As a consultant who is involved with restoration
silviculture from the ponderosa pine forests of New Mexico to the
Oregon white oak forests of the Willamette Valley, I have been
frustrated with the lack of understanding by the general public, as
well as federal and state land managers, of the reasons behind the
increase in catastrophic fires in the West: fire suppression,
high-grade logging, and mismanagement (HCN, 7/7/03: Fire in the
West: It’s no simple story).
Although the problem seems
overwhelming, returning the forests of the West to productive and
resilient ecosystems will be a much easier and less expensive a
task than challenges the U.S. has faced in the past, e.g. sending a
human to the moon, building the great dams of the West, etc.
However, to accomplish this feat, a much more coordinated approach,
initiated and led by federal government, will be necessary. I
suggest the following broad steps:
• Educate the
public so that they understand why the forests are at high risk of
catastrophic fires. Try to make them as passionate about forest
health as they were about the harp seals.
• Plan
fuels-reduction treatments at the landscape level. The
prescriptions must be driven solely by ecological considerations
and not economics.
• Forget about trying to find a
use or market for the small-diameter trees removed from the forest.
With timber prices at a 20-year low across the West, commercial
thinning will be impossible unless larger trees are removed,
thereby defeating the purpose of the fuels-reduction projects. Just
burn it or chip it — don’t try to make gold out of dog
poop.
• Commit to spending $40 billion over the next
20 years. At $1,000 per acre, an army of forest workers could
reduce the fuels on over 2 million acres a year, achieving the goal
of 40 million acres in two decades, and costing the taxpayer a mere
$10 a year.
Marc D. Barnes
Central Point,
Oregon
The author is senior project manager for
Consulting Foresters and Restoration
Ecologists.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline We can restore the forests.
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