Excerpt from the ONRC fire policy that Bret Diamond circulated: ONRC advocates that land managers initiate measures that mimic nature in reducing fuel loads, so as to return forests to their pre-EuroAmerican-settlement densities and fire regimes. These activities (see next page) include prescribed burning, thinning of small fire-sensitive trees, removal of livestock, a let-burn policy in some areas, and less destructive fire-fighting techniques. Salvage logging, as currently practiced, should be prohibited since it damages already disturbed soils, watersheds, and wildlife habitat. Despite pronouncements by the timber industry, commercial thinning and post-fire logging may not reduce the frequency of fire. In fact, these activities often increase the intensity and rate of spread of fire because of increased fuel loads from logging debris left on the ground. ..[stuff deleted].. Where absolutely necessary to reduce ladder fuels that carry fire into canopies, small non-commercial trees may be thinned, lower limbs pruned, and litter raked away from large tree trunks and snags. ============================================================== These are great ideas for ecosystem restoration of dry-site, "fire-dependent" forest types. They run up against one big problem, however: how are you going to pay for these activities if there's no commercial return? Good luck raising taxes! (Presumably savings from less fire-fighting would help, at least a little... but the transfer may be somewhat difficult for politicians and managers to make.) I would be interested in what the alternatives to "salvage logging as currently practiced" are... Andrew Gray graya@fsl.orst.edu
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