wild and Scenic river corridors which are intended to protect water quality. The Klamath National Forest admits that the Westside project would negatively affect water quality and cause more sedimentation in the Klamath River, and with recent data foreshadowing that a major fish kill in the Klamath River is likely, this is no time to inflict additional impacts to these watersheds.

Source: www.wildcalifornia.org

GR:  Private citizens must oppose this proposal.  Like all significant U.S. Forest Service management actions, the plan benefits corporations and politicians, not the forest.

See on Scoop.it – GarryRogers NatCon News

Forestry and U. S. Forest Service

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“Perhaps Ken Burns had the right idea when he named his public-television series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Even though I worked for the Forest Service for 34 years, I’m inclined to agree with him about the importance of our nation’s parks. But the national forests are surely our second-best idea, a priceless asset despite the call from some Westerners to sell off our forests and privatize them.”  Source: www.hcn.org.

Forest Clearcut Bugaboo_CreekGR:  As I read its history, the U. S. Forest Service has always been, and remains today, a tool of corporate greed.  There are exceptions to the exploitative emphasis of this tool of the business world, but the exceptions are rare.  Where are the roots of the problem?  Could it be in the nation’s university Forestry Departments where new foresters are indoctrinated into the forestry for profit system?  Do we correct the problem by closing our forestry schools and sidelining all our professional foresters while we find replacements from Ecology Departments untouched by commercial concerns?

Pejorative journalism spreads wildfire myths

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This article is full of misinformation, untested assumptions, and pejorative language–it is so typical of the way the timber industry and FS have “framed” the issue of fire to justify more logging…

Source: www.thewildlifenews.com

GR:  The U. S. Forest Service manages forests to benefit corporations not the land.  They use misdirection to justify their unhealthy practices.  Some of their BS is made clear in this article by George Wuerthner.

Subsidies to industries that cause deforestation worth 100 times more than aid to prevent it

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Brazil and Indonesia paid over $40bn in subsidies to industries that drive rainforest destruction between 2009 and 2012 – compared to $346m in conservation aid they received to protect forests, according to new research Brazil and Indonesia spent…

Source: www.theguardian.com

GR:  Forest health is a global land-use problem.  For example, the U. S. Forest Service within the U. S. Department of Agriculture subsidizes livestock grazing and timber companies.  Though the land is not shifted from forest to another use, the health and productivity of the land and the forest is seriously diminished through the efforts of the Forest Service.  The losses are greatest in soil quality and biodiversity.  Learn more about forest health and deforestation here.

Drought damage leads to widespread forest death

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The 2000-2003 drought in the American southwest triggered a widespread die-off of forests around the region.

Source: phys.org

GR:  Die offs are occurring at lower sites too.  Substantial thinning is occurring in the pinion-juniper woodland and the interior chaparral.

Chilean Wildfires Ravage Rare Species

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Chilean Wildfires Ravage Rare Species
Huge firestorms raging across parts of drought-stricken southern Chile have “wiped out” hundreds of rare plant species and threatened wildlife as well, according to environmental advocates.

Source: elispiritweaver.wordpress.com

The article points out that much more is spent on fighter jets than on protecting the country’s natural heritage.  In almost every country, our intraspecific wars and fears of war get much more attention and resources than do our wild plants and animals.  We have such small brains.