George Rebane
Scientists tell us North America today has more trees than ever before. This is doubly so in the west where entire mountain ranges are matted with thick forests and dense underbrush. A little more than a century ago these same mountains were covered with copses and sparse stands of trees separated by cleared land of brush and grasses. Smaller fires regularly thinned out the forests and dried grasslands to provide a healthy environment for the next generation of growth. In the west, lightning was the natural source of flame, but on the plains and in the eastern part of the continent, Indians regularly set fires to husband their lands and forests for maximum productivity of edible plants, fodder, and game.
Environmental zealotry bordering on madness has today transformed these forests into a Disneyesque landscape of uniform vegetation that may look good from a distance, but is completely unmanageable when it comes to productivity and conservation. Where before the land provided for people’s needs, it has now been transformed into a costly and dangerous taboo maintained by cadres of government workers implementing stacks of insane regulations and laws.
Nevada County’s Supervisor John Spencer recently made another call for sanity in the husbanding of the Sierra forests – ‘Sierra forests on one-way path to destruction’. We should heed such counsel and again open these mountains for productive uses, recreation, and living spaces compatible with their natural order.
The photos are from the eloquent and comprehensive essay Fire in the Sierra Nevada Forests – A Photographic Interpretation of Ecological Change Since 1849 by George E. Gruell.
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