active forest management

  • The Logging Juggernaut

    George Wuerthner

    Logging lodgepole pine on the Deschutes NF in Oregon. Photo George Wuerthner    Across the West, the Forest Service and logging proponents continue to mischaracterize forest health by the standards of the Industrial Forestry Paradigm. Under this logging juggernaut paradigm, any natural evolutionary agent that kills a tree, such as a drought, wildfire, insects, or…

  • Response to Governor Gianforte On Forest Management and Wildfire

    George Wuerthner

      Previously logged Plum Creek Timber Company lands which didn’t stop  36,ooo acre plus Jocko Lakes Fires. Photo George Wuerthner  Recently Governor Greg Gianforte praised forest management for limiting the spread of two fires near Helena. Gianforte suggested that active forest management (i.e., logging) helped firefighters to keep two blazes, the Grizzly Gulch and Mount…

  • Holiday Farm Fire And Industrial Logging

    George Wuerthner

    Clearcuts along the McKenzie River corridor east of Eugene, Oregon did little to slow the Holiday Farm Fire. Photo George Wuerthner The Holiday Farm Fire began on September 7, 2020. The fire charred 173,000 acres along the McKenzie River Valley in western Oregon’s Cascade Range, possibly due to a fallen power line. The fire destroyed…

  • Hermit Peak Blaze, New Mexico’s Largest Wildfire, Goes Out With A Whimper

    George Wuerthner

    Fuel reductions are a major part of the Forest Service’s wildfire reduction plan. Photo George Wuerthner Recently the Federal government released its Confronting Wildfire Crisis plan to control wildfires in the West. As with all previous programs, it focuses on removing “fuels” as its solution and calls for escalating fuel reductions (read logging) up to…

  • Climate Not Fuels Drive Large Blazes

    George Wuerthner

    Active forest management is viewed as a solution to large blazes, but fails to acknowledge that climate is driving wildfire. It is true that if you completely remove forests, you won’t get a forest fire. Photo George Wuerthner  Proponents of “active forest management” or logging as a means of reducing large wildfires are looking in…

  • CA Fire Budget Misguided

    George Wuerthner

      Large blazes like the Camp Fire which leveled this McDonald’s in Paradise CA are driven by extreme fire weather, particularly wind. Active forest management including thinning and prescribe fire does nothing to prevent such blazes. Photo George Wuerthner  Recently California Governor Newsom came out with a proposed fire budget of over a billon dollars.…

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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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