Discussion: Hopeful new policy creates more O lands

There is a report today on a study that showed that on national forest land, a new policy might be creating more enjoyable orienteering land for the next generation. The principal finding was that the past policy of salvage logging burned lands and then replanting creates more burnable slash and dense burnable stands of young trees. With increasing global temperatures, more forest fires have resulted, and even more are predicted in the future. So the Forest Service is changing its land management policy:

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, said the study's findings indicated that on national forests that burn frequently, it would be a good idea to plant young trees farther apart and keep the lower branches pruned to reduce fire danger — something the Forest Service is starting to do....

Doesn't that sound like ideal orienteering forest of the future?

Maybe we can even argue that orienteering helps keep those lower branches pruned. I know I do a bit of pruning as I blunder through the woods...

It seems that some course setters are already on board with this. I can recall more than a few legs where EVERY runner was doing some pruning...

Hmmm... Maye I'm not the only one thinking as I run through the woods: "Move that branch out of my way, it's dead anyway. Wonder if that'll help anyone following me..."

But yes - better forests for the grandkids!-)

Some background controversy, if anyone is interested.

Smells fishy to me. Pruning the National Forest? That's a lot of trees! Seems very labor intensive unless that too is now mechanized (footprint?).

Also, sounds like NFS is doing even more of the lumber company's work for them. Pruned trees have fewer and smaller knots - much higher valued wood.

Finally, don't the pruned branches make pretty good tinder?

I'm not an expert, but am a skeptic.

But it does sound great for orienteering:).

Missouri's State Parks have an aggressive spring-burn policy which really clears the underbrush. I've never asked the rangers' what their primary purposes are but it sure provides open oak forests for SLOC.

Goal probly to restore missoura slash forest to fine-fine grassland condition, much better for cattle herd.

So are you a forester Juha? With a name like yours, it wouldn't suprise me ;-)

I wonder if this grad student will have to testify in front of congress like the last one who questioned salvage logging did.

Pruning the National Forest? That's a lot of trees!...

Well, if the Forest Service isn't going to allow "salvage logging" of these burned lands, they will have a lot of unemployed loggers with chainsaws sitting around.

A perfect solution: turn the loggers into arborists, and let them care for the trees they formerly cut down.

Think it'll work?

In a word, no.

One may decry the ugliness of forests after they have been harvested, but remember, its one of the only major industrial resources that actually grows back. It just takes a long time, and most of us will be dead before it looks the same again.

One also does well to rembmer that the government is not holding those lands as parks - that's what the National Parks are for. They are a resource. If they aren't used for logging, they'll be developed for other uses. If we want to remain one of the world's primary growers of trees, we do well to seek compromises with the logging industry rather than slam them at every opportunity.

That said, I don't think turning loggers into arborists has much hope of success, even without the economic considerations (though I suspect that comment was made in jest).

Not at all. The success of environmental legislation seems always to be tied to employment. If a new policy will put people out of work it has little chance of passage, no matter its effect on the environment.

In the above cited article, a telling quote just hints at this connection:

Greg Aplet, staff scientist for The Wilderness Society, said a recent review of scientific evidence showed that economics — the value of timber logged after a fire and the jobs that go along with it — is the only real benefit of salvage logging. "There is no fuel reduction benefit. There is no ecological benefit to salvage logging," he said from Denver.

Yeah, that's my point. These forests are usable for recreation only to the point that they also support economic activity. If that is taken away, they'll be turned into farmland, golf courses, strip mines, who knows, but it will be something that involves a large cash transaction, not orienteering.