CLIMATE: South Sound was warmer 5,000 years ago
by Ken A. Schlichte, Letter to the Editor, Tacoma News Tribune, November 22, 2010 [here]
Re: “As world warms, delegates again try talking” (TNT, 11-21).
The last time the world warmed was 120,000 years ago and that warming was 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the article about the United Nations climate conference in Cancun. The author has apparently not read about the Holocene Maximum, the global climatic period from about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago that was 2 degrees Fahrenheit or more warmer than present-day temperatures.
The warmer temperatures of the Holocene Maximum were responsible for replacing forests with prairies on many gravelly and droughty glacial outwash deposits in the South Sound Region. These prairies, including the large prairies on and around Joint Base Lewis-McChord, were then maintained against naturally advancing forests through the thousands of years of cooler temperatures that followed the Holocene Maximum by the Native American prairie- burning activities that ended late in the 1800s.
Prairie vegetation is now gradually being replaced by naturally advancing forest vegetation throughout the South Sound region because of the cooler temperatures since the Holocene Maximum and the lack of Native American prairie-burning activities.
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See also: Glacier melt adds ancient edibles to marine buffet [here]
“Forests that lived along the Gulf of Alaska between 2,500 to 7,000 years ago were subsequently covered by glaciers. The crushed organic matter is being expelled by the glaciers there today.”
Appeals court upholds Moonlight decision
[New] efforts [by the enviros who lost the Moonlight case] to protect [non-endangered un-threatened] woodpeckers could affect [post-fire] salvage logging [on private lands as well]
by Delaine Fragnoli, Managing Editor, Plumas News, 11/17/2010 [here]
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a district court decision denying an injunction for the Moonlight-Wheeler Fire Recovery and Restoration Project.
The appeals court found “the record shows that the district court correctly applied” legal precedent “in its analysis throughout its thoroughly reasoned opinion.”
Environmental group Earth Island Institute (EII) had filed suit in July 2009 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California to stop the Moonlight project proposed by the Plumas National Forest. The group asked the court to enjoin the Forest Service from awarding, beginning or continuing the operation of any timber sales related to the project. [For more on the Moonlight Fire, see here]
United States District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. issued his opinion in August 2009 denying the injunction.
Damrell’s opinion relied heavily on a 2008 Supreme Court decision, Winter v. NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). Damrell ruled that EII had not met the legal standard for a preliminary injunction. [For more on Winter see here]
Ministers plan huge sell-off of Britain’s forests
Ministers are planning a massive sell-off of Britain’s Government-owned forests as they seek to save billions of pounds to help cut the deficit, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
By Patrick Hennessy and Rebecca Lefort, UK Telegraph, 23 Oct 2010 [here]
Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, is expected to announce plans within days to dispose of about half of the 748,000 hectares of woodland overseen by the Forestry Commission by 2020.
The controversial decision will pave the way for a huge expansion in the number of Center Parcs-style holiday villages, golf courses, adventure sites and commercial logging operations throughout Britain as land is sold to private companies.
Laws governing Britain’s forests were included in the Magna Carta of 1215, and some date back even earlier.
Conservation groups last night called on ministers to ensure that the public could still enjoy the landscape after the disposal, which will see some woodland areas given to community groups or charitable organisations.
However, large amounts of forests will be sold as the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) seeks to make massive budget savings as demanded in last week’s Spending Review.
Whitehall sources said about a third of the land to be disposed of would be transferred to other ownership before the end of the period covered by the Spending Review, between 2011 and 2015, with the rest expected to go by 2020.
A source close to the department said: “We are looking to energise our forests by bringing in fresh ideas and investment, and by putting conservation in the hands of local communities.”
Unions vowed to fight the planned sell-off. Defra was one of the worst-hit Whitehall departments under the Spending Review, with Ms Spelman losing around 30 per cent of her current £2.9 billion annual budget by 2015.
The Forestry Commission, whose estate was valued in the 1990s at £2.5 billion, was a quango which was initially thought to be facing the axe as ministers drew up a list of arms-length bodies to be culled.
However, when the final list was published earlier this month it was officially earmarked: “Retain and substantially reform – details of reform will be set out by Defra later in the autumn as part of the Government’s strategic approach to forestry in England.”
