I agree, but teaching the multitudes consideration and providing adequate facilities management for large numbers doesn't seem to work in the US. The US national parks considered 'favorite' are booked up months in advance. That isn't my choice of outdoors entertainment. I did visit someone 'camped' out at one and it was literally a series of small cities complete with sounds.

Exclusionist to the point of raise the prices for access to pristine areas where it hurts and the argument always becomes favoring the wealthy. Our tax system is skewed to where the wealthy pay for the majority of funding for 'public' properties, so why not use that method.

I don't have any solutions, all I do know is that the general public has little respect for private or public property and I prefer exclusionist methods of management to destruction.

 

Someplace in here, someone said that fires are a terrible way to treat the environment. But, boys, fire is natural and the ONLY way some trees reproduce. Maybe we need to think about the new and improved plan of letting some fires burn themselves out. The yo-yo who has to have his house in the middle of a tree grove should know the risk and not whine when nature comes by to slap him upside the head. There are ways to live in the forest with some semblance of comfort, not disturb nature much, and not cook everytime a fire comes by. But, it isn't cheap.

As for undergrowth. That's where the little critters live to make the big critters healthier. Allowing a fire to come along ocasionally and thin the unhealthy undergrowth is natural and surprisingly non-destructive. The problem, in aprt is our stupid policy of trying to snuff every fire before it does the constructive things. Lightning fires a re natural, why mess with them? The new growth after a fire (but not after brush clearing) responds quickly and beneficially.

 

It is also very possible that fire suppression and mechanical thinning contribute to insect infestations like the one that's killing trees in the SoCal forests. Fires kill bugs too.

 

So let's take the next logical step.

I like seeing the wild game in it's natural abundance. You should no longer be able to hunt. You're destroying something that I like to enjoy. That makes sense right?

To think that because it is public land it needs to all be used the way you want to use it seems arrogant.

Here there are many areas of national forest that have no roads and are not accessable to motorized vehicles. Those are for people who want to enjoy that kind of thing. Then there is public land that is accessible. That's for people like me who want to enjoy the outdoors in a motorized fashion. Sure there are some who abuse the land or make a mess. I guess if the problem were 1,000,000 times worse it might even make a noticeable impact but it doesn't.

I've spent my young life driving around the mountains of western Oregon and I can count on 1 hand the number of places that I thought were really screwed up. They were illegal dump sites. In the grand scheme of things maybe .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 1% of the land. I don't think it's destroying the earth.

 

Mike,

How's the fishin' in your neck of the woods now as compared to your grandfathers time?

 

You're going to believe a fish story?

 

I don't know. My buddies love to fish and seem to catch plenty. I don't myself and neither did my grandpa. I don't like fish.

Why?

 

It is always an ignorant and inconsiderate few that ruin it for everyone. I have seen what a few people can do to a public land. In Alaska where most land is public and ATVs are everywhere, the high use areas are practically decimated. We have the evils of the EPA upon us because we can't control the bad apples of our sport. I am an ATVer and have also been a logger, so I have been participant in that side more than I care to admit. When the logs are gone and the ruts and mess that the skidders leave is all you can see then the land is no longer useful for any sort of recreation. And even owning the land shouldn't make it OK to destroy it. After all you are really just a steward of it any way.

 

Our forests are detonating like napalm bombs. We need to remove dead and dying bug-killed timber," said Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101730,00.html


AMEN!!!

Ron

 

It's almost impossible to take down the infested trees without spreading the infestation more efficiently than the bugs could themselves.

And as for Wally, he's quite a colorful character with a long "pro logging" history. Check him out. There's some great stuff over the years. He could be public enemy #1 to the hippies in NoCal.

I enjoy wood products myself and would never advocate an end to all logging but our management of the forests of Northern California has been sad.

 

And guess what? The best way to remove the defective timber is to ... let it burn. Healthy trees don't burn, there is too much water in them. When fire skips around in the treetops, it actually stimulates the healthy trees. Nature does a much better job of controlling and culling than we ever could.

I'm a tree-hugger in that I enjoy a healthy, lush forest. I'm also a consumer of wood products, we all are. I know that there are loggers who cherish the forest just as much as I do, fact is I am friends with several. Loggers are seldom interested in just removing diseased trees and leaving the healthy. It just ain't profitable! Controlled logging in healthy groves is actually pretty good use of the resource, and does not knock off the little birds and animals, who have someplace else to move. The trick is to not remove the someplace else.

The problem then, is not that we stop loggers, the problem is that we stop fires that cause healthy trees that can be profitably (and responsibly) logged. For gods sake, let nature help us! It worked for thousands of years, it is egocentric and foolish to think we can do better. But, it most definitely will step on the toes of those people who decided to build their houses on the edge of unhealthy forests. Tough! They needed to think long-term.

 

Long-term thinking is a joke in our society of immediate gratification. People building homes in or on the edge of forests is no different than those who build on riverbanks below established flood lines or coastal dwellers within hurricane high tide marks. Actuaries add the payouts to loss reserves, requiring higher premiums from the insured base, and state governors declare disaster areas to qualify their large flock of deaf, dumb and blind but voting sheep for low-interest federal loans.

Why do I get this feeling that many people who advocate thinning of trees and 'brush' (that says something) in forests have never enjoyed wandering through or camping in western old growth and seeing the fire history evidence of mother nature's rejuvenation requirements to provide us with such splendor?

 

If you go to a burned out area a year or two later, you will be amazed at the proliferation of life. It is natures way of rejuvination. I don't have a degree in forrestry but the dangers of logging beatle kill are many. As mentioned you may just spread the infestation by removing the affected trees or even the seeminly healthy ones from an infested area. We could spray the bugs but then the birds that eat them may die. I agree that building next to a forrest is assumption of the risk just like rebuilding in a flood plane or on the beach where hurricanes a common.

 

If humans were not here, the forests would still burn every so often. Mother nature has taken care of this place a lot longer and better then we ever could. I know people want to feel safe in their homes, but if you don't like wild fires don't live in a forest. If you don't like hurricanes don't move to the beach. People just don't realise that there are some places that just wern't meant for humans to live, and they are the same people and places that make my home owners insurance go up.

 

Nationwide, humans cause 80% of all forest fires. Thinning forests and clearing undergrowth to prevent them is just one more sad excuse for our irresponsibility.