Salvage Logging, Replanting Worse

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, scientists have found that logging big dead trees after a wildfire and planting young ones makes future fires worse, at least for the first 10 or 20 years while the young trees create a volatile new source of fuel.

The findings by scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University raise questions about the long-standing practice of salvage logging on national forests at a time when global warming is expected to increase the size and numbers of wildfires and the annual cost of fighting them is running around $1 billion.

In the first study of its kind, scientists examined satellite images, aerial photographs, and records of logging and replanting to look at areas that burned in the 1987 Silver fire in southwestern Oregon and again in the 2002 Biscuit fire.

"It was the conventional wisdom that salvage logging and planting could reduce the risk of high-severity fires," said Jonathan R. Thompson, a doctoral candidate in forest science at Oregon State, who was lead author of the study appearing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Our data suggest otherwise."
They suggested that the large stands of closely packed young trees created by replanting are a much more volatile source of fuel for decades to come than the large dead trees that are cut down and hauled away in salvage logging operations.

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Bogus claims lead to 'chainsaw massacre' of London's trees

Up to 2,000 London street trees have been given the chop in the past five years, condemned by usually unwarranted subsidence claims, a London Assembly report has revealed. (Environment Times)In some boroughs as much as 40 per cent of trees removed have been due to insurance claims. Yet the Assembly's Environment Committee heard that barely one per cent of these claims were probably justified. A recent survey showed that, over the past five years, 40 per cent of the 325 trees removed in Hackney, 16 per cent of 1,500 trees in Brent and ten per cent of the 600 trees in Camden have been removed because of subsidence claims. In total London has lost around 40,000 street trees with 48,000 planted over the last five years. However London has suffered an overall loss of broadleaf trees and many of the new trees that have been planted are smaller, ornamental varieties. Ornamental varieties do not have the same environmental benefits as broad leaf trees, which play a vital role in protecting the capital from the effects of global warming.

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