Free Republic

School leaders in rural northwest Oregon are worried about big budget cuts. The Oregon Department of Forestry is working on a plan to protect habitats for endangered species across 640,000 acres of state forest. The loss of timber revenue will affect local schools. The Jewell School District expects to be the most heavily impacted because it gets almost all of its funding from timber revenue. It could see budget cuts of 40 percent. The Jewell School District has about 150 students and a budget of $5 million. District superintendent Cory Pederson estimates the cuts will bring his annual budget down...

Thirty million dollars would make anyone sit up and pay attention, especially when the words following include “the government” and “taxpayers.” But is $30 million each year what it costs to maintain the protection of a federally designated national forest? Surprisingly, no. This average annual loss of $30 million stems not from protecting the forest, but logging the forest, Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest in particular. That’s equivalent to over $100,000 per timber job in the area.When the current administration announced its intent to modify the protections of the “Roadless Rule” that restricts logging in over 9 million acres of...

The blackouts imposed by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in mid-October affected hundreds of thousands of residents throughout California, causing agricultural operations to come to a virtual standstill in some areas while costing the state’s overall economy as much as $2.6 billion, according to some estimates. It also fueled a valuable conversation about the condition of our forests and the apparent lack of preparedness among our government agencies and utilities.

In June of 1775, citizens acting as merchant mariners captured the British schooner HMS Margaretta around Machias, Massachusetts (present-day Maine). That same month, General George Washington, with the help of merchant ship owner Colonel John Glover of Marblehead, Massachusetts, chartered and outfitted several ships to interrupt the British supplies. The marker at the base of John Glover’s statue in Boston states: “John Glover of Marblehead – A Soldier of the Revolution. He commanded a regiment of one thousand men raised in that town known as the marine regiment, and enlisted to serve throughout the war. He joined the camp at...

Daines and Feinstein have been working on forest management reform proposals for several years, and the Paradise tragedy may be what pushes the legislation through a divided Congress, Daines said. He called the bipartisan effort a breakthrough. “We have a strong friendship and we’ve worked together on other issues,” Daines said of his relationship with Feinstein. “Both of our states are dealing with serious wildfire issues, and particularly public safety issues.” The fire in Paradise, the nation’s deadliest in nearly a century, and 18 more in California in 2017 were caused by Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. power lines, investigators...

Two more raging infernos in California have burned an area nearly ten times the size of Washington, D.C. Wildlife and habitats have been torched. Over 8,000 homes and businesses, and nearly the entire town of Paradise, are now ashes and rubble. Cars were partly charred and melted as they escaped the flames, others completely incinerated - sometimes with occupants still inside. Well over 60 people have perished. Over 50,000 are homeless. Hundreds remain missing.President Trump expressed deep support for the thousands of courageous firefighters battling the conflagrations, urged residents to evacuate quickly and expedited disaster assistance to the ravaged communities....

Calling all farmers, land owners, and gardeners... yours truly recently took ownership of 4 acres of property in central Florida and has some questions. I'm far from a greenhorn, but I'm learning new things and don't know what I don't know. Please bear with me and correct any misuse of terms herein. Approximately 3 acres of my land is heavily wooded and was poorly maintained. My last 2 weekends were spent with a rented brush hog clearing the front acre of my property of undergrowth. Vines were everywhere, some as thick as 2 inches (diameter), and it made for very...

After raging through almost all of December, the so-called Thomas fire, California's largest wildfire ever recorded, was finally contained on January 12. While the worst is behind us (for now), the fact that last year's wildfires so violently spun out of control puts the spotlight on the Golden State's government and its lack of fire prevention measures. The fires across the state caused unprecedented damage and loss of life. Unsurprisingly, California governor Jerry Brown was quick to pin the blame on climate change for the forest fires' ferocity and extraordinary longevity this season. Whatever truth there may be to this,...

A forestry company filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit against Greenpeace Tuesday for misrepresenting the company’s environmental record to raise funds and promote its agenda. Greenpeace knowingly and deliberately made false claims about the company while fundraising, and fabricated evidence of Resolute’s alleged environmental malfeasance, according to the forestry and paper company Resolute Forest Products. RICO is an anti-mafia law designed to combat organized crime. Greenpeace’ is a global fraud,” states the 124-page legal complaint. “For years, this international network of environmental groups collectively calling themselves ‘Greenpeace’ has fraudulently induced people throughout the United States and...

