Another example/opinion of eco-terrorism

[Buccaneer]

Most of you recall the two devasting fires here in Colorado in 2002 (Hayman and Missionary Ridge). I was just going to declare another soundbite-laden post about Durango-based Colorado Wild's successful attempt at "saving" the rotting trees but at the expense of wanting to shut down local industries = eco-terrorism. But this op-ed piece spells it much better than I could. Keep in mind as you read this that the small timber industries in Southwest Colorado are predominatly owned and run by Hispanics and Native Americans (Utes and Navajos).

Race against rot

Fight over the salvaging of burned trees shows greens at their most extreme


We were pleased to learn from a recent news story that salvage work is finally beginning on some national forest acreage blackened by the Hayman Fire two summers ago. If properly conducted, such salvage timber sales can be a win-win economically and ecologically. Some value can be retrieved from burned trees before decay and insects render the wood completely unusable. This provides work for what’s left of the state’s wood products industry while clearing away trees that if left standing can sometimes invite fire’s return and spread insect infestation. As the story pointed out, the harvest can actually speed the forest’s natural healing process by breaking up soils sterilized by the fire’s heat and leaving behind smaller woody debris that will help fertilize seedlings to come.

But the economic benefits can only be realized if a salvage sale is conducted in a timely fashion, which hands huge tactical advantages to those activists and environmental groups for whom any productive and profitable use of forests is something close to sacrilege, and who in other parts of the state and country are challenging these salvage sales.

Probably the only reason the Hayman salvage sale had any hope of going forward at all was because the environmental group Colorado Wild is based in Durango, rather than Colorado Springs, and it gets much more of a public relations punch by suing closer to home, as it did to stop the salvaging of trees burned in the Missionary Ridge fire. A judge on Wednesday halted that sale in response to the group’s lawsuit, which claimed the U.S. Forest Service failed to accurately count the number of squirrels in the area before approving the sale. Even if eventually overturned, the ruling effectively kills the sale because the trees will soon be too far gone to salvage. For eco-obstructionists, victory is often only a matter of running out the clock.

Whether squirrels around Durango are celebrating is unknown, but the judge’s ruling delivered an economic body blow to the towns of Mancos, Dolores and Montrose, where timber workers and small mills were counting on the sale. “There are enough Abert’s squirrels in that part of Colorado that the Division of Wildlife has a hunting season for them,” an exasperated spokesman for one timber industry association said in response to the ruling. “Why does it make sense for the Forest Service to spend all that time and all that money estimating the number of squirrels?”

On Friday, in response to another lawsuit, a different federal judge halted another salvage timber sale in the Santa Fe National Forest in northern New Mexico — this time based on a suspicion that federally protected Mexican spotted owls might be nesting in the area.

Nobody with an ounce of sense believes this has anything to do with squirrels or owls. It’s all part of a relentless drive not so much to save trees, but to kill off an American industry and abandon any and all forms of active forest management. Having succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in vastly reducing the cutting of green trees on public lands, putting many Western timber mills either out of business or on the brink, anti-logging zealots have now declared that burned and dead trees are also to be protected, hoping to finish off what’s left of the pariah industry.

That crusade, in which loggers and mill workers have consistently been painted as villains in a simplistic environmental morality play, has largely succeeded in transforming this timberrich nation from wood exporter to wood importer. While sawmills rust, former timber workers collect welfare and small towns dry up and blow away, forest-covered California must took elsewhere to meet its hunger for wood and paper products. We in Colorado rely on the great timber state of Nebraska to meet our demand for wood.

And while the American wood products industry struggles for survival and our forests succumb to fire and insect infestation resulting from an unnaturally high density of trees, timber companies and wood workers in Canada, Chile, Australia, China and Russia are busily and happily working away — and exporting their logs to the U.S. market. [and taking jobs from Americans - my emphasis]

Does any of this strike readers as absurd? Or is absurdity now so woven into the fabric of contemporary America that we can’t see the forest for the trees?

[Franklinnoble]

Save a tree, wipe your ass with a spotted owl.

[sabotai]

It's not a coincedence that privately owned forests suffer FAR fewer fires than government owned ones. If the greens had their way, all forests would be government owned and there would be many more forest fires, which would in turn kill many more of their precious animals.

Don't get me wrong, I may be a libertarian, but I am a fan of animals. I personally do not liek it when "industry" does something to hurt, and even cause the extinction, of a species.

But the greens go WAY too far. They simple do not realize that industry takes care of the forests they own. They simple do not want to realize that people who are in the business of taking care of forests know what they are doing. Clearing away those burnt trees will make room for new ones to grow. New ones to provide food and better shelter for the squirrels. Squirrels can't live off of dead trees. They need live ones to provide them with food. Doing this would HELP the squirrels.

Which is why I agree with the idea that this has nothign to do with the enviroment and more to do with anti-business politics.

[The_herd]

Penn and Teller ran a piece on Bulls*** about environmentalists and showed that many of them really have no clue what the hell they are even fighting for.

They went around with a petition to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide at a rally and ended up with well over 100 signatures. Not one person really pressed them for knowledge as to what it was.

Funny site here.

hxxp://www.dhmo.org/

Check out the FAQ.

[sabotai]

Penn and Teller ran a piece on Bulls*** about environmentalists and showed that many of them really have no clue what the hell they are even fighting for.

That was the one episode I missed. I'm happy it got picked up for a second season. I think it starts in April.

[sabotai]

And I want one of those DHMO KILLS T-shirts.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by sabotai

It's not a coincedence that privately owned forests suffer FAR fewer fires than government owned ones. If the greens had their way, all forests would be government owned and there would be many more forest fires, which would in turn kill many more of their precious animals.

Don't get me wrong, I may be a libertarian, but I am a fan of animals. I personally do not liek it when "industry" does something to hurt, and even cause the extinction, of a species.

But the greens go WAY too far. They simple do not realize that industry takes care of the forests they own. They simple do not want to realize that people who are in the business of taking care of forests know what they are doing. Clearing away those burnt trees will make room for new ones to grow. New ones to provide food and better shelter for the squirrels. Squirrels can't live off of dead trees. They need live ones to provide them with food. Doing this would HELP the squirrels.

Which is why I agree with the idea that this has nothign to do with the enviroment and more to do with anti-business politics.

I go along with this except I am not much of a fan of animals but more along the lines of scenic and historical areas. I can cite several examples locally of how endangered spieces and other political/legal shinanegans use animals strictly as pawns to stop managed growth, private business enterprises and needed infrastructure improvements (Prebles jumping mouse, lynx and wolves).

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

I go along with this except I am not much of a fan of animals

YOU CRUEL, HEARTLESS MAN! Just look into their eyes...awww. So CUTE!

I mean...yeah, fuck the animals. Throw 'em on the grill (*as I try to reclaim some masculinity*)

[Franklinnoble]

I think there's a place for all God's creatures... right next to the mashed potatoes.

[Buccaneer]

Sigh. (TM - Quiksand. All Rights Reserved.)

[sabotai]

Animals have rights!! They have the right to be tasty and fit well.