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Our forests are under threat – not by bark beetles and wildfire, but by humans’ perhaps well intended but misguided reactions to these natural disturbances. People who live next to forests – especially in the eastern portion of our region, where beetles are taking a heavy toll on lodgepole pine stands – are naturally concerned about wildfire danger. Unfortunately, many are urging “treatments” that won’t reduce the fire risk where people live, and will needlessly fragment habitat and interfere with natural processes. Fortunately, consensus is emerging that the highest priorities are the protection of life, property and critical community infrastructure at the “wildland-urban interface” (WUI) – the critical zone where communities and neighborhoods adjoin the forest. WW is working to steer wildfire and beetle mitigation efforts (and limited dollars) toward the WUI, where they’ll do the most good, and away from the backcountry, whose ecosystems are naturally adapted to such disturbances and where human intervention largely proves futile and does more harm than good. We’re working to influence policy and project design through our participation in the Colorado Bark Beetle Cooperative (soon to be Collaborative), a roundtable that includes USFS officials, local elected officials and other stakeholders within a 10-county area in northwest Colorado. Our goal is to broaden the scope of the discussion beyond the immediate crisis event (the bark beetle outbreak) toward considering how to sustain communities surrounded by national forests that are dependent on large-scale disturbance processes to maintain forest health. We also continue to watchdog the White River National Forest's proposed timber sales. Two proposed sales that we're concerned about and attempting to positively modify through environmental review processes are the Camp Creek Timber Sale, south of New Castle, and the Upper Eagle Valley Timber Salvage project near Minturn.
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