It's Time to Work Together to Save Our Forests
Opinion Editorial:
On the wall above my computer is an old grizzled looking picture of a group of bearded good ol’ boys in 1908, original members of the Bitterroot Fire fighting team. They fought the Great Fire of 1910, what the old timers call the Big Blow. Over 80 firefighters died in that season. Over 50 of them are buried in the Circle of Heroes at St. Maries, Idaho.
My grandfather and great uncle were Bitterrooters and they fought the Big Blow. They did not die and they never forgot the experience. Neither did we. My childhood impressions and adult opinions about fire management are based on my family’s combined experiences of over 100 years of fighting fire in the Northwest.
We are grateful to live here and grateful for the work we do and the lives we lead. We are thankful for our industries and the honest labor of honest people. We know there were excesses in past forest management. We regret some of the shortsightedness of the past. But we also embrace the bright hope of a better future. Mistakes made in the past live on but they are in the past and it’s time for us to move on. We need to learn from them but not dwell on them
A bitter fight between people who want to use forests to meet increasing demand for paper and wood and those who hope to preserve our forests in their present condition forever continues to rage across the country, right alongside the forest fires and just as hot.
The wages of this fight are coming home to the bank in ways none of us ever imagined. And if we did imagine, we did not stop the fight. It is time to put down our swords and pick up our plowshares, time to put out the fires and come together to work on saving our dying forests.
Who cares how the fire started? Does it matter if a park ranger or a lightning strike started the fire? Who cares about finding someone to blame? Does it matter if the Forest Service foolishly stopped light burning in the 1920’s, or that environmental groups stubbornly refused to let the government thin forests at Los Alamos? If we start right now, working together [hopefully] or separately [if necessary], we can thin forests near our towns first, and then start working on other areas where we’d like to see forests stay alive for years to come.
Over 4.5 million acres have burned to date. We’re spending $15 million dollars a day fighting fire and putting the lives of many brave firefighters in danger and for what? Never have so many firefighters been able to accomplish so little on our behalf. Homes and habitat and beautiful views and living things that are priceless and irreplaceable are being destroyed at a pace that staggers the imagination. The President said he’d like to help and that’s fine. If money can solve this problem then he may be able to help.
In the meantime, our communities are threatened and burning, our watersheds are black and lifeless, and smoke fills our skies for miles around. If we fight long enough, say another 20 years or so, there won’t be very much left to fight about. The issue isn't who is right or wrong. The issue is maintaining living breathing forests and safe communities we all care so much about.
We know how to do it. The strident and radical environmental group Forest Guardians at Santa Fe, New Mexico, is starting to get it. They’ve come up with the notion of “light touch logging” which they define as cutting anything smaller than three inches and not selling any to timber companies. Of course that’s not enough to save the forest but it’s a start. If they can find a way to at least do that much they will see the positive impacts and I predict they will agree to do more.
For our part we have to find a way to let the Forest Guardians and others take their first small steps, which is our first small step, and then we have to all do more, lots more, so lets get started.
Owen C. Squires is the Director Rocky Mountain Region
Pulp and Paperworkers' Resource Council in Lewiston, Idaho