A spokesman for the National Trust said: “Potentially this is an opportunity. It would depend on which 50 per cent of land they sold off, if it is valuable in terms of nature, conservation and landscape, or of high commercial value in terms of logging.
“We will take a fairly pragmatic approach and look at each sale on a case by case basis, making sure the land goes to the appropriate organisations for the right sites, making sure the public can continue to enjoy the land.”
Mark Avery, conservation director for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said: “You can understand why this Government would think ‘why does the state need to be in charge of growing trees’, because there are lots of people who make a living from growing trees.
“But the Forestry Commission does more than just grow trees. A lot of the work is about looking after nature and landscapes.”
“We would be quite relaxed about the idea of some sales, but would be unrelaxed if the wrong bits were up for sale like the New Forest, Forest of Dean or Sherwood Forest, which are incredibly valuable for wildlife and shouldn’t be sold off.
“We would look very carefully at what was planned. It would be possible to sell 50 per cent if it was done in the right way.” … [more]
Dig unearths 9,500 years of native inhabitants
Artifacts tell stories of hunters “enamored with mountains.”
By Cory Hatch, Jackson Hole News and Guide, September 15, 2010 [here]
Underneath a white tent near Game Creek along Highway 89/191, University of Wyoming archeology student Bryon Schroeder sits in a 6- foot-deep hole troweling out the winding path of a rodent burrow through a square of gray earth.
Schroeder excavates the burrows first so the rodent-churned dirt doesn’t contaminate the cake layers of history that jut out at perfect right angles from the walls and floor like an M.C. Escher drawing.
On one wall, the charred, fractured stones of a partially exposed roasting pit are visible at waist level. Given its location in the strata, the pit likely dates back 3,000 to 5,000 years, when it probably was used to roast tubers such as sego lily. …
While some might think of Jackson Hole as untrammeled before a handful of trappers made their way here in the early 1800s, the written history of the region is just a postscript on the 10,000 years or so that prehistoric and Native American tribes lived in this region. … [more]
Forest Service Chief Mum on Why He Imposed Gag Order
Agency Faces FOIA Lawsuit for Failing to Turn Over Documents
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) News Release, September 9, 2010 [here]
WASHINGTON - September 9 - The Chief of the U.S. Forest Service is wrongfully withholding documents explaining why he imposed a “gag order” forbidding all staff from responding to media inquiries without headquarters approval, according to a lawsuit filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The policy prevents timely release of crime, fire and accident reports, as well as adding weeks to the response time for even routine reporter inquiries.
On August 25, 2009, Thomas L. Tidwell, Chief of the Forest Service, issued an order to his leadership directorate concerning “National Media Contacts” in which he forbade any employee from responding to “a member of the national media on any subject; or…a local or regional reporter seeking information about a national issue, including policy and budget issues” without prior clearance from the National Press Office (emphasis in original). In this memo, Chief Tidwell also stated that “I have received disturbing information concerning contacts by some employees with national media, without coordination” and cited the need for “consistent and coordinated messaging.”
On February 16, 2010, PEER submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Forest Service asking for all documents reflecting the rationale or circumstances leading up to the issuance of the gag order. On April 26, 2010, the agency declared that other than the Chief’s memo itself it had no further documents that could shed light on why it was issued.
“This memo was not the product of immaculate conception, springing fully formed from the Chief’s forehead,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that as a result of the memo national forest units contacted by a reporter must first file a 20-part “Forest Service Media Coordination Request” and await official approvals before responding to inquiries. “This order prevents Forest Service law enforcement from doing their job in cases where media cooperation can be a major asset.”
While the Forest Service claims that Chief Tidwell’s memo simply reaffirmed pre-existing policy, the memo goes much further. For example, it superseded provisions in the agency’s Law Enforcement Handbook that “Responses to requests for background information from the national news media should be provided…and do not require U.S. Department of Agriculture, Press Office approval.” More significantly, the handbook also provided that law enforcement personnel “may provide factual information to the media” concerning “emergency or fast-moving situations” such as accidents or crimes.
