Environmentalists are trying to block the U.S. National Park Service from removing dead and excess trees from Yosemite National Park for fire prevention, saying the effort harms conservation and violates existing federal environmental law.
The Los Angeles Times reported last week [bold, links added]:
A U.S. district judge on Tuesday was expected to hear a request by the nonprofit Earth Island Institute for a preliminary injunction to halt the National Park Service’s ongoing “biomass removal project” across nearly 2,000 acres within the park.
In a lawsuit that was filed a day earlier, environmentalists argued that the work violates federal environmental requirements.
The project authorizes crews to remove thousands of standing dead trees and healthy ponderosa pines, white firs, and incense cedars to reduce the fire risk to Yosemite Valley, the Merced and Tuolumne groves of giant sequoias, habitat for rare species including Pacific fishers and great gray owls, and communities including El Portal, Foresta and Yosemite Village.
…
But it has triggered a fight with the Earth Island Institute, which filed the lawsuit Monday against Yosemite National Park, Supt. Cicely Muldoon, the National Park Service and the Interior Department seeking to stop the project until it completes an environmental analysis and public review process required under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.
The fight continues as drought-stricken California enters what could be a potentially devastating [wildfire] season, one of several in recent years.
Environmentalists have resisted logging in national forests that once helped remove fuel and suppress fires.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) promised to clear excess fuel and dead trees from the state’s forests.
But as Breitbart News noted in April, citing Capital Public Radio, his administration has failed to complete a “single project” in the forests.
Read more at Breitbart
Of course they’re stopping prevention.
Who do you think’s igniting the fires?
Who do you think’s burning the meat processing plants?
The Earth Island Institute just another bunch of Eco-Freak idiots no different then the rest of them I would like to suggest that their head hancho be put on the next fire that happens
These environmentalist can sure think long-term. Let’s see…a bunch of dry tinder, lots of fuel, + dry season, what could go wrong?
Dave, that has contributed greatly to the size of fires here in the Colorado mountains, aided by the dead pine trees due to the pine beetles. Talk about total dry tinder to help the fire spread faster and burn hotter–so hot many times that it essentially sterilizes the forest floor making it much more difficult for new growth to start.
Steve, we had similar situation here in Australia in 2003. A fire started a considerable distance south of the Australian Capital Territory (same as Washington DC) and it burnt slowly for around a week as it travelled north. All of a sudden, conditions changed and the fire had entered the national park to the south and south west of Canberra. It was not travelling north east – directly towards western suburbs of Woden Valley where it eventually burnt 500 homes, killed two people (at least) and destroyed Mt Stromlo Space Observatory with hundreds of acres of pine plantation around it.
That fire could not have happened by in the 1970’s because the bush west of Canberra was cold burned every winter and that kept the ACT safe from fires out of the national park. Winter burning was stopped during the late 1980’s (or thereabouts) and the 2003 fire was the payback for stupid green decisions by ACT authortities.
We never learn because the same thing happened on the south coast of NSW in 2019.