You have found the Salvage Logging or Forest Health web site. The information presented on this site demonstrates that salvage logging (and most other logging) damages forest health. This web site is a joint effort of the Blue Mountain Native Forest Alliance, the Constitutional Law Foundation, the Columbia River Bioregion Campaign and the Sierra Club.

The purpose of the Salvage Logging or Forest Health web site is to:

• Explore the myths associated with salvage logging and forest health that have been promoted by logging corporations and government agencies.
• Examine some of the principles of forest ecology by looking at some specific inter-connections between the animals and plants in the forest.
• Examine some of the problems arising out of forest management.
• Look at some solutions, to these management problems, that have been suggested by scientists and environmentalists.

"The current forest health focus should be on restoration forestry, which should be done mostly through treatments of LIVE FORESTS well before the salvage question needs to be addressed. Although salvage is a useful economic activity and will reduce forest fuels that contribute to high fire risks, it should be clear that a forest management strategy focused only on salvaging insect- and fire-killed timber will not solve the long-term forest health problems. The policy trap that we face is that unless pre-insect/fire treatments can be increased, larger, more intense insect outbreaks will occur and more stand-replacing wildfires are certain. This means more insect/fire killed timber to fuel salvage controversies and less ability on the part of public agencies, private landowners, and industries to apply preventive treatment to a shrinking base of green stands that could survive future insect outbreaks and fires if properly treated.

The more that salvage dominates the forestry agenda, the more salvage there will be to do. After this cycle of insects, fire, insects, and fire is over, 21st century forestry could very well face decades of protecting young recovering forests with few, if any, timber receipts to help fund the work. THERE IS A GREAT TENDENCY TO FIX PAST MISTAKES. HOWEVER, UNLESS MORE EFFORT IS DEVOTED TO LOOKING FORWARD TOWARD PREVENTION RATHER THAN BACKWARD TOWARD CORRECTION, WE WILL CONTINUALLY BE TRYING TO CATCH UP. We need to create fire- and insect/disease-safe forests. It is not realistic to think that we can create fire- and insect/disease-proof forests. We should also be prepared, when extreme conditions return, to have insect outbreaks and fires, but hopefully not to the degree as in the past."

This web site is organized as a series of progressively more complex levels of information. The first level is generally just a list of subjects. The second level is a simply worded explanation of the situation and the third and deeper levels are generally scientific reference documents that give more detail about items described in the second level narrative.

One way to use this web site is to find your area of interest and follow the hot links to the depth of your interest. If you are really interested in a subject you can follow it out to reading from some of the scientific papers that explain that subject.

Outline of Web Site Levels

I. Fire, salvage and forest health myths

A. List of Myths
1. Statements About Myths
a) Supporting references
(1) Additional references

A. 11 main problem areas
1. Simple Overview of Problem
a) Detailed description of the problem
(1) References
b) Legal mandate to solve the problem
(1) References
c) How agencies tend to solve the problem
(1) References
d) How the problem should be solved
(1) References

A. Documents Referenced

A. Hot links to other related web sites.