Logging
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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…
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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,…
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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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There is a huge difference between the Industrial Forestry worldview and an ecological perspective. Many people assume that foresters understand forest ecosystems, but what you learn in forestry school is how to produce wood fiber to sell to the wood products industry. I know because I attended a forestry school as an undergraduate in college.…
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The Forest Service is currently seeking public comments regarding the development of alternatives for the Forest Plan Revision on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests in North Central Idaho. The deadline is February 28. The new forest plan will guide management direction over the next 10 – 30 years. A Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for…
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I recently went on a Forest Service tour with a collaborative which demonstrated how ignorance and industrial forestry paradigms dominate most forest management activities, including the mindset of so-called environmental representatives on these collaboratives. Among the things we discussed was what to do about mistletoe. Mistletoe is a tree parasite that is common in forests…
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Montana GOP Senator Daines recently published a simplistic and misleading guest commentary on a wildfire in the Washington Post. In that editorial, Daines, like many other misinformed logging proponents claims more logging would reduce large wildfires and he blames “environmental extremists” for delaying the forest reduction projects. Most of the wildfires burning under low to…
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Recently I drove up the Lostine River corridor and hiked the trail in the Eaglecap Wilderness giving me a good opportunity to review a Forest Service proposal to log the river corridor. The agency is using a stealth method of approving the proposed logging called a “Categorical Exclusion”. The CE allows the FS to proceed…