Two years ago the treasured forests of Montana were on fire and over a million acres or 1,500 square miles were burned thanks to poor forest management, a draught and a series of lighting storms. The tinderbox forests went up with a vengeance and burned the pristine virgin and second growth timber into a blackened wasteland. As most level headed timber people know, the current forest fires are so intense that they burn the ground white hot and sterilize that soil up to 18 inches into the ground. This means that nothing will grow in that ground for decades or centuries as opposed to the ancient cleansing fires. The old forests would naturally burn every few years and clear out the fallen branches and undergrowth, but not anymore. The forest clutter accumulates thanks to the lockout by the courts for proper management of the forests. This leads to far more intense fires and increases the possibility of the fast spreading crown fires.
After the Montana fires the forest products industry wanted to go in and harvest the billions of dollars worth of timber and reclaimate the lands. This would have furnished jobs for the communities of Montana and improved the habitats of the forest creatures and endangered salmon spawning streams.
The legal eco-terrorists quickly moved in and stopped all forest sales and required multiple environmental impact studies. This not only stifled all clean up and harvesting of the dead and dying trees but halted all reclamation projects in these forestlands. The trees have since become unmarketable and the billions of dollars worth of timber have become nearly worthless bug factories. That apparently was not enough for the terrorists; they have stopped any replanting or forest improvements or erosion control. The Congress spent $8 million for reclamation the forests and prepare it for sale. Most of that money was wasted on impact studies to satisfy the ecos, eliminating all Federal salvage efforts.
Talking to a forest person in the Missoula area, he described the boondoggle that the ecologists call reforestation. Now they have teams of people walking around these burned forests and shooting trees with paint guns. Hopefully, this does not hurt the poor dead trees. Behind the paint gun shooters is a team of .22 shooters. These guys find the trees with paint markings and shoot the pinecones out of the trees. They of course do not collect these cones like the pinecone harvesters and then send them to the tree nurseries to grow and then plant into healthy trees. No, that would require too much common sense. The legal eco-terrorists have forced the Forest Service wimps to just let those cones drop on the rock hard ground and lay there waiting for a chipmunk to open it or open on its own, hopefully in a century or so.
There are two major problems with the paintball selection and .22 caliber method. First, as stated before the blast furnace temperatures of the fires leaving the ground about as fertile as a parking lot. Second, there are no animals in that sterile environment left to open the cones and scatter their seeds. And what do these cone hunters get for their valiant effort to waste the forests and taxpayers time? They are paid a measly $18/hr to spend a day in the forest shooting pinecones.
When did the Forest Service and Govt become so fearful of the Sierra Clubbers and their fellow eco-mafia? Are they so afraid of having their buildings burned down that they will be forced to make useless symbolic gestures at forest management that they will not actually manage those forests? Or are they afraid of the PC Gestapo to the level of fearing that not savings a dead tree is equivalent of killing a whale? The fact that these eco-gangsters can stop any actions in the nations forests no matter how positive proves how powerful and threatening they have become.
When will we take back our national treasures and manage them in an efficient and healthy manner? The destruction of the Montana forests two years ago by mismanagement of these forests was bad enough. It does not compare to the continuation of a forest desert that is being maintained in the name of ecotopia. Oregon’s once beautiful forests are burning from the same malpractice and we will be heading down the same destructive forest path that continues to blacken Montana!
Pray for GW and the Truth
Great essay, thanks a million.