Preserving Our Forests Is Destroying Them
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- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2024
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A lot of people think we need to preserve our forests by locking them up to protect them from human activity. But locking up the forests is likely doing more harm to the forests. In many cases it is causing more harm than harvesting timber, ensuring the demise of the forest. I take you through a once beautiful old growth ponderosa pine forest. We will see how attempts to preserve that forest are causing it to die. The idea of trying to preserve natural forests is no longer in the cards.
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Good fires prevent bad fires!
💯
Those forest-floors are bombs.
People need to understand these nuances
Florida has one of the largest stands of old growth pine in the country in the Ocala National Forest and the US Forest Service has managed that resource for over a hundred years by employing the heavy use of prescribed burns. The ONF is thriving today, even in the face of rapid population growth and urban sprawl, thanks to smart resource management policies.
Same problem in Australia.
What I hate in my area of East Texas, and I'm sure it happens other places too, is that companies that clear-cut a forest and replant a single species. For example, there was a strip mining operation here some years back (not sure of the size, but a huge area) that eliminated a huge natural forest of mixed hardwood and pine, then they replaced the whole thing with cheap, fast growing pine eliminating forest diversity and many wildlife food sources. Then they put up banners and signs praising their eco-friendliness because they "planted trees".
I think we're getting sick and tired of letting stupid take the wheel because they Didn't Earn It. Things will be changing soon.
We have to farm trees in that manner to maintain the balance between supply and demand and keep pricing affordable. If you just let the forrest regenerate from a few seeding trees left behind, it takes considerably more time to grow back. When that happens, the price of the raw material goes up because the supply takes longer to regenerate, thus rendering every product made from wood to be more expensive. Replanting is a better alternative.
Otherwise Tom, Dick, and Harry wouldn’t be able to build a new house and live their American dream because it would be ridiculously expensive. Lumber pricing during Covid was a small sliver of what could happen. You also wouldn’t have an affordable box for your Amazon order to be put in nor furniture to rest on.
It’s not healthy as never cutting the forrest to begin with but we at least we replant and dedicate land to such farming practices. There are places in the world where they do not replant. They clear cut and go. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices and accept that they have to be made. Tree farming is one of them.
Maybe a meteor will hit the Earth, wipe out 95% of life, and your great grand-children can enjoy a good-ole natural forrest because the demand for the resource won’t be nearly as high. As it stands, there are too many people on the planet not to do what we are doing when it comes to tree farming. The same goes for a lot of other resource gathering industries, such as mining.
Don’t get me started on mining.
@@newfreenayshaun6651 Things will absolutely not be changing soon. don't get your hopes up.
Yeah we have the same deal in Oregon, everything is so green and then a whole hillsides left bare with baby pine. There is so many of them In a row waiting to be grown and cut. So much so that the dead pine leaves pollute the stream and rivers when it rains
@@Danyusun
If a meteor takes out 95% of life, I think it'll be the great great great great great grandchildren who might be able to enjoy a first. Assuming it's been able to grow back and not be out completed and suddenly grass lands.
I have a forester friend that likes to say "People love their forests, they love them to death" Landowners here in Michigan don't understand that we are not dealing with a natural forest. Enjoyed the video!
It's not just the forests. It's wildlife too. Here in the UK people keep campaigning against the culling of deer, foxes, badgers, etc. This inevitably hurts the animals themselves, who have less habitat and less food. It's the bleeding heart syndrome. World is full of them. Probably the biggest problem in the world right now is people doing bad convinced that they're doing good.
The People belive it is Love but in the most Times make the Human a own Stupid Interpretation, with his Opinion Building Visible.
@@CristiNeagu Sorry to hear that about the UK. Same here. There are people who insist that excessive whitetail deer in places with Lyme disease-spreading ticks on overpopulations of deer need birth control and won't allow substantial culling. You read that right--they want non-lethal birth control for deer walking in people's yards looking for food and maybe shedding ticks with Lyme disease.
@@CristiNeagu if they're not gonna allow hunting, which I understand even though I don't agree with it, they at least need to hire more wildlife managers instead of pretending the artificial environment humans created is "natural."
@@derrickbonsell Well, the wildlife managers are all going to recommend culling. Unless they're not very good wildlife managers. Personally, I very much agree with the American model. Sell hunting tags to control culling, and use the money to invest into the herd.
"Preserving Our Forests Is Destroying Them"
Ive been saying this FOR YEARS.
If the annual wildfires in National Parks dont allow people to see this, nothing ever will.
I keep hearing from people, in sad tones, that annual forest fires are the new norm. I always look at credulously and say that annual forest fires were always the norm, we just stopped them for a bit. The average fire return in some places outwest is historically as low as ten to fifteen years. Some of these places haven't seen fires now in nigh on 100. Then we are shocked when fires are huge and uncontrollable. But people want to live in their forest homes with trees up to their house and never want to see a fire, so they demand high levels of fire control. Thankfully, it seems the forest service has finally accepted the necessity of these fires. Increasingly, if a fire has not gone through an area in more than the estimated historical average, they will not act to control it and will simply let it burn.
Yes, ex-urban development is a challenging issue for planners to manage. People need to realise we can't all live in the forest and 'amongst nature' if we want to have forests and nature. Forest fires are a natural process, but climatic conditions are getting worse, and they'll probably continue to become more frequent.
People tend to forget that natural environments were vast before humans cleared and settled then, converting most forests and grasslands into cities and farms. Through the balance rendered by wildfires, these landscapes were patchwork quilts of old and new growth; not only because some species survive fire whilst others use it to reproduce instead but because natural landscapes were so vast that the whole forest didn't burn. Before we logged or burned them, there were parts of the forest that hadn't burnt for hundreds, or thousands, of years.
Now, ecosystems are fragmented (confined to small pockets between human development), and people are surprised that the whole 'forest' can burn when there's a big fire...
@@aymonfoxc1442 most of the west is still empty. Urban growth has nothing to do with it. This was caused primarily by hippies that wanted to save the trees and their rich brethren who wanted to protect their million dollar vacation homes.
RMNP is something insane like 30-40% dead standing and people still defend the no burn policy. Look, in environments like the Sonora where the fire return frequency is hundreds of years they make sense. In environments where the dominant tree species are pines and firs it makes zero sense. These trees grow with the expectation most of the saplings are gonna get 86’d by a low level fire, preventing that leads to crazy disease outbreaks and eventual apocalyptic forest fires which bake the soil.
I have a great practical idea: cut the lumber and sell it for construction or Winter firewood to Northern countries, one year before the woodland burns :)
This is my job in the Klamath Falls region. We go in and mark forest service lands, thinning out white fir and protecting the big old ponderosas.
It's happening. I think regenerative forestry will be on the rise.
that seems to be the issue. Part of the problem is understanding the complexity of the eco system.
Sounds like fun.
@@MrChickennugget360 A natural consequence to segregating and compartmentalizing complex systems. You start analyzing the puzzle piece and not the puzzle. It's an issue not just with forestry but in everything today.
The politics.....me thinks therein lies the real hurdle 🤔.
I would love to watch your work on RUclips. Do you have a channel? If not, you should.
Outdoor jobs are becoming more popular. They educate us and let us "ride along" all over the country doing jobs we never even knew existed.
I retired 20 years ago as a professional firefighter in the Portland, Oregon area. I remember someone like yourself, a professional Forester, taught us a class, which covers exactly what you were talking about right now. It has been 20 years now and nothing has changed! My point is, the people at the very top, do not want to allow mother nature to take its course, but it will eventually and massive conflagrations will occur.
The people at the top include Weyerhauser.
