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The General Accounting office has reported that "the most extensive and serious problem related to the health of national
forests in the interior West is the over-accumulation of vegetation, which has caused an increasing number of large,
intense, uncontrollable and catastrophically destructive wildfires." This excess is occurring because forestry personnel
are repeatedly prevented from thinning overstocked woodlands.
Just six months after issuing this warning, California was forced to declare its first state of emergency for air
pollution because of smoke caused by the Big Bar Complex fires that ravaged through the Trinity Alps Wilderness,
Six Rivers and Shasta-Trinity national forests. The pollution caused was nearly 20 times that which is acceptable by
federal air pollution standards.
In addition, thousands of acres of forest - including habitat for the northern spotted owl - were obliterated.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) listed the
northern spotted owl
as threatened in 1990 and currently has over 1.8 million acres of protected habitat in California alone.
The northern spotted owl habitat consists of four components: (1) nesting (2) roosting, (3) foraging, (4) dispersal.
The federal government sharply restricts logging of any kind in a 2,000-acre radius around known spotted owl nests,
requires at least 500 acres of the largest trees in that zone be left uncut and prohibits logging within 70 acres of a nest.
State Department of Forestry and U.S. Forest Service data indicates that over the last two summers, California has lost more
than 1 million acres of forest to wildfires. These fires not only create temporary harmful effects such as air pollution,
but they forever alter the ecosystems of the forests they destroy.
- Thousands of animals and birds lose their lives.
- Wildlife habitat is wiped out: Protective cover and food resources are lost.
- The destruction of understory vegetation promotes soil erosion, which can damage fish habitats.
- The intense heat can destroy the surface soil layer, rendering the soil unable to support life-sometimes for decades.
By preventing thinning of overstocked woodlands in the northern spotted owl habitat, FWS officials are not only
threatening the species they are trying to protect, but the entire forest ecosystem as well. California should support
conservation of habitat and allow for responsible forest management. ALL forest life depends on it.
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