Two stories in the news have caught my attention in recent weeks, focusing it on trees, forests, and the management of public land.
The Bush Administration announced its plan last Friday to sell 300,000 acres of public land to raise money for rural roads and schools the Administration has underfunded. National Forest parcels that have been marked, and a list with tract, township, range, section and acreage under consideration for sale can be found at: http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/spd.html. In Oregon, parcels have been marked in the Columbia River Gorge, Deschutes, Freemont-Winema, Malheur, Mt. Hood, Ochoco National Forest/Crooked River National Grassland, Rogue River/Siskiyou, Siuslaw, Umatilla, Umpqua, Wallowa-Whitman, and Willamette forests.
For more, read Los Angeles Times article, Janet Wilson, Feb. 11, 2006 http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-forests11feb11,0,2402145.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
Meanwhile, there has been an uproar at OSU regarding a study led by grad student Daniel Dovato on the effects of post-fire logging on forest regeneration. The study, published in Science (Jan. 20, 2006) indicates that post-fire logging which occurred after the Biscuit Fire of 2002, decreased by 71% the natural conifer regeneration of the area. It also suggests that because the logging increased downed woody material fuel loads, it has increased short-term fire risk. Several OSU professors of forestry, whose own work has supported the Bush Administration's views on logging, wrote a letter to Science requesting they not publish the study. The federal government also pulled funds from the research, citing inappropriate use of the study to try to influence legislative processes. The pulling of funds from academic research was unprecedented in the recollection of OSU administrators and scientists. Professor Jerry Franklin, of the University of Washington, said: "It's totally without precedent as far as I can of Washington, said: "It's totally without precedent as far as I can recollect. It says, if we don't like what you're saying, we'll cut off your money."
For more, read:
Not too long ago, I came across this quote from the first century A.D., by the Roman philosopher Seneca: "If you come upon a grove of old trees that have lifted their crowns up above and shut out the light of the sky by the darkness of their interlacing boughs, you feel that there is a spirit in the place, so lofty is the wood, so lonely the spot, so wonderous the thick unbroken shade."
May that spirit be with us, for the generations to come.
Enjoy this week's Dirt!
Ariana