(Aozotorp) wrote in message ...
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2...top/news01.txt

http://www.tidepool.org/features/healthyF.cfm

While salvage logging of burned areas may or may not reduce the RISK
of future fires (the jury is still out on that), it most certainly
reduces the INTENSITY of future wildfires and may mean the difference
in the survival of the remaining trees. Also, salvage logging makes
use of perfectly good wood from dead or dying trees plus, it reduces
our need to import wood from Canada where clearcutting and
environmental damage is currently occurring. I agree that "Healthy
Forests" is a cheesy and catchy name for restoration of our forests
but, the public needs to see the logic of managing our forests instead
of standing by and allowing forests to burn catastrophically and say
that it's "natural". Cool, low-intensity burns cannot be implemented
in many of those "unnatural" and overstocked forests of the West
without "pre-treatment" by removal of those excess live and dead
fuels. Even those medium-sized trees (which some will be cut to offset
non-commercial forest treatments) are overstocked and need thinning.
Many lands cannot support the "preservationist" vision of what a
forest SHOULD be.

Larry, forest sculptor