Forest Service Photos Raise Flap: Taken After Logging (WP) [View All]

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6413-2004Apr12.html


Forest Service Photos Raise Flap
Old Images Depicting Sparse Conditions Taken After Logging

By Scott Sonner
Associated Press
Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A17


RENO, Nev. -- The U.S. Forest Service has been accused of misrepresenting forest conditions by using misleading photographs in a brochure that urges more logging to prevent wildfires in the Sierra Nevada. The pamphlet says fire risks have risen as the Sierra's forests have grown more dense over the past century. Six photos spanning 80 years appear beside descriptions of how the "forests of the past" had fewer trees and less underbrush, making them less susceptible to fire.

The 1909 photo shows an open, parklike forest with large trees spaced widely apart. More trees and underbrush appear in each successive picture -- 1948, 1958, 1968, 1979 -- and finally a photograph thick with trees in 1989.

"Today's forests, dense with green, may seem beautiful, but in fact are deadly," the pamphlet reads. "Our old-growth forests are choking with brush, tinder-dry debris and dead trees which make the risk of catastrophic fire high."

But the 1909 photo does not depict natural conditions -- it was taken just after the forest had been logged. And the pictured forest is nowhere near the Sierra Nevada. It is in Montana.