When Jadav Payeng was 16 years old, he confronted a problem quite unlike those most teenagers devote their attention to. He lived in remote northeast India on Majuli Island, the largest river island in the world. Abnormal monsoon flooding was bombarding the island’s eastern side. It was rapidly eroding the landmass and stripping all vegetation from the remaining land. Jadav looked at the wasteland where lush forest had once stood, and made up his mind to reverse the trend. So he planted a tree. That was in 1979, and Jadav has continued planting trees, spreading seeds and nurturing the forest...

Scott Walker is killing it with Republicans. The Wisconsin governor is one of his party's rising stars—thanks to his ongoing and largely successful war against his state's labor unions, a fight that culminated Monday with the signing of a controversial "right-to-work" bill. Now (for the moment, anyway), he's a leading contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. At the Conservative Political Action Conference a couple weeks ago, he polled a close second to three-time winner Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), beating the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush by a significant margin. It probably won't...

Urban Forestry. The term itself appears to be either a typo by the author, or an oxymoron. So just what is Urban Forestry...

Natural systems endure an ever evolving cycle of growth and deterioration. The deterioration accumulates and dominates whenever we fail to put the growth to productive use. Too often, failure to manage and utilize the productive growth results in catastrophic destruction through disease and wildfire. This boom and bust cycle is the natural way. We recently returned from a road trip through four western states. Throughout the trip we observed the stark difference in the management of private and public lands. In general, private lands show the pride of ownership while public lands demonstrate the widespread deterioration inherent in failure to...

I remember taking a forestry class my freshman year of college. The curriculum, presented by a veteran instructor from the California Department of Forestry, covered several related topics that included ecology, biology, life cycles, wild-land fire control, conservation, and commerce based on those natural resources. I never heard the associate professor use the word "environment" or "environmentalist" during the course. Granted, it was years ago, and course outlines do change over time as new information on any given subject becomes available. But, the disconnect suggests the environmentalist movement is a recent concoction that has little basis in traditional resource management...

Today the nation celebrates the 65th birthday of one of our most beloved protectors: Smokey Bear, the guardian of our forests. Dressed in a ranger's hat, belted blue jeans, and carrying a shovel, he has been America’s forest fire prevention symbol, since his debut in 1944. Today, he is one of the most famous advertising symbols in the world and is protected by Federal Law. He has his own private zip code, his own legal council, and his own private committee to insure that his name is used properly. Smokey Bear is much more than a make-believe paper image; he...

A jury sentenced a Lakeview man to 10 years in prison for growing nearly 7,500 marijuana plants. Andrew Stever, 40, was sentenced on Monday after a three-day trial in the Federal District Court in Medford.Ten years is the mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of growing 1,000 or more pot plants. In July 2007, officers from several local, state and federal agencies found 7,459 plants growing on Stever's Lakeview property, which bordered Forest Service land. Two men fled the scene, leaving behind personal property and three firearms, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Portland. Physical evidence and testimony linked...

Every large, mature lodgepole pine forest in Colorado and southern Wyoming will be dead within three to five years, killed in a mountain pine beetle infestation unprecedented in the state.

A last-minute change in the federal energy bill discourages the use of wood chips, tree limbs and other wood waste from national forests in the production of ethanol, according to a forest industry spokesman. The surprise provision makes no sense, says Aaron Everett, a spokesman for the Black Hills Forest Resource Association. The energy bill passed by Congress and signed by the president earlier this month requires an increase in the amount of ethanol produced from renewable biomass materials such as grasses and wood waste. The bill requires 21 billion gallons of ethanol to be produced from biomass, including cellulosic...

Despite the anti-forestry scare tactics of celebrity movies, trees are the most powerful concentrators of carbon on Earth. Dr. Patrick Moore is a co-founder of Greenpeace and chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver. It seems like there's a new doomsday documentary every month. But seldom does one receive the coverage that Hollywood activist Leonardo DiCaprio's latest climate-change rant, The 11th Hour, is getting. When we're bombarded anew with theatrical images of our earth's ecosystems when the film opens across B.C. this Friday, I'm concerned that we're losing sight of some indisputable facts. Here's a key piece...

Washington, D.C. – U. S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada announced a $400,000 grant that will go to develop new and effective tactics to control bark beetles.  The bark beetle has caused much devastation in western forests, including those in the Lake Tahoe basin. “Western states are currently dealing with the problem of wildfires,” said Reid.  “These bark beetles really contribute to the problem, bug-killed trees add to the fuel load, exacerbating the fire cycle.  What these pests are essentially doing is turning trees into giant matches.  We need to find a way to deal with this infestation so that...