UPDATE: Both USFS and DNRC want to "salvage" log blown-down and still-standing trees along Swan Range trails.
The Forest Service is still pursuing its March Madness Salvage logging along the Hall Lake and Bond Creek trails!
Now MT DNRC is proposing its Jewel Basin Salvage logging in Sections 2 and 11, which include the Echo-Broken Leg and Crater Notch trails!
Click here for our letter and photos of recent logging showing why this salvage logging is unacceptable!
Email the Forest Service and DNRC today and let them know their logging "cure" is worse than the alleged problem - and that you especially don't want to see it along these trails!
Email the Forest Service at comments-northern-flathead-swan-lake@usda.gov by August 17.
Email DNRC at pseigmund@mt.gov by August 21.
Thank you for taking a moment to speak up for the forests themselves and for your ability to enjoy them!
CLICK HERE for a great Bigfork Eagle article about our efforts to protect these trails from salvage logging!
See below for more background on why these trees should be left in place:
Your emails are needed to help protect the Hall Creek, Bond Creek and other trail areas from blowdown "salvage" logging!
The Hall Creek and Bond Creek trail areas were logged/thinned under the Sixmile Fuels Reduction Project a few years ago, allowing recent wind storms to penetrate the forest canopy and topple even more trees.
Now the Swan Lake Ranger District wants to remove the fallen trees in the name of "fuels reduction salvage logging" even though it is the tree limbs that burn during a fire, not the trunk the logs are cut from!
Under this fuels reduction "logic," the forest won't be healthy or safe until all the trees are gone!
Please take a moment to email your comments by June 5th on the March Madness Blowdown Salvage to comments-northern-flathead-swan-lake@usda.gov.
Here are some suggestions:
1. Remove or move aside only those portions of blowdown trees that are blocking roads and trails.
2. Leave the tree trunks in the forest where they continue to store carbon for decades and renew the next generation of trees and soils.
3. As little as 15% of a logged tree's carbon is stored in a forest product for a short time, the rest is burned and goes into the atmosphere!
4. If you want to reduce the flammable fine fuels found in the limbs and needles, please do this by hand-slashing, hand-piling and burning them.
5. Please protect all area trails and thank you for not proposing salvage logging in Krause Basin's unique hemlock forests!
Click here for our letter with more details and rationale.
Click here for our supplemental comment letter with photos comparing heavy blowdown in previously logged forests to little or no blowdown in unthinned forests!
Click here for the March Madness Blowdown Salvage brochure, map and announcement of May 30 field tours.
Thank you for taking a few moments to speak up for the safekeeping of your public trails and forests!
