Dear HCN,
High Country News disappointed readers of
Writers on the Range last month by printing the nonsensical
diatribe of Frank Carroll (“Logging is Beginning to Look a Little
Better,” Jackson Hole Guide, 7/31/02). He blames the Sierra Club
and Center for Biological Diversity, and “their actions over the
last two decades” for the recent catastrophic fires in the West.
Ludicrous! But then again, Carroll’s paycheck comes from the timber
industry.
Carroll elects to play the blame game,
but at this point, that isn’t very constructive. However, if one
must seek causation for catastrophic fire in the West, it
undoubtedly lies with the very agency entrusted with forest
management, and its policy of total fire suppression. Even Forest
Service personnel will confirm that the buildup of ground and
ladder fuels is the direct result of 100 years of the “Smokey the
Bear” policy of extinguishing every fire in the forest. (Not
because of “two decades” of environmental litigation, as Carroll
claims.) Of course, the agency didn’t know any better – fire
ecology is a relatively recent field of scientific inquiry (at
least for us Anglos).
Secondly, Carroll grossly
overestimates the effectiveness of the environmental movement.
According to Carroll, the Sierra Club has effectively halted
commercial logging on public land. (Would that it be so. Maybe they
should hire Carroll to write their grant proposals.) To the
contrary, far too little public land management policy has been
influenced by environmental groups, resulting in a loss of
approximately 96 percent of original forested land in the
continental United States. Furthermore, contrary to Carroll’s
elucidations, true fuel-reduction projects are seldom if ever
appealed by environmental groups. Those which are challenged tend
to be regular ol’ commercial timber sales dressed up to appear as
forest health projects.
Carroll also generalizes
the management requirements of a “healthy” forest, which are
actually quite diverse, often depending upon various
characteristics of the specific ecosystem. Yes, some forest
ecosystems are adapted to a low intensity-high frequency fire
regime (such as low-elevation ponderosa pine forests in Montana)
and could potentially benefit ecologically from thinning projects
that remove an over-accumulation of ladder fuels. Other forest
ecosystems, however, are adapted to stand-replacing crown fires and
should not necessarily be “thinned” to prevent these fires.
However, Carroll, the logging company spokesman, neglects to tell
us this.
Forest lovers, beware: Carroll is not
alone in what he advocates. The White House and some members of
Congress, politicians whose political coffers are stuffed by the
timber industry, are also deceitfully using this summer’s fires to
call for an increase in commercial logging on public
forests.
Frank Carroll calls on the Sierra Club
to help “search for honest answers.” I challenge him to write an
honest editorial.
Derek GoldmanMissoula, Montana
You can read Frank Carroll’s essay – and several opposing opinions – at www.hcn.org/wotr/dir/WOTR_020730_Carroll.html.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Carroll’s nonsensical diatribe.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
