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PostTue Dec 11, 2007 10:57 pm 
glad to hear they are harvesting on the cispus. when i talked to them up at Randle last time they said they were finally selling some wood off the district, after years and years of legal hoopla and preposterous proposals which in some cases received no bids at all because they weren't economically viable ( all aerial / no skids / etc. ). curious about the 'big wood' you mentioned. how big DBH? anything over 20"? - if so: do you know if it's going to get milled to yield the highest-dollar product? ( that was one of the original goals up there on the AMA: to produce high-quality wood on the stump for high-end use by means of selective thinning/pruning operations to produce bigger timber that private landholders aren't going to wait for. ) are they doing any salvage of the blowdown on the other units? re: rootrot - it's epidemic right now on the west slope of the cascades. we took 9 grand firs off a .23 acre parcel last summer. and 22 off the adjoining .25 parcel. there are now another half a dozen at least that need to come down. most all the cispus has been cut at some point. the little that hasn't been cut burned at least once since the mid-1700's. one of the things they wanted to do up there was more intensive commercial thinning to try to re-create historic conditions and/or produce higher-end products off the plantation and matrix units. strider in at least one of two projects on NFS or DNR or NPS i've kept my eye on them, and i've yet to see where anybody did anything even close to what could be considered illegal or violations of policies. more often that not i think they spend way too much time trying to cover every possible issue that might arise prior to the initial scoping process. ( fugitive dust, for god's sake? ) you certainly raise a valid point regarding involvement prior and during the event.

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PostWed Dec 12, 2007 6:18 am 
I have to hurry, but the big trees were around 28". Before anyone starts panicking, the type of thinning done favored LEAVING the biggest tree in a circle of say 15 feet. So when a 28" tree was cut, it meant an even bigger diameter tree was left. Not only diameter, but the height (weight) affects the capabilities of a processor and the trees in that unit were quite tall. The logs were marketed all over SW Washington and into Oregon. The guy who bought the sale is a small businessman and has been in SW Washington working all his life, he has a 50 year old son, so knows marketing logs. He was dealing with 4 or 5 mills. The bigger logs went to Washougal. Smooth Juniper was a very viable sale even though the higher elevation units seemed junky after the lower units. Yeah, 6 to 8" diameter logs are logged, but it isn't the favorite size. The diameters in the teens are the primo size. Right now, no size is good, the market has crashed. No, there are no plans to salvage the blowdown. The logger doesn't want it at the price he bid due to the market conditions and the community group that put the sale together does not want it salvaged. They are the decision makers. A logger and I estimated there is about 100mbf on the ground in that area. More probably came down since. One important fact that people need to remember, you have to be able to MAKE A PROFIT to log. Cable yarding or Skyline yarding, which I like to work with is labor intensive and spendy. Helicopter is outrageously expensive. That fact seems to be forgotten when timber is put up for sale and by environmental groups.

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PostWed Dec 12, 2007 12:20 pm 
if i understood correctly what was just told to me on the phone: the blowdown adjacent to the Smooth Juniper units is going to be left as downed wood to comply with mandates, and no plans are in the works to do any salvage operations. more likely is the possibility that the downed wood within the first 100-150 feet along the road will be picked through by firewood cutters ( legal or otherwise ), the end result being no timber revenues and not enough down wood left to meet the mandated requirements. just my lousy opinion, but i think perhaps some new thinking needs to be used when determining exactly where the 'buffer boundary' should be ( and what thinning prescription should be applied, if any, to the buffer zone itself ) : seems like there should be some way to provide some cushion so we don't see the amount of damage to stands adjacent to units that have been cut - screwy record winds notwithstanding. ( do not read that as "wider buffer zone" ) hopefully the guy got a good price for that big wood, despite current market prices. smile.gif

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PostThu Dec 13, 2007 12:54 am 
MCaver wrote:
ski wrote:
7. timber sale revenues from the project will be put into road decommissioning projects.
So they're cutting down trees so they can afford to quit giving access to them? uhh.gif
Simpson and other private interests should be footing the bill for road decommissioning but in actuality the Forest Service is stuck with the bill. Private interests built the roads but the Forest Service subtracted the cost of road building from what they charged the private interests for the raw timber. So in effect the Forest Service paid to build the roads and now has to pay to decommission them . That said the salmon paid an even bigger price for all those logging roads.