“President Obama promised a new level of transparency but on any issue of potential controversy, the same old penchant for secrecy still controls,” said PEER Counsel Christine Erickson, who drafted the complaint filed today in federal district court in Washington, D.C., noting the irony of official obfuscation over the basis for its public communication policy. “In order to get Freedom of Information Act compliance under this administration, we have had to file on average a new lawsuit every month.”
DeFazio questions use of foreign workers on forest-thinning projects
John Sowell, Douglas County News-Review, September, 8 2010 [here]
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio says he wants a federal agency to scrutinize companies that employ foreign workers on Oregon tree-thinning projects financed by federal stimulus funds.
DeFazio sent a letter last week to the Department of Labor’s acting inspector general, Daniel Petrole, asking him to investigate. The Springfield Democrat said foreign workers should not be hired at the expense of qualified Oregonians.
“Rural Oregon has suffered from long-term unemployment of well above 20 percent,” DeFazio said in a written release Tuesday. “There is no excuse to not be hiring these hard-working Americans in the current recession. We cannot allow U.S. companies to abuse immigration laws to undercut American workers.”
Last month, The Bulletin newspaper in Bend reported that several companies awarded U.S. Forest Service contracts funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act filed applications to use foreign workers. Four companies that sought permission to employ 300 foreign workers in Oregon received a total of $10 million to thin forests. … [more]
Note: Campaign ploy. The hiring of illegal aliens by the USFS has gone on for 35 years that I know of. Pete has never done jack about this problem during his previous 24 years in Congress. Now he writes a letter. Big deal. Business as usual.
It’s a case of biomass catch-22
By Scott Sandsberry, Yakima Herald-Republic, September 04, 2010 [here]
YAKIMA — The people who manage Washington’s public forest lands desperately want to return them to a healthier, less-congested state before catastrophic wildfire reduces that overabundance of fuel to a landscape of ash.
But those land managers have a problem.
They need to put the cart before the horse.
They must make profitable the very timber-thinning operations intended to reduce that congestion in multi-tiered, grand and Douglas fir-laden forest, the very low-level fuel that can so easily turn a small fire into a fast-spreading, landscape-leveling wildfire.
There’s a potential market for the smaller trees and underbrush in forests. Eco-friendly businesses are converting those timber-cutting byproducts — the “biomass” that used to be burned in slash piles or hauled to landfills — into renewable energy. But those customers say they can’t build boilers and processing plants until they can be guaranteed a steady, substantial supply of those timber byproducts.
Such a guarantee requires sawmills that no longer exist. Logging companies went under or left the Pacific Northwest by the hundreds over the last three decades, and they’re not coming back without a guaranteed customer base.
Central Washington University could very well become one of those customers. The university wants to convert its natural-gas boilers to biomass boilers, something that could pay for itself over the next decade and become a profit-producing model in the second decade.
But …
“The university’s in a Catch-22,” said Bill Vertrees, CWU’s vice president for business and financial affairs. “The problem is, I can’t commit to it until I have a firm supply of fuel. “I’m a client, and they need clients.
“But they’re not ready for us yet.”
Last year the state Department of Natural Resources laid off a significant portion of its timber-related staff in Chelan, Kittitas and Yakima counties. Over the last six years, lumber mills in Yakima and Naches have closed their doors. Central Washington’s timber industry has essentially become, in the words of one timber expert, “a real dead zone.” … [more]
Wilderness’ Economic Revolution – Catron County
By Stephen L. Wilmeth, The Westerner, September 05, 2010 [here]
In the summer of 1922, America’s famous conservationist, Aldo Leopold, was assigned duties on what had become the Gila National Forest. He fought fires there and he saw enough of the Gila River drainage and eastern Arizona’s Escondido Mountain area that his vision for wilderness was solidly formulated. In 1924, he coauthored an administrative plan and the Forest Service, without Congressional approval, engineered the first wilderness area in the United States. The Gila Wilderness was created.
In 1964, Congress finally enacted wilderness legislation. In that year, the Wilderness Act was passed and signed. The Gila Wilderness was officially designated, but the federal agency administration regarding wilderness management had been evolving and eliminating private rights endeavors for over 20 years. …
With all the recent discussion by Senators Bingaman and Udall and the various EarthFirst! influenced groups touting the economic benefits of additional wilderness designation in southern New Mexico, it is time to review how the Gila Wilderness, the so called “Yellowstone of the South”, has affected the economy of Catron County.
