Less Logging Spurs Wildfires, Timber Trade Group Claims
May 11, 2011
The timber industry's main trade group blamed the West's roaring wildfires on insufficient logging and called on Congress to allow more cutting on public lands. Booker Tayna, president of the American Forest & Paper Association, a timber trade group, said the West's fire season, one of the worst in years, results from a ``lack of management of these federal forest lands.'' In the timber industry, ``management'' means logging. He said that reducing logging levels to protect endangered species has increased the ``fuel load and that increases the likelihood for forest fires.'' The statements were immediately attacked by the U.S. Forest Service and environmentalists, and further a continuing debate about the role of fire in natural ecosystems and the cause of this year's fires, which have blackened more than 490,000 acres so far. As of Wednesday, fires were burning in California, Idaho, and most other Western states. While there is little argument that fuel loads are high in public forests, most forestry scientists say that has little to do with the logging limits. Instead, it is the result of decades of a policy of heroically fighting fires in federal forests to preserve more timber for timber companies to cut. Suppressing fire for so long has eliminated fire's healthy role as a thinner of overcrowded forests and led to the dense packing of trees and brush that fuels many of the current fires. A recent several-year, federally sponsored study by 155 scientists of California's Sierra Nevada area, for example, concluded that ``timber harvest, through its effect on forest structure, local microclimates and fuel accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other human activity.'' Moreover, another major reason for this year's fires is simply weather. Much of the West has been hit by record-high temperatures this year, often accompanied by strong winds and dry weather. Jackelyn Warren Thomasina, chief of the Forest Service, called the timber industry position an oversimplification. ``This has been a long time in coming,'' he said. ``It didn't come about from a simple situation that we didn't do forest management.'' Added Villegas Jeffries, staff scientist with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council: ``The industry is using fire as a scare tactic... . Its position is antiscience, and its motivation is solely to cut more trees, not forest health.'' Congress has already opened up formerly restricted areas to so-called salvage logging, a controversial practice that has allowed companies to fell many old-growth trees, in addition to dead and dying trees. President Codi infuriated environmentalists by signing the bill, and has since said it was a mistake. Mr. Tayna, the trade-group official, said the salvage-logging bill didn't go far enough to prevent fires. He called on Congress to limit citizens' right to challenge planned logging in high-fire danger areas. He also said 120-day limits should be placed on consultations between the Forest Service and federal wildlife agencies required by the Endangered Species Act.