Because they get to blame it on climate change and then use it to tax people and shift money to their corpo buddies
They can resstore what they break down. Right now they are re-greening the desserts and have preserved all the plants that were lost. These will be introduced once again when deserts are green.
@@tallcedars2310 no, environmentalists playing god will back fire and when it all goes up in flames they blame climate change instead of taking heed.
Resulting in what we had a few years ago. Detroit burned to ash, my hometown of Estacada evacuated and the Clackamas devastated. Thanks Portland.
We need to start a campaign for Michael Wilson for Secretary of the Interior. You are a national treasure. Thanks for your clarity, honesty, transparency and openness.
USFS is under the department of agriculture, which might be a clue to the problem we’re having now.
Canada is the same. Still planting spuce on the dry hot northern terrotories lands. Not poplars, not birches. They really want to grow firesticks ?!?
@@ElectricDanielBooneMakes sense
If he ever gets that post hide the matches and everthing that makes a spark
But can he compete with a g ay transvestite who steals women's luggage?
I´m a forester from Denmark, the absolute northern part of the temperate hardwood area of Europe. Naturally our forest worked, by a lot of small events - wind surge, small fires etc. Our neighbors to the north, Scandinavia is part of the boreal forest, and as such, naturally depending on wildfires for its renewing. These fires would have been big, covering large areas. In modern time, forest management - especially harvest, and removing dead wood - has suppressed / replaced wildfires. One has to accept, that humans too is an ecological factor. - We should take care to act accordingly.
True. Everyone must take note, by the way, that the forests you describe are the slowest-growing on earth.
This mismanagement just destroyed a third of the buildings on Jasper townsite in Jasper National Park here in Alberta. In addition to everything you outlined in the video, the lack of fire had allowed pine beetles to ravage the park’s forests unfettered for years. The beetles occur naturally there, but without occasional fires to keep them in check they destroy vast swaths of forest, leaving thousands of standing dead trees that no doubt contributed to that devastating but inevitable fire.
The USA suffers from similar problems. Yosemite National Park in California has 2 million dead trees. It's a disaster that's waiting to happen -- just like the terrible wildfires in Yellowstone during 1988.
To be honest, between a living pine and a dead pine, the living pine is probably going to contribute more to a fire than a dead one. When you think about it it kind of makes sense. It really is the shade tolerant conifers that provide huge amounts of fuel for fires to get out of hand like this.
Very Sad!
I agree with you. I’m retired from the National Park Service and now own and operate a forestry services company. It took us over a 100 years ago to get where we are today and it’s going take 200 to 300 years of active forest management and wildfires to get it back to where it should be if that’s even possible. USFS has really increased their timber sales and wildfire mitigation projects only to be met with lawsuits blocking them. Even if the lawsuits stopped tomorrow, so many mills have closed, the capacity to produce timber has greatly decreased and trying to find people to work is almost impossible. We have a long and very challenging road ahead of us,
I'm in the UK, not the US, but I think this is a really telling comment. We have parallel issues over here where the majority of the public have become divorced from their environment (woods and forests) and misunderstand the issues associated with managing them. Or even disbelieve that management by people is necessary. The task is huge...
See my too long comment. You do raise a significant issue. But why are some proposed operations met with lawsuits? That is the question. Back in the 1990s, I personally was involved in commenting on USFS and DNR plans in WA; sometimes we agreed or disagreed, in whole or in part. But there were some really bad proposals that were essentially business as usual, and many of those lost in court. And some sales went through after Congress passed legislation suspending public comment and lawsuits; surprise: controversial sales that clear-cut swaths of old-growth went through, that had little to do with forest health.
@@davidbraun9309 Can't comment on the US, but over here in the UK, house ownership and concern over property prices, coupled with total lack of understanding of basic principles of woodland and habitat management is often a factor. We're a wee island with a very dense population. People with lots of money tend to buy big houses, out in the countryside. Those houses tend to have a monetary value way above a house of equal size and features in an urban area, partly to value placed upon its setting, which may well be public land. So, house owners, or groups of house owners may lawyer up and react strongly against proposals to manage woodlands.
I work in a community forest as a forester in Washington State. What you say in this video is absolutely spot on. My job is to thin the forest and to do prescribed burning to help keep more shade tolerant species away from encroaching on what historically open stand like ponderosa and western larch stands. There are however some areas in the forest i manage where we can support stands with a higher density which i believe would be some of our north facing slopes at higher elevations, specifically for northern spotted owl. This channel is awesome and please keep making videos as i really enjoy them!
I’m jealous of your job lol. I live in Tonasket. Wanna get into forest management maybe range management.
where do i apply? I think about this every time i go camping. Seeing a lot of standing dead wood.
Do you think the fact that wildfire burn acreage is lower than it has ever been today challenges the wildly accepted theory which states: Controlled burning decreases wildfire risk?
Since the government has long invested in prohibiting prescribed burning, the trend in burn acreage should be the opposite.
I'm not an expert in this field, so I'm just trying to learn.
@@lorrainegatanianhits8331 Im not as knowledgable as many people who have already commented so i may very well be wrong but I believe other than the actual health of the forest, the issue with wild fires isn't about the total burn acreage as much as it is about the severity of the fires. Overall yes there are fewer wild fires today (and less total burn acreage im assuming) but now when there actually is a wildfire, you often end up with out of control disasters like in Maui and California.
Fuck the spotted owl!! That boogeyman destroyed the lumber industry.
Finally, someone is actually talking about these things. There is a worldwide mismanagement of forest and land, and it's so frustrating to see these places be destroyed in the name of conservation.
Forestry major here, UMass '83. Forest management is a wonderful business until people get involved.
The universal law of people, it applies to everything, everywhere, all the time, forever.
but why? what is the cause of failure? competence? resource management?
@@Hongobogologomo People wanting to do things. The more we do, the more we tend to mess things up.
My 70 acres Highland forest land in NE Minnesota...has been doing Fine without you for the last 300 years, and also for the last 100,000 years. Fully embedded within the superior ntl forest realm. 1 Billion year old Lave uplift. try to keep up
@@Hongobogologomo In a word.....Hubris
Smokey the Bear was the most successful add campaign on the planet, yet it caused the most destruction to our forests.
Dang, I typed this before you said it.
It's also been a source of inspiration for others. No doubt there was harm there, but hating on Smokey, especially today, is misplaced angst. You're better off fuming against the government agencies not following good science to dictate their land management policies.
@jdata it's not that serious man. It is a fictional character.
@@jdata- the government is made up of people impacted by propaganda aka ad campaigns.
Most ppl from my generation and a bit older did NOT read the books on the environment like I did back as a kid in the 80s. The books all said that controlled burns were necessary for forests and their growth. There are trees where their seeds will only grow after a forest fire.
@@jenkins2162- it is that serious unfortunately. As I noted, people make up the government. And science is funded by people with specific interests. No one makes money off of studying forestry.
@francestaylor9156 no one makes money off of studying the forest? The forestry department in colleges around the world would beg to differ.
just to bolster your very accurate hypothesis, I worked for outfitters in the 90's, as a packer/guide, in summer season I would pack,and relocate forest circus around, 120/140 mile round trips in the Bob Marshall Wilderness doing burn analysis as to why the Wilderness was sterile after a burn,, reason, so much fuel,,so much heat, sterilized the the ground, nothing will grow back. THE AMERICAN INDIANS HAD IT RIGHT ALL ALONG, as to forest management. GREAT VIDEO , brings back many great memories, LONG LIVE THE COWBOY
White people knew and some still know how to care for the forests. We lived in them for hundreds of years. It's an outside group lying to us.
