Healthy forests

Healthy forests

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Observations from Joe Fox, President of the National Association of State Foresters. To maintain our forest, we can't let them be destroyed by out of control wildfires. We must reduce wildfire fuel loads in our forests. Telling lawmakers that thinning forests is going to be a huge job involving treating at least five million acres every year for fuel reduction, plus, what's being done now. The cost! About 60 billion dollars over the next 10 years. Besides thinning the forests, trees have to be replanted on millions of acres already burned by wildfires. The capacity to do that limited right now. Not enough tree nurseries to provide the seedlings. We're going to need a lot of help expanding those nurseries to meet a demand for billions of trees. And he says we'll need to find the workers needed to do the replanting. As to justifying the cost, the Forest Service says the cost to treat one acre to prevent fires about 1500 dollars. Cost to fight a fire on that acre…$50,000. Forest markets for both wood and carbon credits are critical to maintaining the health and sustainability of forests in the US. Wood markets, in particular, enabled to carefully plan the harvest of trees that is needed for forests to have appropriate stocking levels, balanced age classes and species diversity. These managed forests are healthy forest, better able to withstand wildfire and more capable of providing clean air and clean water, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities.
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