If wilderness designations positively affect local economies, Catron County should surely demonstrate such cause and affect results. …
There are a number of places to start, but the one that meets the most obvious chronologically correct start is the population of Catron County. If wilderness promotes economic growth, Catron County should have experienced some growth increase from 1960 to 1970 since the Gila Wilderness was officially designated in 1964. Catron experienced a decrease of population of 21% in the decade of the ‘60s.
Fast forward to this decade and that trend is in play again. The population is down 3.6% from 2000. The most recent employment growth index, a real gauge of economic trend, is down 1.4%. For a matter of reference, the final quarter 2009 unemployment was 11.4%. Permanent jobs are not being created in Catron County and it can be argued that they have not been since wilderness was created. …
If income is the measure of economic boost from the Gila Wilderness to the County, the statistic shows that Catron County median income is 67% of that of New Mexico’s which ranks only 81% of the national average.
How about retail sales? Catron County’s income generates retail sales of $1,304 per resident year versus the state number of $9,880 for all residents in New Mexico.
These statistics could continue, but the truth is Catron County is a poor, rural county that faces catastrophic financial difficulties. It has no real permanent wealth. It has been devastated by federal agency policies that have contributed directly to the collapse of its historical industries, and it is too poor to protect itself further from such ravages. … [more]
Judge rules Salazar exceeded authority in canceling Utah leases
by Nick Snow, Oil and Gas Journal, Sept. 2. 2010 [here]
US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar exceeded his authority when he order 77 federal oil and gas leases in Utah withdrawn in early 2009, a federal court judge ruled on Sept. 1 in Salt Lake City. But US District Judge Dee Benson also ruled that plaintiffs waited too long to challenge Salazar’s action.
Commissioners from three eastern Utah counties and three area independent producers who brought the suit indicated that the judge’s decision keeps an unacceptable precedent from being established.
Salazar ordered the leases canceled early in 2009, soon after he became Interior secretary, after the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order on Dec. 22, 2008, preventing the US Bureau of Land Management from issuing them. The tracts were among 116 parcels sold at a regularly scheduled lease sale on Dec. 19. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance had sued 2 days earlier to block their being offered.
Salazar said resource management plans that formed the basis for offering the 77 tracts, which environmental organizations said were too close to national parks and other federally protected areas, were inadequately developed. More study was needed, he maintained.
In his decision, Benson said the federal Mineral Leasing Act’s plain language mandates that the US Interior secretary accept bids and issue oil and gas leases as part of the competitive leasing process. The mandate limits discretion which the secretary generally possesses to determine whether to issue a lease, he said.
“In this case, the secretary exceeded his statutory authority by withdrawing leases after determining which parcels were to be leased and after holding a competitive lease during which the BLM named the plaintiffs high responsible bidders,” said Benson.
“Ultimately, though, the plaintiffs’ claims are time-barred,” he continued. “Faced with a strict statute of limitations, the plaintiffs failed to file their suit within 90 days of the secretary’s final decision.” … [more]
Note: Mr. Tamper breaks the law but skates on a technicality. He’s a slippery customer, that Mr. Tamper.
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More ‘Climate Change” Ripoffs
Researchers study link between climate, wildfire
The Associated Press, Oregonian, September 01, 2010 [here]
Scientists from universities in Montana, Colorado and Idaho announced today the start of a 5-year, $3.85 million research project into how a changing climate will influence wildfires.
The project is being pursued in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and researchers in Australia and New Zealand. The goal is to identify how human activities and climate change drive fires.
“One thing is clear: The frequency and severity of fires have increased around and world and this is considered to be one of the signs of global climate change,” Montana State University professor Cathy Whitlock, the lead investigator for the project, said in a statement. … [more]
Note: The temperature data for 1983-2009 from the National Climatic Data Center [here] for the West North Central Region (Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming).
Note that there has been no significant warming for the last 20 years. If there has been no warming, how can warming be the cause of anything????
Giving tax money to hoaxers is a phenomenal waste of resources.
