On most long backpacking trips, I try to avoid all things that boil me up - like politics and big cars. Since staying away from the latter proves impossible on a cross-country stateside road trip, I've chosen to at least neglect my obligation to read news.
So the other day, when I picked up a newspaper - a second-rate, small-town Montana paper at that - one of the stories pretty much undid the last four weeks of cum-bayas, nature walks, and meditation. Deeply hidden in the national news section on page 17 (between a story about Mother's Day events and the surging real estate prices) revealed a snippet on the House passing the Salvage Logging Bill (under the ubiquitously pleasing moniker "Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act").
This bill, err act, proposed by Reps. Greg Walden (R-OR) and Brian Baird (D-WA), speeds up the environmental review process on some federal lands of downed trees caused by fire, weather, insect infestation, or other occurrence. Federal agencies would have to finalize fallen tree timber sales within 120 days (30 days for the decision and 90 days for the comment period).
In layman's terms, this means that, according to the bill's promoters, salvage trees are dead and therefore don't do a damn thing for the forest. Once down, they have no use. Accelerating the process in clearing these trees and turning them into usable timber before they rot helps regenerate damaged forests - or so supporters frame it.
While this seems practical, it's just not accurate. Downed trees provide life, regeneration, and essential nutrients to a forest - damaged or healthy. This isn't just how I see it. Science agrees. According to the Register-Guard, "169 scientists, including some of the nation's most prominent fire ecologists, warned that the bill could profoundly damage sensitive post-fire ecosystems by disturbing soils, causing erosion, removing wildlife nesting and feeding sites, reducing the nutrients and shade needed to help new trees to grow, and leaving behind debris that can increase fire risk."
Granted, as an American citizen, it's sometimes difficult to see the truth behind garbled, exploitative politics. Unless you've walked an old-growth or second-growth forest and seen these fallen trees, it's hard to imagine life that might come from them. It's hard to imagine hemlocks and elms growing on another elm's carcass. Or imagine that a bald eagle's nest can survive atop this new-life-from-death formation.
It's also hard to imagine what life in the forest would look like without these fallen giants. What kind of runoff, erosion, and more dead trees might occur without dead ones? What would happen to the soil if the acidity were removed? How could the full ecosystem (insects, birds, bears) evolve without proper nutrients or cover to promote constant growth? Fallen trees have as much a purpose to life as live, erect ones.
Sitting behind a desk and thinking about these things differs vastly from strapping on a pair of hiking boots and tromping through wilderness. But I don't expect every representative to be like John Muir, father of our national parks, who stopped theorizing and set out in nature to really understand its scope. All I ask is that our senators and reps at least respect science. But I guess that's way too much to ask.
I mean afterall, what can I expect from an administration that has set air and water quality standards back to 1960s standards? That has allowed oil drilling in preserved lands but banned endangered species acts? That has blocked out immigrants but wages war? That has ignored the Kyoto Protocol while tampering with scientific facts in the EPA Report on the Environment.
The atrocities are numerous.
So why do such laws continue to pass? Why does the House majority continue to neglect science and rubber stamp environmentally erosive laws? I think Walden, head proponent of the bill, gives the nonsensical reasoning best:
"As Americans, we like our wood products."
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