HFHC Rocky Mountain States Director Molly Pitts had the following letter published in the Durango (Co.) Herald on June 29. Please send a quick message in support of the Resilient Federal Forests Act by clicking here! With Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah all experiencing a severe fire season and our local western Colorado communities being…
Capt. William E. Simpson II – USMM Ret. contributed the following opinion article to Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities. The column offers a solution that Capt. Simpson says will save the Bureau of Land Management $58 million annually just on the corralled horses, and save the counties hundreds of millions in fire costs, and allow wild…
In our latest video we highlight a forest project that’s reducing the risk of wildfire and enhancing recreational opportunities, while delivering wood to a local mill to support rural jobs. The revenue generated from the logging goes back into the forest to keep it healthy and accessible.
Here are some photos from a recent forest tour hosted by Miller Timber Services and Starker Forests demonstrating cut-to-length logging using high-tech equipment from the Finnish company Ponsse. Cut-to-length logging is a process where the harvested trees are cut to specific lengths in the forest before being transported to the mill. Mechanized harvesting with cut-to-length…
The U.S. Forest Service often blames the lack of employees and money for its inability to implement more (and larger) forest projects that mitigate catastrophic wildfire, insect infestations and disease. Much of this is due to the growing, unsustainable costs of fighting today’s mega-fires. Yet it’s also estimated personnel spend more than 40 percent of their…
On June 8 the Subcommittee on Federal Lands held a hearing to examine how litigation and increasingly excessive environmental analysis facing the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has exacerbated the ongoing forest health crisis. Fifty-eight million acres of national forests are at high or very high risk of severe wildfire. Despite deteriorating forest health and the…
The federal Secure Rural Schools and Self-Determination program has expired after years of declining and uncertain payments to counties and schools. A bipartisan group of senators is seeking to reauthorize the program that is intended to compensate rural counties for lost revenues from the decline in timber harvests on federal land. To be sure, the…