Guest guest Posted August 31, 2008 Report Share Posted August 31, 2008 --Today for you 33 new articles about earth's trees! (392nd edition) --You can now RSS tree news in a regional format at: http://forestpolicyresearch.org --To Subscribe / to the world-wide email format send a blank email to: earthtreenews- OR earthtreenews- In this issue: BC-Canada PNW-USA Index: --British Columbia: 1) Sunshine Coast Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory, 2) Natives will have more clout over forestry, 3) Fighting over the ruins of Weyco's land, 4) Old timers build and restore trails, 5) B.C. Supreme Court upholds fibre-supply agreement, 6) We've been separated by corporate spin, --Canada: 7) RAN gives timber industry half of all that remains of Boreal forest, 8) An apologist PR organization losing members, 9) K-C is featuring Wall*E on Kleenex boxes, 10) Trees as chemical factories, 11) 104 year-old forester dies! 12) Trees In Trust, --Alaska: 13) Residents poaching trees on public lands, --Oregon: 14) What it truly means to speak for the forests that give us life, 15) Problems with Orleans Healthy Forest timber sale, 16) Horrible helicopter herbicide, 17) Logging and debates on logging continue, 18) Free Trade cost state 10,000 forest products jobs, --California: 19) Fire Salvage in Santa Cruz, 20) They always use deaths of firefighters to promote increased logging, 21) Considered a cardinal sin in Palo Alto, 22) County demands a mass fire salvage logging debacle, 23) Understand how to live compatibly with nature and fire, --Idaho: 24) Yet another unlikely truce in roadless forests --Missouri: 25) Wilderness for Mark Twain NF --Georgia: 26) College students to study timber corruption in Uruguay --West Virginia: 27) West Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel removed from ESA list --Kentucky: 28) How old trees came to be --Pennsylvania: 29) It's the loggers, not the Gypsy moths that are rampaging, --South Carolina: 30) Save the Angel Oak Tree woodland from being condos, --USA: 31) Difference between real and fake enviros, 32) Handing keys of our national forests over to industry, 33) US Forest Service is bankrupt, Articles: British Columbia: 1) The Sunshine Coast Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory (SEI) was undertaken to identify rare and fragile terrestrial ecosystems along the coastal lowlands of British Columbia from Howe Sound to Desolation Sound and the adjacent islands in the Strait of Georgia. The SEI is a " flagging " tool that identifies sensitive ecosystems and provides scientific information to governments and others trying to maintain biodiversity in the region. The Sunshine Coast Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory (SEI) identifies rare and fragile terrestrial ecosystems along the coastal lowlands of British Columbia. The study area includes Howe Sound to Desolation Sound and the adjacent islands in the Strait of Georgia. The Sunshine Coast forms the eastern component of the Georgia Basin Ecosystem, an ecological system unique in Canada. Landscape fragmentation, invasion of alien species, and loss to development has severely compromised much of the biodiversity of the western Georgia Basin and southern islands in the Strait of Georgia. The Sunshine Coast, with its small population and limited urban development, provides the last opportunity in the Georgia Basin to conserve viable representation of the diverse ecosystems and species which occur here. The SEI is a " flagging " tool that identifies sensitive ecosystems and provides scientific information to local governments and others who are trying to maintain biodiversity in the region. http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/acat/public/viewReport.do?reportId=3758 2) Natives will have significantly more clout over forestry in British Columbia after a court ruling that found the provincial government renewed licences granting the right to log in public forests in northern B.C. without meaningful consultation or adequate accommodation of aboriginal interests. The B.C. Forestry Ministry failed to acknowledge the distinctive political features of the Gitanyow First Nation's aboriginal society when issuing the licences, Madam Justice Kathryn Neilson stated in one of her final rulings as a B.C. Supreme Court judge. (Judge Neilson was appointed to the B.C. Court of Appeal earlier this year.) The Forestry Ministry also failed to recognize the aboriginal right to expect the forest would not disappear while disputes over their claim to ownership of the land continue, Judge Nielson stated in a 43-page ruling distributed this week. The judge has asked for further submissions before ruling on the consequences of her decision. Natives in B.C. have unresolved land claims to almost the entire province. The current court ruling dealt with six 15-year licences issued in February, 2007, that granted the right to log in the Kispiox and Nass regions of the northwestern part of the province in exchange for complying with government forest-management objectives and paying stumpage fees. Judge Neilson stated that issuing the licences was the first step in permitting the removal of a claimed resource in limited supply. The annual allowable cut in the area would be about one million cubic metres of timber, the equivalent of about one million telephone poles. The licences covered almost half of the 16,800 square kilometres of territory claimed by the Gitanyow as their traditional lands. The Gitanyow, with a population of about 700 people, have been in treaty negotiations since 1980, but the process stalled in 1996, Judge Neilson stated. " Nevertheless, there is no question that substantial logging and road building have occurred on those lands and that these activities have had a significant impact on the sustainability of timber resources and on other aspects of Gitanyow tradition and culture. " http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080828.wbctree28/BNStory/Na\ tional/home 3) Government and First Nations sparred Tuesday over whether sale of Weyerhaeuser Co.'s timberlands will result in local economic benefits. Whispering Pines Chief Mike LeBourdais, promised forest tenure in his traditional territory, sees the resource and the jobs it represents headed to the Cariboo. LeBourdais expressed frustration Tuesday after learning that government approval is imminent in the sale of the former Weyerhaeuser TFL 35 as well as another timber licence to West Fraser Timber and Interfor. At stake is about 750,000 cubic metres of timber annually. His band has been meeting recently with the provincial government, including Minister of Forests and Range Pat Bell, in hopes of obtaining some form of forest tenure. LeBourdais said Bell has promised tenure is forthcoming. " I don't know if the minister takes us seriously, " LeBourdais said. " And what do we have to do to be taken seriously? " But Bell, in Kamloops Tuesday on holiday, responded in a telephone interview that Lebourdais is crying foul too early. " I've not made a decision yet. It's a statutory decision I need to make. I'm a little surprised Mike is saying that. I've met with him on this and on other issues in the past couple of months. " Bell said the decision is not imminent and he is confident economic benefits will remain in Kamloops. The band's economic development plans include the purchase of a pallet mill and a chip mill, but they need a long-term timber/fibre supply to make the operations viable. LeBourdais has been seeking a 15- to 20-year supply amounting to 400,000 cubic metres. Bell said he cannot detail confidential discussions but he called First Nations proposals " very interesting and quite promising for Kamloops to create a diversified business. " He expects to meet this week with Lebourdais. If the TFL sales goes ahead without any concessions, the resources will be bound for West Fraser mills in Chasm and 100 Mile House, Lebourdais figured. " I'm at a loss as to why we're going