Word: forester
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...Playing God in Yellowstone. "What starts as a policy of laissez- faire ends up becoming a policy of massive interference." Chase advocates setting controlled fires to produce the desired mosaic of vegetation, while creating breaks that would prevent natural fires from spreading out of control. "You don't prevent forest fires," says Chase. "You just postpone them by building up fuels. This summer we're paying the price for more than a century of mismanagement...
Chase is concerned that a backlash to the natural-burn policy may produce the other extreme: the rapid extinguishing of all forest fires. Residents, tourists and area politicians have already sharply criticized the Park Service for waiting too long before moving to contain the latest blazes. "I question the wisdom of sticking to the policy in a year like this, with these severe drought and weather conditions," said Montana Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat. Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop, a Republican, agreed, adding his worry about the impact of the fires on the local economy. "We've had a catastrophe...
...touch down on a rough landing strip on Forest Service land near Mount Rainier National Park. There is a campground nearby, and a tract of huge trees, each about 12 ft. or 15 ft. in diameter and 175 ft. or more high, reserved from cutting to show visitors what the forest used to be like. Old logging roads lace through this damp, shaded museum tract. Huge stumps rot here and there among the living trees. These are significant: it is obvious that a sizable number of trees can be cut without killing the forest. Saplings and a complex tangle...
Such selective cutting, however, which allowed forests to regenerate species that had no commercial value as well as the highly prized Douglas fir, seemed too inefficient to the Government foresters. Now, perhaps too late, research has shown that clear-cuts tend to break an important ecological chain: they destroy the habitat of small mammals that shelter in forest undergrowth. These creatures eat and distribute mycorrhizal fungi, which grow among the rootlets of saplings and help the trees absorb water and nutrients. There may be enough spores of fungi in the soil after a clear-cut to start a second-growth...
...nine-year-old, nonprofit flying service, which operates on a budget of about $200,000 a year, has tracked radio-collared wolves in Montana and rare porpoises in the Sea of Cortes. Last winter Stewartt and Volunteer Pilot Jerry Hoogerwerf flew for several weeks over the Costa Rican rain forest and discovered and helped stop illegal gold mining and logging near a park on the Osa Peninsula...