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PostThu Dec 13, 2007 1:23 am 
wamtngal wrote:
Has anyone here heard of the Skokomish Watershed Action Team? Might be helpful to read their webpage. Not sure if this is the same area you folks are talking about though.
Thanks, great link. I saw the area on Pine Creek that they are going to log I hope they stay away from the old growth up there. I don't like logging even when its called stewardship. No especially when its called stewardship. The hike up to Pine Lake is on a logging road and its not much fun but the lake has climax old growth. There is a nice patch of old growth up in that area, you can see it by hiking what is left of the church creek trail. Most of the church creek trail was destroyed by logging of course. The old growth has a decommissioned logging road running through it. I think Le Bar road is what they now call the "dry creek extension trail" I wish they had trail head markers out there. I drove to the dry creek trail head but the water bars on the road were so deep, I could not help but wonder if the road was closed as I bottomed out the trialer hitch on my Jeep. Finally I found where the road was actually closed and that is the start of the dry creek trail but it is not marked. The dry creek trail used to run from the North Fork Skok to the South Fork Skok but of course it was destroyed by logging. Now the roads will be turned back into trials and in about 1000 years the forest up there will be nice again if they don't log it all again in the name of stewardship. There is no sign at the start of the dry creek extension trail either. Overly thick second growth that is what they call it when they want to cut it. They also called the old growth over mature and decadent when they wanted to cut it. Any excuse to cut it.

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PostThu Dec 13, 2007 6:08 am 
pest wrote:
Overly thick second growth that is what they call it when they want to cut it.
Another term for it is B*****d Growth. naughty.gif

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PostThu Dec 13, 2007 6:54 am 
pest wrote:
Overly thick second growth that is what they call it when they want to cut it. They also called the old growth over mature and decadent when they wanted to cut it. Any excuse to cut it.
Who is "they" and what is "it". Here are the "excuses" I hear to NOT cut. What do the trees feel when they know that heavy, vibrating, machine is coming to kill them? I don't like how it will look so you shouldn't log it. That area has good vibrations coming up from the ground and shouldn't be disturbed. Logging is just bad. We don't want another clearcut. (this was for a thinning) We don't want log trucks on our roads. We don't want to hear the noise. The animals will all be scared away. Scientific? But the reasons seem to be taken seriously. And you are still going on about logging old growth which is a tired tired concept. Much easier to go for the younger, PLANTED areas. Did you know that much of the Cispus area, and the Yacolt area were burned to a crisp in the early 1900s? I should know the years but I don't. And that the same areas were replanted? CCCers worked on them? Prior to that, the original inhabitants of the area managed the forest. Cedars were cut or stripped for buildings, baskets, and clothing. Tracts of higher elevation were burned to make huckleberry fields. Lower eastside areas were burned to encourage shrubs to grow for basket weaving and camas. Burning also kept habitat open for deer and elk. What do you think about that?

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PostThu Dec 13, 2007 12:31 pm 
there were two major fire events on the Cispus: 1910 and 1919. for an AMA public hearing, clear mylar overlay maps were prepared: each map showed the burn area for a given span of years ( ie: 1750-1800 ). when the overlay maps were all piled on top of each other, you could see that virtually the entire Cispus valley had burned at some point during the last 250 years. the native americans ( Yakama tribe ) burned vast areas up there. the Smooth Juniper sale is all within the AMA. trees are being killed because it meets management objectives. doing nothing - the "no action alternative": " was not selected because the development of late-successional characteristics in stands proposed for thinning would take place over a longer period of time and at an unpredictable degree and rate of change. This would not meet project objectives for improving stand structure distribution and accelerating late-successional conditions in Riparian Reserves. There would be no opportunities to practice and observe the results of various methods of thinning and related vegetation management activities to determine how best to manage stands to meet the desired future condition for the planning area. Additionally, no roads in Riparian Reserves would be decommissioned, nor would any sites on existing closed roads needing stabilization be treated to reduce the potential for road failures or road related erosion." it's a managed forest. particularly in the AMA. doing nothing is not "management" or "stewardship". it seems some have lost sight of the fact that it was never the intention in creating the NFS to "preserve" big old trees in forests. NFS has to cater to a lot of different needs: among them sustained yield forestry for economic considerations.

