Posted on 08/20/2002 9:09:04 AM PDT by madfly
Good. It's an unclear term.
This has nothing at all to do with which or how many trees are felled, but instead how they are "yarded" out of the forest. For example, helicopter yarding belies that assertion as does "high lead" cable yarding where the logs are carried in the air from a suspended cable. A rubber-tired loader moves less dirt than a crawler. Both can be used to improve conditions on the forest floor. Sometimes the cat can stir up the dirt to accelerate the return of native plants. If it isn't used carefully, it can bring weeds or accelerate erosion as you suggest. It all depends upon circumstances and methods.
I think the emphasis would be on the stabilizing effects of ground cover root networks. Obviously soil aeration and chemistry would be important to healty root growth.
The biggest risk of sedimentation in streams is if we DON’T thin the stands. If the forest burns too hot in a cataclysmic crown fire, the trees WILL die to a greater degree than if it had been clearcut. It will be no mosaic burn; the disturbed area will be huge. There will be no surface plants to slow the water. There will be no duff to filter the soils. When it rains, the suspended solids will act like abrasive slurry to cut the soil and destabilize slopes. There will be 0% canopy for nearby streams, but then they will likely be so full of mud it won’t matter to the fish.
I absolutely agree. The 50+ year policy of "no burn" has resulted in way too much flammable deadfall on the forest floor. That's why the Yellowstone fires were as drastic as they were. "Normal" forest fires don't get so hot that they result in much crown burns -- they burn the litter on the forest floor. That's why I think there should be a major effort to clear deadfall and then initiate a controlled burn plan over much of the nation's forest. But certainly not until the drought abates (though deadfall clearing should get underway as soon as possible).
Your picture is illustrative. One thing that is perhaps left out of your discussion is the role of browsers in trimming shoots so that the natural density of clusters from stumps is reduced. By thinning clusters, you perform the same function.
Thanks for an illustrative reply.
His job keeps him from getting to FR during the day. He asked me to look for this at Sierra Times and to post it for him. I was more than happy, and anxious to get it posted.
aging Baby Boomer going to look at his pic . . . :=)
Deer don't eat redwood willingly, there is too much other vegetation that they greatly prefer (such as ceanothus).
Forest Fires: Beyond the Heat and Hype
Here's the relevant paragraph:
"The claims by the Wall Street Journal that it is somehow new or out of character for the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society to support fire prevention activities on the National Forests is a blatant falsehood. We have consistently urged more spending by the Forest Service to reduce brush, create firebreaks around homes and communities and expand controlled burning. We have opposed commercial logging practices which remove large, healthy, fire resistant stands of old growth and replace them with slash, brush, and overly crowded small trees. We favor appropriate thinning practices with a priority being near or around homes and communities. Protecting lives and communities by implementing fuel reduction projects around homes and communities should be the focus of Forest Service activities."
I didn't know that, but my comment was more generic. For example, beaver will cut down a lot of shoots. I was just speculating that there are natural thinning processes that can be "mimicked" in an ecosystem that is not entirely natural. (Out here in the East, the deer overpopulation problem has entirely removed much of the forest understory, with detrimental effects for songbird populations. A recent report also indicated that acid rain might affect soil chemistry and detritus, which also affects brush and the availability of calcium, which ALSO is detrimental to songbirds, and the acid rain problem is much worse in the East.)
They also don't want to publish their real agenda. If you read their Fire Policy on Public Lands you saw it between the lines. It's the real smoking gun.
Not after 90 years of fire suppression, successive clearcuts, and suppression of browsing species. Such a fire doesn't clean, it sterilizes. Weeds usually follow first and are often capable of completely dominating the landscape, permanently. After that kind of treatment, we may never see a native forest again.
I think the biggest problem is one of structural motivation. People can control property using political claims. That distorts everybody's decisions. Those with the most to gain and the resources to enlist political control do so in their particular and narrow interest.
They don't really advocate controlled burns and firebreaks?
No. They advocate letting nature take its course, as if it knows (or cares) how to "heal".
I've often thought that environmentalists have done their cause a disservice by not considering partnerships with hunting and fishing groups, or with a responsibly run logging industry, but that their cause was still good.
The leadership has been awfully corrupt for a very long time. The followers lack technical qualification, need something to bitch about, are greedy... there is a boatload of reasons these people do what they do. The problem is that they have little accountability for the outcome.
Are (you) arguing that the logging industry is more responsible than the environmentalists?
Often they are.
Certainly, reading some environmental literature, you'd think that loggers would never even consider a selective harvest, it's clear cut or nothing...
That's pure and unadulterated crap.
Actually, there are a host of problems with the document. I did a thread on the topic in July.
Sorry about the confusion.
Check this out:
U.S. Ignored Appraisers In Land Deal With Utah
The deal would exchange 135,000 acres of federal land for 108,000 acres of state parcels, many of them surrounded by federal areas. Utah would get commercially attractive land that would pump tax revenue into its school system. The federal government would get scenic red-rock bluffs for a possible national monument as well as prime habitat for the threatened desert tortoise.
BLM negotiators and their bosses in the Interior Department valued the state and federal lands at about $35 million each. But the BLM's Utah office concluded that the federal land was worth $97 million to $117 million more. One of Utah's top officials bragged that the oil, gas, coal, tar sands and oil shale deposits his state would obtain through the deal "could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars."
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