As a forester from northern Minnesota, thank you for bringing attention to these key misconceptions about forest ecosystem management
I hate to give a "thumbs up" to such a depressing (but important) message. I know a landowner with several 5-700 acre holdings scattered around the PNW who believe they're creating "refuges" with their well meaning, but ultimately harmful and uninformed forest "management". I will share this as part of my efforts to get them to be better stewards of the beautiful lands they are so lucky to care for.
Well, hopefully the land owner is smart enough to recognize the ridiculous pro-logging propaganda you will be inundating him with..
Newsflash: you are not smarter than Mother Nature.
@@rudolphschenker nobody said they needed to harvest their trees or turn into a logging operation... Neglect is not stewardship. Maintenance and fuel management is not anti-environmental.
@@rudolphschenker Him: "why we should stop doing more harm than good by disrupting natural forest fires".
You: "bro this is pro-logging propaganda".
Ignorance can be just as harmful as malice, you think you're helping by stopping the natural cycles of trees, until a few decades pass and the environment collapses.
@@rudolphschenker Newsflash: You aren't smarter then the people who are actually educated and experience in the field you are talking about.
@@rudolphschenker well you got one thing right, we’re not smarter than Mother Nature, and mother nature involves fire and a tree cycle, a cycle we disrupted and need to reinstate it.
It’s not just a western forests problem; it’s a problem almost everywhere in America, because almost every ecosystem is fire dependent and evolved with frequent low intensity fires outside of wet areas. Without fire, a major portion of life on this planet is going extinct, from insects to birds to plants and mammals and all the microscopic and subsoil life forms that evolved together over tens of millions of years of continental isolation. Excellent video; one of the best you’ve ever made.
Prairies and savannas in the Midwest and eastern areas have mostly become dense forests, leading to species extinctions. Forests without fire suppression become highly dense, dark, and dangerous due to fuel load.
Here in southern Wisconsin for example, recent research indicates normal historic fire return intervals over most land and ecosystems were 1-5 years. Frequent small fires clearing woody brush and preserving highly diverse, productive, and beautiful habitat. Now, most land outside of intelligently managed nature preserves and some small patches of public land hasn’t seen fire in 100ish years
I wholeheartedly agree that Smokey the Bear has done more damage to North American ecosystems than any other factor or practice except for the John Deere plow.
Thanks for the excellent video on one of the most important topics in the world right now.
Here in Ohio at least it’s common to see landowners burning their prairies and ditches in the late winter, although here it’s more of a weed control tool than a means of preventing overgrowth. The grasses and wildflowers are all bounced back by mid spring, but the thistles stay away.
I just got back from pittsburgh and I noticed both PA and OH are being taken over by vines. I see it in parts of IL but not nearly as bad as it was out there. It scared me. I don't want to see our oaks get choked out. Feels like we're only losing them.
The plow, beaver trapping, and Smokey the bear. The three most inadvertantly destructive forces in North America.
And the eco-warriors are part of the problem... they don't like fires or people burning wood because "it increases the CO2 in the atmosphere".
Nature doesn't need management.
I think he is 100% correct. I've seen curated forest that is being used exclusively for tree harvesting production. You'll notice something very obvious when you look at this video: The spacing between trees is setup so they don't compete with each other, and they don't have small debris coming in and clogging it up. It's not so people can walk in between the trees freely, but because it's the optimal conditions that lets the trees grow. If commercial operations have figured out how to maximize profit by growing trees in that sort of condition, then it's obvious that's how natural forests allowed big trees like those to grow in the first place.
Thank you so much for helping share this information. We live on 50 acres of forest land in Greenville, CA - the whole town burnt down a few years ago in the dixie fire. We work with local groups and do controlled burns and fell what's needed to maintain a healthy forest on the property but we are surrounded on 3 sides by USFS property that is an absolute mess. Not only have controlled burns not been done for decades but at some point they did go through and fell hundreds of trees, then just left them where they lay. We were amazed when we returned after the dixie and the property was one of few that did not burn. Afterwards, we started creeping into the USFS land and cleaning that up as well whether it's against their rules or not, they don't have the man power and it puts us at risk because of the lack of management.
Rotting logs are important for a lot of species
Forestry told us management has been stopped for years by environmentalist groups, lawsuits.
In Norway our forests are choking themselves out. The landowners don't want to harvest or maintain the forests, they are either too old, work in the offshore industry or other jobs that makes it not worth their time. They inherited or bought their lands dirt cheap in the years following the oil boom, the person I get my firewood from bought his land in the 90s for 900k nok(roughly 1.6millon after inflation), today it's worth around 5-6 times that. Price of wood has not changed much since the 90s and that together with price increase means there is no way for anyone new to start either.
Very true, and some people shouldn't even own a forest. The only thing they care about is the money from harvesting and nothing else. Either way i am inheriting a forest in the next years and i've read up on thinning and managment. My grandfather became too old to maintain the forest in the last few years, and my mom had not interest. So there is some work too do, but i've gotten a few thinnings and opened up some old tractors roads already. He did a couple of small clear cuts and planted spruce, i want to go the selective cutting way and get up the spruce trees which are native in my area instead. Don't know how, but i'll hopefully be able to do it lol.
I'm Norwegian too, and it sounds like you're on the west coast? In my neck of the woods, landowners are farmers with relatively low income. They do manage their plantations of spruce, but it's just that, plantations with low biodiversity. And most people think that's how forests are supposed to look like. We used to have temperate broad-leaf forests, full of light and life. Present day spruce plantations are depressing and dark, and even more depressing when chopped down like a massacre.
And don't get me started on the very concept of owning forests. As if nature is a commodity to be invested in, exploited and sold for profit. That's how we think in our wicked society. Time will tell how far such a destructive and egoistic mindset can take us. I don't think it will be much farther, we've caused too much disturbance.
@@ximonoYes i am on South-West Coast. Luckily around 20% of the forest is spruce and i will try to reduce that number in a good way. The rest is the natural pine/and temperate state forests with oak, aspen, birch etc.
At the same time i feel the need to manage the already existing spruce forests like my grandfather did, so i dont't end up with a thick and dessert like state you mentioned.
It's Sad too see in my home town how entire forests consiting of pine have been converted to 80% spruce.
At least here on the west coast of Norway
1. The forests for a large part aren't natural. Spruce is not native to the area, especially not Sitka spruce, which was imported from Alaska due to its fast growth and salt tolerance compared to siberian spruce. It's also been planted in large, dense plantations where little else lives.
2. Forest fires will never make a big bite into our forests. We live in one of the soggiest places on the planet. There are occasional forest fires in dry winters, but they're not the major part of the cycle like in the western US. We can afford to put out fires that threaten homes. Natural forests in western Norway will always be pretty choked up unless they're heavily grazed by deer (or farm animals).
3. A hundred years ago the area was extremely over-harvested. We have virtually no old-growth forests left, especially not in the lowland. There was an effort to replant, fortunately not ALL with Sitka.
4. The cultural landscape coastal heath (kystlynghei) has been maintained for over a thousand years with deliberate grazing and burning once the heath grows too old and wooden for the sheep to make much use of. It needs to be actively maintained in the same way if we're to keep it, but honestly we probably don't have the resources to keep it everywhere it's been historically.
We should protect more lowland forest so that it can eventually regain its biodiversity, and chop down the Sitka plantations.
Forests don't actually require any human "maintenance". Humans have only been around ~100k years while forests have done fine for billions. The current problems are the direct result of said maintenance.