to ship jobs out of Kamloops by just giving the timber licence to West Fraser, " Lebourdais said. " This transfer will not benefit Kamloops at all. " Whispering Pines has nothing to lose as it ponders legal action or direct action, he added. " We can file a legal injunction or put up a road block, I guess. " http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/ 4) Two ferries and 135 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, the Upper Sunshine Coast is as close as it gets in Canada to retiree heaven. Mountains draped in lush hemlock and cedar tumble toward the sandy beaches of the Georgia Strait. There are three golf courses, miles of hiking and canoe routes, and, as the name suggests, more hours of sunshine than anywhere else on the BC coast. But that wasn't enough for Tony Matthews back in 1987. The Powell River resident, who a couple of years earlier had leaped at an offer of early retirement from the town's downsizing pulp mill, got bored trekking the same trails, and began clearing a four-kilometre path through dense bush to his favourite fishing lake. When he needed help building a footbridge over a stream, he called on three retired buddies. Among them was a powerhouse named Roger Taylor, who had been master carpenter at the mill for forty-five years. Every Thursday morning, the four friends gathered for coffee at the Edgehill, an old-time store/diner on the outskirts of town that serves home-cooked breakfasts alongside shelves stocked with basic groceries. Then they headed into the bush to craft the bridge from downed cedars that littered the forest floor like pick-up sticks. By the time they finished, they had developed such a love for outdoor work that they began forging new trails in the nearby Duck Lake area. The squad now has twenty active members, all over sixty-five. Most worked in the mill at one time, but there are also teachers, engineers, tradesmen, and a doctor among their ranks. They are a loosely structured posse: no leader, no rules. The group still meets, rain or shine, every Thursday morning for coffee at the same diner before heading into the forest. They also gather Fridays for breakfast, and get together annually to choose up to twenty projects for the coming year. " We call ourselves an 'active social club,' " says the eighty-seven-year-old Taylor. " We're as healthy as hell. " The current project is rebuilding a section of the 180-kilometre Sunshine Coast Trail, eradicated in a recent clear-cut of a woodlot on the Sliammon reserve, north of town. By 9 a.m., the squad has split into groups, each with a different task. Almost all the building materials come from the forest floor; other supplies have been donated by the BC Forest Service; and logging company Weyerhaeuser has kicked in some cash. http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2008.09-field-notes-bomb-that-brush-margo\ -pfeiff-life-after-retirement/ 5) B.C. Supreme Court upheld a fibre-supply agreement for the Mackenzie pulp mill Thursday and approved a purchase agreement with Edmonton-based Worthington Properties, clearing the way for a start-up of the mill in the economically troubled town. The resource town of Mackenzie, population 4,700, has been hit hard by the forest sector downturn. Besides losing the pulp mill, the town has had a paper mill and three sawmills close within the past year. Details of the purchase agreement reveal that the fibre-supply agreement, which obligates Canfor to provide 200,000 tonnes of wood chips a year to the pulp mill, is worth more than the pulp mill itself. If PricewaterhouseCoopers exercises an option not to transfer the licence, the $20-million purchase price for the pulp mill is reduced by $13.5 million to $6.5 million. If Worthington chooses an option not to accept it, the purchase price is reduced to $7.5 million, giving the fibre-supply agreement a value of $12.5 million. " The reality is: Without the fibre-supply agreement, the mill is not worth very much in the current environment, " Sandrelli said. Canfor owns a sawmill adjacent to the pulp mill and the two operations thrived from the symbiotic relationship during better times in the forest industry. A conveyor belt transferred the wood chips, residue from the sawmilling process, to the adjacent pulp mill. However, the collapse of lumber prices prompted Canfor to shut the sawmill down. It argued in court that its consent is required for the fibre-supply agreement to be transferred to a new owner. Justice Brenner rejected that argument, saying details in the agreement don't support Canfor's view. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=1212d8c0-d1f9-4d3\ a-9710-4589a651dcaa 6) Today we live in a world where local residents from different walks of life may have very similar convictions about the fact that multinational corporations are destroying our world, but we are separated by the spin created by those very same corporations. Government and big business continue to pit the workingman against environmentalists, First Nations, and the general public, while they run away with the cash. Together we need to create the future for our communities, island, province, country, and planet. We can't leave it up to greed. We must unite to demand an end to corporate control of our forests. While the 24-year old, with 5 years falling experience, cut away the huckleberry bushes and small saplings, the older faller talked with me about the reality of his industry. He blamed the downturn in forestry on the greed of those same corporations who continue to flip Tree Farm Licenses with the help of government to turn a profit. He was outraged by land deals being made by Western Forest Products and TimberWest that are to turning timberland into real estate. His thoughts were that the land belongs to the people of this province and it should be illegal for multinational investment corporations, backed by banks, to sell it out from under the public for profit. First the young faller determined the lean of the tree, then he cut out a wedge of wood with an undercut, and then he moved to the other side of the tree for the back-cut. With the help of a wedge he tipped over the 4-foot-in-diameter Western Hemlock, pulled out the chainsaw, and walked back 10 feet where he watched the tall tree crash to the ground with a thundering boom. Then he cut down 3 more trees. Two giant Sitka Spruce trees towered over us but it would take these men most of the day to clear the smaller trees in the area before tackling them. The rest of the day would take a novel to describe in detail. On the way down to sea level I drove past several excavators building new roads and a blasting crew preparing their drilling machine. At the log dump I watched a massive log boom of prime old-growth cedar logs being loaded onto a barge, which can hold 16,000 cubic meters of wood. Two giant towers dropped gargantuan claws into the water and pulled up massive bundles of logs while sidewinder tugs pushed more wood into their range. That evening, in the loggers' bunk house, as I gathered signatures on release forms for my film entitled " Such Great Heights " , the men were very intrigued by my production. The Hoe-Chuck operator, sitting on his cot beside a laptop computer, copied down my website: http://www.islandboundmedia.ca promising to check up on me right away. rcboyce Canada: 7) Rainforest Action Network (RAN) of San Francisco has long been one of America's leading rainforest campaign organizations. Yet in July their campaign to protect Ontario, Canada's boreal forests doomed half this vital global ecological system to industrial destruction. In return, RAN and other proponents received vague promises of protections over a decade from now, but no protected area boundaries or protection plans. Canada's boreal forests are home to hundreds of sensitive species of animals including polar bears, caribou and wolverines. Boreal forests are some of the world's largest carbon storehouses, with holdings equal