Once A Forest Statement & Call to Action
John Muir Project's Chad Hanson and UPHE President Dr. Brian Moench on overturning current forest management practices.
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We are a group of people--many of us based in Santa Fe, NM, USA--who support living forests and community-inclusive decision making about forest health. We are troubled by the US Forest Service's forest management practices that deny global warming and ignore current science. The science is now clear that "thinning" (aka clearcutting) and prescribed burning do not prevent wildfires. 4.81 TONS of carbon are released into the atmosphere with every acre of forest burned. The good news is that the science is also clear that "tree planting ‘has mind-blowing potential’ to tackle climate crisis." Our task is persuade the Forest Service to stop deforesting public lands and start planting billions of trees while there is still time. More good news: creating defensible space 100 feet around one's own home--not destroying huge swaths of forest--is the best way to protect wildland homes from wildfire.
We are concerned about the Forest Service's manipulating and controlling public debate about its destruction of forests.