Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #21
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Southwest Biodiversity Alert #20
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southwest center for biological
diversity
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ksuckling@sw-center.org
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http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
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1.
ARIZONA SENATORS TO HOLD HEARING ON FOREST HEALTH IN
SOUTHWEST
- SCIENTISTS WARN AGAINST SALVAGE MENTALITY AND
LARGE-SCALE LOGGING
- ARIZONA DAILY STAR WARNS AGAINST
ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL SENTORS
2. MORE MEDIA COVERAGE OF
OVERGRAZING IMPACTS ON FOREST ECOSYSTEM
HEALTH
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1. ARIZONA SENATORS TO HOLD HEARING ON FOREST
HEALTH IN SOUTHWEST
- SCIENTISTS WARN AGAINST SALVAGE
MENTALITY AND LARGE-SCALE LOGGING
Arizona Senators Kyl and McCain, have
requested that Senate field
hearing be held on causes and solutions to
Arizona's severe forest
fire danger. In a letter to Senator Murkowski,
chairman of the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, they say
that
hearings held last August in Flagstaff, AZ have been ignored.
They
cite the work of two Northern Arizona University Professors,
Dr.
Wallace Covington and Dr. Margret Moore, to prove that the
Southwest
needs immediate legislative relief from environmental
laws and increased
salvage logging. Covington and Moore, however, have
repeatedly warned that
forest ecosystem restoration will not be
accomplished by a singleminded
attempts to increase logging.
In a May 17th interview with the
Arizona Daily Sun, Dr. Moore
warned that Kyl's approach was too simple, and
that grazing and
logging excesses must be addressed. In a May 12th interview
with
the Mesa Tribune, Dr. Covington also faulted overgrazing, old
growth
logging, and fire suppression for forest ecosystem problems.
He
supports thinning, but warned against returning
large-scale timber harvest to
the Southwest. Logging in Arizona
and New Mexico's National Forests and
the Navajo Reservation has
been stopped by a court order since August
1995. It is expected to
be lifted in the next few months.
The
Arizona Daily Star editors noted that management of southwestern
forests does
need to be reviewed, but questioned whether Kyl or
McCain can be trusted to
run honest hearing given their
anti-environmental bents. The Star noted
that both Senators voted
for the disasterous Salvage Rider, and that Kyl
falsely blames
environmentalists for fuel loading problems. The fuel
build up,
they said is the result of many decades of Forest Service
management,
not an eight month moratorium on logging.
2. MORE
MEDIA COVERAGE OF OVERGRAZING IMPACTS ON FOREST ECOSYSTEM
HEALTH
Due to education by environmentalists and scientists, the SW
media
now regularly cites the contribution of overgrazing and logging,
not
just fire suppression, to creating high tree densities in
ponderosa
pine forests. They are also beginning to discuss ecosystem
restoration
in terms of the larger problems of declining fisheries,
songbirds,
predators, etc.
MESA TRIBUNE May 12, 1996
FORESTRY
POLICIES COME UNDER SCRUTINY. EXPERTS: BETTER STRATEGIES
COULD REDUCE
FIRE DANGER
"A century of
overgrazing, unfettered logging and suppression of
natural fires has turned
Arizona's forests into dense, unhealthy jungles
and created an unprecedented
fire threat.
Once-grassy stands of
giant ponderosa pines are now choked with
small trees and dense undergrowth.
Forest floors are thick with
accumulated debris that ignites easily and burns
rapidly.
'We have inadvertently
allowed some of our forests to reach
such a fuel buildup that large, severe
fires are inevitable,' said W.
Wallace Covington, a Northern Arizona
University professor who
has studied the forest ecosystems in Arizona for
more than 20
years.
Overgrazing
eliminated the grass from the forests and unbridled
timber harvesting took
away the fire resistant, old-growth pine,
Covington
said.
And the policy of fighting
every fire that breaks out in
forests has allowed an unprecedented buildup of
highly flammable
fuel, said Pete Fule, an NAU researcher who works with
Covington.
'This is not a
sustainable system,' Fule said. 'We are going to
continue to have these
large, destructive fires until we reconstruct
the forest ecosystem that we've
destroyed.'
...
Covington, who heads a
research project on Mount Trumbull, north
of Flagstaff, said the project has
demonstrated that the forests can be
returned to their natural condition by a
combination of selective cutting, debris removal and
controlled
burning.
The
Southwest Forest Alliance, a coalition of environmental
groups from Arizona
and New Mexico, made similar recommendations in a
1995 report on restoration
of Southwest forests.
The group's
recommendations also included enhanced protection
for watersheds and wetlands
and the restoration of decimated wildlife
species, including predators, to
the forests.
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN May 15, 1996
ENVIRONMENTALISTS
SAY GRAZING HAS MADE FOREST FIRES
WORSE
"During the recent
devastating Dome and Hondo fires, the
U.S. Forest Service blamed years of
fire suppression for the size
and intensity of the
blazes.
But an environmental group
says livestock grazing should
bear much of the blame for the volatile
condition of New
Mexico's
forests.
'There is
ample evidence that it's livestock grazing and not
fire suppression that is
the dominant factor,' said John Horning of
Forest Guardians. 'It has haltered
the forest in such a way that
crown fires are more
dominant.'
The Forest Service will
soon allow cattle back onto the burn
areas, setting the stage for future
catastrophic fires, Horning said.
...
Throughout the forests of the
Southwest, there are now
from 1,500 to 3,000 trees per acre on average, where
earlier there
had been 40 to 80, Horning said. Photos taken early in
this century
show meadows dotted with relatively sparse growths of
usually
mature ponderosa pine, he
said.
The savannah-like grasslands
that grew on the forest floor
inhibited tree seedling growth while allowing
cool-burning fires, he
said. Core samples taken from 200 and 300 year
old ponderosa
pines show that fires seared the outer bark every five to 15
years,
he said.
Mature
ponderosa pines survived cool fires, but few young
trees did, he said.
When livestock removed grasses, leaving no
fuels to carry fire, tree
seedlings proliferated, rapidly producing
forests choked with young trees, he
said.
The Forest Service agrees -
but only to a point.
When it
became clear livestock was doing damage, their
numbers were reduced Moody
said. Had it not been for fire suppression,
nature would have reduced the
resulting unnatural growth of young trees,
he
said.
Wallace Covington, of the
School of Forestry of the University
of Northern Arizona, said both
viewpoints on the cause of overgrown
forests are
valid.
Before livestock, forests
simply did not experience searing
crown fires, he said. But fire suppression
perpetuated the problem,
he
said.
'It is sort of a one-two
punch and the third punch, of course,
is the crown fires,' he
said.
Moody said the stage has
been set for catastrophic fires on
millions of acres of forest and only a
massive effort to thin forests,
using prescribed burns and timber harvesting,
can prevent future Dome
and Hondo
fires.
Horning agreed, but pointed
out that most timber sales target
large ponderosa pines, not the smaller
trees that create
catastrophic
fires.
Horning
calls putting cattle on the range to keep fuels down
a 'head-in-the-sand'
approach to forest management.
'Until you stop the cycle and stop what has caused these
younger pines to
thrive, you are not solving the problem,' he
said.
The Forest Service quickly
allows cattle back onto even
severe burn areas, perpetuating the cycle, he
said.
..."