I agree completely! I live in Montana next to National Forest, and it is SO overgrown! When I bought my property back in ‘92, the trees were so thick that you could hardly walk between them. We had the property thinned (back when lumber was worth something) and our land is SO much healthier than the National Forrest. On top of all that, Bark Beetles have come through and killed many of the trees on the National Forest side. Our trees were largely spared, because they were not so close together. Now, the National Forest had dead-fall trees 3 and 4 layers tall. There is so much fire fuel there, that if a fire were to come through, it’d be HELL ON EARTH! That kind of fire bakes and sterilizes the soil so that it has a very hard time recovering. (Then, of course, rains come through and erode much of the remaining fertile soil away). Just last month another sawmill in Montana closed, which reduces the availability of outlets for tree cutting companies to sell their wood to. All in the name of “environmentalism.”
The sawmill closed because they destroyed all marketable trees. If the understory took over, it was perpetrated by none other than logging companies.
Repetition can be used right or wrong in an argument. You used it so skillfully, like a hammer. But not overdoing it. Perfectly passive-aggressive way to hammer in the point! I hope there's still a way to save these forests!
Thank you for talking about this I’m an arborist born and raised in the heart of a national forest that is facing this problem. It drives me crazy to see, I know many other forestry workers who would happily donate their time to falling and thinning the trees were the forest service open to allowing it. We need to come together on this before we have no more forests to enjoy
This is one of the most impressive videos describing the quandary of the western forests that I have ever seen. Very Well done! Concise and thorough and spot on. I'm a forester in the South East that conducts a good number of controlled burns every year with the primary objective of restoring and maintaining to the best of our ability the pre-history ecosystem that dominated our area. Your task is far more challenging, but such good communication will go a long way. Keep it up my brother!
You are correct. I have a degree in forest management from Oregon State. The pines get starved for resources, especially during drought, and cannot pitch out the western pine bark beetles. I've had to cut down some massive ponderosas on my property, due to beetle kill. It sucks.
The same beetles will hammer your (more profitable) hybrid replants, just as readily as the old growth.
I wonder if the lack of wildfires has to do with the unstoppable plague of the pine beetles, seems like wildfire would have something to do with controlling the pine beetle population also, the fires toasting most of the pine beetles alive, leaving only a few beetles to survive in the center or top of larger trees where they are protected from the heat.
Isn’t that the beetles job though? To break down trees so their nutrients go back to the earth? It sounds like humans only want trees for their own needs not the forests. Every year our land is suffering from malnutrition because we put nothing good back into the soil instead use and deplete it.
Fire is part of nature. We put out fires, and thus, the undergrowth builds and builds, and we end up with even bigger fres. 🐺
Not just the vegetative growth, but also the duff. Those dense accumulations of dead leaves and bark can be feet thick at the base of those old trees. That girdles and kills live trees when a fire comes through. Some, like sequoia can take that, but ponderosa pine will be killed, as will most pines.
Fire has been known as cleansing for millennia. In rituals, religions, myths, etc. It's ancient wisdom.
@@ximono The bible even says that God's everlasting flames will be what devours this world. Fire has always been good, Yahweh in the bible is even described as an all-consuming fire and Jesus who is the very same God has eyes like flaming fire.
Gosh I love the bible haha.
@christianriddler5063 it's just an ancient self help book written by early day influencers. As long as you realize there isn't really any magic beings then that's cool.
@@bobbybushwhacker I don't think you know what magic is. God/Jesus is as far away from magic as you can be.
Those pines only have a life span of a 130 years. When the forest is too thick, they compete with each other and start to weaken. This invites beetles which attracts more beetles. Log it, graze it, or watch it burn.
30 years ago, we bought a home on 3 acres, it was so heavily forested you could not see the sky. There were a hundred trees 135 years old and a thousand smaller trees in between. There are Ponderosa pines, Cedars, Sugar pines, White Fir, Douglas Fir, Tan Oak, Live Oak, Black Oak, White Oak, Madrone, Dogwood, among many other species of trees including fruit trees and berries that were planted by the gold miners as well as hundreds of wild flowers. I had to use a machete to cut my way through it. The pine bark beetle attacked all the large old pines so we had removed all but 10 Ponderosa pines and I plan to remove the rest of the pines in the fall because the beetles get in them make a weak spot and the wind breaks them off. The Douglas Firs, Cedars, do well but the White Firs are prone to beetle attacks and I remove them as I see them dripping sap.
The forest gets healthier and the small trees do well after removing the over growth. Now we have a large open meadow where our dog loves to run as well as a great vegetable garden. The property is still full of beautiful and more healthy trees and the wild fruit trees produce apples and cherries where they did not before. We have good defensive space as well. It's been a lot of hard work but well worth it. We had some of the pines and cedars cut into lumber by a portable saw mill operator. That has been a a great asset for constructing outbuildings, fences and shelters at a fraction of the cost of what we would pay retail. Just a few trees made 6000 board feet of lumber. We still have dozens of large cedars and firs. The Oaks and Madrones make for great firewood and we have at least 5 years worth of split and dried in our firewood shed.
People are fools not to clear out the undergrowth, over crowded, and ladders fuels in he forest.
They have connected many things to fungi, including beetles. There's a good documentary on it. It also talks about companion trees and communal trees, in the ways they interact
130 years is wildly off. Pondos can live to 600
From wikipedia - The fire cycle for ponderosa pine is 5 to 10 years, in which a natural ignition sparks a low-intensity fire.[49] Low, once-a-decade fires are known to have helped specimens live for half a millennium or more.[13] The tree has thick bark, and its buds are protected by needles, allowing even some younger individuals to survive weaker fires.[13]
All that on/ from 3 acres eh?
Ponderosas can live to 4-500 years old easy
It went to clear cutting and replanting to selective cutting. Then along came the spotted owl and logging died off for decades.
There is so much under brush and dead and dying fuel source for a fire that it is downright scary...at least in my neck of the woods
Especially around cities. By my folks place the woods are so densely packed you can barely walk through them. If a fire starts it’s going to be devastating for 10,000 homes.
And then when it does catastrophic burn the goverments won't allow logging out the dead wood. The standing burn is still good wood. But instead of clearing out and replanting they just let it sit and rot. While the logging land if it burns is typically light because it's in their best interests to manage thier land, and if it burns bad enough they just log it and replant, funny how private lands like logging companies have lush beautiful timber while the stuff next to it is still dead standing burn.
Before humans that was the natural cycle. The woods don't need our help
@@Snailshroomif you do t have fore management you will have a problem. California proves that point massively.
@@SnailshroomThey wouldn't, if we stopped clear cutting. Clear cutting and replanting nothing but pine that isn't native to an area hurts everything that used to live in that space. If we could leave forests alone, they'd fix themselves. But I mean it when I say that they have to be left alone. Unaltered in composite by us.
Recent humans suck at preserving nature. Look at our Louisiana coast line that man diverted Mississippi and Atchafalaya river water from for flood control. Now man is scrambling to put the river water back. I learned something today, thanks.
And the pesticides that run off the fields kills the natural plants and animals that keep the coast line from eroding. We need to have major look at how we farm in the country
I agree with you. I high school I worked a summer job at Redwood National Park. The problem is that the big companies want the most valuable trees and don't want the small stuff. Selective cutting to take out a mixture of trees.
Big companies will not rest until the last Redwood falls.
I'm 37 years old and dream of maintaining forests. I fell in love with thinning and pruning over the last 2 years. I'd gladly do the work, even laboriously with just hand tools. I don't even have to get paid, I just need room and board. Im only one person, but I could maintain at least a small patch of 100 acres alone.
Thank you!
Way more people (worldwide) need to hear this message.
This from an Albertan (Canada) who has visited Japer National Park (pre- this year's fires) many times. Sigh.
