Last updated on 2012.11.18
Governor Dennis Daugaard's office proudly announces that the state's pine beetle initiative has treated 215,000 infested trees since last fall.
Treated? Like bought 'em ice cream?
Treatment techniques include removing infested trees for use in sawmills, as well as the cut and chunk, cut and peel, and cut and chip disposal methods [Governor's office, press release, 2012.07.23].
I offer a only a minor quibble about language here: why does the Governor headline the word treatment instead of removal? Treatment sounds like what I get at the hospital: I'm sick, and the doctor does something to remove the problem from me, not remove me from existence. Can any of my forest-minded friends tell me why treatment is the preferred term here?
By the way, pine beetles killed four million trees in the Black Hills last year. Our state efforts have removed a little more than 5% of those trees. The Legislature this year authorized $6.1 million for an effort that seems dwarfed by the awesome force of billions of rice-sized bugs. Considering the Republicans running this state are the same folks who tell us climate change is perfectly natural and stand in the way of major efforts to mitigate it, one wonders why they think they can beat nature in the pine beetle battle... or why they should try:
Logging or thinning beetle-killed forests is often advised for the sake of "forest health." But there is nothing intrinsically unhealthy about a beetle outbreak, argues University of Wisconsin entomologist Ken Raffa, even an epidemic-sized one. "Beetles are part of the forest," he says. "They play valuable roles, just as fire does. If we say we're managing the forest to promote 'forest health,' that's not a fair way to say it. If we're honest, we'll say we're managing the forest because we and the beetles are competing for the same resource" [Gail Wells, "Bark Beetle Kill Leads to More Severe Fires, Right? Well, Maybe," High Country News, 2012.05.14].
There are really only 3 options:
1. Log the forest aggressively.
2. Let it burn periodically.
3. Let the beetles eat it and then burn.
Most of the beetle-killed trees are on federal land, not state land. Hence the state has not removed them. The federal government has been lax in managing the beetle outbreak on its land which at the very least complicates the ability of the state and private landowners to manage their own land. Federal land is a tinderbox waiting to happen (the portion that has not already burned).
If the Black Hills National Forest were not the most heavily populated national forest in the country it might not matter so much if it burned. Fires are part of nature after all, just like beetles. If you look at maps from the 1800's there are far more trees now in the black hills than there were then. One might argue that this is a result of the federal government's attempts to "protect" the forest by limiting logging and usage. One might argue that the federal government actually created the situation where beetles are prevalent and fires are more difficult to control.
That said, it makes sense to me for the health of the forest and for the benefit of the people living in it and enjoying it to aggressively log the dead and infested trees. And I consider myself an environmentalist.
http://interested-party.blogspot.com/2010/09/connect-dots.html
Cut trees.
Kill kitties.
Best use of my tax dollars.
True, there is nothing intrinsically unhealthy about pine beetle outbreak. Yet the same cannot be said for catastrophic crown fires that are highly likely for the 7-10 years it takes for the acres of dead pines to fall over. The same cannot be said for the nearly impenetrable abatis created when the pines fall - blocking paths for wildlife, wildlife control, and forest management.
The trees should be removed and used. Using my tax dollars to spray a soon to be dead tree, does not make any sense. It has been said that there will be two hatches this year and that would seem to mean that the work done would have to be done yet again. The global warming is here and we better start getting used to it as we have no adults in the room to lead the way in further events. Greenland is melting and our forests are burning and our dear congressional leaders and state officials, just want to talk about spraying a couple bugs. I recommend that they get an ice pick, that will do about as much good.
FS awards nearly $4M for woody biomass projects: source.