A reader reacts to the wildfires on the West Coast, which I publish mostly in the spirit of a PSA:
Or that darn “No, Cali isn’t horribly mismanaging their timber resources, and have been doing it for decades” conspiracy. Which actually hits closer to the truth. I think I may have mentioned the book “The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise” by local author and former UofM professor Dr. Jim Bowyer. A longtime professor of Forestry and Resource management at the U. You should read it. This is a quote from it talking about Cali’s forestry practices and where that’s gotten them:
“One of Knudson’s most intersting revelations focused on California’s timber supplies. He observed that in the mid 1950’s California was self-sufficient in wood, but that by early in the 21st century, driven by aggressive efforts to protect its envioronment, the state imported 80 percent of what it used. At that point, forest harvest levels within the state were less than 30 percent of what they had been a half century earlier. despite the reality that consumption of wood in California was rising steadily and the fact that annual growth in California’s forests was more than double the annual rate of removals and mortality. In 2013, harvest levels remained about the same as in 2002, while net annual growth was estimated to be 4.5 times greater than annual removals. Knudson noted that the dramatic shift, from self sufficient to massive net importer, the result of environmental lawsuits, public opinion, and increasingly strict regulations, had the effect of simply shifting the environmental impacts to Canada. In fact, logging to supply wood for California consumption not only shifted to Canada, but also to other regions. Foreign imports of wood (primarily from Canada) increased by over 40 percent from the mid 1990s through 2008, while imports from other states increased by 90 percent during that period.
As with other environmentally inspired initiatives, there is no record of any discussion in the course of court deliberations, legislative hearings, or development of state agency regulations regarding where wood to supply California’s consumption might come from if not from withing the borders of the state.
Actions to “protect” California’s forests had at least two unintended consequences:
1.) Aggressive curtailment of harvests in California forests contributed to increases in the volume of woody biomass in the state’s forests that had been building up over a number of decades, a process that continues today. Biomass stocks are currently estimated to be far above historic levels, a situation that greatly increases the odds of disease, insect infestation and catastrophic fire events.
2.) Ever intensifying forest practice regulations, especially as a result of rule amendments in the early 1990s resulted in cost increases in developing timper harverst plans of up to 1,000 percent (an average of $30,000 by 200f as compared to $2,500 30 years earlier). Consequently many California timberland owners opted to sell their land for higher returns, frequently resulting in conversion of forested land to housing. In the words of a team of investigators that examined forest trends, “California’s increasingly strickt environmental regulations of forestland are, in many cases, having precisely the opposit effect from which was intended.”
I know a couple of other people with degrees in Forestry and they’ll say the same thing. So do people from the forest service. Unfortunately Cali will probably burn until there’s nothing left to burn anymore. Perhaps at that time they’ll listen to the scientists and not the politicians and implement an intelligent policy. History says that odds are against that though.
And I have no contacts within Forestry, nor expertise, nor time to develop same. Which means I cannot comment from either expertise nor even interested amateur status. That suggests I keep my mouth shut, or try to find another way to comment. The prospects of the latter are slim: an observation that among my pop-sci readings, primarily NewScientist, I have not read a single suggestion of mismanagement of the forests of the West Coast; however, they are a UK-based, not US, publication, so the expectation of reporting in depth on the wildfires is lower.
Yesterday, WaPo published an opinion column on the same idea, which I’m going to cite, not to boost or disparage my reader’s ideas, but to illustrate an unconnected fact on the ground:
