Crisis on our National Forests: Reducing the Threat of Catastrophic Wildfire [San Bernardino Fires]

The Congressional Record ^ | August 25, 2003 | DR. THOMAS M. BONNICKSEN

[Carry_Okie]

Tom Bonnickson is America's foremost authority on the pre-Columbian state of North American forests. His book, America’s Ancient Forests: from the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery, is an outstanding scholarly work.

They were warned. There will be more cases like it. Especially because Arnold has thrown in with exactly the same policy that led to this disaster, only he's doing it over the ENTIRE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAIN RANGE. Arnold's choice to retain Gray Davis' last minute Water Quality Control Board appointments will be instrumental in perpetuating this kind of destructive forest policy.

This policy destroys homes and forests. It will do NOTHING to help forests recover, quite the contrary. The usual result of this kind of policy is pestilence, weed infestations the like of which we have never seen and from which our forests may never recover. A lot of people may argue that I haven't given Arnold a fair shake. Well, I'll tell you, by advocating adoption of the Sierra Nevada Framework, he isn't giving a fair shake to the people who have the tools and knowledge to fix this mess. He discounts their professional care and concern for forest health. He follows a stupid and destructive policy that enriches a very few real estate and timber speculators, and Eastern investors who are using environmental law to gain control of water resources. They need the TMDL gambit, the origins of which are detailed in Part V of my book to get it done. They are out to destroy much of California's largest industry, agriculture, to turn it into houses and cash in on competing investments outside the country.

If you think OPEC was bad news, wait until we have to fight to secure a supply of food. This nation is already a net food importer. Anybody who thinks that this kind of policy will be good for the California's economy is in for a rude shock.

The same crowd that gave us the power crisis is behind this, the Natural Resources Defense Council, from which, the executive director is a co-founder of the New York League of Conservation Voters, along with Arnold's principle author of Arnold's environmental plan, RFKJr.

I honestly don't think Arnold understands all this. I don't think he's a corrupt or destructive person. I do think he's fallen in with the wrong crowd and they are using him. If he ever figures it out, he'll be really pissed.

The problem is getting to him. You should see the coterie of handlers wherever he goes. It's going to be tough breaking through to get him educated, but it must be done.

[Carry_Okie]

Enviroping.

[farmfriend]

Sorry for the double pings.

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

For real time political chat - Radio Free Republic chat room
And you won't miss a thread on FR because e-bot will keep you informed.

[not_apathetic_anymore]

bump for later

[Carry_Okie]

Time to repost an oldie but a goody, lest we forget who's principally responsible for this mess.

Sierra Club Conservation Policies

Fire Management on Public Lands - Conservation Policies

Sierra Club Policies Main

	Articles of Incorporation
	Bylaws and Standing Rules
	Purposes and Goals
	Conservation Policies

Sierra Club Conservation Policies

Fire Management on Public Lands

1. Fire is a natural, integral, and valuable component of many ecosystems. Fire management must be a part of the management of public lands. Areas managed for their natural values often benefit from recurring wildfires and may be harmed by a policy of fire suppression. Long-term suppression of small wildfires may build up conditions making occasional catastrophic conflagrations inevitable.

2. Every fire should be monitored. Naturally occurring fires should be allowed to burn in areas where periodic burns are considered beneficial and where they can be expected to burn out before becoming catastrophic. Human-caused fires in such areas should be allowed to burn or be controlled on a case-by-case basis.

3. In areas where fire would pose an unreasonable threat to property, human life or important biological communities, efforts should be made to reduce dangerous fuel accumulations through a program of planned ignitions. New human developments should be discouraged in areas of high fire risk.

4. When fires do occur that pose an unacceptable threat to property or human life, prompt efforts should be undertaken of fire control.

5. In areas included in or proposed for the National Wilderness Preservation System, fires should be managed primarily by the forces of nature. Minimal exceptions to this provision may occur where these areas contain ecosystems altered by previous fire suppression, or where they are too small or too close to human habitation to permit the ideal of natural fire regimes. Limited planned ignitions should be a management option only in those areas where there are dangerous fuel accumulations, with a resultant threat of catastrophic fires, or where they are needed to restore the natural ecosystem.

6. Land managers should prepare comprehensive fire management plans. These plans should consider the role of natural fire, balancing the ecological benefits of wildfire against its potential threats to natural resources, to watersheds, and to significant scenic and recreational values of wildlands.