McClintock blasts U.S. Forest Service for “abusive,” “predatory” fees
Special to The Grass Valley Union, August, 26 2010 [here]
Congressman Tom McClintock made the following statement to the Regional U.S. Forest Service Management Roundtable hosted by Congressman Wally Herger in Sacramento on Wednesday, August 25:
There are four general subjects that my constituents have brought to my attention that I feel are important to raise in this forum.
First, some of the most disturbing stories I have heard locally involve the abuse of cost recovery fees by the Forest Service. This has been a source of great frustration and evinces an attitude within the Service that I believe requires immediate correction.
For example, the California Endurance Riders Association had been using the El Dorado National Forest for many years. This time, when they sought a simple 5-year 10-event permit to continue doing exactly what they have been doing without incident for decades, the Forest Service demanded $11,000 in fees.
They paid these fees, but the El Dorado National Forest management nevertheless pulled the approved permit and halted the process on utterly specious grounds. It then demanded an additional $17,000 fee, causing the Endurance Riders Association to cancel what had been a long-term civic tradition that had been a boon to the local economy. In 2010 this outrage was repeated after the group spent $5,800 for the “Fool’s Gold Endurance Run” that had been an ongoing event for more than 40 years. …
Finally – and most importantly, since this affects the safety of entire communities in my district – I remain concerned over the demonstrated disinterest that the Forest Service has recently demonstrated in supporting sustainable timber harvests. The expensive and labor-intensive process of twig removal cannot achieve fuel reductions that reduce the risk and intensity of forest fires. We must restore responsible and sustainable thinning of over populated forests called for in the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Restoration Act of 1998, and which the U.S. Forest Service is now thwarting in our region.
For generations, the U.S. Forest Service maintained a balanced approach to the management of our forests that assured both healthy forests and a healthy economy. Now, it seems to be following a very different policy of exclusion, expulsion and benign neglect of our forests. … [more]
Note: There’s nothing benign about megafires, Tom. Perhaps less talk, more action on your part might be useful in in saving America’s forests.
Thousands of off-road enthusiasts ride to the Capitol
By Cathy McKitrick, The Salt Lake Tribune, August 28, 2010 [here]
More than 5,200 off-road enthusiasts motored up State Street on Saturday. Their message: “Take Back Utah” — keep the state’s lands open for motorized travel and for use of its natural resources.
The parade ended with a rally at the state Capitol where Governor Gary Herbert and others called for renewed vigor in the fight for access to wilderness lands. …
Almost two-thirds of the land in Utah is owned by the federal government. Herbert laid out three possible actions he and others could take to deal with that fact: legislation, litigation and negotiation.
“We have the ability to negotiate with the Department of the Interior,” Herbert said. “I know it sounds crazy but we’ve had opportunities to work with the administration to find solutions.”
At times, the rally resembled recent tea party events. House Speaker David Clark, R-Santa Clara, took potshots at Washington, D.C., and Democrats.
“On every policy issue that has faced the Reid, Pelosi and Obama administration, there has been a choice between freedom and more government” Clark said. “And on every single issue, they have chosen the path of more government and less freedom.”
Utah’s 1st District Rep. Rob Bishop warned of federal efforts to buy more public lands for national monuments using the so-called Antiquities Act, which he said would enable officials to circumvent Congress.
“They’re talking about trying to control land in great ecosystems,” Bishop said. “I saw the map of their ecosystems — it’s the entire West.”
Randy Parker, a cattle rancher and chief executive officer of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, took jabs at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) and other “members of the left-wing environmental Mafia.”
“The radical environmentalists want to lock up Utah into non-use designations like the Red Rock Wilderness bill,” Parker said. “SUWA had to go to New York to get congressional support because they’re so removed from Utah and the people of Utah.” … [more]
Oregon timber harvest near historic low in 2009
By STEVEN DUBOIS, Bloomberg Businessweek, Aug 20, 2010 [here]
Continued weakness in housing construction sent the Oregon timber harvest to near historic lows last year, the state Department of Forestry said Friday.
The 2009 harvest was 2.748 billion board feet, a 20 percent decline from a weak 2008 and the lowest figure since a Great Depression-era harvest of 2.622 billion board feet.
