Healthy Forests and Lewis and Clark

Members of the Lewis and Clark expedition of the early 1800's, described passing through Western forests that appeared like parks on European estates & acres of wildflowers and native grasses dotted with magnificent trees. Meriwether Lewis would not recognize our Western forests today. Instead of 20 trees per acre there is now up to a thousand, creating a tinderbox of stunted trees and underbrush. Two hundred years ago, a wild fire would routinely consume the under growth leaving large trees standing. Today trees explode like fire bombs, destroying forests for generations. These conditions are why the USDA Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Mark Rey believes the Healthy Forest Initiative is needed now more than ever. A century of mismanagement has cumulated in catastrophic wild fires and Rey contends the problem of too much fuel in forests will not be a quick fix and could take a decade or more to reduce fuels. I'm Susan Allen and this has been Food Forethought.