to decades of global emissions from fossil fuels, while continually absorbing new emissions. The boreal region is also the world's largest reservoir of clean fresh water. " Just how much longer do you think environmentalists can strike deals that give up half of large wilderness ecosystems to industrial development for vague promises of protection? Simply, more ecologically attuned folks know no more natural habitats can be lost and expect to survive climate change, " explains Ecological Internet's President, Dr. Glen Barry. Neither RAN, WWF or even Greenpeace realize that there is no longer any acceptable reason to industrially destroy or diminish an intact natural ecosystem -- not if falsely FSC certified, not to briefly alleviate poverty, and not because indigenous people are in favor. The state of the Earth is so grim, and the needs to protect and restore natural ecosystem so large, that only sufficient campaigns seeking to end industrial cutting and burning are worthwhile any longer. The rest is greenwash. It is unknown if 50 percent protection -- of unknown strength and placement -- will be enough to fully sustain Ontario's biodiversity and ecosystem services. Future protections will likely center on the sparsely populated and largely unthreatened northern boreal, while with its promotion and endorsement of the vague plan, RAN has greenwashed intensified forestry and mining in the already heavily fragmented southern boreal. " The only meaningful forest protection is to work to keep all ancient primary forests standing, and to meet needs for forest products from secondary forests regenerating into old-growth. There is no chance of achieving global ecological sustainability until ecological destruction ends, what remains is fully protected, and restoration begins, " explains Dr. Barry. http://www.ecoearth.info/shared// 8) It's rich to see Scott Jackson and the Ontario Forest Industries Association (OFIA) call Greenpeace a " special interest group. " Greenpeace's 2.5 million members in dozens of countries represent a much broader base of concern about Canadian forests than the OFIA, a lobby group for a handful of companies. But what can you expect from an apologist PR organization that is losing members? Jackson is not up to date on the latest, peer-reviewed science on the boreal forest that clearly contradicts his claims. The science shows logging intact areas of Canada's boreal forest reduces carbon stocks and reduces the forest's ability to resist and recover from climate change impacts like forest fires and insect outbreaks -- impacts that are getting more severe and frequent and increasing carbon emissions from Ontario's forests. The logical conclusion of his argument is: We should not preserve intact forest ecosystems; we should clearcut them all. He would replace functioning old-growth forests providing habitat for threatened species like woodland caribou with large clearcuts filled with tiny seedlings -- half of which will die before they reach five years of age. Not a great way to fight climate change. If Ontario's forest industry, and dinosaur members such as AbitibiBowater and Buchanan Forest Products, were practising sustainable forestry, why are so many mills closing? Sure it's market conditions, but it's also rising fuel costs because the big old trees are nowhere near the mills any more as the forest has become more and more fragmented. Jackson and the OFIA need to stop defending outdated practices and start rethinking the way forestry is done. And that includes conserving large areas of intact forest. Only then can Ontario's forest sector be made truly sustainable for communities, for the environment and for companies. http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1174485 9) Disney/Pixar's new animated film Wall*E is set in a distant future when the Earth is barren of all life forms and humans have survived only by leaving the wasted planet to live in outer space. The sole inhabitant of planet Earth in this doomsday scenario is Wall*E, a lovable but lonely robot that has been tasked with cleaning up the mess us humans left behind. If you've seen the movie, you probably got the same thrill out of its environmental theme as us here at Greenpeace. Meanwhile, the movie's smashing success at the box office is a clear indicator that its message resonates with Americans' concerns for the future. That's why it's perplexing to see that K-C is featuring Wall*E on boxes of Kleenex. If you look on the bottom of these boxes, you'll see a little recycled symbol that says: " This box is made from 100% recycled paper. " What you won't see on the bottom of that box is a message telling you that the tissues inside it are made from centuries-old trees that were cut from forests that had been around for as much as 10,000 years – until K-C came along with its clearcutting practices, that is. Nor will the box tell you that K-C refuses to use any recycled material in Kleenex even though doing so would save huge areas of ancient forests. For the past few years, Greenpeace has been running the Kleercut campaign to pressure K-C to stop devastating ancient forests. Naturally, we couldn't let K-C's blatant attempt to use Wall*E as a means of greenwashing Kleenex's image go by without comment. So we commissioned celebrated political cartoonist Mark Fiore to create an animated movie of our own. http://verbosemorose.blogspot.com/2008/08/kleenex-is-all-bad.html 10) Diana Be¬resford- Kroeger pointed to a towering wafer ash tree near her home. The tree is a chemical factory, she ex¬plained, and its products are part of a sophisticated survival strategy. The flowers contain terpene oils, which re¬pel mammals that might feed on them. But the ash needs to attract pollinators, and so it has a powerful lactone fra¬grance that appeals to large butterflies and honeybees. The chemicals in the wafer ash, in turn, she said, provide protection for the butterflies from birds, making them taste bitter. Many similar unseen chemical rela¬tionships are going on in the world around us. " These are at the heart of connectivity in nature, " she said. Beresford-Kroeger, 63, is a native of Ireland who has bachelor's degrees in medical biochemistry and botany, and has worked as a Ph.D.-level researcher at the University of Ottawa school of medicine, where she published several papers on the chemistry of artificial blood. She calls herself a renegade sci¬entist, however, because she tries to bring together aboriginal healing, Western medicine and botany to advo¬cate an unusual role for trees. She favours what she terms a bio¬plan, reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions. Wafer ash, for example, could be used in organic farming, she said, planted in hedgerows to attract butterflies away from crops. Black walnut and honey lo¬custs could be planted along roads to absorb pollutants, she said. " Her ideas are a rare, if not entirely new approach to natural history, " said Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard biologist who wrote the foreword for her 2003 book, Arboretum America " (Universi¬ty of Michigan Press). " The science of selecting trees for different uses around the world has not been well studied. " Miriam Rothschild, the British natu¬ralist who died in 2005, wrote glowingly of Beresford-Kroeger's idea of bioplan¬ning and called it " one answer to Silent Spring " because it uses natural chem¬icals rather than synthetic ones. http://thechronicleherald.ca/Science/9008117.html 11) Mr. Creighton, a forester, passionate environmentalist and woodlot owner who served as the deputy minister for the provincial Lands and Forests Department for two decades, died Sunday at his Halifax home. He was 104. " We've lost our forestry god-father, our forestry guru who set a great example, " remembered Don Cameron, a forester with the provincial Natural Resources Department who met Mr. Creighton 20 years ago. " He implemented programs and set up things here that were way