Staff Articles
Articles, Opinion Editorials (Op-Eds) and Letter's to the Editor about forest related issues authored by John Muir Project Staff and our allies.
Using Wildfires as an Excuse to Plunder Forests
September 4, 2018
By Chad Hanson and Michael Brune
The New York Times Op-Ed
President Trump recently blamed environmental protections for the loss of homes and lives in wildfires in California, and followed up that groundless suggestion by strongly implying that increased logging could protect rural towns from these conflagrations.
View ArticleLessons from the La Tuna Fire
August 10, 2018
By Chad Hanson
Los Angeles Times Op-Ed
Driven by triple-digit temperatures and high winds, the La Tuna fire scorched 7,194 acres of shrubland and forest in the western Verdugo Mountains area of Los Angeles, Glendale and Burbank last summer, making it the largest fire to occur within Los Angeles city limits in half a century.
View ArticleForest ‘Restoration’ Rule is Ruse to Increase Logging
January 31, 2018
By Chad Hanson
San Francisco Chronicle Op-Ed
The U.S. Forest Service recently proposed a sweeping effort to identify aspects of environmental analysis and public participation to be “reduced” or “eliminated” regarding commercial logging projects in our national forests, with initial public comments due Friday. The Trump administration is attempting to spin this as an effort to promote “increased efficiency” for the expansion of forest “restoration,” but these are just euphemisms for more destructive logging.
View ArticleNo, We Can’t – and Shouldn’t – Stop Forest Fires
September 26, 2017
By Chad Hanson and Mike Garrity
The Washington Post Op-Ed
The American West is burning, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) tells us in his recent Post op-ed. He and officials in the Trump administration have described Western forest fires as catastrophes, promoting congressional action ostensibly to save our National Forests from fire by allowing widespread commercial logging on public lands.
View ArticleFeinstein, Brown Promote Misinformed and Destructive Logging Programs
March 8, 2016
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
Earth Island Journal Online
Dead trees in our forests do not increase fire risk, they create rare and extremely biodiverse habitat necessary for the health of our forests and California wildlife. While politicians such as Senator Feinstein and Governor Brown are using natural processes such as fire and increases in native bark beetle populations to propose tax payer funded increases in logging across State and Federal lands, the science is telling us this is the wrong way to go.
View ArticleDead Trees Aren’t a Wildfire Threat, but Overlogging Them Will Ruin our Forest Ecosystems
June 27, 2016
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
Los Angeles Times Op-Ed
There are now 66 million dead trees in California’s forests due to several years of drought and native bark beetles. Stirring up fear to promote increased logging and funding from Congress, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack claims that these trees create a “catastrophic” wildfire threat. The science disagrees.
View ArticleClearcuts for Christmas?
December 7, 2015
By Chad Hanson
Earth Island Journal Online
When Americans think about the presents they want for the Holidays, clearcuts on our national forests and other federal public lands is not what they have in mind. But that is exactly what radical, anti-environmental members of Congress are proposing to do right now — make a generous gift to the logging industry.
View ArticleDestructive Logging “Rider” Looms in Congress
December 4, 2015
By Chad Hanson
Soap Box on EarthTalk
It is a cynical rule of politics that, if you get people sufficiently scared and confused, many can be persuaded to agree to some of the worst and most irresponsible ideas. Case in point, the threat that has emerged this week from Senate Republicans . . .
View ArticleChanging the Conversation About Fire
November 12, 2015
By Dominick DellaSala, Chad Hanson and Tim Inglesbee
ELSEVIER SciTech Connect Blog
As two forest ecologists and a firefighter, we view forests as a dynamic ecosystem, see fire as nature’s circle of life, and promote coexistence with backcountry fires rather than relentlessly fighting them. While the news media and Congress each year proclaim burnt forests from Yellowstone to the Sierra and Cascade Mountains as unprecedented catastrophes, we see nature’s remarkable resilience at work. We seek a rational conversation especially now as fire season has died down.
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