- Author: Jeannette Warnert
Reposted from the UCANR Green blog
After conducting extensive forest research and taking into consideration all aspects of forest health – including fire and wildlife behavior, water quality and quantity – a group of distinguished scientists have concluded that enough is now known about proposed U.S. Forest Service landscape management treatments for them to be implemented in Sierra Nevada forests.
“There is currently a great need for forest restoration and fire hazard reduction treatments to be implemented at large spatial scales in the Sierra Nevada,” the scientists wrote. “The next one to three...
- Author: Kim Ingram
- Posted by: Susie Kocher
Reposted from the UCANR Green Blog.
Hike off-trail through most any part of the Sierra Nevada and you may find yourself losing your hat to a low hanging branch, your shoe to a thicket of dead and dying brush, or your companion to the crevice hidden by the wall of young trees.
There is no doubt that the forests of the Sierra Nevada, while amazingly beautiful, have grown dense with vegetation. Consequently, forests have become increasingly susceptible to high severity fires, which negatively impact the forest's overall health and our ability to enjoy it.
There is a relationship between a healthy forest and its density. The...
- Author: Zac Unger
- Posted by: Susie Kocher
Tintype photography by Michael Shindler
- Author: Kim Ingram
- Posted by: Susie Kocher
Reposted from the UCANR Green Blog
Thinning a forest of woody materials has multiple objectives. It can increase the resiliency of the remaining trees from the effects of fire, drought, pest and disease; it can improve habitat quality for wildlife including watersheds; and it can make it easier for firefighters to protect human lives and livelihoods when a fire is burning. There are several ways thinning is carried out: cable logging, feller bunching, conventional tractor skidding, hand-thinning and piling, and mastication. One of the issues with thinning is the disposal of biomass that is non-merchantable (e.g., branches, tree tops, small diameter trees)....
- Author: Susie Kocher
- Author: Kim Ingram
- Editor: Sophie Kolding
The 2004 Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment that guides the management of the national forests in the Sierra has been ripe with controversy since its inception. Disagreements over harvesting plan details, the effectiveness of SPLAT fuels treatments and their effects on wildlife and water issues led to the formation of the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) as a way to address these controversies and learn from the best available science. The US Forest Service, US Fish & Wildlife Service and California Resource agencies contracted with the University of California to be an independent, neutral third party to research key management issues, develop a multi-party adaptive management program that builds on new research...