GEOG 5 Gillespie Thomas 2012 Fall Week 4 Lecture 8 October 23 2012 Announcements Midterm changed to November 8th Read chapter 13 Outline of Last Lecture I Drugs II California Agriculture III Food and Medicinal plants Outline of Today s Lecture II Laws of forest conservation III Uses of national forests IV Problems of timber roads and fire Today s Lecture California has some of the oldest trees The oldest tree is 4800 years old Laws 1891 Forest Reserve Act this created national forests needed to maintain and protect the watersheds 155 national forests across the US 1960 Multiple Use and Sustained Use Act said how these national forests should be used 1 Outdoor Recreation e g hunting enjoying the forest 2 Range land cattle 3 Timber 4 Watershed protection 5 Wildlife 1964 Wilderness Act designated certain areas within national forests as wild these areas could not be used for timber 9 1 million acres dedicated as wild Clearcutting Method of extracting wood from forest became very prevalent in late 60s 70s How it works 1 Identify the forest These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute 2 Build a road 3 Cut down every tree 4 Cable lossing Problems 1 Soil erosion 2 Water runoff sediment goes into the streams therefore polluting the water supply 3 Plant monoculture plant all the same species 4 Apply herbicides stop the growth of weeds 5 Every species is now the same age 6 Decline in wildlife For example in the spotted owl population declined after clear cutting 1980s Lost 1 3 billion dollars due to selling off our forest How 1 Building roads 2 Restoration Department of Agriculture National Forest Service falls under this department Department of Interior Manages National Park Service created in 1916 Left unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations BLM controls grazing mining oil US Fish and Wildlife Service manage wildlife refuges Timber ALL timber companies in the US are private Non Profit Organizations Nature Conservancy they buy land and preserve it Sierra Club lobby for forest protection and conservation Earth First and Elf Activist organizations Julia Butterfly environmental activist tree siting for 2 years Forestry Under Reagan Dept of Interior controlled by James Watt national forests were sold off to private companies 60 of national forests were cut down Half of all Redwoods were cut down and exported overseas unprocessed Ponding Chinese put the trees underground in hope of selling them at higher price when wood is scarce Old Growth 1 Trees of different sizes 2 Snags dead trees 3 More than 200 300 years old Today 96 of all redwood forests have been cut 2 of remaining redwoods are on private land the other 2 on federal land 1990s 1 Clearcutting is unsustainable 2 Salmon fisherman angry because the salmon start to die as result of increased sediment due to clearcutting 3 Spotted owl 4 After Clinton 2 of all wood from national forests huge decrease Roadless Areas In the US we have 44 000 miles of road 380 000 miles of timber roads Clinton Roadless Act said cannot build more timber roads Bush wants to repeal Roadless Act each state governor can decide Fire Smokey the Bear Until 1970s they thought fire was bad and should be prevented In the 70s the did control burns experiments with fire they discovered problems when fires are prevented 1 Litter build up 2 Changed from open forest to closed forest 3 Bugs huge increase in bugs killing the trees making them more flammable 4 Crown fires By suppressing the small fires we increase the chances of a huge crown fire Choices Thinning chopping down the litter and small trees could burn it for energy Re introduce fire problems as these fires are very hard to control and worries the air quality board Nothing