New restoration approach could save forest industry

September 25, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

WHITE MOUNTAINS — …recent developments [in the 4-Forest Restoration Initiatives (4FRI)] point to potential improvements. This might really work out well for the struggling wood products industry in the White Mountains. The Four Forests Restoration Initiative is the most ambitious forest restoration effort in the country, with the goal of thinning tree densities on more than 2 million acres of ponderosa pine forests in Arizona… Environmentalist, local officials, loggers and foresters agreed that a combination of prescribed burns and small-wood logging operations restoring the forest and returning low-intensity wildfires to their natural role. In the process, 4FRI hopes to reduce catastrophic wildfires, protecting watershed and saving forested communities. …However, the effort has floundered in the past seven years for lack of infrastructure and a market for the wood slash that constitutes half of the material to be removed — the biomass.

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