ahead of their time. Many of them are still in place. " It always amazed me — his continuing interest and passion for forestry. " Mr. Creighton graduated from Dalhousie University in 1926 and later from the University of New Brunswick, where he studied forestry. He went on to study forestry in Germany until he returned home in 1934, bringing many new ideas with him. In 1948, he took on the role of deputy minister for what was then known as the Lands and Forests Department. He kept the job until 1969, working under seven ministers. " You can imagine during that time, the politics were very strong, " Mr. Cameron said. " Usually, when a government changed hands, at least half of the people within a department were fired. . . . He survived that because he was so valuable. He didn't pull any punches. He was not afraid to speak his mind and people valued that. . . . They realized his objectives were pure. " Mr. Cameron said Mr. Creighton was committed to the idea of forest sustainability and would speak to other woodlot owners about how it could and should be done. And in his role as deputy minister, he made profound differences. The province owes its forest fire-protection system — where lookouts man towers throughout the province in the summer — to him. He also pushed the government to establish game sanctuaries and to buy huge tracts of privately owned land, Mr. Cameron said. He also served as the president of the Canadian Institute of Forestry and was an active member of the organization for more than 75 years. Mr. Cameron said Mr. Creighton was never afraid to step up to a podium, take the microphone or answer questions from anyone — professional forester, woodlot owner or child. http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1074016.html 12) Ontario Nature is teaming with Trees In Trust, a web-based environmental fundraising organization, to encourage people to invest in the future of our native forests. A new online donation system allows donors to buy a piece of the forest as a gift, memorial or carbon offset. This approach to forest conservation makes the most of online public awareness campaigns and fundraising and top-of-mind environmental concerns. In exchange for an online donation (made at www.treesintrust.com), Trees In Trust provides a mapped piece of forest and a dedication certificate instantly, via the web. The donor's dedication is then placed against a specific plot of land and held in his or her name in perpetuity. Ontario Nature uses the funds to steward the land and acquire additional parcels of land of similar quality. So far, Trees In Trust has partnerships with conservation organizations in three provinces including Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Ontario, and aims to expand by partnering with land trusts in every province. Three of Ontario Nature's reserves are now on the Trees in Trust site: Altberg Wildlife Sanctuary Nature Reserve in Kawartha Lakes, Kinghurst Forest Nature Reserve south of Owen Sound and Cawthra Mulock Nature Reserve in York Region. This efficient fundraising system allows conservation organizations like Ontario Nature to acquire more endangered forest and to concentrate on conservation and protection rather than spending time handling payments, producing maps and printing certificates. Charitable tax receipts are issued for dedications of one-sixth acre and above. For more information, please visit the Trees In Trust website at http://www.treesintrust.com http://www.flamboroughreview.com/news/article/199923 Alaska: 13) Fairbanks area forests subjected to illegal axes: Posted in Alaska News The scramble to find dry firewood has some Fairbanks area residents poaching trees on public lands. Northern Area State Parks chief ranger Matt McClure says he's seeing more illegal firewood harvesting than normal in the Chena River State Recreation area east of Fairbanks. Download Audio MP3: http://media.aprn.org/2008/ann-20080826-03.mp3 - http://aprn.org/2008/08/26/fairbanks-area-forests-subjected-to-illegal-axes/ Oregon: 14) In the summer issue of Forest Voice, we explore what it truly means to speak for the forests that give us life. In this issue we hold to the light some of the more questionable actions of corporate " environmental " groups claiming to work in the public's best interest. The intention of this issue of Forest Voice is to educate the public that only by holding accountable those whose jobs are to advocate for Nature, will we be able to create a strong and united movement to save life on Earth. In this summer issue we bring you more than 50% never-seen-before content written exclusively for the Forest Voice, including: 1) A testimonial from a former Sierra Club chapter chairperson whose entire group resigned in protest of the Club's controversial deal with toxic giant Clorox to endorse their products 2) A hard look at the latest ploy to increase the cut on public lands: " stewardship " logging 3) Several in-depth analyses of what it truly means to be an advocate for life on Earth -- If you're not already an NFC member, click on weblink to download a PDF of the summer Forest Voice. Request a copy now: info or 541-688-2600. 15) KS Wild has closely analyzed the Orleans Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA) timber sale on the Six Rivers National Forest near the community of Orleans. While KS Wild supports the small-diameter thinning, hand-work and prescribed fire elements of the project, we objected to the logging of a number of large, old-growth trees. In early August, KS Wild and partners spent a day in the field looking at the Orleans project with the Forest Service and timber representatives with the purpose of resolving conflicts. The Forest Service agreed to drop the worst logging unit that provides the best habitat for old-growth dependent species. In exchange, KS Wild agreed to drop our objection to the project. As a result of this process, more than 2,600 acres of forest in the middle Klamath watershed will receive some ecologically-based thinning and prescribed fire while maintaining old-growth. That makes KS Wild, and the Klamath River salmon, happy! http://www.kswild.org 16) " It's horrible, " she said, of the helicopter herbicide application being conducted that morning, a mere few hundred feet from the hill upon which she lives. " You can smell the chemicals. I don't know if I can come back. " Tuesday morning, having tarped her garden and sealed her windows and door, Holliday left Wheeler and the whup-whup sound of helicopter propeller blades, to drive to a friends' house in Neahkahnie to wait out the spraying. She wasn't alone. " Lord knows I won't be staying in my home tonight, " said Angelina Martin on Monday evening upon learning that Green Diamond Resources - the company that owns 7,000 acres of local commercial timberland, a solid block of which abuts the City of Wheeler - planned to spray the following morning. " Neither will my pets. " Staff, volunteers and residents of Nehalem Valley Care Center are equally apprehensive. More than 40 of them signed a petition asking Green Diamond to forego spraying. " We have 50 beds for our skilled care center residents and about 50 employees as well, " said Katherine Mace, NVCC activity director. " The care center is directly below one of the clear-cuts that is scheduled to be sprayed by controversial chemicals that have a potential of causing health problems in humans and wildlife. As an employee of the care center and resident of Wheeler, I'm very worried about chemical drift exposure, especially if they spray with helicopters or if it is foggy when they spray from the ground. " " The herbicide could make its way down the creek into the bay, " said Holliday. " Some of these chemicals are known to be lethal to amphibians and salmonids. " Holliday, Martin and a few dozen other Nehalem Bay area residents are aghast that Green Diamond is legally permitted to employ a helicopter to spray herbicide on a clear-cut so close to a