Anybody have any thoughts pro or con on this bill currently making its way through Congress?
http://www.theorator.com/bills108/hr1904.html
I thought the bill was primarily to address the California fires but seems like it may be more far reaching by addressing problems in National Forests across the country.
Sounds like it could have a big impact on the logging community.
Thanks for the link Larry. I shall take a look.
Yes, it needs strong support if timber is going to receive any management on National Forest system lands other than"let burn".
It won't be easy (likely not even possible) to undo the damage done by the likes of the Sierra Club over the last 30 + years, but it is high time to at least make some efforts to get back to some likes of forest management (for wood) of the National Forests. That would mean undoing some of the last administrations restrictions on our National Forests. IMO. ;D
Maybe some of the small timber harvesting methods and uses of the small diameter wood will help. ::)
Sad to see so few comments.
My problem is that I'm not a conifer forester. But, from what I've read of the bill, they are just going to study these areas. The FS and BLM have been given a variance on timber sales.
Some of the problems that I see is that it doesn't get to the problem. The bill seems to state that the problem is beetle infestation, which causes more fuel load. But, beetle infestation has been a common regime in forests.
How much of this is caused by monoculture? I don't know. I do know that when gypsy moth came through my area, monoculture was one of the reasons for the swift movement and large doses of mortality. Seems to me that would also occur in pine forests.
Some studies seem to think that global warming may be a culprit. http://www.nofc.forestry.ca/climate/en/factsheets/factsheet9_e.html But, if you don't believe in global warming, whether a natural cyclical event or manmade, then you might not be able to see any problems.
For years, public foresters have encouraged private landowners to do non-commercial thinnings (TSI). Why haven't the nationals been practicing what they preach? Why do they have to have commercial sales in order to reduce fuels?
What happens to a stand after the fuel loads are reduced? Will there be controlled burns to keep the fuel loads down or will we just let them build up again?
The bill also talks about the use of biomass as a fuel. Unfortunately, that hasn't gone into their energy bill. Biomass is being used on a limited basis in the NE. Some of these plants were closed down. Now, we have an overabundance of supply, thanks to all those natural gas plants that were recently built.
Any bill promoting intelligent management of our public forests is definitely positive. When you have a bad fire season or two with homes going up in flames it becomes a bill that is easy to pass, and as I heard on the radio, just did.
The hands-off appraoch that has been followed in many National Forests since the early 90's is very short sighted and a waste of our resources. One example is letting overcrowded pine trees infested with pine beetles die and rot. In higher elevation southern California ponderosa pine forests, it was said by managers during the fires that 50% of the trees were dead due to beetles. Then the government spends a billion dollars per fire season putting out fires that were all the more intense due to the large numbers of dead trees. CRAZY.
In my area, the Hooiser National forest is mostly hardwoods and has not had much forest management for 15 years. Not really a fire prone forest, but potential insect and disease problems and of course many overcrowded hardwood stands growing slowly.
The anti-forest management crowd in the Bloomington area just put a letter to the editor in the local paper against the bill claiming a payout to large timber companies, overcutting of our public forests will occur, and flooding of the timber market (thus hurting the private woodland owners in the state) when any timber is put up for sale. After quickly reading the bill and seeing that most of it does not even apply to Indiana, it once again seems that the no management crowd is full of hot air.
Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth was quoted in The Missoulian, July 7, 2003:
"The national forests have problems, but extensive logging is not one of them. No one is talking about the real problems: forest health, noxious weeds, fragmentation of the land and unmanaged recreation. That's what we need to talk about."
I believe Dale hit the nail squarely on the head!
So, wasn't he consulted when the bill was written? I like his thinking.
Yes he was very much so and probably was instrumental in getting the bill started but the political debates and amendments ends up with a "middle of the road" version to try and please the strong envionmental and "anti logging" groups.