Rim Fire Plan for Salvage Logging a Milestone

Excerpt from SFGate: Published 6:58 pm, Sunday, September 7, 2014

Salvage logging evokes instant and emphatic reactions. For loggers and locals, harvesting scorched but usable trees after a forest fire means money and jobs. But environmentalists and wildlife experts worry that chain-sawing stumps and snags only worsens natural recovery.

As a result, the agency is choosing a reasonable middle path, allowing salvage logging on 17,327 acres in the Stanislaus National Forest and tree removal on another 17,706 acres along side roads. An estimated 210 million board-feet of lumber will be milled, providing a jolt to the local economy still suffering from the wildfire and bringing in funds to replant a blackened flank of the Sierra adjacent to Yosemite National Park.

The salvage terms were worked out with the blessings of nearly every interest group, with timber firms and many conservation groups accepting the results. The final agreement wasn’t unanimous, though, and three environmental organizations went to federal court in Fresno to block the logging plan, contending the timber cuts will harm wildlife. Reaching a compromise plan that clears part of the Rim Fire dead zone and preserves the rest is a milestone. It’s a promising start on the monumental task of regenerating a swath of California’s landscape.  Read more at:

 http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/editorials/article/Rim-Fire-plan-for-salvage-logging-a-milestone-5740456.php