Scientists sound the alarm on the order to enroll “Emergency”

Trump’s aggressive efforts to open discounts from the US desert to commercial felling raise everything from eyebrows to serious concerns among scientists and current and former federal managers on Earth.

A month after President Trump signed two executive orders regarding Concern for national security of export of timber and timber American production of timberAgriculture Secretary Brook Rollins tripled.

Secretary published A memorandum creating an “emergency setting” for over 112 646 000 decares (455 862 square kilometers) of the National Forest. There are 154 national forests in the United States, including about 188.3 million acres (762,000 square km), so that the affected areas are about 60% of all national forest lands in the country.

Designed as a way of dealing with a crisis of wild fires, the note “relies largely on references to” production of domestic timber “and” heavy federal policies “as environmental precautions, as noted in the Forest Watch Los Padres edition.

When he contacted a comment, Forestwatch CEO Jeff Kuiper directed Gismodo to his comments in the edition: “This is a thin -veiled attempt to increase the felling of our national forests, linked environmental laws and the arrangement of the pockets of the tree industry.

The first 100 days of the Trump administration focus on a systematic reduction in funding and staff in the key federal scientific agencies, undermining their ability to explore, monitor and respond to environmental and public crises.

At the request of the administration agencies such as NOAA and NASA should Dismiss the staff and cancel contracts and Research programs For the sake of reducing costs, despite their critical roles in tracking everything from hurricanes to fires. Many scientists and civil servants are also pushed or reassigned from National parkPart of the wider efforts of the administration to gather the number of workers governing the wildlife of our country.

As stated in the secretary’s note, the government will claim that urgent determination is Protection Forests without canceling their protected status. But some experts disagree.

“These commandments are under the claim to strengthen national security, which is most aware of it is false,” says Elaine Leslie, the former bio -bio -resources for the National Park Service, in an email to Gizmodo. “The policies formulated and implemented will weaken environmental protection to take advantage of the wealthy corporations in an accelerated manner.”

This does not mean that Leslie and other environmentalists are against the management of Wildland. On the contrary: prescribed fires and thinning are regular devices in the forest management tools, helping to reduce the spread of out of control and massive fires and to encourage local circles to thrive.

There is a lot of evidence that specific trees for the removal of trees reduce the weight of wild fires, said Mark Ashton, an environmentalist at Yale University and the University Forest Director, in an email to Gizmodo.

In addition, the country’s national forests are ruled completely differently from its national parks. “Much of their land base is managed for timber and logging – so there is nothing new about it,” Ashton said. “It’s a question how and where it is done.”

And that’s where the rub. The scale and approach for logging and land management can look very different in the Trump administration affecting huge national forests according to the latest executive orders and secretary notes.

“The thinning is not registered – as a complete removal of smaller (breast height diameter),” Leslie said. “Registration usually collects large, mature, often old plants in quite large tracts.” In other words, the government’s executive orders seem to be directed to a very different component of wooded areas than those directed by people who reduce the risk of fires.

“If it was a normal administration with the intact full professional workforce working for the Forest Service, this should not be a problem,” Ashton noted.

“The forest service has a level of experience combined by any other organization in the world – or at least there were,” he added. “It is disturbing that so many of these people are released and it is difficult to understand whether this administration will adhere to the many rules and regulations that govern the government of the earth.”

“As shown, many forest supervisors have given up or retired. Civil servants are at a time of study or know they will be fired,” Leslie said. “We hope that environmental groups come together to judge.”

Thehe Biden administration did not do it As much as To protect America’s forests as well, but to this day the attitude of the new administration to scientific agencies and national parks does not offer much confidence in their management of our intact national forests.

“I think what is critical are the long -term consequences of these advanced actions,” Leslie said. “This type of felling without a thorough environmental analysis will present endangered species at risk. This will threaten biodiversity, water quality and whole ponds.

According to Forest Watch Los Padres, the most destructive fires will not be prevented by commercial felling -earlier these flames are fed by extreme winds (such as those that are fed Los Angeles’ devastating fires At the beginning of the year) and climatic conditions.

“Using” emergency “declarations to quickly track commercial logging in the false promise of fire protection, the Trump administration puts special interests to science and leaves local communities more vulnerable at critical times when climate change worsens the risk of fire across the country,” said The Forest Watch.

But this administration has made There is no secret to his position In the climate. The insufficient situation between the administration and the national forests may be in the courts, but Trump’s actions show that the current administration would prefer to move quickly and disturb things than any less chaotic alternative. And if you cut an old growth forest, it will take a long time to return it.