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PostFri Dec 14, 2007 10:53 am 
archaeological evidence indicates native americans started burns all up and down the Cascade crest ( for the purpose of clearing berry fields ) from British Columbia down into Oregon, beginning about 3500 years ago and continuing into the beginning of the 20th century. after harvesting, most tribal members would go back to their winter quarters, and a small crew of "specialists" would be left behind to start the fires. while it is possible this activity may have taken place in earlier times, it would seem unlikely in that there did not exist the population levels which would necessitate gathering large quantities of food for winter storage, nor the level of of organization required for such operations. additionally, climate conditions and forest conditions, and tribal hunting and gathering practices were much different previously. per 1905 GPNF Annual Fire Report: there were 32 fires on the GPNF ( 1904-1905 ) , 16 of which were "indian caused": the largest being approx. 5000 acres just north of what is now "Indian Heaven". source: CM/MARD/GPNF/121407

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PostFri Dec 14, 2007 8:52 pm 
pest wrote:
wamtngal wrote:
Has anyone here heard of the Skokomish Watershed Action Team? Might be helpful to read their webpage. Not sure if this is the same area you folks are talking about though.
Thanks, great link. I saw the area on Pine Creek that they are going to log I hope they stay away from the old growth up there.
Here's the June 2007 Decision Memo, which says it covers 68 acres of second-growth stands approximately 45 years old, and appears to me to address all your concerns. Receipts will be used to decommission "0.6 miles of FS Road 2361", which I presume is the 0.6 miles between the old and new Upper South Fork Skokomish trailheads. If you recall from having hiked it in September, this section of closed road is eroding from the failure of two culverts. In greater detail:
Quote:
Treatments will involve: removal of six culverts; construction of cross ditches; placement of riprap at the outlet of all constructed drainage features (culvert removals and cross ditches); restoration of gullying resulting from diversion of water from the ditch; reconstruction of an intermittent channel; seeding and mulching; felling and retaining of hazardous trees; and trail construction to reduce sedimentation and erosion into nearby streams, including rock surfacing and water fords. Prior to construction, treatments will involve invasive species removal of known populations. In addition, following construction, disturbed areas will be treated to promote re-establishment of native plant species.
This is a very small project, but I'm glad to know it's happening. I climbed around looking at those culverts (they weren't just blocked at the entry, but throughout) and realized we (WTA) couldn't fix this with hand tools. So I'm glad ONF is doing so. p.s. FS 2353 and -200 spur from LeBar Horse Camp to the Dry Creek trailhead, which you were discussing above, are not listed for removal under the Access and Travel Management Plan. Various side spurs off them are, however, notably 2353-140, 2355-100 and -300, all of which are just above the lower S Fk Skok trail. (You hiked on 2355-100, just above Camp Comfort shelter site, earlier this week!)

