America's Forests 2010 / March
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March 2010 - MORNING SUN & MIST - Stout Grove - Redwoods National Park - Crescent City, California.
MORNING SUN & MIST - Stout Grove - Redwoods National Park - Crescent City, California.
Over the last few years there has been a great deal of misunderstanding concerning our public forests and the ideas of "conservation", "preservation" and "protection". All of these terms have been used inter-changeably and have confused most of us. I'll attempt to clarify at least my understanding. "Preservation" equates to "no human intervention", no roads, no management, no motorized activities. "Protection" means that we are going to protect many of the characteristics or attributes of the forest (leave alone), but may intervene in cases of wildfire, natural disasters or other.
"Conservation" means that we are going to make the best "use of a resource", which includes forest management.
We are now at a point where we have 'over-preserved' many of our public forests which has resulted in massive fires and millions of acres of bug-killed forests. Consequently we have lost these tremendous resources for many years to come. It would seem that the more we "preserve", the more we loose. Let's try something that we already know works.... Conservation through management.