Deforestation
...k of catastrophic fire by “thinning dense undergrowth and brush in priority locations” (White House). Essentially cutting down and burning forests in the name of “thinning”. The HFI would authorize the Healthy Forests Reserve Program to “protect, restore and enhance degraded forest ecosystems on private lands to promote the recovery of threatened and endangered species”. (White House) The Sierra Club offers a different perspective of this proposed act. The Sierra Club claims that the HFI would “accelerate aggressive ‘thinning’ across millions of acres of backcountry forests miles away from communities at risk to forest fires” (SOURCE). The HFI would also allow “the Forest Service and Bureau of land Management to give away trees to logging companies as payment for any management activity, including logging on public lands and creating a powerful new incentive to log fire-resistant trees, old growth and other commercially valuable forests”(SOURCE). According to a publication printed by the Sierra Club, “logging multiplies a forest’s chance of catastrophic fire” (Forest Fires 9). The U.S. Government has been practicing aggressive fire suppression, interfering with the natural cycle of the forest. Forest fires keep the forests clean and fertile, leaving behind trunks and mineral enriched soil for re-growth. Logging extracts the trunks and leaves no nutrients to contribute to new forest growth. Politicians have increased logging subsidies in what they say is an effort to ‘fire proof’ forests. When logging has occurred in a forest, the trunk is extracted, leaving behind only pine needles and twigs which act as kindling on the forest floor, thus fueling a fire. Also, logging companies take the larger, more mature trees, which are more ‘fire resistant’ thus leaving smaller trees, more susceptible to forest fires. Logging or ‘thinning’ does not decrease the risk of forest fires. The forest has its own cycle of renewal-fire. “Natural, periodic fires play a crucial role in forests. They :restore minerals to the soil; create habitat for fish and wild life; release seeds from large trees like the Giant Sequoia, which have evolved to rely on fire’s life-giving qualities; halt insect infestations and eliminate smaller brush and saplings that compete with the forests’ large, fire-resistant trees” (Forest Fires 4). The Sierra Club is against logging to decrease the risk of forest fires. The club states that the fires will become even worse due to logging or ‘thinning’. Evidence given to support this stance is reputable, the sources they derive their information from are as follows; The FireWise Program, the National Interagency Fire Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project. Deforestation not only kills different species of trees and animals, it affects the climate as well. When tropical rain forests are cut down, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. According to NASA Earth Observatory, “from 1850 to 1990, deforestation worldwide (including the United States) released 122 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere…” (Earth Observatory 1). The release of 122 billion metric tons of carbon is an unnatural catalyst working on the atmosphere, thus producing adverse effects. The overwhelming amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere “enhances the greenhouse effect, and could contribute to an increase in global temperatures” (Earth Observatory 1). Deforestation also effects the local climate of an area “by reducing the evaporative cooling that takes place from ...