"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir "the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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PostSun Dec 16, 2007 1:39 pm 
Quote:
Everytime we "manage" nature we only mess it up. All nature needs from us is to leave it alone.
i'm assuming from that statement you'd like to see the forests return to their "historic conditions" ( another term i'm going to be hesitant to use in the future, after my conversations this last week ). what were those "historic conditions", exactly? was the Puget Sound basin ( and western Washington ) covered by deep, dark rain forest full of gigantic trees for the last several thousand years? if so, is James Agee all wrong about his "big burn" theory? how does one account then for there being no western red cedar ( thuja plicata ) ( in western Washington )prior to 4000 years ago? ( pers. comm. GH/ONP/121407 ) if returning to "historic conditions" is a good thing: should we then say that maintaining previous levels of "old growth" is the objective? for the purpose of this study, 250 years was chosen as a baseline for an "old growth" tree: 1940* - approx. 220,000 acres of "old growth" on the GPNF ( est. ) 2002** - approx. 208,000 acres of "old growth" on the GPNF ( est. ) 2052*** - approx. 298,000 acres of "old growth" on the GPNF ( est. ) * - there was ( virtually ) no harvesting activity on the GPNF prior to 1940 ** - year study was done *** - assumes no continued harvesting of "old growth" ( pers. comm. BR/GPNF ( retired )/121507 ) ( I just received hard copies of this study: a *.doc (47kb) and a *.ppt (2.34mb). if you want a copy, contact me and i'll forward them to you. ) so, if left alone, we get a 27% net increase in "old growth", exceeding what we currently perceive to be "historic conditions". it is well documented and agreed upon by most of the academic community that a century of obsessive fire suppression has resulted in forests which do not reflect "historic conditions". it is also becoming apparent that there was far more human-caused manipulation of the landscape by native americans prior to pre-Columbian times than after, simply because their population numbers decreased so dramatically in such a relatively short time span. ( this is not necessarily the case in the Pacific Northwest, where European settlement came much later than in the eastern US. ) in either case, there was a significant degree of "landscape management" done prior to 1900. there exists evidence of human-caused fires at the Ahlstrom and Roose prairies at Ozette, and also at Neah Bay, Quillayute, and near Forks. ( no definitive evidence of geographic extent of areas burned, or of time frame of events. it is presumed fire was used for purposes of berry and root harvesting, and game hunting. ) ( pers. comm. PG/GH/ONP/121407) as mentioned above, there was a significant amount of burning done in the cascades. ( presumably for the same reasons as listed above. additionally, oral histories indicate fire was used as a weapon of war. ( see article below ) in light of a now commonly-held belief among academics: that fire suppression has been a detriment to overall forest health, as well as studies ( as above ) which indicate that non-management of forests will create different forest conditions than what might be commonly believed to be "historic", is it really desirable to do nothing? and again, part of what must be considered is that NFS was started by Pinchot and Roosevelt to "manage resources", not to "preserve" them. Forest Fire: A Snapshot History - Forest Fire/Wildfire Protection - Wildfire worries: Sweating in our dry state - REFERENCES ON THE AMERICAN INDIAN USE OF FIRE IN ECOSYSTEMS - Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments - A Burning Issue - Native Use of Fire in the Mount Rainier Forest Reserve Restoring Indian-Set Fires to Prairie Ecosystems on the Olympic Peninsula ( btw ( for you big tree lovers out there ) : there are remnant patches of "old growth" that escaped the big Cispus burns up on Yellowjacket and McCoy creeks, both of which run north-south and were not subjected to the prevailing east winds which drove the big fires up there. )

