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SATURDAY December 20, 2003 - Subscribe - Contact Us Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels November 26, 2003 Watershed brush thinning needed By Vickie Aldous Ashland Daily Tidings The researcher who helped convince Americans of the value of old growth trees is calling for community accord on the need to thin wildfire fuels in the Ashland Watershed. "You have to deal with the issue of developing a social consensus," University of Washington veteran researcher Jerry Franklin told audience members Tuesday during an Ashland Watershed seminar at Southern Oregon University. "You're a microcosm. The Ashland Watershed is going to be a poster child one way or another. It will be a poster child of what a community can do or a poster child of what happens when a society fails to develop consensus to take action that is meaningful." Decades of fire suppression have left the watershed, along with forested areas across the west, choked with trees and at risk of a high-intensity wildfire. Fire resilient ponderosa pines are being crowded out by more flammable species, and the weakened forest is suffering from insect infestation, researchers said. "We're losing the pines at an alarming rate - at an epidemic rate," said Tom Atzet, regional ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service. Franklin, who began researching the importance of old growth trees back when they were labeled "over mature" and targeted for harvest, said it's time to put aside divisions and treat unhealthy forests. "We have to face the challenge of forest stewardship. We have been divided for too long by the old wars - timber versus biodiversity," he said. To encourage trust, the U.S. Forest Service should agree not to cut large diameter trees or enter roadless areas as part of wildfire fuels treatment projects, according to Franklin. "One thing they can do right now is take the big old trees off the table," he said. For their part, environmentalists should recognize the value of the timber industry in the United States, he said. Importing timber products from abroad introduces exotic pests and diseases that could decimate native forests. Additionally, funding to National Forests in the Pacific Northwest has been cut since the decline of logging and timber receipts, leaving important forest health treatments unfunded, according to Franklin. "I sure as heck don't see Congress or the White House stepping up to their stewardship responsibility," he said. Both the Ashland Ranger District and City of Ashland are moving ahead on work to thin brush and trees from the watershed. The ranger district is entering its third season of work on the Ashland Watershed Protection Project. The city has done non-commercial thinning for several years on its land and is readying a helicopter logging project that could coincide with the helicopter logging component of the district's effort. Meanwhile, the ranger district is beginning to plan for a larger watershed treatment plan that would involve sectioning the watershed with thinned swathes of forest to help compartmentalize any wildfire that does break out, according to Acting District Ranger John Schuyler. Further work would include thinning near Ashland's urban-wildlands interface and around older trees higher in the watershed, he said. Despite the call for community support for wildfire fuels reduction, some audience members expressed doubts, even questioning whether there was any scientific evidence that thinning reduces the intensity of wildfires. Carl Skinner, a research fire ecologist with the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station in Redding, Calif., said a wildfire burned into areas where he is conducting research about the effects of various types of thinning practices. The wildfire dropped out of the canopy and became a low-intensity ground fire when it reached treated areas. "In each case, it had a dramatic effect on fire behavior," Skinner said. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Road Cams