So sad to see such high intensity fires due to "well intended", but fundamentally misunderstood / misguided management practices.
Fire is a vital part of almost every ecosystem.
"Why did we ever have "Smokey the Bear" policies in the first place?"
Politics, job creation, and poor understanding of our world. IMHO.
Hopefully "WE" are learning... but I doubt it.
I'm thinking part of it is also people living so close or in the forest.
Don't try to tell the tree huggers that old growth forests have to be burned or cleared out occasionally just to keep them healthy. They will all have a stroke. Just take a look at the area that was flattened by Mount Saint Helens. 40 some years later it's the healthiest part of that whole area.
I don't think you know very many tree huggers my friend. This is only news to the kind of person who thinks it's weird to hug a tree sometimes!
@@RobinTheBot wrong, tree hugghers prohibited any type of controlled burning in my city.
Excellent video. I almost felt like I was back in the Forest Ranger School....class of 85.
Stem count density is a MASSIVE problem across the country. It was a big contributing factor to the pine bark beetle spread in the San Juan mountains in the last decade.
The firs and aspens replicated so thickly after the suppression of fire that we ended up with one heck of a thicket instead of a nice forest.
Our answer is to heavily thin, and then bring the fires back. Most people can’t handle to see the forests burn, but they need it more than anything.
The Southern Pine Beetle here in the South infects clearcut growth as readily as it attacks old growth. The Loggers' insistence that new plantations are the answer to pine beetle is a lie, but they know that few people can or will do the research to refute it.
6:34 the forests are more like tangled brush these days, we misunderstood what nature wanted and now people still think fire is bad for nature even though some trees NEED fire to propogate.
I remember Rush Limbaugh talking about this in the early 90s. The overgrowth of forests are literally killing the old growth as well as creating a massive tinder box.
Yep and the point tthat more houses are being built with petroleum products.
Possibly the only good opinion to ever come from rush limbaugh
@@user-ConnorKaroThompsonstopped clock correct twice a day.
Very good video. I am In Northern Cal, which looks just like the land you are walking in. I worked in the timber industry for years, doing the type of thinning you are advocating, Most of the thousands of acres I thinned, now look just like the burned out land you are showing. I don't know what the answer is either. But now I am retired, and can only pray!
Excellent video!
Bastrop Texas got a lesson in fuel loads about 10 years ago. "Don't touch it" is a bad management strategy and the general public doesnt know that so good intentions typically have serious consequences in land management.
Your 100% correct, my friend. I go hiking all over the place and see this everywhere .
Pretty much agree with what you have said here. The problem is a lack of funding. It costs money to do controlled burns and fuel reduction operations. Some thinning operations would break even or make some money if the trees removed have enough volume.
Problem: traditionally, Federal land managers (BLM, USFS) put in "sweeteners" to the timber industry like allowing more roads in roadless areas and cutting many of the big trees in order to help pay for forest health operations that would do a lot of good. The public sees that, objects to it, lawsuits are filed, and either the work is delayed or not performed at all. Everyone looks bad as the forest degrades further.
Item: a bunch of us "activists" (citizens) met with the silviculturalist years ago in the Leavenworth Ranger District, MBS NF, WA; we were shown a film that "historically recreated" what the forest looked like to inform us of their goals in managing forest health. It showed a horse drawn buckboard rolling through an open pine-fir forest. Ok, maybe accurate. But the issue was logging in higher elevation forests that always had multiple species and higher densities. In areas with a lot of recreation use. Little bait and switch there.
Not long after that, they let a logging company go in on a Sunday and dump around 100 old-growth larch along a popular hiking trail just outside of the wilderness area nearby. Those trees, in that size and age class, were quite rare at the time, more so now. Kind of lost any trust they had left among most of the public. Those trees would have been the backbone of a stand that could have been lightly managed over time to recover forest health and make it more resilient in the face of wildfire and bark beetles. Then when the Icicle Creek Fire roared through, massive backburns were lit in roadless areas that were then salvage logged. Fishy? I think so.
The old management approach produced a credibility problem. Also, why are the remaining old-growth forests that are not protected in National Parks or Wilderness areas the focus of these measures when there are millions of acres of dense second or third growth that readily burn up in crown fires because they are too dense? One answer, often correct, is managers and their allies see big money in the remaining clear old-growth timber -- in the green trees, obviously. The managers get to keep their budgets (or get more), and the few mills that can saw the big logs (or peel them into plywood panels) get premium value logs -- a win win! Only problem, it has little to do with multiple use, sustainable forestry. That would mean cutting the smaller trees, for which most mills are outfitted for better recovery of lumber, and which can't saw an upper limit of diameter (I think around 24 - 28 in.).
Old growth forests that were once open and park like are dense with ingrowth of small pines and firs, and the big old trees die from bark beetles or crown fires related to this condition -- although many big old trees survive. Those stands could be managed responsibly and scientifically, to maintain many old-growth characteristics to produce all the values we want from multiple use management.
There are some demonstration projects I am aware of , such as management of old-growth pondo forests near Sisters, OR that combined thinning from below, hand-piled and burned fuel, followed by broadcast burns. You can see that the big pine, fir, and larch are doing well.
Managers of National Park sand Wilderness areas use controlled burns, in that they allow some fires to burn under the right conditions to address the over-stocking problem. However, I believe the policy still is that a natural ignition is required in designated Wilderness areas (in or outside of NPs). I think that needs to be changed to allow controlled burns to be set when conditions are optimal, and even allow some non-extractive thinning and raking of duff around large old trees so that they have a better chance of survival with minimal scorching. It would take a change in the Wilderness Act.
The solution requires $$$ and honest intent on the part of managers. The public needs to be informed to the point that they push the public land managers in the right direction. Doesn't help that a certain party in Congress either wants to privatize all public lands to "better" manage them (privatize and maximize short term single profit, more like it), or just ax multiple use management and cut it all down, I guess so it won't burn. Of course, the future sea of young trees that grows up will burn just fine, and completely.
Tax the rich like we used to back in the 40-60's. They have all the funding in the world and no use for it but hoarding it.
The problem is that you can't rely on federal institutions to know anything about the actual situation at hand. I believe private businesses would have a much better go at it, as they know what is best for sustaining a long-term business within their field of expertise. They have to, or their business fails. When federal intuitions fail, nothing happens to them. They eat the loss and try another ludicrous idea.
@@generals.patton546 I think government and private business can both make good and bad decisions. Government is usually trying to meet multiple objectives, whereas private business is more narrowly focused and has to pay strict attention to costs and profit margins or they disappear.
Forest Management is a good example. Private timberlands focus on a few species that do well and those are intensively managed and harvested as soon as a profit can be made, determined by log size and market price. State forest practices acts require some use of buffers around streams, leave trees per acre, slash treatment and replanting. They actually are considered pretty weak and do the minimum to protect water, soil, and wildlife habitat.
Main problem is impacts to soil water and wildlife habitat, as well as higher probability of damage from insects , diseases, and fire in dense young stands compared to older, variable density and multi-species stands.
Federal timber lands managed by the USFS and BLM have other mandates in addition to managing timber, and have more extensive efforts at managing multiple species and ages. including much older ages. There is a huge backlog of forest health work because they need to be funded by the Congress to do it in their budgets.
It is often not provided because it is seen as "environmental protection overkill" when that is not true. They base management based on what the public wants, and is based on forest science, not narrowly on economics.
