It should really be said that pretty much any complex issue is almost always the result of numerous interconnected factors. Things that feed into and build off of each other in a god awful cluster fuck. Unfortunately, people too often simplify the world to promote just the factors that best match their worldview, declaring any other correlations irrelevant. Such is the case with forest management in the western U.S.
Throughout a thirty year period from the 1960’s through the 1980’s, logging on national forests was maintained at very high levels, forming the base industry for the rural economy in many parts of the western United States. However, not everyone was happy with this situation. Starting in the late 1960’s, a growing environmental movement began increasingly focusing on the effects of logging in national forests. Though forest management practices continued to evolve and trees were being replanted, the supply of old growth trees, the giants who had been there for centuries, was rapidly declining. Environmental groups, the preservationists of their day, became increasingly concerned over the loss of old growth trees, both in terms of their intrinsic value and value as wildlife habitat. Gaining political clout over time, these groups began to move the needle the other way, with early victories shifting logging on national forests more towards selective logging rather than clear cuts, states passing laws requiring private land owners to replant forests, and growing experimentation with controlled burning as an alternative to logging. The logging companies of course resisted such efforts, sparking a new round of significant debate over the future of forest planning.
The debate at the end of the twentieth century had many similarities compared to the earlier debates, but also some distinct differences. The later debates were unique in that people didn’t just disagree regarding their conclusions for the best way forward, but also what was the cause of the problem. Growing climate science had revealed a decades long oscillation between warmer and cooler temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Since this oscillation had some correlation to the noted rise and fall in forest fires over the past century, environmentalists began to claim it was the sole primary reason such variations existed. At the same time, the loggers took the stance that the variation in forest fires could only be explained by logging practices. Both sides increasingly yelled at each other, neither willing to give an inch, with both sides increasingly relying on strong arm lobbying tactics and lawsuits to try and get their way. Strangely, this escalating battle coalesced around an owl.
The spotted owl was a forest dwelling critter who preferred to make its nest in old growth trees. Beginning in the 1980’s, environmentalists and loggers began fighting over the owl’s declining population, with environmentalists demanding an end to logging in national forests. They saw the spotted owl as the canary in the coal mine so to speak. Over a decade of political wrangling followed, the details of which are far too boring really get into, but involved a lot of petty mudslinging and perceived backstabbing, eventually culminating in the owl being declared threatened (not endangered) in the early 1990’s and logging on national forest lands plunging by some 80%. This was not all that great for many of the rural towns that depended on logging, who saw their economies crash, claims that tourism would totally make up for lost logging revenue proving inaccurate. Apparently, it was not all that beneficial to the spotted owl either since its population continued to decline much as it had been before.
Unfortunately, the decision to severely curtail logging came at kind of a bad time. Though the Forest Service had been experimenting with controlled burns as an alternative to logging, a severe months long fire in Yellowstone National Park in 1988 led to them abandoning such tactics completely. As a result, tree stands became dangerously dense, overfilled with dead trees and undergrowth. As the years marched on, larger and more severe fires became more common, exacerbated by climate change causing longer and drier summers and population growth leading to more idiots than ever living and recreating in the woods. Fighting fires grew from 15% of the Forest Service’s budget to 52%. Fighting fires each year became an industry unto itself. Eventually, by the late 2010’s, the problem grew to the point where entire towns were being burned to the ground.
Scientists of course raised alarm bells, but of course their calls for a multi-faceted approach to forest management were almost completely ignored. Scientists saw selective logging and controlled burning as two strategies that should both be utilized. However, attempts to implement such plans were repeatedly met with opposition and lawsuits from both sides; the loggers not wanting to burn what they saw as perfectly good trees they could cut down and the environmentalists being not only against any type of logging, but also against controlled burns since it might damage habitat and most certainly would put smoke in the air. In the meantime, by the late 2010’s the problem grew to the point where entire towns started being burned to the ground and major cities began filling with smoke each summer. However, even then both sides continued as they had before, neither willing to look beyond their own narrow world views. Both fiddling away to their followers as the burned. History is always full of stupid bastards.