Bambi Causes Forest Fires

[Jeanway 0]

Enviros Blame Forest Fires on Bambi

 

 

Smokey Bear and Bambi instilled an acute fear of forest fires in the American public.

 

 

 

The cartoon characters have been cited by environmentalists for what they, along with scientists and government officials, believe has fueled a flawed policy of extinguishing even the smallest forest fires. That policy has left a massive load of downed trees and other fuel that has spawned massive forest fires out west during the past few years, they say.

 

While fires raged in the west again this summer, the real fight is shaping up in Washington over how to change the policy. The Bush administration proposed the "Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003," which has passed the House and is expected to get to the floor of the Senate later this month. The president says thinning forests will benefit everyone from homeowners to wildlife.

 

But like many environmental issues, the science surrounding Healthy Forests is disputed and a smoky gray at best, and opponents say its application to Southern forests will do infinitely more harm than good.

 

"The Bush administration is playing off the fear of forest fires to help his friends in the timber industry," said Kate Smolski, regional conservation organizer for the Sierra Club in Atlanta.

 

Pat Layton, chair of Clemson University's forest resources department, said the nation's forests, east and west, are overcrowded, sick and in danger.

 

"Man created this problem and man will have to fix it," she said.

 

Forest thinning is exactly as it sounds. Timber companies or forest service crews will go through the forests cutting back low brush and smaller trees. In a fire, those trees can be used as a ladder to move fire from the ground to the canopy of the forest — called a crown fire.

 

Marc Rounsaville, director of fire and aviation for the U.S. Forest Service's Southern region in Atlanta, said he doesn't know how much thinning will be done in the Southeast, since our forests are frequently subjected to controlled fires set by the government. That approach has helped forest health in this region, he said.

 

Different ecosystems

 

But while western forests are high-risk tinder boxes during the hot, dry summer months, those conditions are rarely found in Southeastern national forests: the Sumter and Francis Marion in South Carolina, the Pisgah and Nantahala in western North Carolina and the Chattahoochee in northeastern Georgia.

 

"This Healthy Forests initiative wouldn't help us at all," said Hugh Erwin, conservation planner with the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition.

 

The initiative was unveiled after President Bush toured charred forest land in Oregon last year. In 2002, 20 firefighters died battling blazes, and more than 6 million acres of western forests were destroyed.

 

But Layton and other foresters say there are forest problems here that the initiative will help correct. The southern pine beetle decimates dozens of acres of forest at a time, and Layton said that can be fixed by thinning the forest, which will make trees stronger.

 

Environmental groups don't buy that argument. Erwin said the pine beetle is a natural pest and there are other threats, like the hemlock woolly adelgid, that can't be fought by thinning.

 

"The forest has dealt with (the pine beetle) for millennia," he said. "The salvage logging that the Healthy Forests initiative proposes certainly wouldn't help with those pests."

 

Fire protection

 

If the plan truly is about saving people and property from fire — as it was initially pitched by the administration — then the South's forests need thinning, foresters say. Forests like the Sumter in the Upstate and the Chattahoochee in northern Georgia are actually a patchwork of public and private land and are not the massive blocks of wilderness like out west.

 

"Even small fires cause problems for us," Layton said. "People live amongst our forests. It doesn't take a 100,000-acre fire to burn homes."

 

The Sierra Club wants the government to thin the forests in "community protection zones" of 500 yards around structures. This, Smolski says, will allow backcountry wilderness to recover naturally and still protect life and property.

 

A similar proposal has been made by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., which directs spending on forest thinning to areas around communities and also gives money for thinning on private lands, according to the Sierra Club.

 

Rounsaville said the patchwork forests in the Southeast make that much more difficult.

 

"We need to take a much more holistic approach," he said. "If we want our ecosystems in more resilient condition, that may require the removal of the small stuff. If the forests are in a more resilient and vigorous condition, they can withstand fire a lot better."

 

 

Cut the public

 

But Smolski's biggest complaint about the plan is less about logging and more about public input.

 

The Healthy Forest initiative eliminates the requirement that the government produce environmental impact statements for logging any area under 1,000 acres. Since Southern forest lands are frequently in less than 1,000-acre tracts, this could be a disaster, they say.

 

"People don't realize the price of this legislation," she said. "It will cut the people out."

 

Environmental groups like the Sierra Club see this as another example of the Bush Administration gutting public protections and judicial review of forest projects.

 

Rounsaville and others in the forest service dispute that. They say there is a strong commitment to the public's opinion.

 

"We're often accused of some sort of conspiracy," he said. "We do want public involvement and that is something we strive for. We don't have any plans to ignore public input."

 

Economics

 

Even if the initiative passes the Senate this month, some people are unsure whether there is any economic incentive for companies to come in and cut down the trees. Thomas Straka, a forest economist with Clemson University, said smaller trees are generally used for paper pulp and that market is already depressed because of over-supply.

 

"The harvesting costs and the transportation costs are often more expensive than the cost of the tree," he said. "At times, you can't give away pulp wood."

 

Critics of the Healthy Forest plan say the Bush Administration will simply look the other way when large trees are cut. Straka said there isn't even enough financial incentive to cheat.

 

"The price may have to be zero, that's why they say the government is giving away trees," he said. "Nobody is going to make any big bucks on this."

 

 

Jason Zacher covers the environment and can be reached at 298-4272.