Logging

  • Response to Gallatin Working Group on North Bridger Logging Proposal

    George Wuerthner

    The recent guest commentary by Joe Prinkki and Joe Skinner, members of the Custer-Gallatin Working Group, supporting the logging of Bridger Canyon was full of misleading and scientifically inaccurate common myths about forest health and wildfire. The editorial asserts that the forest is “unhealthy” and at risk of death from wildfires and bark beetles. That…

  • North Bridger Range Forest Health Project Subterfuge

    George Wuerthner

    The proposed North Bridger “forest health” project on the Gallatin National Forest north of Bozeman, Montana near the already heavily logged area by Bridger Bowl is based on numerous false assumptions. The proposal displays the Forest Service’s Industrial Forestry bias and its subterfuge of science. The public no longer gives the agency a “social license”…

  • Forests or trees?

    George Wuerthner

    “What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine the fleet limbs of the antelope?” wrote the poet Robinson Jeffers. Jeffers encapsulated the idea that evolutionary processes shape all plants and animals.  Unfortunately, far too many in the Forest Service and the collaboratives that work with them fail to understand this basic idea—a “healthy” forest is…

  • Fire Scar Historical Reconstructions: Accurate or Flawed

    George Wuerthner

    Tree fire scars are used to reconstruct past fire occurrence. These historical reconstructions are often used to guide current forest management on federal lands. Trees charred but not killed by past fires often form scars where the cambium and inner layers were burnt by fires.  A researcher can count the growth rings between scars and…

  • Happy Talk about Weeds by Deschutes National Forest

    George Wuerthner

    I recently attended a presentation on invasive weeds by a representative of the Deschutes National Forest. The problem with the presentation was that it promoted and legitimized an industrial paradigm to weed threats. The Forest Service (FS) promotes an Industrial Forestry Paradigm that treats the symptoms, not the causes of ecological degradation. The biggest factors…

  • Protecting Forests Good For Climate

    George Wuerthner

    Logging, conducted ostensibly to “thin the forest”, “reduce fuels” or for so-called “restoration”, causes a net loss of carbon from forest ecosystems.   One of the best strategies for reducing CO2 levels is by protecting our forests. Yet few environmental groups, even those who focus on climate change, advocate for the reduction of logging on…

  • Daines and Gianforte mislead on wildfire and forest health

    George Wuerthner

    Senator Daines and Congressman Gianforte recently published an editorial in many Montana newspapers dealing with forest management that was full of misleading and often false statements. http://helenair.com/opinion/columnists/gianforte-and-daines-forest-plan-will-help-montana/article_4db0f8d7-7216-50f9-974a-d8dd86b6a351.html First, Daines and Gianforte repeat the flawed idea that management results in a “healthy forest.”  In fact, active management impoverishes forest ecosystems by removing carbon stored in trees,…

  • Little Belts “Vegetation Treatment” displays FS bias

    George Wuerthner

    The proposed Horsefly Vegetation Project (Vegetation Project in the Little Belt Mountains north of White Sulphur Springs on the Helena/Lewis and Clark National Forest is based on numerous false assumptions. The proposal displays both the Forest Service’s lack of professionalism and an Industrial Forestry bias. First, the FS starts out with the assumption that the…

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‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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