Don's column in the Columbian last week took a look at forest management practices.
The Kenai Peninsula may be best known for its world-famous salmon runs, but it is the area's white spruce forests that have captured the spotlight now, underscoring serious problems with our forest management practices.
Bark beetle infestations have turned the Kenai's once rich, green forests into a barren landscape of dead and dying trees. Because these trees are fire hazards, wildfires in Alaska have jumped threefold since 2004 - and Alaskans are bracing for another record fire year.
A related beetle preys on western inland forests. The problem could be managed better.
To deal with these threats, President Bush proposed his Healthy Forests Initiative a couple of years ago. It would create firebreaks, salvage commercially valuable burned timber, and replant the forests outside wilderness areas and national parks. The idea was quickly shot down by folks in Congress who believe that any timber harvesting in national forests is taboo.
Given the number of acres scarred by wildfires, Congress should reconsider that policy. ...
Wouldn't it be wiser to log the beetle-killed trees while they have commercial value and put people to work on logging sites and in sawmills?
Wouldn't it be better to thin forests to prevent the devastation caused by beetle infestations and forest fires?
Yes.
