Nick Smith

For years, anti-forestry groups have tried to convince the public that any effort to improve federal forest management threatens public lands. Now they claim that thinning hazardous fuels, removing dead and dying trees, or providing safe access for the public, firefighters, land managers, and local forest workers is the same as selling off the forest. That is not true. These efforts support and protect our forests and the communities who depend on them, not privatize them. Yet these same groups continue to promote a version of reality that ignores what is happening in our forests. They warn that improving management will somehow take away public lands while suing repeatedly to stop the forest health projects designed to reduce wildfire risks and restore the very landscapes they claim to defend. …In doing so, they defend a status quo that produces the same result year after year: more severe fires, more smoke…