Los Padres ForestWatchBy the Los Padres ForestWatch
An unprecedented study was published last week in the peer-reviewed journal Fire, exposing a broad pattern of scientific misrepresentations and omissions that have resulted in a “falsification of the scientific record” in recent forest and wildfire studies typically funded or authored by the U.S. Forest Service. This falsified record has had profound implications for how public lands have been managed in recent decades, serving as a faulty scientific foundation for justifying large commercial logging and habitat clearance projects throughout the Western United States, including in the Los Padres National Forest.
The new landmark publication—authored by four top independent fire scientists in the country—focuses on a series of studies used by the Forest Service to craft the popular but misleading narrative that forest lands were historically sparsely vegetated. The theory maintains that modern fire-suppression practices have resulted in a “back-log” of vegetation that is fueling major fires throughout the western United States. This narrative, commonly accepted at face-value, is regularly relied on to justify commercial logging projects on public lands.
In 2022, the Forest Service relied on this falsified record when it announced a project to remove large trees and clear wildlife habitat using heavy equipment across 235,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest. The proposal, controversially named the Ecological Restoration Project, represents the largest industrial-scale land manipulation in our region, and has received massive opposition from scientists, environmental groups, elected officials, and the general public.
The Pine Mountain Project, a similar logging proposal that received nearly 16,000 letters of opposition from the public, is also based on the misguided theory that commercial logging is essential to keep forests healthy and protect communities from fire.
“The forest management policies being driven by this falsified scientific narrative are often making wildfires spread faster and more intensely toward communities, rather than helping communities become fire-safe,” said Dr. Chad Hanson, research ecologist with the John Muir Project and co-author of the new study. “We need thinning of small trees adjacent to homes, not backcountry management.”
According to the study, a large body of modern research indicates that many commercial logging projects on public lands are based on faulty assumptions and outdated methodology, and that modern “forest thinning” projects—like the “Ecological Restoration Project,” the Pine Mountain Project, and similar proposals in the Los Padres—are not only environmentally damaging, but may be making communities more vulnerable to wildfire at a monumental expense to taxpayers. Studies conducted by Forest Service scientists or funded by the agency have repeatedly included serious flaws while also omitting data and other research that conflicts with their model of what western forests looked like prior to fire suppression, according to the new paper.
“This is perhaps the most comprehensive paper that has been published on the subject of historical fire activity and forest structure in the western United States,” said Baker. “It calls into serious question the narrative that the Forest Service and other agencies have been relying on to justify damaging management activities like logging and clearing of wildlife habitat.”
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The large-old-growth trees (which logging companies treasure) are NOT the issue. The issue is all the undergrowth that is allowed to gain 10′-15′ heights and increased density, causing a huge fire load that kills everything in the soil as it burns so hot… It’s the undergrowth that needs to burn periodically so as to keep the forest(s) soil healthy as well as the medium & large growth trees….
Sounds like covid.
Only to the conspiracy-inclined folks with mental deficiencies. To anyone sane, it looks like an exposure kowtowing to industry at the expense of the public.
Please stay of topic.
Bringing up covid on a forestry article is off topic. To say it’s not is a LIE.
Bringing up falsified studies/records on an article about a falsified study/record is very much on topic.
Not if it’s about covid and the article you’re commenting on is about forestry management. Nope, not at all bub.
The article about forestry management?
You should read the article again then.
The blame gang is real at LP Forest Watch. Just because you disagree doesn’t mean it is faulty and misrepresented.
Oh, to be a fool. Do you know what peer-reviewed means? This study has passed through the hands and eyes of many scientists who have agreed it is sound science. If you think you know better, you are simply stupid.
Peer-reviewed is the gold standard, unless the conclusion doesn’t fit the preferred narrative then it is “fringe science” and can be discarded. Also worth noting all of these scientific studies need funding, do you know what happens when a study doesn’t produce the conclusion the group funding the study wants? It gest shelved and never sees publication.
Once again, the anti-environment people here are proved wrong, and continue to spread BS without reading the article and its references.
Spreading BS is their main strategy now. Come up with substantive policies? Fix real-world problems? Nahhh that’s for nerds. Much easier to screech about trans people or abortion. Or in this case, be pedantic about made-up nonsense telling California to start “raking the forests like Finland does.” Sure, brush-clearing on federal land in wilderness terrain definitely sounds like an easy job for the states! Dear leader said to get the rakes out, we must be bigly and follow. Ooga Booga.
Repugliklans hate the environment, hate people that are different than them, hate those less fortunate, have no understanding of empathy, and spread misinformation to try and help their pathetic and hateful agendas.
I thought they reduced the safe distance to power lines allowing more vegetation?
Either way it’s a he said she said & I don’t believe anything the government puts out.
In case you want to pay attention, this has absolutely nothing to do with power lines.
It’s absolutely not natural for the forest to become so overgrown and dense. If the people opposing the pine mountain restoration project have their way, it will become a showcase of why the forest service was right and why the restoration project was needed. Pine mountain will burn sooner or later. With all the overgrowth acting as ladder fuel the large majestic trees will burn too. After that the vegetation will be about as sparse as you would expect to find it on the moon. The restoration project will clear out the overgrowth and small trees which will reduce disease and ensure the large mature trees survive the next fire. Anyone who opposes this restoration project is effectively advocating for the destruction of all the beautiful large trees in this area.
As the report showed – baloney.
In 2022, the Forest Service relied on this falsified record when it announced a project to remove large trees and clear wildlife habitat using heavy equipment across 235,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest.
always amusing reading what known trump supporters say when it comes to taking care of our forests. amusing, and rich with bad ideas, lack of science and common sense. How about….leave the forests alone. Those trees didn’t need us raking under it a few thousand years ago. Certainly doesn’t need human intervention now either. Leave it alone and it takes care of itself. That is nature.
It was common for indigenous people of Ca to burn regularly. This kept under brush to a minimum and burned cool enough not to destroy large trees or the soil organisms. Clear brush manually or with fire where possible and leave the large trees alone. Restrained harvest of select large trees in the forest is sustainable unlike that which is proposed.
Forest Watch, like many originally well-meaning environmental groups, has morphed into a money raising “non-profit” that pays it’s staff very well. And it’s founder, Jeff. The shriller their messages, the more money they rack in.
You should see the requests I get from other people-both sides of an issue, I guess it is all about freedom of speech. Imagine that.
Nothing is more bizarre to me than complaining about people being paid fairly. Capitalism’s got you and the rest of the right completely brainwashed, to your and your peers’ own detriment! Yikes! Smarten up.
I can’t take Forest Watch (Faulty Watch) seriously, always been a bunch of radicals and opposed views.
I volunteer at a preserve that has fires and attendant flooding every 10 -15 years. The forest regenerates so rapidly it is stunning. Small trees spring from base roots if top growth is cinder, small limbs sprout from sides of trees not burnet, after being seeded so many years by large growth trees in the forest, young trees and other plants sprout everywhere, popping up from burnt soil and cinders. Cutting the large trees would eventually make this beautiful wild space a desert with grasses and obnoxious weeds. The new report is correct. So sad that science was used (and funded) by the US Forest Service to justify such stupid forest management. It would appear that the Forest Service continues to be in the sway of the wealthy forest products industry. The public is fighting this fight and finally has a change to win the the US FS and logging industry battle of disinformation.
“In 2022, the Forest Service relied on this falsified record when it announced a project to remove large trees and clear wildlife habitat using heavy equipment across 235,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest.”
Who said anything about cutting large trees? That is not part of the plan for the restoration project. The plan is to clear brush and smaller trees in order to protect the large trees from disease and fire.