USDA Says It Needs Roads to Fight Remote Wildfires, but a New Study Says Roads Bring More Fire to Forests
https://slrpnk.net/post/35810718
USDA Says It Needs Roads to Fight Remote Wildfires, but a New Study Says Roads Bring More Fire to Forests - SLRPNK
cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/25440472
[https://beehaw.org/post/25440472] > > When the Trump administration announced
plans last year to rescind a rule limiting roadbuilding and timber harvests on
millions of acres of national forests and grasslands, officials called the
repeal necessary to prevent and manage wildfires. > > > > But as the U.S.
Department of Agriculture prepares to release its draft environmental impact
statement for the rescission, that justification is unraveling. And many critics
of the move see the claim that roads are needed to fight fires in remote forests
as cover for a giveaway to the timber industry. > > > > On average, about 8
million acres have burned each year between 2017 and 2021, according to the
Congressional Budget Office, nearly double the average from 1987 to 1991.
Wildfires on federal lands average about five times the size of those in the
rest of the country, leading some of the nation’s top land managers to argue
that national forests are a front line for fighting the nation’s steep increase
in wildland blazes. > > > > Yet a chorus of fire scientists, frontline
firefighters, legal experts and the agency’s own historical record have
contradicted that reasoning, saying that roads don’t reduce wildfire risk; they
multiply it. > > > > If he had to name the five biggest obstacles to effective
wildfire response, lack of roads “probably either wouldn’t be on the list, or
it’d be at the bottom,” said Lucas Mayfield, a former Hotshot firefighter and
co-founder of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit that advocates for
policy on behalf of firefighters.
Study says roads bring more fires to forests; USDA wants more roads to fight fires
https://slrpnk.net/post/35810661
Study says roads bring more fires to forests; USDA wants more roads to fight fires - SLRPNK
cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/43117645
[https://sopuli.xyz/post/43117645] > > Beyond human ignitions, roads also alter
the ecological conditions that drive fire risk. Aplet’s research found elevated
ignitions from lightning near roads, not because there were more strikes, but
because roads change ground-level fuel conditions by putting gaps in the forest
canopy that allow sunlight and wind to heat and dry vegetation on the forest
floor. > > > Roads also serve as corridors for invasive species, many of which
evolved to use fire to help them spread. In the Great Basin, an area that
stretches from Salt Lake City to nearly Sacramento, southern Oregon to Las
Vegas, cheatgrass carried by vehicles, boots, and livestock to roadsides has
displaced native vegetation by creating continuous fields of fine stalks that
dry out when other grasses are just sprouting. The dry cheatgrass ignites easily
and burns quickly across landscapes where native grasses that stay moist later
in the season and grow in dispersed bunches previously inhibited the spread of
the flames.
Commodities driving agriculture-linked forest destruction (2001-2022)
https://slrpnk.net/post/35810249
European Tree of the Year 2026 - SLRPNK
> Who are the winners of European Tree of the Year 2026?
What's that tree? - Sopuli
On a recent hike in Germany I came across a tree that I never saw before. Its
entire trunk was covered with holes. The bark wasn’t cut or punctured, just
weirdly bent inwards. There was just this one tree that looked like this.
Unfortunately, it didn’t have leafs yet. Do you know what kind of tree that is?
Or is it some kind of virus / cancer etc. causing this?
Why the U.S. is the ONLY Country Without Fruit Trees
https://slrpnk.net/post/35684053
Why the U.S. is the ONLY Country Without Fruit Trees - SLRPNK
Lemmy
Árvore do Ano 2026 - Portugal - SLRPNK
Lemmy
In the copper-rich mountains of Ecuador, Shuar people are combining ancestral knowledge and modern science to protect their forest from a Canadian mining giant
https://slrpnk.net/post/35625648
In the copper-rich mountains of Ecuador, Shuar people are combining ancestral knowledge and modern science to protect their forest from a Canadian mining giant - SLRPNK
> Ecuador, among the world’s most biologically diverse countries, also holds
enormous reserves of oil, copper, gold and other minerals. Global markets want
them. Multinational companies are itching to dig. And a cash-strapped government
is eager to sell. The legal battles are intensifying.
They probably gave us our hands ;-)
And our taste for fruits maybe?
So maybe our brains, with such a quantity of energy?
I don't know, but I'd bet, with our common shared ancestry:
We are all tree huggers
#treehuggers
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cfm5zp5dozkfxfrdszae6uta/post/3mhifmkpvec23
Jim East
poVoq
LibertyLizard
Paul Arnheim-Projekt
solo
📎🐸ZhSigma@332ppm≅Σx,x∈S={🌱💚🇪🇺λP(θ|y)⁂}learn-languages-world-life