Living in Western Oregon as a naturalist and being a conscious resident of Gaia, Dr. Lenny was opposed to the Western Oregon Plan Revision proposed by the Bureau of Land Management. As an officer in a local watershed council, I have worked with the people in the BLM collecting data and helping assess the value of proposed forest projects. Michael Donnelly is right-on in his picture of what is going on in the intricate dance between corporate green, corporate timber extraction and the federal government.
The problems are a bit more intricate than what they seem. The standard approach to fire suppression is still the 1950's Smokey the Bear model - stamp howdt every fire. This level of fire suppression has meant that only large burns that get away really get to burn (ie the 2002 Apple Fire). Small fires that would have cleared the fuel loads from under the big trees never came through. Quite often, back-burns that eat more of the forest than the lightening strikes.
What is necessary is a different perspective to community forestry. Instead of managing on a national scale, these resources should be managed within community on a local scale. A broad band on individual stakeholders can be assembled to work on a consensus basis. There is an incredible fuel load on western forest that could be used as biomass - you would not have to remove a single live tree.
One plan to create mobile biomass power generators that can convert waste into chips that can be pyrolyzed to oil or sprayed back onto the forest floor is one of the small local solutions. A portion of the carbon load has to be returned to the forest floor to keep the soil base stable - the carbon in the trees themselves comes from carbon dioxide in the air. Another option would be to build lots of small ponds and wetlands to keep water available to the land deeper into the summer. These wet areas have the added feature of creating more clean fresh water - one of the major benefits of more healthy ecosystems.
Dr. Lenny will be preparing a class on Carbon - focusing on sequestration efforts in light of the new national focus on cap and trade carbon politics. The current system appears to be a large scam based on the economic powerhouse called the Chicago Climate Exchange - a product of the bankrupt but bailed-howdt finance industry, big industry and regional governments get to trade carbon credits with no link to physical reality. It is time to change that paradigm, by getting involved on a local scale.
The next Oregon Solutions - So. Oregon Renewable Energy Project Meeting in Roseburg on Thursday July 30, 2009 from 12noon - 3pm. The meeting will be held in Room 310 of the Roseburg Courthouse at 1036 SE Douglas, Roseburg OR 97470.
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