Blaming Wildfires On Environmentalists
A special guest column from Treehuggers International friend and fellow conservation colleague Rick Halsey, the director of the California Chaparral Institute and a member of the San Diego Regional Fire Safety Forum. Rick is currently putting together a talk for the International Mediterranean Ecosystems conference in Los Angeles in September, and shares a response he wrote to Mike Rogers, a retired Forest Service supervisor, in response to an e-mail Mr. Rogers sent to Forest Service fire scientist Jack Cohen.
A Century of Conservation At Muir Woods
Redwoods have a special place in western conservation culture. Along with being the tallest trees in the world, Redwoods are also some of the world’s most rot-resistant trees, and by virtue of their bark, size, and ecosystem, Redwoods are amazingly fire-resistant. Other than man, or the occasional well-placed windstorm, Redwoods have no natural enemies, and can thrive for hundreds if not thousands of years. Growing along a thin coastal band from Big Sur to the Oregon border, Redwoods once covered two million acres of the Northern California coast.
Federal Court Halts Timber Suit In Alaska’s Tongass National Forest
In a victory for old-growth forests on public land, a federal judge in Alaska has thrown out a lawsuit filed by a timber industry coalition which would have led to additional logging of old-growth areas in the Tongass National Forest, a 1,000-mile arc of temperate rainforest along Alaska’s southeast coast containing some of the most intact, oxygen-generating and climate-regualting forest on the planet.
The Big Trees of Federation Forest State Park
Podcast: Download (Duration: 28:02 — 38.5MB)
A hidden jewel located along the route to the White River entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park, Federation Forest State Park preserves several hundred acres of rapidly vanishing low-elevation old-growth forest along the White River near Greenwater, Washington, smack dab in the middle of timber country.
While Federation Forest’s history spans two locations and the history of the nearby Naches Trail, the park remains a mecca for tree lovers, where remarkable stands of ancient Western Hemlock, Douglas-fir, Western Redcedar, Sitka Spruce, even Pacific Yew, can be found within a few hours’ drive of Seattle and Tacoma.
In this edition of Treehuggers International, Washington State Park rangers Eric Lewis and Jeff Vassallo make the drive from Federation Forest to The End’s studios to talk about recent storm damage and volunteer opportunities at “Fed Forest,” and the wonder of working among some of the biggest, best-preserved trees in the state.
Note: Ranger Jeff Vassallo has since been named head ranger at Kanasket-Palmer State Park near Enumclaw along the Green River Gorge. Congratulations, Jeff!
