BY Xander Landen August 3, 2014 at 4:24 PM EDT
“A year after a California wildfire known as the “Rim Fire” burnt through over 250,000 acres of Sierra Nevada forests, environmentalists and loggers are debating what to do with the blackened woodland it left behind. The timber industry believes that chopping down and selling the trees that remain will not only restore Sierra Nevada forestland, but also create jobs.”
Source: www.pbs.org
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GR: Don’t believe everything the timber industry says. Logging healthy forests destroys soil microorganisms and reduces forest diversity. Logging burned forests is even more destructive. Access roads and equipment movements promote erosion, introduce weeds, damage surviving undergrowth, and crush the new tree seedlings that would replace the original forest. Logging these fragile environments reduces watershed values and slows recovery. Only an agency such as the logging industry controlled U. S. Forest Service would approve logging a burned forest.
