Climate change spares private forests:
Katy Grimes, editor of the California Globe, points out that the disparate impact of climate change on public and private forests suggests another factor is at play, namely the lack of proper forest management in government-run forests:
For decades, traditional forest management was scientific and successful, until ideological, preservationist zealots wormed their way into government and began the 40-year overhaul of sound federal forest management through abuse of the Endangered Species Act and the no-use movement…
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) … has warned, “Our forests are now catastrophically overgrown, often carrying four times the number of trees the land can support. In this stressed and weakened condition, our forests are easy prey for drought, disease, pestilence and fire…. Forest fires, fueled by decades of pent up overgrowth are now increasing in their frequency and intensity and destruction… Excess timber will come out of the forest in one of only two ways. It is either carried out or it burns out….”
The same climate change impacts private lands as public lands, but private forests are not burning down because they are properly managed. Or if a fire does break out on privately managed forest land, it is often extinguished more quickly and easily because the trees aren’t so close together and the underbrush has been cleared away.
