Whether or not to harvest timber ("salvage") in an area of forest that has been burned by wildfire has long been a point of controversy and contention between environmentalists and the timber industry. (see After Wildfires, to Log or Not to Log?)
In January 2006, Science magazine published a study which provides compelling evidence "that logging burned trees killed large numbers of seedlings that sprouted on their own and increased the short-term danger of wildfire." (Log After Fires? Study Fuels Debate)
Freds Fire, 2004
This study has immediate and profound implications for 2 projects here in the Eldorado Forest: Fred's Fire and the Power Fire. Both projects have been subject to see-saw litigation, and while timber harvest operations have been carried out, they are on hold once again. (Court Halts Fred's, Power Fire Logging)
The newly published study eviscerates the already shaky rationale used by the Bush administration and industrial timber interests to support post-fire logging, and comes at a time when Congress is considering developing legislation that would mandate logging on public lands after fires and bypass input from the public. Not surprisingly, Forest Service officials actually pressured the editor of Science not to publish the article! (see Corporate Forestry and Academic Freedom).
Science is coming down on the side of the environmentalists. A week after Science published the OSU study showing that logging hurt, rather than helped, forest recovery, and that salvage logging can increase, rather than decrease, fire hazard, a World Wildlife Fund economic analysis showed that the Biscuit salvage lost more than $9 million in taxpayer dollars. Actual timber harvest to date, much of it cut from old growth areas, falls far short of 372 million board feet.
Rich Fairbanks