Staff Articles

September 18, 2015
By Christy Sherr
The Union: Other Voices

Two Republican bills being considered by Congress are using the public’s fear and misunderstanding of wildland fire to mount one of the most extreme attacks on our national forests in history.

Both bills would suspend or weaken federal environmental laws and clear the way for the timber industry to dramatically increase commercial logging under the guise of “forest treatment” or “thinning.”

August 20, 2015
By Rachel Fazio
Letter to the Editor
Bend Bulletin

I know, fires are burning, people are scared. It is a natural reaction, but it should not be the basis for more failed congressional policy. Wildfires are natural – yes even in Oregon. When conditions are hotter and drier. . .

July 30, 2015
By Rachel Fazio
Letter to the Editor
Union Democrat

I read the July 25, 2015, article “Local consensus: Thin overgrown forests” with equal parts fascination and dismay. Two of the parties interviewed describe themselves as ecologists and yet they failed to recognize all the ecosystem benefits of wildfire . .

July 23, 2015
By Chad T. Hanson and Dominick A. DellaSala
The New York Times Op-Ed

[I]t is fire season again in the West and, predictably, House Republicans have approved a bill that would suspend environmental laws to increase logging in our national forests falsely claiming the legislation will reduce fire risk and “restore” our forests, when in fact it will do neither.

April 29, 2015
By Christy Sherr
The Union Newspaper

The April 16 opinion piece featured a forester with Sierra Pacific Industries who discussed historical assumptions about our Sierra Nevada forests and their complex relationship with fire. Scientists are examining these assumptions, and finding repeatedly that these assumptions are wrong.

August 28, 2014
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
Earth Island Journal

Massive logging proposal threatens many spotted owls, currently thriving in the fire-affected acres of Stanislaus National Forest.

June 3, 2014
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
Earth Island Journal

The forest is coming back to life; Forest Service plan to log there is a bad idea.

April 30, 2014
By Monica Bond, Chad T. Hanson and Dominick A. DellaSala
CounterPunch

This winter California suffered its most severe drought in decades, with record-low rainfall and meager mountain snowpack. Drought, high summer temperatures, and wind together make the perfect storm for what some have termed “mega” forest fires that, in spite of fire suppression activities, sweep across the landscape and end only when winds die down and weather cools off.

September 15, 2013
By Dominick DellaSala & Chad Hanson
The Sacramento Bee

This year, as in every year, fires are occurring in the forests of the western United States. And, as always, we read the predictable headlines about how many acres of forest were “destroyed,” whether in Yellowstone National Park in the famous 1988 fires or today’s Rim fire in the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park.

May 3, 2012
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
Forest Policy Pub

Despite reporting to the contrary, the blaze is a natural part of the fire regimes in the Sierra Nevada forests.