residential zone. Their fears include the health risks associated with inhalation of poison as well as the effects it could have on the environment. A coalition - which includes Wheeler residents, as well as those who live in Nehalem, Manzanita and outlying areas - is aiming to change the law. " We have the right to protect ourselves, our homes and our children, " said Judy Stone-Aaen, of Wheeler. " We need to pass local, state and federal laws that stop this wholesale rape of our land, animals and rights. " In an effort to stop future spraying so close to a city, the coalition is drafting what it hopes are the seeds of a bill limiting clear-cutting and chemical spraying near residential areas, to be presented to the Oregon Legislature. They plan to present their proposal to the joint legislative Environment and Natural Resources Committee during its Sept. 12 meeting in Newport. http://tillamookheadlightherald.com/main.asp?SectionID=8 & SubSectionID=8 & ArticleI\ D=10082 17) The Medford Mail Tribune printed an editorial on August 15 entitled, " Here we go again " regarding a salvage logging proposal northeast of Medford on BLM land. Two days later the paper printed a opinion editorial response entitled, " Hard questions about salvage logging, " from George Sexton, KS Wild's Conservation Direction. On August 24, the paper printed another opinion-editorial entitled, " Anti-salvage arguments irrelevant, " from Ed Kupillas, a timber industry representative. Of the proposed 35 million board foot timber sale, KS Wild estimates that up to 20 million board feet of timber could be responsibly salvaged from this blowdown area without sacrificing watershed and fisheries values. That is a lot of wood, yet Mr. Kupillas claims KS Wild is an " unbending extremist " group. Four creeks in the proposed salvage area are listed under the Clean Water Act as violating sediment standards, which is primarily the result of logging and road construction. Yet the salvage proposal currently calls for the construction of 7.8 miles of new logging roads, which would be detrimental to water and fish. Contrary to what Mr. Kupillas states, we believe it is essential to examine the past in order to make informed decisions today and for the future. We also believe that old-growth and salmon are worthy of steadfast protection. Take Action: This editorial thread offers the community an important opportunity to discuss issues with regard to responsible logging. If you would like to add to the public discussion, we encourage you to submit a Letter to the Editor (200 words or less) to letters - http://www.kswild.org 18) The Oregon Fair Trade Campaign released a report on August 12 documenting the negative effects of unmitigated free trade on forest products jobs in Oregon. The report, based on new statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor, shows that trade agreements since 1994 have cost Oregon over 10,000 forest products jobs, with southern Oregon being hit the hardest. The lion's share of forest products jobs eliminated in Oregon since NAFTA and the WTO were enacted have been lost as a result of increased imports. Under today's trade policies, local businesses are forced to compete against corporations in places like China that pay their workers pennies on the dollar and face almost no environmental enforcement. The way to save jobs isn't to reduce our standards to their abysmal levels in a race to the bottom; it's to require that U.S. imports meet the standards we choose to set. Free trade deals supported by politicians like Gordon Smith and Greg Walden undercut efforts at sustainability by flooding American markets with artificially cheap, sweatshop-made, environmentally destructive imports. In order to strengthen our environment and economy, KS Wild joins our union brothers and sisters in calling for an entirely new international trade model. http://www.kswild.org California: 19) Charred trees and brush, remnants of last June's Trabing Fire, are being removed from along roadways and power lines north of Watsonville. According to Amador Delgado of Davey Tree, the company handling the tree removal for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., burned trees within about 50 feet of power lines pose the greatest threat and are being targeted to come down. He estimated that 1,800 trees will be cut down. The Trabing Fire started June 20, one mile north of Watsonville, and destroyed 26 homes and 48 outbuildings. It spread from the shoulder of Highway 1 through dry brush and trees, covering 630 acres and displacing about 2,000 Larkin Valley-area residents. While crews from Davey Tree will cut down the trees, the downed trunks will be left for property owners to dispose of, according to Delgado. He said about 18 men are working on the project, which should take three to four weeks to finish. Along Highway 1 for a half-mile, from Buena Vista Drive to Vista Point, CalTrans crews are working to remove small pine trees, scrub and brush burned in the Trabing Fire. According to CalTrans spokeswoman Susana Cruz, the crews began working Sunday and will continue, as work schedules permit, until mid-October, when rains usually begin. While most of the clearing involves the burned remains of scrubs and brush, close to 100 small trees burned in the fire will also be cleared from the roadside. On steep slopes, CalTrans will implement hydro-seeding to prevent erosion. Within days after the fire, crews from PG & E began repairing power lines and replacing burned poles, while contractors removed hazardous trees and brush posing an immediate danger in the fire area. http://www.register-pajaronian.com/V2_news_articles.php?heading=0 & story_id=5477 & \ page=72 20) It's as disturbing as it is predictable that a timber industry booster like state Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, would use the tragic deaths of firefighters to promote increased logging. It's also not surprising then that he resorts to falsehoods to promote this agenda. His " solution " to catastrophic forest fires is to promote more cutting, yet study after study has shown that catastrophic fires generally take place in areas where natural, ancient forests have been cut and replaced. The Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Final Report to Congress put it succinctly: " Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuel accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity. " This doesn't seem to matter to timber industry supporters like Aanestad. Nor does it seem to matter that when fuel reduction is necessary, the trees the timber industry wants to cut are inevitably big old commercially valuable trees, not dog-hair trees more prone to fire. A Government Accounting Office report stated that Forest Service managers " tend to (1) focus on areas with high-value commercial timber rather than on areas with high fire hazards or (2) include more large, commercially valuable trees in a timber sale than are necessary to reduce the accumulated fuels. " Nor does it seem to matter that a report by the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture stated, " The removal of large, merchantable trees from forests does not reduce fire risk and may, in fact, increase such risk. " Nor do these words from Forest Service fire specialist Denny Truesdale seem to matter: " The majority of the material that we need to take out is not commercial timber. It is up to three and four inches in diameter. We can't sell it. " Commercial logging removes large, fire-resistant trees. What's more, removing the overstory reduces shade, drying and heating the materials below. Tree plantations are far more vulnerable to fire than natural forests, and there is a direct correlation between roads and fires. Add to this the fact that the overwhelming majority of forest fires are caused by humans (not lightning, as Aanestad improperly implies), and many of these are arson. There have already been many cases of people lighting fires specifically so they can benefit financially, whether through gaining employment as firefighters or through giving the Forest Service an excuse to offer up the dead trees as a timber sale, quite possibly in some cases to the arsonists themselves. So far as protecting homes, the Forest Service's own fire laboratory found that the main factors determining whether buildings ignite are the materials used in the home and the amount of underbrush within 200 feet, not the proximity of merchantable timber. http://www.triplicate.