The forest service proposed it themselves and it was signed by an undersecretary in Trump’s cabinet. So it is actually more the “era” than the man, though I think era is a big word for 4 years.
The issue seems to be that restoring historical habitats, reducing fire-prone species, and diversifying the vegetation in many areas is hampered by a rule not to cut any tree >21" diameter at 6’ high. Apparently, firs reach that size relatively quickly (<100 years), are not fire resistant at all, and occur in some areas as monocultures due to past human activity.
So for awhile they’ve been getting permission on a case by case basis and in 2020 they wanted to change the rule itself and add monitoring with the option to change it back if they don’t seem to be achieving the above goals.
So sounds pretty reasonable on a five minute read, but if Oregon Wild opposes it, I guess there’s more to it and also probably good reasons to continue to make the forest service jump a few hoops when they want exceptions to this rule.
The forest service proposed it themselves and it was signed by an undersecretary in Trump’s cabinet. So it is actually more the “era” than the man, though I think era is a big word for 4 years.
This is the proposal: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd875458.pdf
The issue seems to be that restoring historical habitats, reducing fire-prone species, and diversifying the vegetation in many areas is hampered by a rule not to cut any tree >21" diameter at 6’ high. Apparently, firs reach that size relatively quickly (<100 years), are not fire resistant at all, and occur in some areas as monocultures due to past human activity.
So for awhile they’ve been getting permission on a case by case basis and in 2020 they wanted to change the rule itself and add monitoring with the option to change it back if they don’t seem to be achieving the above goals.
So sounds pretty reasonable on a five minute read, but if Oregon Wild opposes it, I guess there’s more to it and also probably good reasons to continue to make the forest service jump a few hoops when they want exceptions to this rule.