Yet the Federal Congress may look at the timber volume produced and limit funding if it is believed that the volume is too low. Public lands are not, and according to the public's preferences, and goals based on science should not, be managed via bottom line, for-profit forestry. If that was the case, Public lands would be covered with homogenous 40 - 60 year old forests made up of a few conifer species. That would not be a good outcome for long term forest health, resilience to fire, insects and disease, and various goals of multiple use management.
@@generals.patton546 Honestly I blame democracy. Short term limits encourage short-sighted behaviour: Pushing policies into place to leave behind a 'legacy', maliciously trying to erase their predecessor's policies due to political division, and embezzling as much as possible to have something to retire on. Permanent rulers who plan for the long term benefit from it and retire knowing their successors will continue the work.
I would blame the dim witted green activist
I watched a silent film staring Douglas Fairbanks with many forest scenes such as what your grandfather described. excellent job describing the problem. Like you, I have no solution!
Great educational video. I am a fire lookout in a National Forest in Southern California. Been doing it for almost a decade. It’s so difficult explain this concept in a concise way how fires are a natural part of healthy forests. This video is a real keeper, and one I’ll share with as many people as possible. Thanks so much.
Your video reminds me of a book I own by Frederick Law Olmstead, landscape architect and designer of New York Central Park.
In the 1850's he travelled through the South and wrote a "travelouge" of what he saw on "the frontier". He stayed and wrote near where my ancestors settled in South Mississippi. He described the majestic long leaf pines and their ecosystem. One description was of the fine wire grass meadows in the dappled light of the huge WIDELY SPACED trees and the almost "bouncy" ground made possible by the buildup of pine straw.
He specifically noted you could easily drive a pair of wagons *side by side* through the forests for miles, the spacing was that wide. He also noted the open view and how he could see far far ahead through the pine savannah. The air was a perfume of pine. The land was cut by numerous creeks and streams where the various hardwoods in the moist soil were protected from the periodic fires that swept through the pines, and burned the straw. The same fire also burned the few small hardwoods that had began advancing out of the riparian zones.
Now the long leaf is almost all gone. The forest impenetrable and gloomily dark because of industrial pine plantations....a terrible travesty
Some places desperately need fire for their health
I’ve heard that some of lost Long Leaf Pine forests have been rehabilitated. I know some groups in Florida and Georgia have been working on it.
@@PurpleNovember Very little, though. It is nothing compared to what was seen in 1800. Most forest in the southern pine belt are not longleaf, let alone being in any condition similar to presettlement.
It is good to recognize that industrial pine plantations of mostly loblolly, but also slash, are not really forests, and not anything like what was found in the longleaf pine forests. Fire suppression was necessary to establish those off-site fire sensitive pine plantations, and has led to horrible forest conditions. You can burn longleaf planted a year ago. Generally, loblolly needs to be 10 years old to tolerate fire. That is a long time.
I wonder what animal species eg deer or bison roamed that landscape
Southern Longneedle pine was destroyed by loggers, starting right after the Civil War. Chicago was built with the wood, to be destroyed in their big, historic fire. WAY less than 5% remains. Restoration efforts are promoted by millionaires (like the current keyboard for the Rolling Stones who's working on his Carolina home place) and NGOs. Loggers exploit the lands destroyed by logging with their Southern Yellow Pine hybrids. Those tracts are no more a forest than a soybean field, and they're clearcut as soon as they're big enough to make a few 2X4s. The leftover parts make toilet paper for the Japanese, and the money rolls in.
I really hope this video goes viral. I know there are professors of forest science at Oregon State, Western Washington University, and Humboldt Cal Poly who agree with you. Forest thinning is needed almost everywhere. Herr in Kitsap County. WA, a logging company just did a forest thinning harvest inside a regional park. It was successful for everyone.
Congrats on 40K Michael, and great video.
I really appreciate this video. So many people don't know how necessary fires are to forests. However, I feel that you are missing a lot about Indigenous peoples' relationship to forests and fire. Removing fire from forests was part of colonization: changing the landscape and removing the First Nations from their culture and land. Oftentimes up here in Canada, they were called in to fight fires after the bans were put in place and risked punishment for not doing so. I believe land back is the solution, and it helps with so many issues our settler-colonial societies are facing. Returning Indigenous peoples' land stewardship to the land is how we return these forests to a healthy state because their "natural" state was intensely shaped by Indigenous Peoples. The podcast Good Fire by Amy Cardinal Christianson and Matthew Kristoff is a really good place to learn about this.
Totally agree, thank you for the update, here in Germany in the so called black forest are no pine older than 130 year's, because people ruin these forest, today is all most not other trees than pines.
Same thing is happening on the East Coast Coastal Plains region. Preventing fires has decimated the longleaf pine forests that used to thrive in the area.
Those dead trees are an incredible resource for wildlife and when they eventually fall they become another boon for the forest. When they die they open up light for younger trees to grow, when they fall they provide nutrients for the soil, and soak up moisture providing another benefit to the ecosystem. A healthy forest has all ages of trees including dead ones
While true. The video isn't about that though, it's pointing out the problem of old trees dying off not because of old age, but because they're outcompeted by another species of tree that is spreading way too quickly.
I never knew how bad of a problem this really was. Thank you for explaining in such a concise way.
Same but different story in Australia. Our bush needs the fires to both clean up the litter but also to help seeds germinate. Without the fire we don't actually get the next generation of new trees. There's a patch of bush at work, probably 50 hectares, and the youngest tree in it is probably 30+ years old.
Thankfully our government is now consulting with the Aboriginal elders more and more when it comes to forest management.
Let's hope Red Tape does not delay implementation of what needs to get done.
Australia's problem is the bush has too many young trees that won't ever be more than kindling because they can't outgrow all the other young trees. Aboriginals are not historically great silviculturists. Biggest problem we have is too many old people own the bushland and don't have the energy to manage them and often see logging as a great way to ensure retirement security, which leave the bush empty of old growth and dominated by small kindling trees that will never grow.
@@JohnSmith-pn1vv Aborigines managed the land for tens of thousands of years and it was in perfect condition with gigantic forests full of life, us white fellas knackered it in 200. I'd put up their track record against ours anytime.
Regular cold fires thin those dense sapling stands out. The Aborigines used fire to thin them out to aid hunting and movement.
The biggest problem i see is lack of funding for winter burn offs and people in the city crying over smoke haze because of said burn offs.
@@coffeebuzzz managed the land lol. Sacred beings. White fellas are the most environmentally conscious in the world and have the countries to show for it. Get out more and don't believe the ethnocentric shite ABC peddles.
@@coffeebuzzz And it has managed itself for hundreds of thousands of years before the aboriginals.
We have the same problem here in Australia. Much of our flora has evolved to need fire(or to be more precise, the smokey water after the fires) in order for their seeds to germinate. Our Aboriginal people would regularly create "cold burns" to clean out our forests and prevent the build up that would cause "hot burns" where nothing survives. Cold burns also lessen plants like Bracken and allow for the tiny plants like orchids and Sundews to be able to flourish. Also removing people's right to gather wood for personal use, such as for heating, has created areas that are now tinder boxes waiting to go up and cause more harm and damage. It is a travesty. Animals can escape a slow, cool season, cold burn but they cannot escape the fast, warm season, hot burns 😢
Fantastic video. The end question has driven me for years - what is the solution to this glaring, enormous problem?
I picked up a saw and started a company. Bid a job on some acres, hoping to do more when I’m done. Many hands make light work.
I've been saying the same things for decades. Now the fires are getting worse.
People also don't understand that these ground fires bring in fresh vegetation in the spring for the wildlife.
Also to point out that any saplings that have disease, or infection will go with the fire.
Subscribed! Thanks for the video. It was a good watch while I had my coffee.