7. Methods used to control or prevent fires are often more damaging to the land than fire. Fire control plans must implement minimum-impact fire suppression techniques appropriate to the specific area.

8. Steps should be taken to rehabilitate damage caused by fighting fires. Land managers should rely on natural revegetation in parks, designated or proposed wilderness areas, and other protected lands. Where artificial revegetation is needed, a mixture of appropriate native species suited to the site should be used.

9. The occurrence of a fire does not justify salvage logging or road building in areas that are otherwise inappropriate for timber harvesting. Salvage logging is not permitted in designated wilderness areas or National Park System units.

Adopted by the Board of Directors, March 17-19, 1989

---

Up to Top

[Carry_Okie]

The following photos from the Rodeo/Chediski Fire are entirely analogous to the situation in the San Bernardino Mountains

Do you want this,

Or this

This is Apache land. The two photos were taken the same day and both burned. Note the charring on the lower branches of some of the trees in the second photo foreground.

The answer is forestry, multiple use, and the responsibility that goes with private control. The Forest Service serves too many masters, and gets a bigger budget as long as they fail.

[CounterCounterCulture]

They were warned.

Exactly. When will they learn?

[Carry_Okie]

They won't. This is about money.

Insurers love to raise the rate base after a big loss.
Unionized firefighters live for a big bureaucratic effort like this.
Envirowacks love to go back in to prevent anybody from rebuilding.
The big timber companies don't want the logging to drive down prices on timber from their forests in Canada, Siberia, Chile...

and more.

Something for everybody. That's why disasters like this happen.

[Carry_Okie]

For insight on what a snafu a Forest Service fire operation is these days, consider the Winter Fire.

[Askel5]

I think wrongheaded "environmentalism" is generally a crisis in the making of one sort or another.

I know all of this must be extraordinarily frustrating for you. The destruction of human lives is tragic.

Thanks for the flag, Carry_Okie.

[Carry_Okie]

The frustrating part is that we have a thread with 1,200 posts worth of wailing about the problem, with so few willing to do the work to understand how we got here, why, and what to do about it.

Yeah, it's frustrating.

As far as crises go, it'll happen, and it'll be Pestilence.

We were told what to do in Genesis 2:15 (the tagline below), punished in Genesis 3:16 (thorns and thistles), and warned long before the Apocalypse in Leviticus 26.

[Askel5]

== and warned long before the Apocalypse in Leviticus 26.



I was thinking along those lines as well.

It's just that -- IMHO -- folks too readily assume that things like pestilence and fires and storms will be the works of an angry god ... not the unintended consequences of Useful Idiots.

[pointsal]

ping..... may the greenies read this in triplicate.

[tubebender]

The new Water Quality regs will be the end of PL and the beggining of the end of Simpson Timber in Humboldt County. The Forest Service has very few logging plans in the works so there are no small sawmills running except Schmidbaurer and he is barging logs into Humboldt Bay as is Emersons Sierra Pacific...

[BenLurkin]

Bark Beetle Bump.

[Carry_Okie]

ping..... may the greenies read this in triplicate.

Frankly, I'd be happier if Freepers read it. It's high time that conservatives learned how to take the moral high ground on environmental issues. It starts with private property.

[edger]

I liked the Sierra Club's "Fire Management on Public Lands." If I didn't know what I was talking about, that is almost exactly what I would have said.

[Newbomb Turk]

Time to find an enviro wennies house and light his redwood deck on fire.

[Cate]

After living through a terrible fire season in Montana, my conclusion is that the loggers have the solution alot more than the environmentalists. If we do not manually clean up the forests, the environment is going to do it for us and peoples homes are going with it. If a logging company comes to my door asking for donations, they will have it. The environmentalists can eat my leaves.

[Carry_Okie]

I just wish that people could see what can be done to restore habitat. It's the most rewarding and touching experience imaginable. It's both physically and intellectually demanding. Nothing in my life has brought me closer to the Lord. A person could want no more than to fall in love with a piece of land just for what it is, and could be with God's help.

Askel, you should have seen the irises and Fremontia lillies this last spring; they were everywhere. I started a biotic survey. So far we have 207 species of plants in one 14 acre parcel. It's extraordinary. And yet, there's a long way to go with many serious threats. I honestly don't know how we'll succeed without God's help.

This is a Fremontia Lily. They're about four feet tall.

Here are the flowers.

Hundreds of them, where there were none.