The decision proposes over 37,000 acres of intensive post-fire logging, which would remove the majority of the rarest and most ecologically valuable habitat resulting from the fire on the Stanislaus National Forest: “snag forest habitat” created by high-intensity fire in mature conifer forest. This would include essentially clear-cutting 95 percent of the snags (standing fire-killed trees) in 19,462 acres of the fire area. An additional 17,706 acres of “roadside” logging is planned along roads, including old logging roads, which are not maintained for public use (and many of which are closed roads, long since decommissioned). Much of this would be clearcut too, including live, healthy, mature, and old-growth trees, which would be removed by the thousands, for no credible public safety benefit, based upon profoundly vague criteria that allow just about any tree to be cut. Because the Forest Service has closed most of the Rim Fire area to public access, and because the agency is not marking trees before they cut them along roads, there is no accountability. Even though more than 150 scientists sent a letter to the Forest Service specifically urging the agency not to log the Rim Fire area, pointing out that the snag forest habitat created by higher-intensity fire is the rarest, most biodiverse, and most threatened forest habitat type in the Sierra Nevada, the Forest Service has pressed ahead with logging plans.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 02:00:16 +0000
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