I've never been to such kind of forest, but I see a certain beauty in how it used to work. Our forests used to be more like a jungle with thick undergrowth and vines, but in Europe. In our case, removing dead trees and preventing floods has destroyed the ecosystem. Now, they're almost sterile timber production sites and lack fungi, insects and birds (and bigger animals).
If i had a nickel for every time a human effort defeated it's own intentions I could pay off the national debt.
The USFS released the Confronting the Wildfire Crisis strategy plan. It covers pretty much all the issues you mentioned.
A lot of people like to hate on the USFS when there's plenty of blame to go around.
They've been "talking" about it for 40 years. The have Done nearly nothing.
@@drifter50038 they average 2-3 million acres of controlled burns every year. There's also a limit to the amount of things they can do without money and support.
There's no logger that wants to go in there and cut that small stuff. One of the things the usfs wants to do is find a use for the material so that there will be an incentive for private companies to go in there and get it.
We should do what? Turn it over to private landowners and hope they all get together and agree to handle the problem?
The problem is that by heavily regulating the logging industry, we essentially allowed this to happen. Private businesses were doing perfectly fine before federal institutions decided they needed to force themselves onto the market. Of course, you got people who think we need more control when the control we already have has proven to be inept. At least private businesses have a financial incentive to keep their only means of income thriving. You can't rely on a bunch of people who don't know the reality of the situation to regulate something in any effective manner.
@@generals.patton546 I don't mean this offensively but your comment is loaded with blanket assumptions treated as facts that build off one another.
How does regulating the logging industry cause overgrowth of small understory trees and scrub? Which regulations and when? Safety ones? On loggers? Mills? Land owners?
They came onto the market how? I'm not sure what that means.
Private business where doing fine? In what way?
It has proven inept? It what exactly? Have you really looked at the regulations you considered problematic before and after they were implemented to see if they had a net positive impact on addressing whatever problem they were meant to address?
Private businesses in an ideal world would balance making a profit with more altruistic goals. That rarely happens. I don't need to point out the endless list of businesses doing whatever for the sake of profit. Keeping in mind it's often private business, in the form of ranchers/large land owners that constantly fight the government over doing these burns.
Government employees get a really bad rep but they are usually honest knowledgeable people that actually are working to make things better.
Fwiw and disclosure I guess, I have a SO that works in a government type job and I come from a multigenerational family of loggers.
“our ability to fix the problems we created” is the perfect way of looking at it. the people who came before us made some choices that didn’t turn out so well. it’s our turn to make better choices now based on what we know. a lot of people are already doing good work in restoring ecosystems and there needs to be more of that.
Absolutely needs the kind of forest management that you've just described.
It’s not just the west, this has affected fire dependent forests in the east too. I’m currently studying the decline of natural red pine stands in Canada
People need to learn the difference between ground fires and forest fires.
Either way, modern forestry is a major culprit. The forestry industry wants fast growing tree plantations without fires. Where I live (in Europe) we hardly even have forests any more. We have vast fields of monoculture tree plantations, with dense rows of conifers planted at optimal distance in order to yield the greatest financial return in the shortest amount of time.
Forestry has had such an impact on our perception of a forest, that these wood plantations are thought of as forests today. Much like forestry in America has shaped the general idea that any fire in a forest is a bad idea, simply because it's bad for the forestry industry.
Unfortunately we have had the same problem in Australia, the last bad bushfires in 2019 were so hot and catastrophic we potentially have rendered the koala functionally extinct, rare to see one these days, since they had been locked up and fire prevented the land and mis managed.
Such an important message, presented in a clear, understandable way....thank you! I think that most of us that have worked in forestry related industries have known this to be how it is for some time, but trying to get the voting, unwashed public to get past the 'feel good' part of our natural world and understand true management is a whole 'nother thing!! Keep up the good work!
It’s good to see someone talk about this.
Yes forests need fires, but the fires today burn hotter than they ever have.
The fires burn so hot that the micro biosphere is hurt and the seeds that need fires also burn up.
There’s places here in Montana that have burned over 20yrs ago so hot that nothing but grass has come back, no trees or shrubs.
We need to bring back logging.
Smart logging mind you with intention to take care of the environment.
Great video. Thank you 👍👍👍
I have several questions:
1. Could dead giant Ponderosa pines (smothered by fir thickets and killed by bark beetles) be harvested for timber?
2. Can burnt/charred Ponderosa pines (killed by ladder fire, but the trunks still standing) after forest fires be harvested for timber as well?
3. Could such pine timber derived from beetle kill and fire kill still be sold profitably?
4. Could this rehabilitation of locked-up forests be co-funded by some wealthy persons interested in (potentially profitable) eco-remediation?
5. How to attain policy shift on the part of US Federal and State authorities to a more common-sense approach towards forest management?
I'm certainly curious how the planet survived for billions of years before people.
Seemed to have an easier time without us.
Bugs. Big ones. Notice how little bugs there are when driving through states.
@@DrawinskyMoonI just said that to my wife a week ago. We were driving through a swamp that I have driven since I was a kid. I was telling her that my father actually carried Windex because his windshield would be plastered with bugs when he got home. Lately we haven’t had one bug on our windshield.
Well put together! Keep doing more of this kind of content. We really need to spread awareness, to those who do not understand forest maintenance
This is the best explanation I have seen about the mismanagement of our forests. Thank you and keep it up!
You’ve made a subscriber out of me. I’ve watched a number of your videos over the years, but this one convince me to fully commit to your honesty and your great sense of humor. We need to stop loving our forrests to death.
U😂p here, in Washington, I wanted to be a to be a ranger so I went to school in Forestry Management. In 19 71. I got kicked out of the program for exposing all the government and Weyerhouser Bull shit. You are spot on....... only you have Crown Z and the government to battle down there.
red unlike you , I have more faith in mother nature recovering....... just takes much longer , or a few more fires ❤
I watch many homesteaders that are going back to grazing animals in wooded areas to clear them. Pigs, goats, sheep are all used very well to clear weeds, scrub, brush & small trees.
They use portable electric fencing with solar power to create temporary paddocks. When the animals have cleared an area, they move the electric paddock enclosure to the next area.
It doesn’t solve the issue with the larger trees causing crowding, but it could be a start.
Sadly I think the most likely scenario is to let it start from scratch after they die out.
If the forest service gets their stuff together and decides to fix it, they could put out the call for local foresters, loggers, etc to come in and start clearing out some of that mess. If they sell the cause as well as you do, I believe there are many folks that would heed the call to save the forests without thinking they need to get rich since the subsidies aren't there. It would be a very long process, but if you were able to focus on certain sized patches at a time, you could clear the bigger trees, burn it, and move on to the next patch. Then just let the patches you've already cleared burn at regular intervals before they grow back up, and every year that repaired area will get bigger and bigger.
Your analysis is spot on. Thank you. I wish I had a solution to offer. We are trying to take care of our small portion of a forest. It’s almost an insurmountable amount of work.
Keep putting out the crucial educational vids!
Smokey Bear mythology has done terrific damage.
Also noteworthy that bark tends to burn very poorly. Jeffery Pine bark is extremely thick 3 to 6" maybe, and if used for firewood bark should be removed, it thwarts fire.
What you say is 100% true.
However, if we started to pre-burn our national park forests, the masses would over-react and keyboard outrage about it. No matter how well you articulate the necessity of this, they would still outrage about it. And THATS what would make the News, thus forming public opinion, even over the professional advice and input. This is the world we live in: The masses rage about things they have zero idea about, just because of emotion, and no amount of logic will change their minds.
I live in the Canadian Rockies, and nearly ALL of our parks and forests look like this @8:09 and its such a damn shame.
