I just read your article about how environmental
groups are working with loggers to thin forests in New Mexico.
While I am not opposed to thinning trees near communities to
increase their defensibility against wildfires, I do think we need
to examine the assumptions that underlie thinning programs.
There is an implicit assumption that large blazes are
somehow undesirable or unnatural. Thus the entire premise of
thinning is to reduce or stop such blazes. While there is no doubt
that low-intensity blazes are common in such forests, big blazes
were not unheard of, if you take a long-enough perspective. There
are worse things that can happen to a forest than a fire —
like logging.
And that is another problem with the
HCN piece. It starts with the premise that
thinning is beneficial for the forest. But any logging introduces
disease and weeds and human activity that can impact wildlife.
Logging roads are long-term sources of sedimentation and often the
newly established route for ORVs. Logging equipment compacts soils
and can alter hydrological patterns.
Furthermore, the
concept of thinning to decrease large blazes starts with a flawed
assumption about big blazes. Large blazes are driven by climatic
conditions, not fuels. Low humidity, high winds and severe drought
are the ingredients behind every large fire in the West. Under
these conditions, fires can spread through even scattered trees,
much less only partially thinned forests.
Even if
thinning did work, it is a program that has no end, in part because
most agencies still engage in the practices that have altered fire
regimes — fire suppression, livestock grazing and logging.
The best thing we could do for the majority of our
forests in the West is to get out of the way. Let them burn, or die
from insects or drought, if they will. Stop trying to play God in
the woods.
George Wuerthner
Author of Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy
Richmond, Vermont
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Playing God in the woods.
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