Comments on: Backcountry Skiing News Roundup

By: hunter

hunter — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 02:59:00 +0000

amen on that Cory

By: cory

cory — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:44:36 +0000

Sounds like we should all go skiing. Lots of points from intelligent people that I’d love to sit and chew the fat with and solve the greater problems of humanity. Lou- organizing a free thought community ski some time?

By: hunter

hunter — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:43:46 +0000

Hey all,
One of the biggest mis-understandings about environmental policies is they’ve been implemented because someone hates logging, mining, hunting, atv’s etc. While some enviro’s do base their decisions on such a premise, most of these decisions are based on science and economics. Logging, most especially that practiced in the past on public lands, and still practiced on some private lands, results in a plethora of negative impacts, including, but not limited to: habitat destruction, topsoil loss, stream and river sedimentation, more blow-down events and lower forest transpiration (leading to reduced precipitation down wind). The results: reduced biodiversity, more frequent and more severe flooding, sedimentation and destruction of aquatic species habitat and breeding areas, reduced rain and snow fall. etc. The long-reaching effects of these impacts can include: property damage (and possible threats to human lives) from flooding, fisheries collapse, ecosystem collapse (of which some say the pine and spruce beetles and sudden aspen death are symptom), reduced crop yields, etc. Economically, the loss of a few jobs in the timber industry (with today’s technology, 4 guys can do what it took 40 to do 25 years ago), may save the jobs of 10 in the fishing industry, and these cause and effect linkages can and have been made numerous times in numerous locations with numerous activities. I work for a Colorado Enviro organization, and I don’t support industrial clear-cut logging, the “select-cut” (actually clear-cutting that leaves every 15th tree or so), or “salvage projects” (where only 10-20% of the trees that they cut are actually diseased) because of these impacts and because, yes, I like the idea and fact of natural landscapes, and I don’t appreciate mono-culture plantation forests on public land (not that many of them ever grow back since all of the top-soil has been eroded away). I, and most environmentalists, don’t hate logging (or mining, ranching, hunting and other extractive industries), we just want to see it done in a sustainable manner. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:59:56 +0000

Lou, the unhealthy forests you are referring to mostly reflect a century of fire suppression. Everyone agrees that returning these areas to a natural fire regime is the answer. Unfortunately, that goal is complicated by rapid development along the urban-wildland interface: it’s hard for the agencies to let fires burn naturally when million dollar homes are on the line.

By: Lou

Lou — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:16:26 +0000

My opinion is there has been a lack of balance. Back in the day some of the land was over logged, over mined, etc. But now, we have overgrown unnatural forests that sit there and load up with fuel, then burn like something out of a science fiction novel. And when they don’t burn, they get attacked by beetles anyway and killed off. If our forests here in Colorado had been cleared out more and let to burn more, they’d be much healthier. How do I know? Some of the most healthy forests I’ve seen and skied in are filled with 100 year old logging stumps. The ones that have never been logged are sometimes the most unhealthy. Sorry that’s not totally scientific, but it seems like an accurate impression.

All, don’t get the impression I’m some kind of land rape advocate, because I’m not. I just love our wildlands and want to see them managed for quality, not junked out at the whim of some misguided preservationist philosophy — nor at the whim of unregulated extractive industry…