Have you seen the news of the firestorms in Alberta, Canada that burned down the vacation town of Jasper @ Jasper National Park.
Such a beautiful place burned to ash
Firewood sales. FS/forresters mark all the trees that need/can be removed and provide a low cost or free permit to clear the section. The wood could be sold in whatever manner the permit holder ones (milled boards, firefood, chainsaw scultpures, etc).
The process probably would not appeal to big business but smaller businesses might be able to make it work!
Awesome Video!!!
I'm doin my part. I intend to preserve my forest an protect the forest around me.
The solution is to build forest service housing. Between the wood and the tourist cabins it will pay for the workforce that is needed.
I reckon it would be really interesting to see you "correcting" that type of forest in your families up the hill property, e,g logging or felling the firs. It would be grand to see that happen and you fireproofing/drought proofing those massive ol' trees. So removing the firs that surround the big ass trees. This would amplify your message, but also confirm its saveable
Sounds like he might. Woops it's not his land
@@GlorifiedG-z9c like I said, in the video where he felled the big ahh dead pine there were plenty of firs around, thus a possible contribution to its demise. I was referring to those trees, that re most definately in his land for saving. It would be a pity to see hundreds of years old trees dying out due to over crowding.
I think the solution is to contract foresters to do remedial thinning in forest service land. we're already getting smarter about not being overly aggressive about snuffing fires. problem is we have one side of the government that wants to leave the forests untouched, and the other side is drooling over all that lumber, and would give the big logging companies leases to mow the whole thing down and leave all the slash behind.
We always screw things up when we intervene but now we call it saving the environment.
In Sweden we make electricity, heat and bus fuel from wood chips. We have laws that govern how forests have to be managed. And we have national parks with natural forests that can't be touched. I would make wood chips to make electricity from by making it to methane gas in digesters and burn it, and you'll get fertilizer as biproduct as slurry and solid compost for your fields. When you spread that on your fields you need less NPK that destroys the soils and you take carbon out of the atmosphere and bind it in your fields as soil to grow food in. Make money from fixing the forests, you get heat, electricity, fertilizers from saving doing it, key words "making money".
Prophet.
it is very easy to make electricity from wood chips when you dont produce muck of any thing
Sharing this video with the individuals who control the forestry management in that area would be a good start to possible positive change.
You tell em Mr. Wilson! Generally, people are too lazy to even cut fallen trees out of Forest Service roads they’re traveling on. Maybe they’ll open a spot barely wide enough to pass through. Consider promoting cutting trees completely out of the road and stacking the rounds to leave a sign/message of recognition of the forest fuel problem. Campers, hunters ect. will use the wood later. Folks should make it a point to go into the woods at least once a year (out of fire season) cut some dead wood/branches and make a nice big “warming fire”. Millions of people doing this would make a dent, at least near the roads, which is a start. Battery chainsaws make this type of outing more convenient these days. Buy a battery pole-saw or handsaw to cut dead branches if you’re inexperienced with chainsaws. A pole-saw is safer to use and is great for cutting ladder fuels, which burn ez’r in wet conditions too. Help start the ‘road round stack clan’ movement Mr. Wilson!
On a larger scale, biomass power generation may be more economical now. Battery trucks to haul the biomass out of the woods are beginning to make sense. Portable biomass power generation stations are available to “fuel” battery powered harvesting equipment.
There could be a bottleneck with regards to the availability of lithium and cobalt for all those batteries - not to mention the environmental and ethical considerations due to all the mining.
I live in a heavily forested area of New England that a century ago was clear cut as far as the eye can see. I often think about how the forest was mostly turned to pasture long before the advent of the chainsaw.
@@dongkhamet1351 there are negative impacts from all technologies, but some seem to be worse than others. It makes a little sense to use the power that can be generated from fuel reduction to power the industrial level processes needed to reduce the fuel load in our woods. Unloaded battery trucks going up the mountain with loaded battery trucks coming down the mountain can take advantage of regenerative braking to produce power too. E power heavy equipment tech used in underground mining may have some carryover into the woods.
@@ElectricDanielBoone you raise some excellent points and for the record I enjoy the use of three electric chainsaws to my one gas powered saw that gets only irregular use.
@@dongkhamet1351 good to hear👍
You're right on with your comments. Great channel.
Look at what just happened in Jasper National Park in Alberta Canada. Mismanaged forests and a huge fuel load was just waiting to explode. 300' walls of flame swept through. It's just a matter of time in every one of our forests.
Here's on Vancouver Island, I'm pro-forestry and all the benefits that it brings, but the mono-culture hyper dense lodgepole pine replantings, the restricted access to what were public lands, and the non holistic approach we are seeing to management is short sighted and effects everything.
We need a complete reset on our approach to managing these forests.
Wasn't there a forest service that young adults entered into after school like the army? Need to have that back again
Probably thinking of the 3C from the Depression. My grandfather was in it before the war. They planted trees and fought fires. Lol, there it is.
Our government doesn't like logical ways of thinking, but I still hope more find out about the truth.
Waive all government regulations during the winter months annually. Open those lands up to timber companies and citizen firewood cutters and let them cut any tree less than 30" diameter.
I would think it would have to be more specific on species, region and are dead trees free game.
I doubt logging companies are going to go and do selective cutting.
They want to clear cut. It’s more profitable. And as most of us know, the interest of the shareholders comes first.
The forest service mission was to sell timber first, recreation and range management next.
@Bushman9 that is all logging is allowed in eastern Washington since 1976 is select cutting.
I have been seeing this in our northern Utah mountains my whole life. In addition to setting up oir forests for catastrophic wildfires, this type of non-managment has only been aggrivating our drought by reducing runoff.
I am a civil engineer and have worked on multiple multimillion dollar projects in the past few years restoring damage from flooding and mudflows caused by large rain events following catastrophic fires.
What makes this issue so much worse is that every time the forest service in our area decides to have a timber sale, the Sierra Club threatens a lawsuit, and the Forest Service backs down without any legal fight.
People dont try to be stupid. But on the same hand very few try to be smart. We are in trouble. At 70 every thing i see is very troubling. No idea what to do about it. But pray that help will find us.
Beautifully said! I work for the Nisenan tribe and this is a front a center topic. Bringing back good fire to the land as a form of maintenance is part of the answer. It's hard work. But if we want to keep our communities safe we need a different approach. Heading to the Park Fire in Chico this coming week where it's burned 350k acres in less than a week. Blessings!
Take pictures and say goodbye to these majestic forests. When they’re gone people will have only pictures. Will they care?
The Pine Bush in Albany NY has been intensively managed to deal with just this very issue. They have spent massive hours mechanically removing locust, aspen, maple, and some oak so the pine and natural vegetation can thrive for the Karner Blue Butterfly. Then they prescribe fires regularly. That's a tiny area compared to the national landscape.
Congrats on 40k Michael . Your lesson today reminded me of someone I once knew who wore a t shirt with the slogan " I'm a slash and burn Greenie " written on it . His answer to the tree huggers . Management is key , by those who actually knows what they're doing .
Don't blame it on "Tree Huggers". The logging and wood-products industries are just as much to blame. When they kept clear-cutting forests despite the evidence that the practice was very harmful, it caused a backlash. The answer lies somewhere in the middle, as with most of our problems.
@@clayoreilly4553 A-effing-MEN!
People have known this since ancient times, very frustrating that people don't understand even the simplest of things. Thank you for the video.
so what to do? deliberately set fires in the cold wet months? so's we can handle them? doze fire trails and divide into sections we can handle one at a time. allow selective logging.
Yes.