Resilient Federal Forest Act Will Diminish Resilience of Forests

George Wuerthner:  “Oregon Congressman’s Greg Walden’s (other western legislators also are sponsors) support of the so-called Resilient Federal Forests Act is based on faulty assumptions. The Resilient Federal Forests Act will actually decrease forest resilient. Here’s a link to Walden’s position on the Act.

“Here’s just a few of the problems:

“Walden asserts that if beetles, and disease along with lack of management are creating fuels that are contributing to large wildfires.
Large fires are driven by weather/climate not fuels. You cannot put them out until the weather changes. Thus additional fire fighting funds will do little to actually stop these blazes.
“Furthermore, from an ecological perspective you would not want to stop them. They are one of the most important ways that forests get an input of dead trees.
“In reality, dead trees are less likely to burn than live trees under severe fire weather conditions.”  Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.thewildlifenews.com

GR:  Mixing land management with politics is one of the great forces behind our mass extinction.