From the NPS:
Coming Full Circle: How Parks Are Using Conventional Tools in New Ways to Restore Imperiled Forests
Depriving western old-growth forests of fire brought them to the brink. Now the fire they need also threatens them. To fix this, parks are returning to mechanical forestry methods.
“As shown by our pilot study, in these situations, mechanical thinning can mimic some effects of prescribed fire. This is increasingly supported by science, which has demonstrated that thinning can reduce air quality impacts, increase water yield, reduce tree stress, and improve tree health. The goals of these thinning treatments are to retain and recruit old-growth and large, vigorous, mature trees and allow the subsequent use of low-intensity prescribed fire to maintain the stand in perpetuity.”
bummer.
I always liked the NPS as an example of an alternative land management pathway that could accomplish restoration without all the trade-offs associated with commercial logging.
hopefully they won’t stray too far from their roots.
Yosemite’s Fire Management hasn’t been good, over the last 30 years. Luckily, they are ‘hybridizing’ their ideas, to achieve repeatable good results, on a variety of landscapes. They have more tools in their toolbox, to accomplish their goals.
We had better do something on all public lands especially, or the great western forests as we know them will be gone by 2045.