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=9960Coastal 21) Every weekday afternoon, the street in front of Betsy Fryberger's Palo Alto home turns into a stagnant river of metal, rubber and exhaust fumes, otherwise known as rush-hour traffic at the corner of Middlefield Road and Oregon Expressway. So you'd think she would welcome the efforts of Santa Clara County to widen the intersection as part of a $3.5 million plan to streamline Oregon Expressway and its extension, Page Mill Road, the main Palo Alto commuter route linking Highway 101 and Interstate 280. Instead, she's circulating petitions against the expansion and has collected more than 500 signatures. Why? Because the only way to widen Middlefield is to commit what's considered a cardinal sin in Palo Alto: cutting down about a dozen street trees. Fryberger has the petitions in a box on her driveway, enticing passersby with a sign that says " Save this Tree. Be green, not concrete. " " In Palo Alto, trees are like your children, " Kniss said. " You don't just take out a tree any more than you would cut down a child. " But it's not just about trees. The county had the best intentions five years ago when it embarked on a plan to spiff up its expressway system. And heaven knows that Oregon Expressway is a traffic nightmare, clogged with commuters heading to high-tech firms in the Stanford Research Park as well as Palo Altans trying to get to jobs in other cities. But Oregon is not your typical expressway. It's not Lawrence or San Tomas or Almaden. It's a road with a turbulent past. A lot of people still see the expressway, which was built in the 1960s right through the middle of existing neighborhoods, as an affront. Over the years it has become a fault line that divides north and south Palo Alto. Every time a school gets a new field or a library project is proposed, the geographic jealousies of the north and south have to be balanced. The county's plan includes several proposals that rekindle that 40-year-old anger and send tremors along that fault line — like building sound walls, which some residents have likened to walling off Berlin. " The county should understand that this is probably the most sensitive issue in Palo Alto,'' Kniss said. " This is about cutting a community in half.'' Masoud Akbarzadeh, the county's traffic manager, seems a bit baffled by the controversy. He said he's just trying to make the road safer, less congested and more pedestrian friendly. http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/ci_10319170 22) With approximately 200,000 acres of national forest lands burned in Trinity County to date by wildfires that started June 20, the board of supervisors is asking the U.S. Forest Service what its recovery plans are for the burned areas. In a letter to Pacific Southwest Regional Forester Randy Moore, the board noted the need for cleanup of burned vegetation to reduce fuel for future fires, as well as ongoing maintenance and forest management to create healthier forest conditions. The letter claims that many of the fires this summer moved into old burns that never had the burned materials removed and consequently burned hotter and with greater intensity. In approving the letter last week, the board heard comments from several county residents on wide-ranging issues related to the fires that have resulted in extensive damage to private properties as well as national forest lands. But In a letter to the board, John Rapf of Hyampom noted that areas where massive salvage and re-planting occurred after the 1987 fires were some that burned the hottest this summer. He urged the board to seek a lot more input from local residents before meeting with the governor because many have had experiences and opinions that need to be heard. Roger Jaegel said this summer's fires have provided a perfect opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of previous actions because " we have burned areas that were salvaged adjacent to areas that weren't, so let's go out and look. " Also, some people targeted a firefighting strategy that relies heavily on deliberately set backburns to eliminate fuels in advance of the wildfires. Others complained of heavy-handed tactics that resulted in property damage from firefighting equipment and not the flames. Several urged the board to conduct public forums to hear from many residents throughout the county that have suffered trauma from the fire siege and have numerous concerns to share before Supervisors Howard Freeman and Roger Jaegel meet with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Sacramento this fall to discuss the fires' aftermath. The board agreed to hold additional hearings and to take a field trip to tour some of the burned areas around Big Bar and Hayfork impacted by the Iron-Alps and Lime complexes. As of Tuesday, firm dates had not been set for those meetings, but a tentative plan was in the works for a trip downriver next Wednesday, Sept. 3. http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/2008/0827/front_page/001.html 23) As environmentalists, we must understand how fire affected our landscape before anthropogenic ideals. In reality, " Skies were likely smoky much of the summer and fall in California during the prehistoric period " (Stephens et. al. 2007). If we truly would like to return the Sierra Nevada bioregion to the natural ecosystem that once dominated this area, we must understand how to live compatibly with nature as well as fire. We must educate ourselves on the benefits that fire can have in our ecosystems. There are many beneficial effects that fire has on our ecosystems including: recycling of soil nutrients, removal of dead and dying vegetation, reduction in ladder fuels, and creating conditions that allow for healthy forest re-growth. What we must remember is that fire is an essential and natural process, and although it can be destructive where homes and lives are concerned it does play an important part in the future health of forest environments. We must all be a part of the solution to create a more natural ecosystem within the Sierra Nevada, and this starts with YOU. I will leave you with this to think about, " In the main forest belt of California, fires seldom or never sweep from tree to tree in broad all-enveloping sheets…. Here the fires creep from tree to tree, nibbling their way on the needle-strewn ground, attacking the giant trees at the base, killing the young, and consuming the fertilizing humus and leaves " --John Muir, 1895. Click here for further prehistoric fire information about California, and here to learn more about how you can be part of the solution through sound Firewise Communities practices. Stephens, S.L., R.E. Martin, and N.E. Clinton. 