Subject: Re. slash burning
Date: Jan 21 00:22:36 1996
From: Jack Bowling - jcbowling at mindlink.bc.ca


Bruce H. wrote -

>Mr. Paulson,
> But I'm suggesting that slash burning is creating a less varied
>environment that any fires caused by nature or the native people. It is
>practically a sterile environment suitable for mono-culture mostly and
>little else.

Sorry, Bruce but I agree with Kelly here. For about the first year
(depending on whether the site experienced an unwanted severe scorching
or not), there is not much activity on a slash burn. But after that, the
amount of biological activity increases, likely exponentially, from the
bottom of the food chain up. In no way could a three-year old slash burn
be called sterile. The issue to my mind is not if clearcutting and
slashburning should be banned, but one of using these methods where it
would mimic that of nature, and in so doing minimizing any negative
impacts. There are obvious areas where clearcutting is inappropriate,
the most notable being the coastal temperate forest where large natural
wildfires have return periods ranging from a couple of hundred to
thousands of years. Unfortunately, this is the one area where the
practice has been misused to the detriment of all concerned.

- Jack


Jack Bowling
Prince George, BC
CANADA
jcbowling at mindlink.bc.ca