Term Paper on "Yellowstone National Park Issue of Controlled Burning"

Term Paper 3 pages (1094 words) Sources: 1+ Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Yellowstone

Controlled Burning at Yellowstone National Park: A burning debate

Controlled burning is a fairly routine part of park maintenance at Yellowstone National Park. Controlled burning has been used as a tool of wildlife conservation in the past, as a way of promoting a greater diversity and abundance of plants and animals in conservation parks such as Yellowstone. Controlled burning is seen as a way of being 'more' rather than less close or similar to nature and how nature regulates species diversity. "Most wildlife biologists (at least in the west) love to see small, controlled fires burning in areas of potential wildlife habitat -especially where a mosaic type burn can occur that leaves gaps in the burn of unburned fuel. These gaps provide the cover for wildlife that can still enjoy the benefits of the burn (new growth, nutrient release, etc.). Wildlife thrives on new growth after a controlled burn" (Albright 2000). Burning, responsibly controlled by fire officials, can make for a better environment for new plant and animal species.

However, the way that such practices are put into place at Yellowstone has been particularly controversial. During the 1980s, especially after a 1988 forest fire raged out of control at Yellowstone Park, many people opposed the controlled burn policy, particularly representatives of the forest and timber industry. "A let-burn policy is indeed defensible in a properly managed forest. But defenders of this hands-off approach refuse to acknowledge that Yellowstone was not a managed forest. Park officials, backed by the environmental community, did not permit dead and dying timber to be removed from Yellowstone. Rather than allow 150-year-old trees infested by dwarf mistletoe and mountain pine beetle to be periodically removed by harvest or by prescribed, controlled burns, Yellowstone managers mistakenly allowed dead wood to accumulate and the fire hazard to escalate," noted the President of the National Forest Products Association in 1988. Environmentalists were accused of having too much of a hands-off policy in terms of burning Yellowstone, and engaging in insufficient pruning, tree removal, and direction of how the burning was managed.

Of course, the forest industry had a profound economic interest in making such allegations. But in recent years, the increase in global temperatures of the past decades and frequent Western droughts has made the policy even more controversial. Why add fuel to the flames, one might ask, when the dangers of how unpredictable wind and weather patterns make forest fires, even so-called controlled forest fires, so difficult to manage? Controlled burns can rapidly devolve into uncontrolled burns. "What really created our problem is three different major wind shifts," said the fire crews after an unexpected shift in winds caused an April 2008 fire to rage out of control, leading to the forced evacuation of 40 to 50 homes in the area near the park (Shay & Johnson 2008). Although no one was injured, the lack of precipitation that made containment of the fire difficult to control caused local officials to criticize the choice of time and place of the burning. April tends to be an especially dry and windy month at Yellowstone -- so why instigate a controlled fire policy during this month?

Fire officials said the positive effects of the burning were not enough to justify the risk: "it is not a good… READ MORE

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