Moving Toward Sound Forest Management

Abstract

"Without question, the 'leave-the-woods -alone' crowd led the way in the making of the United States' forest management policy for the last forty years. For years, we have backed off and backed out. We have left brush to gather and disease to fester. We have learned much about how to care for forests, how to keep them healthy, and how to keep those who live near them safe; this is evidenced by the fact that more trees grow in America today than ever before. And we have kept that knowledge, to a large extent, to ourselves. And now we reap what we have sown. Our forests are unnaturally dense and prone to disease and insect infestation. They are tinderboxes either already on fire or susceptible to going up in spectacular blazes at the careless drop of one match or, even farther beyond our control, one bolt of lightning.

"That is why, in 2000, the United States suffered its worst wildfires in fifty years. That is why, in last year alone, wildfires burned more than 7 million acres of public and private lands, causing the deaths of 23 firefighters, destroying thousands of structures, and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. That does not even include the wildfires in California that charred three-quarters of a million acres.

"That is why the U.S. Forest Service now lists 70 million acres at 'extreme risk' and 120 million acres as suffering 'unnatural risk' of devastating fires. And finally, that is why fire and forest experts predict more catastrophic fires unless we change our ways. How did we get to this point?"