forests - Pitchstone Waters

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forests

A collection of 15 posts

Plans for an Ailing Forest Include Logging, and Some Are Suspicious

Plans for an Ailing Forest Include Logging, and Some Are Suspicious

Officials in Oregon say they need to cut trees, including some healthy ones. The reaction shows how complex land management has become as forest health declines.

Regulators, Landowners Form Habitat Protection Partnership

Regulators, Landowners Form Habitat Protection Partnership

As discussed in the article below, it is ESSENTIAL that public forest managers and the private landowners that border them work collaboratively. This needs to happen in the Greater Yellowstone area. NOTE: this article was originally published to APNews.com on March 23, 2023. It was written by John Flesher.

Meet the Mice Who Make the Forest

Meet the Mice Who Make the Forest

As discussed in the article below, forest health rests on microscopic soil organisms and tiny land creatures. Agricultural and land management practices generally dismiss soil life and small mammals as unimportant. Yet the conservation and restoration of our mighty forests and their iconic wildlife depends on the tiniest and seemingly

Turning Fire Risk Into Financial Reward

Turning Fire Risk Into Financial Reward

This article from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a free market environmental think tank based in Bozeman, discusses market solutions to the problematic small growth timber choking our public forests. This small but abundant timber is generally thought to have little economic value. NOTE: this article was originally

Returning Fire to the Land

Returning Fire to the Land

“This article from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a free market environmental think tank based in Bozeman, discusses how states are starting to overcome decades of inertia and entrenched policy challenges to promote the use of prescribed fire. NOTE: this article was originally published to PERC.org on

Healthy Forests Make Good Neighbors

Fire management

Healthy Forests Make Good Neighbors

“This article from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a free market environmental think tank based in Bozeman, discusses the common sense idea of turning federal-lands fire mitigation decisions over to states. NOTE: this article was originally published to PERC.org on June 23, 2022. It was written by

The Big Burn of 1910 and the Choking of America’s Forests

California wildfires

The Big Burn of 1910 and the Choking of America’s Forests

This article from PERC (Property and Environment Research Center), the free market environmental think tank based in Bozeman, discusses the origin of the public forest management policy that has turned out to be so bad for our national forests. NOTE: this article was originally published to PERC.org on June

pando_forest_utah

It’s the Largest Living Organism on Earth, and It’s Hiding in Plain Sight in Utah

“The largest – and possibly oldest – living organism. NOTE: this article was originally published to the Deseret News’ Apple News channel on August 15, 2021. It was written by Lee Benson. The Pando Aspen Grove near Fish Lake in south central Utah has been existing, and minding its own business, since

USDA Offers New Forest Management Incentive for Conservation Reserve Program

USDA Offers New Forest Management Incentive for Conservation Reserve Program

As reported below, The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is paying people to engage in innovative forestry practices on private land. USDA says these practices reduce fire hazards, increase water retention in soil, and benefit habitat and the wildlife it supports. Meanwhile, next to Pitchstone Waters in Idaho, the

A Tale of Two States

California wildfire insurance

A Tale of Two States: How California's Low Wildfire Premiums Burned Homeowners

As explained in the article below, in response to massive wildfire outbreaks California tried to mandate low wildfire insurance premiums. This turned out to be as disastrous for homeowners as state and federal agency “management” practices were for forests. NOTE: The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) advocates for free

Neighbors Spread the Word to Slow the Destructive Spread of Fires

Neighbors Spread the Word to Slow the Destructive Spread of Fires

As described in the article below, small controlled fires and mechanical clearing in residential areas, like this one in Jackson Hole, is a vast improvement on the widespread lack of fire management within these areas—and the public lands that surround them. As often discussed on this blog, grazing by

Burned, Beetle-ravaged Wyoming Forest Expected to Flourish

"Invasion Biology"

Burned, Beetle-ravaged Wyoming Forest Expected to Flourish

As demonstrated across the West, refusing to “manage” forests is a powerful management practice. While the practice of keeping human hands off of forest resources may be well-intentioned, it is detrimental and destructive. The “hands off” management policy has led to degraded forest conditions, which despite what we are being

Fighting Wildfires With Fire

Fighting Wildfires With Fire

Due to well-intentioned “hands off” forest management practices – often intended to help wildlife – our national forests are accumulating highly flammable understory material faster than nature can cycle it away. The well-meaning prescription set forth in the article below is controlled burns. Based on our 50-years of range and forest experience

How Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? ‘Maybe 20 Years’

carbon-sequestration

How Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? ‘Maybe 20 Years’

The eight dams discussed in the article below are artifacts of a well-intentioned, big-government mega-project that backfired. On the Columbia and Snake rivers, this mindset wiped out a 60-million fish salmon run. This massive run included the largest king salmon in the world with many weighing more than100 pounds apiece,

"Invasion Biology"

‘Earthworm Dilemma’ Has Climate Scientists Racing to Keep Up

Now we are adding earthworms to the list of invasive species. After climate change, the most discussed environmental issue is the so-called invasive species crisis. Invasive species biology rests on the mistaken belief that the animals, plants and soil life found on our planet about 500 years ago represented a