It is reasonable to hope the government can play the lead role in providing effective management of the public’s natural resources, but as it appears from this story about government mismanagement of the forests, sometimes the market or a partnership with a nonprofit works better.
An excerpt.
Restoration lags in charred forests
Critics decry U.S. failure to replant burned tracts
By Tom Knudson - Bee Staff WriterPublished 12:00 am PDT Sunday, October 15, 2006
On one side of the property line, a new forest is taking root -- a glassy-green sea of waist-high pine planted by a timber company after a massive wildfire swept through six years ago.
On the other side, on public land managed by the Lassen National Forest, dense mats of brush cling to a landscape dominated by charred dead trees, some standing, others not.
"Nobody on the Lassen is proud of that land line," said Duane Nelson, who manages reforestation for the Forest Service in California. "We actually refer to it as our wall of shame."
Reforestation -- the planting and natural regeneration of trees -- is the most critical part of forest management. But across the West, vast parcels of Forest Service land scorched by increasingly catastrophic wildfires have not been replanted. The consequences may linger for centuries.
