Category: Forest Products Industry related
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
Source: North Idaho Business Journal By: Mike Patrick There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any time in the last 400,000 years. “That’s not in dispute,” says Dr. Jay O’Laughlin. “What is in dispute is the role of carbon dioxide emissions in affecting global warming.” No, the good doctor isn’t going to go there. […]
Source: NY Times The evolution of mountain pine beetles to produce two generations of beetle per year instead of one has probably been a factor in the unparalleled damage that insects have caused in pine forests in the western United States and Canada over the last decade, according to a new study. The findings, published online in The American […]
Source: Missoulian Steve Gage used to worry about his firefighters getting burned. Now the Type I incident commander wonders if they’ll be clubbed to death before they ever reach a forest fire. The threat comes from the tiny mountain pine beetle, only not in the way most people think. Beetle-killed trees have undermined decades of […]
Source: Craig Rawlings, Forest Business Network Forestry… 1. Produces products that are both safe and sturdy With proper design and maintenance, wood products are some of the most durable and safe on the market. Resistant in instances of high humidity, tough to break, and minimally processed, wood surpasses many other raw materials as the safest […]
Source: KPAX HAMILTON, MT- It’s not as bad as in other national forests lands around the Rockies, but managers of the Bitterroot National Forest say they’re getting more aggressive to stopping the problem of pine beetles before they get out of.hand. That was the message Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Julie King had for Ravalli County […]
Source: Missoulian “When there’s a crisis,” retired University of Montana choral professor Gary Funk observed, “sometimes the universe conspires to bring good ideas out.” That’s how the aftershocks of the 2010 Haiti earthquake may ripple across time and space to shake up western Montana’s timber industry. After two years of work, Funk and a group […]
Source: Missoulian A recently study should put to rest the notion that green lodgepole pine needles burn as fast as red ones. But more than that, Matt Jolly said, the study could help open firefighters’ eyes to the dangers lurking in mountain pine beetle-infested forests where the trees still look to be alive and doing […]
Source: Flathead Beacon Deep in northwestern Montana near the Idaho border, an expansive 28,000-acre conservation easement proposal is bringing together a diverse group of interests, with conservationists, loggers, wildlife managers and outdoor enthusiasts discovering they can all agree on a common vision: protecting working forestland from development while keeping it open to public recreation. Thanks […]