Forest Service Photos Raise Flap: Taken After Logging (WP)

[diamond14]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6413-2004Apr12.html


Forest Service Photos Raise Flap
Old Images Depicting Sparse Conditions Taken After Logging

By Scott Sonner
Associated Press
Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A17


RENO, Nev. -- The U.S. Forest Service has been accused of misrepresenting forest conditions by using misleading photographs in a brochure that urges more logging to prevent wildfires in the Sierra Nevada. The pamphlet says fire risks have risen as the Sierra's forests have grown more dense over the past century. Six photos spanning 80 years appear beside descriptions of how the "forests of the past" had fewer trees and less underbrush, making them less susceptible to fire.

The 1909 photo shows an open, parklike forest with large trees spaced widely apart. More trees and underbrush appear in each successive picture -- 1948, 1958, 1968, 1979 -- and finally a photograph thick with trees in 1989.

"Today's forests, dense with green, may seem beautiful, but in fact are deadly," the pamphlet reads. "Our old-growth forests are choking with brush, tinder-dry debris and dead trees which make the risk of catastrophic fire high."

But the 1909 photo does not depict natural conditions -- it was taken just after the forest had been logged. And the pictured forest is nowhere near the Sierra Nevada. It is in Montana.

[Lorien]

1. These people are despicable

we must, MUST do all we can-each and every one of us-to unseat this pretender and his corrupt, lying cabel this November! :grr:

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. Not quite in the same train of thought

.
.
.

But I have seen aerial pictures from different interstate highways all over the states, where behind 20 - 30 feet of forest it is all clearcut.

They do this so that most people are completely unaware that the forests have been destroyed, and are just scrub brush and wastage laying around.

Remember that next time you are on a thruway taking a nice drive "through the country"

Oh yeah, the forest industries do that up here too, they are not ALLOWED to cut within a certain number of feet of the highways just so most people don't realize how much the forests are being laid to waste.

I know, because my favorite hobby is camping, and going into old logging roads I am surprised at how quickly I find myself in the wide-open spaces, ones that mother nature didn't put there.

(sigh)

[jpgray]

3. Dupe

Here is the original thread.