2007. Prehistoric Fire Area and Emissions from California's Forests, Woodlands, Shrublands, and Grasslands. Forest Ecology and Management, 2007. Idaho: 24) On Friday, Idaho, one of the most forested states in the country — and one of the most conservative — announced an unlikely truce. With the support of hunters, fishermen and some environmental groups, the state and the Bush administration agreed on regulatory safeguards for 9.3 million acres that had been designated as roadless areas by the Clinton administration — and thus free of commercial activity. The compromise would leave about 3.3 million acres of the total roadless. About 5.6 million acres would enjoy similar protections, though exceptions could be made for logging in areas where fires could put communities at risk. An additional 400,000 acres would be open to all development. Mark E. Rey, an under secretary of the federal Department of Agriculture who oversees the Forest Service, said the roadless rule " was an issue that we engaged throughout. " Mr. Rey added, " Today is a kind of epiphany because we might have a solution for at least one state. " Chris Wood, the chief operating officer of the environmental group Trout Unlimited who worked for the Forest Service in the Clinton administration, said Friday: " I believe the 2001 roadless rule to be one of the most effective conservation measures of our time. However, conservation cannot endure if the people most affected by it don't support it. " Lt. Gov. James E. Risch, whose background in forestry gave him a shared experience and vocabulary with the competing interests, said Friday, " We are proud of the way we manage our own state lands, and our own private lands. " But it is clear, Mr. Risch said, that officials resent the federal government's dominance. " They own two out of every three acres in Idaho, " he said in asserting that that automatically limited the state's ability to control land within its own boundaries. Idaho, in fact, was the first state to go to court to block the Clinton administration's rule, a suit that is still unresolved. The plan originally submitted by the state drew sharp criticism from environmental groups. But some groups moved to support it after it became clear that about 3.3 million acres would have a higher degree of protection, equivalent to federal wilderness areas. Negotiations ensured that there would be substantial barriers to road construction in much of the rest of the 9.3 million acres. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/30forest.html?_r=1 & adxnnl=1 & oref=slogin & adx\ nnlx=1220115715-cPSq7F2zwX3AFWUKzo3o2g Missouri: 25) Wilderness advocates will gather next week in Salem to map out strategies for winning federal protection for 50,000 acres of public land in Missouri's Mark Twain National Forest. The Missouri Wilderness conference Sept. 6 is aimed at building public awareness and support of the proposal before approaching potential sponsors in Missouri's congressional delegation. Four percent of the Mark Twain forest is designated wilderness, meaning it is free of roads, all-terrain vehicles, mining and logging, but open to hiking, camping, fishing, horseback riding, hunting, canoeing and picnicking. The additional acres would bring to 7 percent the amount of land in the state with that kind of protection. The entire forest is 1.5 million acres. http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/772120.html Georgia: 26) A delegation from the University of Georgia's Center for Forest Business visited Uruguay Aug. 3-8 to investigate possible partnerships with Uruguayan universities to encourage further growth of the forest products industry in the South American country. The center, housed in the Warnell School of Forest and Natural Resources, is interested in creating student, faculty and research exchanges to train Uruguayan and U.S. master's students in the business of forestland investment and wood products manufacturing, with special focus on the industry's development in Uruguay. Led by Warnell School Dean Michael Clutter, the six-person Georgia delegation met with Uruguayan university, business and government representatives in the capital city of Montevideo and the northern province of Tacuarembó. " We are quite impressed with Uruguay's dynamic forest sector and the opportunities present. With increasing wood-using plants and productive plantations, the future is bright for forestry and the forest products industry in Uruguay, " Dr. Clutter told GlobalAtlanta during the trip. " We look forward to developing joint education programs, faculty exchanges and synergistic research projects between the University of Georgia and universities in Uruguay. " He said that he envisions Georgia faculty and graduate students doing research projects in Uruguay, and the Warnell School could make assistantships available for Uruguayan master's and doctoral students. The exchanges would focus specifically on forest business and investment, including the financing of forestland purchases, forest products manufacturing and, possibly, new business opportunities in bioenergy. UGA Center for Forest Business Bob Izlar said the center has worked with other international institutions, but these exchanges would be different in that they would incorporate more direct cooperation with the forestry industry. " We have had partnerships with forestry schools at the University of Helsinki and Royal College of Agriculture in Uppsala, Sweden. But they are nothing like we propose for Uruguay, " Mr. Izlar said. http://stories.globalatlanta.com/2008stories/016269.html West Virginia: 27) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared Tuesday that it has removed the West Virginia northern flying squirrel from protection under the Endangered Species Act – despite the squirrel's small population and the looming threat that climate change poses to its habitat. The squirrel was declared recovered despite the fact that it has yet to meet recovery goals in a recovery plan that was developed by the world's leading experts on the squirrel's biology and status, and that scientists have been raising alarm bells about the increasing threat of climate change related to anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. " The delisting of the West Virginia northern flying squirrel is part of the Bush administration's plan to gut the Endangered Species Act by keeping rare species off the list, undercutting protections for some on the list, and removing others from the list altogether, " said Judy Rodd, director of Friends of Blackwater, a Maryland-based conservation group. " This is consistent with the Bush administration's move last week to weaken regulations so that Fish and Wildlife scientists no longer advise federal agencies on the impacts of their projects on endangered species or consider the impacts of greenhouse emissions on endangered species, " Rodd said. Bush administration officials claim that threats to the squirrel have been alleviated and that continued presence of the species in some areas for 20 years prove that it is not endangered. In drawing these conclusions, however, the officials ignored the fact that all climate change models show decline for the northern hardwood/red spruce forests that the West Virginia northern flying squirrel calls home. http://stopstripmining.gnn.tv/blogs/29206/Bush_gives_another_parting_favor_to_th\ e_logging_industry Kentucky: 28) Research by former University of Kentucky post-doctorate student Ryan McEwan suggests the old bur oaks, chinquapin oaks and blue ashes got their start growing straight but slow in the middle of a forest. The research contradicts the long-held view that pioneers found open savannas, with large, widely spaced trees, when they arrived in the region in the late 1700s. McEwan, in an article co-written by Brian McCarthy, suggests that thick forests could have grown up because the Native Americans who had been keeping the landscape open were decimated by diseases that Europeans brought to the New World. Around 1800, the research found, the trees suddenly began growing a lot faster, and they sprouted lower branches. That, McEwan said in an interview, suggests that they suddenly were getting a lot more sunlight because competing trees had been cleared. The research was conducted by taking pencil-thick cores of living and dead trees. The trees left standing after (roughly) the year 1800 could have been spared because they produced acorns that were food for livestock, or for their shade, McEwan said. It also is possible that other species were also left but have since disappeared because they don't live as long as the oaks or blue ashes. In any event, he said, the big old