Removing dead trees and debris from the forest floor reduces wildfire risk and safeguards people and communities. This wood can also be turned into things like paper, firewood, wood pellets and energy. Unfortunately, the wood is often too low value to cover transportation costs. That’s where we step in. The Forest Service is investing more than $23 million in grants to move over a million tons of low-value trees and woody debris from national forests to processing facilities to be turned into products Americans need. https://lnkd.in/gPvzzVeC
Ron Ward
2mo
Larger logs, standing or downed can be critical habitat for dens, nesting cavities, for specialist like mountain or western bluebirds, woodpeckers, sapsuckers, owls , nuthatches, and a variety of bird species. Amphibians, reptiles, and other wildlife need cover, nesting substrate, denning areas, foraging areas, as do mustelids, squirrels, mountain quail, nuthatches, chickadees, as insect life often makes use of such structure for laying eggs, resting sites, and food sources. Logs or downed trees do serve as moisture sinks as water is absorbed like a sponge favouring mycelial growth and nutrient cycling while hosting plant species like mosses, ferns, and the like. Carpenter ants and other ant species are very important in the food chain, as well as actively converting the wood fibre into nutrients or the chambers for ant colonies, termite colonies. Structure is very important on the forest floor creating microsite and transportation links for a myriad of creatures. I have witnessed some piling of woody debris for prescribed burns that sacrifices this important structure while due to fuel loading seems to put the surrounding forest at risk as the fuel loads are too consequential. Again it is very important to not oversimplify.
Ron Ward
2mo
It is also very important to not compact soils or destroy/ denude forest floor plants and organisms that are so important in the nutrient cycle whereby woody debris is composted or recycled in the form of nutrient cycling which builds hummus or other soil strata. Heavy machinery can be very impactful creating more runoff and less water saturation on the forest floor limiting the important absorption of rainfall on the forest floor. Dying trees do host other important organisms which make use of the sap and other plant tissue of these trees creating important food chains or nutrient networks for fungi, which are important as some species of ants/ termites convert the wood into colony chambers and reproduction sites. Forests must be judged very critically as the natural cycles of Nature are at work even when there may be dead and dying trees within. Again, fuels for wildfires near human communities or infrastructure or power poles, or camping areas should be wisely assessed and not hastily judged as waste when within most forests little is actually wasted when it is viewed from the Viewpoint of natural nutrient cycling.
Ram Tankersley
2mo
"Unfortunately, the wood is often too low value to cover transportation costs." Not economically feasible, but the US taxpayer has really deep pockets so providing grants from their tax money eliminates the concern for economic feasibility. Something about this doesn't sound just right...
Paul Dufford
2mo
I also wonder about the removing of habitat for other living things. I remember learning about the "nursery trees" in the red wood forests.
Ron Ward
2mo
Downed wood provides habitat, cover, important microsite for young trees when in the form of nursery logs, denning or nesting substrate, i.e. like mountain quail, insect food like for grubs or various ant species, and then food sources for black bears, western fence lizards and other ant or grub consumers. Certainly near infrastructure, certain roads or camping areas, or in high risk fire prone areas where there is more than moderate amount of fuels buildup some removal may be considered worthwhile to take out of the fuel rich zones especially when near human communities or power lines. Snags, downed woody debris in the larger context should be considered highly valuable for nutrient cycling within the forest especially when the forest is mesic where the wood/logs absorb water often like a sponge and can be a net positive factor in the compost/nutrient cycle again serving invertebrates, insect life, reptiles or amphibians cover and important habitat variables on the forest floor. It is important to remember the structural component of downed woody debris for mushrooms and other mycelium or other plants species that utilise the wood fibre for nutrients and rooting substrate which can be used by a host of plant and fungal species.
Gerald Kimes
2mo
Ask the people in the Palisades and Eaton fires about not clearing "low value" wood. I believe it used to be called underbrush. Controlled burns used to be the solution!
Beverly Burke
2mo
That’s wonderful! Great idea. I’m sure we can use those efforts in Oregon.
Michael Griffin
2mo
These Grants are Valuable. In Tuolumne county, CA, the SERAL projects have treated thousands of acres-but the burn & log cull piles are still there. Grants like this will enable this debris to be picked up and used for biomass. https://www.fs.usda.gov/r05/stanislaus/newsroom/stories/stanislaus-landscape-project
Wow....really??
Retired at U.S. Forest Service
2moAs a retired USFS Forester with 40 years experience i have to wonder if you've been drinking the Kool-aid! There is no way that dead and down can be removed to the point where it will effect mega (no pun intended) fires. Western forest terrain is too unforgiving and designated Wilderness does not allow such removal. Not to mention public outcry. Face it...More mega fires are the thing of the future. In the west, DONT build in the woods!