Tag: forest health

TThomas Fire 2017, Ventura County
Climate, Environmental Issues

Confronting Wildfire: Retrofit Communities, Not Forests

As California continues with massive wind-driven, high-intensity wildfires that often turn deadly, the governmental and institutional response has been to thin forests and “grind up vegetation” to fight fires. Naomi Pitcairn points to a movement by plant community and wildfire experts led by the Richard Halsey of the Chaparral Institute to focus on protecting vulnerable communities rather than trying to control nature, which now faces extreme heatwaves and droughts from an unpredictable greenhouse-gas-warmed climate.

Rim Fire, Yosemite, post-fire ecosystem
Environmental Issues

Protecting Greater Yosemite Ecosystem from Salvage Logging

The US Forest Service salvage logging plan ended up damaging the health of the Greater Yosemite Ecosystem far more than 2013’s massive Rim Fire. Chad Hanson from the John Muir Project of the Earth Island Institute explains how wildfires can promote ecological health and survival of many plant and wildlife communities, despite the intense heat and scale of the blazes.