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Researcher Says Study Should Not Kill Salvage Logging Bill

Posted on: Thursday, 9 March 2006, 21:00 CST

By JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press writer

MEDFORD, Ore. -- A graduate student whose research questioned the value of salvage logging said Friday that his results should not affect a proposed bill to speed up decisions on whether to log burned trees.

Daniel Donato, an Oregon State University forestry researcher, was the lead author of a study published last month in the journal Science that concluded logging after fires kills naturally regenerated seed-lings and leaves more wood on the ground as fuel for new wildfires.

The results generated national controversy and contradicted an earlier report by some prominent Oregon State forestry professors who said huge volumes of timber could be salvaged from the 2002 Biscuit fire in southwestern Oregon if it was done quickly.

Donato was grilled Friday by congressmen who are crafting a bill to speed up decisions on whether to log national forests after wildfires.

After the U.S. Forest Service took three years to start selling timber killed by the 500,000-acre Biscuit fire, Rep. Greg Walden, R- Ore., and Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and others sponsored the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act to speed up the process and increase scientific research into regenerating forests after wildfires.

Donato told them his study dealt with limited circumstances on a single fire, and should not be extended to conclude the bill still pending in the House is flawed.

"I don't think this study is a wholesale threat to this bill," Donato said.

Environmentalists are fighting the bill, arguing that cutting large old trees and planting new ones results in forests that are more vulnerable to new fires and less valuable as habitat for fish and wildlife. They say it is better to leave forests to come back on their own.

Source: Columbian

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