...For example, the Natural Resource Working Group — a collaboration of local and state governments, state and federal land management agencies, forest product and livestock industries, environmentalists, recreation industries and universities, including the University of Arizona — launched more than 20 years ago to address the devastation of forest fires. The group sought to identify and implement science-based solutions to reduce the number and intensity of wildfires, save lives, property and watersheds, as well as return forests to healthy, diverse and economically productive ecosystems. But to be successful, the effort needed funding and sites to test the science. With the assistance of then-state Sen. Jake Flake and then-Navajo County Supervisor Lewis Tenney, the U.S. Forest Service provided the working group with access to 12,000-forested acres in 1998 to try new forest restoration concepts. The effort eventually evolved into the White Mountain Stewardship Project and realized success: 70,000 acres of previously dense degraded forest were on the road to healthy diversity and thinned effectively to help mitigate low-intensity, ground and crown wildfires. Since then, several large wildfires have affected the White Mountains, and the areas managed by the working group did markedly better than those that were not. When the San Juan Fire reached this treated area last June, it changed abruptly from a high-intensity crown fire to a low-intensity ground fire. The initial investment in infrastructure in the working group was $130 million in federal money. That now provides more than $20 million annually in new regional income and more than 300 jobs for local families. Just like investing in roads and bridges, this has proven to be a prudent investment with an effective return many times over. In 2013, Navajo and Apache counties took over the working group, ensuring the work would continue and be managed by the local community. This program, and programs like it, serves as a national model and should be expanded for use in other fire-vulnerable states...more
1 comment:
Used Oats! The article writes about the sudden knowledge that forests regenerates, despite the fact that the left has said for years that forests are being destroyed. Thinning forests requires a market for the product or the expense of doing this is too great(too many acres need it). The left has closed all of the wood markets so now the taxpayer will stand for the cost of thinning. Used Oats!
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