Ellen Engstedt Simpson - August 27, 2007
Montana Wood Products Association
Wildfires
The media is buzzing with news about the latest happenings relating to wildfires, air quality, and disruptions to the lives of Montanans. There are those who are attempting to spin the smoke-filled air as being “natural” and even going so far as to say the ash falling is good for gardens like that makes it okay!
The truth of the matter is wildfires have always and will continue to be part of Montana’s landscape. With that said, the big change is the type and severity of those fires. When large acreages loaded with hundreds of trees per acre start to burn and flames are three or four hundred feet high causing crowning with burning debris falling up to a mile or more ahead of it, that is catastrophic not natural.
Land ownership in Montana is mixed private, state, and federal. Fires know no boundaries so all property is vulnerable. An example used by fire managers and property owners all across the state has been when the inferno hits land that has been logged or otherwise treated there is at least a chance the blaze will start to drop. However, if the heat and wind are simply too great, the likelihood of stopping the fire becomes much less certain no matter what has previously been done.
The national forests were established for many purposes, including recreation, hunting, fishing, and providing the fiber for value-added wood products. How then can we go about restoring the same health to the federal lands that is enjoyed by private and state ownership and get our once beautiful forests back in balance?
There have been numerous attempts by various individuals and entities to resolve the sticky issues surrounding forest restoration because there are reasonable people on all sides who do care about the land and who have come to the realization that action needs to occur.
One extremely time-consuming effort is known as the Montana Forest Restoration Working Group and the product developed over the course of many months time is a set of Restoration Principles whereby the participants agree on guidelines to be used for projects to be accomplished on federal forestlands.
The Restoration Principles encourage an adaptive management approach allowing dynamic action that provides for needed changes as a project progresses. The Principles also ensures the involvement of local communities in the planning and implementation of projects because those are the folks with the most at stake. It is the height of arrogance for people with nothing to lose who live elsewhere to foist action or more likely inaction upon community members who have everything to lose.
Through the course of developing the Principles it became clear that one of the key elements to the idea of restoration forestry is the need for a sustainable, vibrant, integrated wood products infrastructure because without one the much-needed work on large landscape areas simply cannot be accomplished. We are lucky that Montana still has such an integrated infrastructure complete with the expertise and drive to begin the long journey of forest restoration on Montana’s public lands.
Participants of the Montana Forest Restoration Working Group have also developed an implementation strategy because there must be action on the ground. It would be pointless to develop Principles without the means with which to use them. The Montana Forest Restoration Working Group is set to move forward with its implementation strategy and we in the timber community will be part of this very proactive approach to active forest management.
It has been an exciting and challenging effort on the part of many dedicated folks who care about our environment and who want to get busy restoring Montana’s landscapes. Only then will the media spin of ash being good for us to breathe becomes the joke that it is and reasonable people will have prevailed.
On behalf of the members of the Montana Wood Products Association, I am Ellen Engstedt-Simpson. Thanks for listening.
|
|
