Category: Forest Products Industry related
Source: NBC Montana STEVENSVILLE, Mont. – The Forest Service is tacking verbenone patches to protect campground trees from Mountain Pine Beetles. Verbenone is a pheromone, or chemical, that tells beetles to go away. The beetles should be arriving in a couple weeks. The Forest Service doesn’t have much time to get the word out. Foresters […]
Source: Senator Baucus (Washington, D.C.) – Montana’s senior U.S. Senator Max Baucus secured a victory today for Montana forests as the U.S. Senate voted 77 to 22 in favor of his amendment to better address the bark beetle infestation. The plan is one of many Farm Bill amendments the Senate is voting on this week. “The Farm Bill […]
Source: LA Times So-called super fires — like the fire currently rampaging through the Colorado Springs area, spurring mass evacuations, destroying property and endangering lives — are not going away. They will continue to flare up, not just around the U.S. but also around the world and, possibly, become more severe, one expert says. Peter […]
The mountain pine beetle is about a quarter-inch long, has a one-year life span, is native to North America and, if left unchecked, this little bugger can kill forests. That is the fear of forestry experts throughout Douglas and Elbert counties, who are keeping their eye on trees that have succumbed to the beetle. Michael […]
Source: Missoulian U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., added several measures to help the state’s forestry industry to the 2012 farm bill on Thursday. They include a measure providing $100 million to the U.S. Forest Service for combating bark beetle outbreaks and permanent reauthorization of the stewardship contracting system that permits logs-for-restoration work like the Southwest […]
Source: CBS Denver CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — As crews continue to face off against a fast-moving wildfire in northern Colorado, some in the timber industry say the area’s fire danger has been heightened by U.S. Forest Service policies and an economy that discourages them from harvesting millions of acres of dead trees that stand ready to […]
Source: Missoulian Picture compliments of: Big Sky Country Photos The mountain pine beetle epidemic worrying Montana’s timber industry has literally turned explosive in Canada. Extra-dry sawdust from milling beetle-killed logs is the prime suspect in two fatal British Columbia sawmill explosions this year. Mills there now face whopping insurance rate increases, prompting at least one […]
Source: The Daily Sentinel Picture compliments of : Big Sky Country Photos It appears that bark beetles are attacking more than just the trees. Research conducted outside Steamboat Springs has found that the beetles that have decimated pine and spruce forests throughout the western United States have also inadvertently contributed to the air quality problems […]
Source: Cowboys and Indians By Jason Blevins As pine beetles continue to ravage the West and the construction market continues to stall, entrepreneurs and environmentalists struggle to give new life to dead wood. The sky was the limit in 2007. Home prices were skyrocketing. Little more than a signature harvested big loans. Everyone was spending. […]
Source: Missoulian Paul Bunyan wouldn’t have known what to make of Gordon Ash’s little logging crew in the Pioneer Mountains last week. Instead of axes or saws, the U.S. Forest Service team went after trees with sticks of high explosive. “You’d calculate the proper amount of explosive, and then fix that on the tree with […]
Source: Los Angles Times Fire Suppression Policy Has Led to an Overabundance of Trees Ronald Reagan once justified logging with “a tree is a tree; how many more do you need to look at?” Besides, he warned, “trees cause more pollution than automobiles.” We cringed at his biases. Yet due to forces none foresaw, Reagan’s gaffes […]
Terrorists who want to strike fear in the hearts of Americans would do well to set wildfires in Montana, al-Qaida advises in the most recent issue of its English-language magazine, Inspire. “It is difficult to choose a better place other than in the valleys of Montana where the population increases rapidly,” Inspire’s “AQ Chef” columnist […]
Source: Missoulian BILLINGS – The U.S. Forest Service is attempting to grow whitebark pine that are resistant to blister rust as part of an effort to prevent the high-elevation tree from dying out in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Workers have created a 15-acre nursery in the mountains south of Bozeman where seedlings resistant to blister […]
Picture compliments of: Big Sky Country Photos Source: Billings Gazette By: Brett French Pine Beetle Infestation Eases From the air, the view of Montana’s forests is improving, with indications that the state’s mountain pine beetle infestation is abating. “Conditions are improving,” said Gregg DeNitto, a Forest Service pathologist and leader of the Forest Service’s Forest […]
If you missed it, here is a pretty cool interview with Governor Brian Schweitzer on the Late Show with David Letterman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=983bhGKa4H4