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Show Harvest Of Trees Killed By Beetles To Begin Soon The Dixie National Forest plans to begin salvage harvest of beetle killed trees in the Rainbow Meadows area in October. Salvage of additional beetle infected trees in the Panguitch Lake area is expected to begin later this fall. Both areas are located on the Cedar City Ranger District of the Dixie National Forest approximately 15 miles east of Cedar City, Utah. The purpose of the salvage harvest har-vest is to minimize the loss of additional trees by reducing the beetle population level. In addition, these harvested trees will provide wood products to meet the needs of our society. If no action is taken, many more trees will likely be killed by the beetles. The Forest Service has worked very hard to keep everyone informed and involved in the decision-making process for these projects through field trips, open houses, weekly updates, information infor-mation brochures, campfire programs, pro-grams, and personal contact with groups and individuals. "Based on our extensive contacts with people, I believe that most people support, or at least consent to, implementation imple-mentation of our decision," said Ron Wilson, Cedar City District Ranger. "Many private landowners have already implemented similar measures on their own lands to remove beetle killed trees and protect remaining ones." In spite of these efforts to be as fair and reasonable as possible, some groups are still strongly opposed op-posed to the decision. "I know that some groups and individuals are concerned and frustrated about the magnitude of salvage harvest planned. I understand their concerns and I wish we didn't have to implement such an extensive salvage operation either," said Wilson. "The results of the salvage harvest will definitely be noticeable in some areas, but so would large areas of dead trees. We are working with all interests to minimize these impacts, but it is important to remember that we didn't create all the dead trees, the beetles did. Ignoring the insect problem will not make it go away. In fact, if we do nothing, there is a very strong possibility that the problem will get much bigger and many more trees will be lost." "I am concerned that some opponents op-ponents of the project may try to delay or stop the salvage harvest through court action. I hope they will not. The delay caused by this tactic will make it difficult to address ad-dress the problem this fall and many more trees on both public and private lands will probably be killed by beetles next spring and summer," said Wilson. Jan Stewart, a private property owner in the Rainbow Meadows area, said, "I love those 200 year old trees and love to see them, but if the diseased trees aren't taken out, there won't be any left. We need to take action now so the beetles won't fly again next year and kill more trees. Our property is near the National Forest boundary and if the diseased trees on the National Na-tional Forest aren't taken care of, the trees on our property will be wiped out." According to Wilson, "Everyone, including the people opposed to the decision, has has an equal opportunity to be involved in the decision-making process. I hope that these few opponents will not resort to delay tactics just because the decision did not end up exactly the way they wanted. If they do, we will all have to live with many more dead trees and the effects on the landscape. |