Timber picked up some earlier this year, after a temporary bounce in log prices, but Forestry Department economist Gary Lettman was cautious about predicting a major recovery.
“The earliest would be 2011, but that’s optimistic,” he said.
Oregon’s largest timber harvest was 9.743 billion board feet in 1972. The state maintained levels above 8 billion until the late 1980s, when environmental issues such as the spotted owl prompted sharp cutbacks in logging on federal lands. … [more]
Note: considering economic multiplier effects, a board foot is worth about a dollar. Hence the 7 billion board foot difference between 1972 and 2009 represents about a $7 billion annual shortfall in Oregon’s economy.
Swanson to shutter another Oregon sawmill
The future of mills in Springfield and Noti is unclear; officials blame the government for the cutbacks
By Ilene Aleshire, The Register-Guard, Aug 20, 2010 [here]
The Swanson Group said Thursday it is closing its Glendale sawmill indefinitely and scaling back operations at its studmill in Roseburg, blaming the federal government for conditions it said led to the cutbacks.
Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., seconded Swanson’s complaints, criticizing the Obama adminstration for a loss in the supply of timber from federal lands and both the Bush and Obama administrations for not protecting the Northwest from what he said were subsidized Canadian imports.
Swanson is based in Glendale, north of Grants Pass, and also operates mills in Noti and Springfield.
The Glendale mill will stop operating as soon as it uses up its current inventory of logs and may never reopen, Swanson officials said in a written statement. Operations at the Roseburg mill will be scaled back from 60 hours a week to 20 hours per week. All told, about 90 employees will be affected by the two actions, the company said. After the cuts, the company said it will have about 650 employees.
CEO Steven Swanson was not available Thursday to discuss the outlook for the Springfield and Noti mills.
While a lot of overlapping factors led to the shutdown of the Glendale mill and cut in operations at Roseburg, including the ongoing recession and housing slump, Swanson officials said they laid much of the responsibility at the federal government’s door.
“Cheap subsidized Canadian imports continue to flow into the U.S., further deflating markets while our government remains unwilling to provide a reasonable or sustainable volume of timber for rural mills and communities,” company officials said.
The federal government’s timber sale program, particularly on Bureau of Land Management properties, “has gone from bad to worse,” Swanson officials said. “The situation in southwest Oregon, where the federal government manages more than 60 percent of the forestland, is dire.”
The Medford BLM district, which has historically provided the majority of logs needed to run the Glendale mill, now provides less than 4 percent, the company said. “Without a significant increase in timber offerings by the U.S. government, this sawmill may never re-open,” company officials said. … [more]
Hoots and hollers: Surprising forest tour with QLG and Legacy along for the ride
by Alicia Knadler, Plumas County news, 8/18/2010 [here]
A forest tour Tuesday, Aug. 10, ended in a hoot, and it wasn’t from an owl.
It was a shout of surprised laughter from Quincy Library Group attorney Michael Jackson.
Along for the ride on the tour were Quincy Library Group members, a Sierra Forest Legacy representative, local landowners, Forest Service officers and other forest stakeholders.
“Just because we’re fighting over the forest doesn’t mean we have to fight over everything,” Jackson said with a huge smile for Jim Brobeck of Sierra Forest Legacy and Butte County Fire Safe Council.
Brobeck, a member of the organization now in litigation with the Forest Service over the 2004 Sierra Nevada Framework, had just finished sharing his thoughts about the Genesee Wildland Urban Interface Fuels Reduction and Black Oak Enhancement Project.
He was impressed by the ecosystem management approach to the project, which was explained in each area of the tour by Ryan Tompkins, silviculturist for the Plumas National Forest Mount Hough Ranger District.
He doesn’t like fiber production to the emphasis of fuel reduction jobs on the forest.
“It was really great to have Michael Jackson sharing Native American stories about historical management of the area,” Brobeck said, and he envisions the project teaching people how to use fire in ways that won’t hurt the land or the people. … [more]
Note: forest restoration should be informed by the historical conditions — which were influenced by the traditional ecological practices of the pre-Contact residents. It is good to see that information finally trickling in. Perhaps a pull back on the lawsuits might aid in getting the job done, eh Jim?