trees are becoming rare. Development has cleared many, and others are approaching the end of their lifespan. " We're on the verge of losing them, " he said. Andy Mead. http://www.kentucky.com/211/story/505153.html Pennsylvania: 29) At the J. Edward Mack Boy Scout camp near Brickerville, officials this fall will reluctantly cut down trees killed by rampaging gypsy moths to keep the timber from falling on buildings occupied by Scouts. At popular Gov. Dick Park, also in the Furnace Hills, officials expect to have to " salvage cut " several hundred dead trees and replant parts of the forest. And earlier this summer, the Pennsylvania Game Commission announced it was felling thousands of dead trees on 164 acres at four different game lands in the Furnace Hills, including prized old oak stands beloved in nearby Mount Gretna. Forests at all these locations had been sprayed with a bacteria insecticide this spring, but the dreaded gypsy moth caterpillars defoliated and killed mature oak trees anyway. Against this backdrop, and despite the appeals of Elizabeth Township supervisors and some worried county residents, the Lancaster County Commissioners this morning elected not to participate in a state-subsidized program for aerial spraying to thwart more gypsy moth damage next spring. Even though surrounding counties have signed on to the state spraying in recent years, the commissioners decided not to. The state spray program would cost public and private landowners a vastly reduced spray rate compared to contracting with private sprayers. http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/226471 South Carolina: 30) This site is intended to inform the public of an upcoming development that will destroy the beautiful and dense forest that protects The Angel Oak Tree, one of Charleston's most visited and talked about natural scenes, The Angel Oak Tree (AO) is located in the Angel Oak Park (AOP) on Johns Island, SC. The AO is a natural Low Country treasure visited daily by schools, tourist and locals. The City Council of Charleston has approved the development of Angel Oak Village (AOV) a 600 multi-family housing project with 80,000 sq. feet of retail space around AOP. Thousands of protected trees that surround the AO will be destroyed and protected wetlands will be filled in for the 42 acre project. http://www.savetheangeloak.org/ USA: 31) What's the function of an environmentalist but an attorney for the Earth, an ecosystem advocate? A forest can't speak for itself, so the job of greens is to argue for their client's best interest. The forest wouldn't ask for a kinder, gentler form of logging; it would say " Get the hell out now! " Like a successful attorney, environmentalists aren't supposed to be objective, but to have a clear bias: in this case, a bias for life. Deep greens understand that anything less than a complete chainsaw acquittal means a death sentence for our public forests. Yellow enviros will jump at any chance to " settle, " especially since it's the only way to guarantee their paycheck. Predictably, yellows will say any big changes are long-shots and to be really " effective " you can't aim so high. Which is why Yellows would rather work to increase streamside buffers by a few feet than even mention returning to the public domain tens of millions of land grant acres sold from railroad companies to private logging companies, like Weyerhaeuser, Boise Cascade and Plum Creek. Let's not forget that it's also the role of enviros to kindle the imagination and inspire citizen involvement and action. A winning movement needs a cry to rally around, like: " No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth! " or " Not Another Black Stick! " Good luck trying to jolt the American people out of their apathy with the slogan: " Save the old growth—well, at least trees over 200 years old—and sometimes you can thin them and, of course they'll build a few roads, but don't worry, they're just temporary...! " Green groups pushing for thinning in both native forests and tree plantations on public lands, thinvironmentalists, believe they can somehow convince industry to shift operations into this barely profitable, labor-intensive (though plenty destructive) model, in the name of " restoration. " Even if the science on forest restoration through chainsaw surgery was unanimous—it's not—to expect a rape-and-run logging industry to transition into a benevolent presence in our public forests is pure fantasy. Still, thinvironmentalists insist they've tamed the Timber Beast, ignoring past experience that shows that when you let the Timber Beast into the forest—for any reason at all—it's going to mark its territory in a big way. http://www.counterpunch.org/schlossberg08302008.html 32) As it heads out the door, the Bush administration is handing the keys to our national forests over to the mining, timber and oil and gas industries. Its targets are the crown jewels of our national forest system - millions of acres of pristine landscapes in Alaska's Tongass Rainforest and Idaho's Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Now the Administration has set its sights on Colorado's Rocky Mountains, where it is moving forward rapidly with a rulemaking that would remove the landmark Roadless Area Conservation Rule, the popular policy that protects the last one-third of the nation's most pristine forests for future generations to enjoy. If adopted, it would dramatically increase logging and road-building in 4.4 million acres of Colorado's best backcountry, while giving the green light to roughly 100 new oil and gas drilling projects, impacting valuable fish and wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation opportunities. Your help is needed now! Please sign the letter below now to ask the Forest Service to stop its 11th hour efforts to open up Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Forests to more drilling, mining, logging and road-building. We encourage you to include your own personal comments — comment emails are much more effective when you take the time to add your own thoughts. http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/colorado_wild_forests?rk=i11SA17qO8-kW 33) The US Forest Service is bankrupt. They have spent their entire 2008 fire budget of $1.2 billion, and an additional $400 million besides, and it is still mid-August, and fires are burning right now in every western state. The extra $400 million spent to date is coming out of non-fire USFS programs [here]. There is a hiring freeze, forest rehabilitation projects on burns of prior years have been canceled, as have been every other kind of USFS project, and layoffs are forthcoming. The attitude expressed by USFS Chief Gail Kimbell is, " pray for rain. " Maybe we should pray for a new Chief. Useless and unnecessary fires have consumed the budget. The Basin/Indians Fire burned 244,000 acres and is the 3rd largest fire in California history. With more than $120,000,000 spent on fire " suppression, " it is now the most expensive fire in California history, and the 2nd most expensive in U.S. history (the Biscuit Fire in Oregon in 2002 cost $150,000,000). Most of those acres were incinerated in backburns. The Long Range Fire Implementation Plan was not suppression but burn it all. The Iron Complex on the Shasta-Trinity NF will burn over 100,000 acres at a cost of over $70 million. Those fires could have been contained and controlled a month ago, but the Plan from ignition was to burn, baby, burn. The combined acreage burned in Northern California forests this summer exceeds 500,000 acres and the cost of " suppression " is in excess of $300 million. Many of those megafires are still burning, consuming thousands of acres and tens of millions of dollars every day. http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2008/08/15/destroying-forests-has-destroyed-the-us-f\ orest-service/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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