More gubmint inefficiency, aka OOPS!!!!

[landusepbb]

Forest Service admits 'serious' logging error

Mismarking of trees results in cutting in rare Oregon reserve

By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press
August 25, 2005

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - The U.S. Forest Service admitted Wednesday to making a "serious" mistake that allowed 17 acres to be logged inside a rare tree reserve as part of the salvage harvest of timber burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire.

The logging inside the 350-acre Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area, created in 1966 to protect Brewer spruce and other rare plant species in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, was discovered last week by environmentalists after the Fiddler timber sale was harvested and a forest closure intended to bar protesters was lifted.

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Forest Service personnel mismarked the border of part of the Fiddler timber sale next to the botanical area - although just who did it or how it happened was not immediately clear, said Illinois Valley District Ranger Pam Bode.

Normally, trees are marked with stapled tags and paint to show the boundaries of timber sales and reserves within them.

"It is the Forest Service's intent to manage the Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area to minimize human intervention in the ecological process," Bode said. "For us to have changed the ecology in that area through removal of these dead trees is a serious error, and we will do all we can to determine the best path to move forward from here."

Barbara Ullian, conservation director of the Siskiyou Project group that discovered the damage, called for a formal investigation into the incident and said it demonstrated the importance of allowing the public to monitor logging operations in national forests.

"This is no small little slip across the border and a few trees," Ullian said.

The Forest Service closed the area to the public in March after protesters tried to block logging roads and sit in trees.

"The big picture we've seen is that the Forest Service has done a poor job of marking and monitoring many of its sales," said Forest Fleischman, a policy advocate for Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, which won a court order forcing the Forest Service to use its own personnel, rather than loggers, to mark trees left for wildlife in the Fiddler sale.

Spokeswoman Patty Burel said the Forest Service would look into the problem, but any issues regarding employee performance would remain confidential.

"There is a real difference in the Forest Service between performance problems and misconduct," Bode said.

"At this point, I don't have any information that would lead me to think there was misconduct. This would have been a performance error."

Siskiyou Project counted 290 stumps inside the botanical area, including one that measured 3 feet in diameter and was 234 years old, -Ullian said.

There was nothing left after the logging to indicate the boundary had been marked, but it could be clearly recognized from a map because it ran across the top of a ridge and included part of a road, Ullian said.

A new logging road was bulldozed along the top of the ridge.

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[sceep]

bummer

[Hooper]

Bummer. But, they were logging burned trees, so the 234 year old tree was dead...

Whose brainchild is it, anyway, to leave dead, burnt trees standing in a forest to protect the ecology of the area... the fate of that ecology is easy to predict... ash...

I understand they want to preserve the area from human intervention, to protect a couple of sensitive species... but a forest fire doesn't discriminate.. it kills trees and plants, regardless of the endangered species act...

So, they screwed up, mismarked the boundaries, but the net result is a GOOD thing, because the fauna they are trying to protect are better off without a bunch of tinder standing around...

[SteveZ59]

The funniest thing though is if the eco-nazi's were capable of behaving like normal human beings the section of forest wouldn't have to have been closed off and someone might have caught the mistake.

Guess they shot themselves in the foot on that one.

Big deal, so some extra already dead tree's got cut down. You would think they clear cut an entire nature preserve and ground spotted owls and precious bog turtles under the cleats of their machines.

[DaGimp]

Originally Posted by SteveZ59

The funniest thing though is if the eco-nazi's were capable of behaving like normal human beings the section of forest wouldn't have to have been closed off and someone might have caught the mistake.

X2

Dead tree's do have a purpose in the eco system.

[Hooper]

Originally Posted by DaGimp

X2

Dead tree's do have a purpose in the eco system.

Sure. They provide tinder so that a diseased forest can catch fire and burn up, killing the diseased area, and protecting the areas not yet infected.

Trees die for a reason. They have a lifespan - they get old and die. They get killed in a fire. They blow over. Their roots are undercut and they fall over.

Once a forest reaches a lifespan, the trees die. Part of nature. If only a few die, they don't pose the same hazard as an infected area. They will provide habitat for native creatures.

If you get a mass of dead trees in an area though, especially burnt trees, they provide tinder, and before long, mother nature provides the obligatory spark and everything turns to ash, allowing younger, healthier trees to start the cycle again.

In this case, such a result would be contrary to the plans for the area that is under preservation... so it would be wiser to harvest the burnt trees.