Fires bolster political support for forest thinning

[Kali]

Source: Payson Roundup

With Arizona’s worst fire season in history still roaring, oft-delayed plans to use a resurrected timber industry to thin millions of acres of badly overgrown Arizona forests have suddenly gained broad support.

In a flurry of developments last week, the Department Agriculture announced $3.5 million in new funding for the 4-Forests Restoration Initiative, the Forest Service released ground rules for contractors and assorted politicians promised their support.

Environmentalists, scientists, loggers and forest managers have worked for years to create The 4-Forests Restoration Initiative (4-FRI), which hopes to convince a revived logging industry to spend millions on new sawmills and power plants that could turn a profit on the small trees now choking millions of acres of forests.

<snip>

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced last week the award of a fresh $3.5 million grant to support 4-FRI. The money would help the Forest Service deal with things like endangered species and archaeological sites that might be affected by the forest thinning project.

Read more: http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/2011/jun/21/fires-bolster-political-support-forest-thinning/

[leftyohiolib]

1. what are you talking about according to john Mcnuts

illegal immigrants are setting the fires so we dont need to do anything

[sulphurdunn]

2. They might finally be doing something intelligent.

After they thin the pecker poles, if they begin selective, worst first cutting on at least a 200 year harvest rotation, they'll have it about right. :thumbsup:

[msongs]

3. the small trees? what self respecting lumber outfit won't go for the big ones instead? lol nt

[Kali]

4. did you read the article?

that would be in the terms of the leases

[PavePusher]

5. One wonders how forests survived before humans decided to begin "managing" them.... n/t

[Kali]

9. well, I'm fairly certain that the paleontological info is available somewhere

but the facts are, humans have been impacting/managing forests since we figured out how to start fires, and the situation now is a direct result of that AND more recent management. The complexities of resource use and protection of watersheds and communities near these areas requires some kind of response.

What would you suggest? (reality, not some fantasy of European descendants all leave the continent)

[boppers]

14. They burned out of control. Took out huge areas.

It took this event:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910

To change things, and start addressing the issue.

[WatsonT]

17. Same way rivers managed without dams

they flooded randomly.

Unless you live a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle you are benefiting from careful management of the environment.

[Hestia]

6. aka clear-cutting

[Kali]

10. huh?

that is not what is being planned (and what do you think catastrophic fire does?)

[Politicalboi]

7. So the illegals planted trees

So they would catch fire years later so Magoo would look stupid for blaming illegals but in reality it was "them". Ingenious!
:sarcasm:

[Kali]

8. I don't know if anybody really said THIS fire might have been started by smugglers or migrants

but nobody I know thinks that. The fires in SOUTHERN Arizona may have been, but the Wallow fire up near Alpine would be a very unlikely place for migrants to be traveling.

At any rate this article was about attempts at prevention of future catastrophic fires, not border issues.

[bemildred]

11. Maybe this would work better if we knew what we wanted BEFORE we tried to do it.

And why do we give a shit what lumber companies think or want? They have the intelligence of a sponge, we need to tell them what to do and make sure they get their 5%.

[Kali]

12. your subject line is a BINGO

and I know the supervisor in that story - she is ALL about visioning the future - she is someone I admire very much. and from what I understand the people involved in this have worked for years to hash out the vision of what things should become.

as for the lumber co's - they will be doing most of the work, so I don't have a problem with them making money (and providing jobs) with decent oversight. you aren't going to get a pile of Sierra Club/TNC types out there to thin more than a handful of acres. This is a problem beyond the scope of volunteerism.

I (obviously, being a rancher) don't have a problem with resource use - it CAN be done sustainably, even in an enhancing manner. I also try not to be a hypocrite about materials I consume or use and where they need to come from.

[bemildred]

13. I worked in a mill 12 years in the 70s.

It was a good job, but they would blather all day about "sustained yields", meanwhile cutting all the old growth they could lay their hand on as fast as they could, and then ship most of it overseas. Then they ran out, and most of the jobs went away too.

So yeah, I have no problem with resource use either, I just think the government needs to regulate effectively, and we need to think in terms of stewardship rather than greed.
:hi:

[xchrom]

15. Indeed. This is a doable thing.

But we also need to stop being incompetent.

[XemaSab]

16. If I recall correctly

the research done at Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest in California indicates that a combination of thinning and control burns is the best for preventing catastrophic fires.

I do know that clearcutting produces terrible fires where everything is killed, even years after the cut.