Posted on 08/08/2006 11:52:38 AM PDT by george76
Experts paint grim picture for local trees, eye future forest..
It seems there’s just not much good news for trees these days...
Pine beetles decimating lodgepole pines across the West ...foresters are already looking ahead to what the landscape will look like in the future.
“This mature pine forest is a goner,” said Cal Wettstein, district ranger for the Holy Cross and Eagle ranger districts. “We’re focusing on the next forest.”
Asked what the future holds...Wettstein said simply “large fires.”
Over the next two decades, the beetle-killed trees will shed their needles and their branches, then fall down and contribute to a tremendous load of fuel on the forest floor, Wettstein said. At that point, he said, it’s a waiting game as to when the combination of fuel, weather and a spark culminates in a large-scale fire.
“It’s not if, but when,” Wettstein said.
Referencing other large fires in recent years, he said the factors that cause them are often decades in the making.
The Big Fish fire in the Flattops Wilderness four years ago, for example, followed a spruce beetle outbreak in the 1950s...
The Yellowstone fires in the 1980s were set up by conditions dating back to the 1930s.
“It’s inevitable,” he said. “We can’t treat it all.”
Wettstein pointed out that, following a pine-beetle outbreak in the early 1980s, entomologists recommended clear-cutting large swaths of forest to stimulate new growth and forest diversity.
The suggestion was to cut some 52,000 acres of forest between Vail and Summit counties, he said, but only about 1,200 acres was cut in that period.
“The entomologist predicted this exactly,” ...
“But the social and political atmosphere being what it is — here we are.”
(Excerpt) Read more at vaildaily.com ...
“We didn’t anticipate this mortality rate, with tens, hundreds of thousands of dead trees,” Wettstein said.
“It’s outrun our planning process.”
See Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear" for an explanation of how the political and social climate got us to this point, particularly in Yellowstone.
Yeah, I bet Mt. St. Helens denuded the forests faster than their planning also. But the forests recovered just fine.
The biggest threat to the forests are the environmentalists who block good forest management policies.
“It’s not if, but when,” Wettstein said.
For anyone who's seen what these beetles do to a pine forest, as I have here in east Tennessee, this is the absolute truth. The main difference between here and the far west is we have a lot more rain and, hence, a far lower risk of massive forest fires. My only disagreement is that, from what I've personally seen, the dead trees usually fall in about a year or less, not over two decades.
Click on Carry Okie's page and read about the book he wrote which deals with this very topic. It's a good read on how this nonsense started, and how to correct it.
We would have much healthier forests if the lawyers, the politicians, the Sierra Club, the hard left, and the other eco-nuts would go away.
The forests should be managed by the scientists and foresters. The final say should be based upon biology and forestry.
In the very dry west (Central NM for me) it does take a good long time for trees to fall once dead. There's little mositure in the soil to promote rot or harbor critters that destroy the root system. We've had tons of trees killed by beetles, partiuclarly in the north of the state (up to 80% of pinion pines in some areas) over the last 5-6 years, and they're still standing on the hillsides, grey and dead.
You are absolutely right. We are out in Vail right now for the summer and the tree situation is not a good thing. Stupidity reigns when it comes to forest management in this country.
Remarkable. It's entirely different here where most of them fall within a year.
Unfortunately, Crichton's prescription for the problem is to put a claque of brainwashed and corruptable government and university scientists in charge of envirnonmental decisions. Such will assure that conditions get worse.
I'm a suburbanite completely naive about these things, but why can't the dead trees be cut down and removed? Wouldn't they have some value, if not for lumber, then at least pulp or even fuel? Too expensive? Product not worth the effort?
Sadly, money reigns when it comes to forest management in this country. Right now the money is on destroying public and small private forests. The corporate stuff is doing fine, at least as far as the trees are concerned.
There's a hint in there.
The die off was heading south in my direction, but we've had a very wet "monsoon" season (yes, that's what it's called) for a record rainfall this year.... about 8 inches at my place! It's greener here than I've seen it before. We actually have water in some of the arroyos.
It's a different place. Sound's very pleasant where you are though. :)
In local areas, around structures, yes. Overall, no -- we're talking about thousands of square miles of forest.
You are very close.
The trees could be cut down economically. There are middle class working folks who have been removing trees for centuries.
There are many small, rural communities who have depended on the forestry jobs for generations. These jobs kept schools, medical facilities...open for generations.
After the beetles kill the trees, the economic time clock starts ticking. The economic value is best if harvested promptly.
The trees not only provide jobs, payroll taxes to the government, lumber for homes, a renewably resource to heat homes and cook food, pulp for paper...but also a healthier envirnoment.
The deer and elk prefer to eat grass in the open fields that are often left by the tree harvesting. They do not eat bark and needles much.
Thus, not to expensive...rather a profit center for all.
So why is all this good prevented !
That is the rest of the story.
If you ask, I will explain...Sorry for the tease, but I wanted to limit the response.
Out west the dead trees can stand for decades.
Even then, after some fall to the ground, they often do not rot very fast...decades.
Some blow downs can pile up very high ( dozens of feet ) and do burn so hot that the organic soil is later killed.
First air pollution, then water pollution ( tasts and looks terrible even if treated chemically for bacteria ), wildlife is killed ( fish can not breath the ash water either )...
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