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PostSun Dec 16, 2007 4:23 pm 
This is a copy of an article which appeared in the Seattle Times Magazine on Sunday, October 28, 1951. S. W. WASHINGTON'S LEGENDARY "BIG FIRE" by Woodrow R. Clevinger Among the lore passed on to early white settlers of Washington's Lewis County by the Cowlitz Indians was their legend of the Big Fire. It was a sketchy story describing an incredibly destructive forest fire which seared 2,000 square miles in Southwestern Washington. From the little prairies to the east and south of present Chehalis, the Indians pointed to the eastward toward Mount Rainier. Swinging their arms southward to Mount St. Helens, they roughly bounded the sector of the Cascades through which the great fire killer had swept during a very dry summer in the days before the Cowlitz ever knew the white man. Foresters, loggers and native-born woodsmen in the area familiar with the natural history of the woods in the upper Cowlitz River country generally believe the legend as a true story. Scattered islands of large Douglas-fir old growth amidst a wide distribution of 150-year-old second growth are one indication of widespread destruction. Then there are archaeological remains of what was once a magnificent forest of giant firs 300 to 400 years old. These are in the form of huge charred snags and half-buried logs, now well decomposed and feeding the roots of the 150-year-old second growth which has grown up since the big natural disaster. Granting that the legend is true, this very possibly was the greatest blaze ever known to man in the world-renowned Douglas-fir belt of Western Washington and Oregon. The evidence of the fire-killed remains and the depth of ashes in the forest soil indicate that it happened 175 to 150 years ago. An estimated area of 1,250,000 acres was burned over. If this estimate could be proven by historical documents, it would exceed by four times the zone of forest destruction of the Tillamook fire in Oregon in 1933. In the Morton area of Lewis County, where much of the 150-year-old second growth has been logged recently for the tie-mill industry, the writer often has heard timbermen lament the destruction of the old Big Fire. However, others feel that it was fortunate for the small-mill operators. If the massive old-growth trees were dominant in the area today, small-millmen would not be in the lumber business. The big logs would be too large for their equipment. Furthermore, such logs would be too valuable to waste for cross ties and rough lumber. They would be exported to tidewater for plywood manufacture. In view of the present stage of forest depletion, the Cowlitz fire was a prodigious disaster to the state's natural-resource base, even though it occurred long before the first commercial lumber mill ever was established in Western Washington. There is a growing scarcity of No. 1 peeler logs of old growth for the plywood industry. It requires 300 to 500 years to grow No. 1 fir peelers. The Big Fire in the Cowlitz Basin destroyed at least 1,500 sections of such timber. The area of the great burn is very prominent in the first forest-type map of Washington, published in 1902. This early and now rare map of the state's forest geography was compiled by George H. Plummer, F. G. Plummer and J. H. Rankine. It shows a large and continuous burned-over area in the Cascade Mountains of Lewis, Cowlitz and Skamania Counties. Two versions of how the big burn started and behaved have been heard from the folklore of Lewis County pioneers. One account was told to the Edward Murray family by a young Cowlitz at Bremer on the Tilton River about 1880. He said the fire was started one summer long ago because of a feud between some clans of the Cowlitz and Nisqually Tribes. Disagreement and tension reached such a point that a group of the Cowlitzes decided to set a fire against the Nisquallies. With the intervening forest on the mountainous divide between the Cowlitz and Nisqually Rivers tinder dry, the blaze was started in a strong south wind. The point of origin was a place in the hills about 15 miles east of the present Chehalis. Fanned by the south wind, it became a tremendously swift sheet of flame. It jumped from ridge to ridge and the maelstrom of air drawn into the mountainous sea of flame dropped burning fagots all over the Nisqually country in the Bald Hills and Huckleberry Mountains. After blackening about 200,000 acres of the rugged hills of Central Lewis County and Southern Thurston and Pierce Counties, the blaze progressed into its most destructive phase behind a brisk northwest wind. Widening its front to the east and south, a terrifying wall of flame 30 miles in length came surging back into the Cowlitz country. It swept eastward up the Cowlitz Valley to the alpine forests of Mount Rainier and the high Cascades. Another tongue moved southward to the foothills of Mount St. Helens. The story goes that the burning continued for most of a summer and up to the first heavy rains of October. It was a fire on the loose in a tinder-dry primeval forest of old-growth Douglas-fir and Western red cedar. Another version is based on the legend told by a Cowlitz chief, LaQuash. It was heard by Theodore Meyer, an early settler at Alpha Prairie in Lewis County in 1858. Val Meyer, a son of this pioneer, now living at Montesano, recently reviewed the LaQuash story. The Cowlitz country was suffering a very dry year. Fishing streams of the Cowlitz Indians such as the Newaukum and Tilton Rivers were disappearing into their sands and gravels. Fish were not moving upstream from the sea. The wildberry fields were blighted, and the small, grassy prairies were parched. The Cowlitzes and their cayuse ponies were threatened with starvation unless the rains came. Some of the older Cowlitz men had heard from the legends of the past that sometimes large forest fires in mountains brought rain. It was decided to chance this measure by firing the dense timber of the Little Rockies in Central Lewis County. According to LaQuash, the fire was started on the side of Rooster Rock Mountain, just north of the present hamlet of Cinebar. Fanned by the south wind, a crown fire with flames nearly 500 feet high roared up the mountainside and within hours engulfed the hills. It sucked in brisk drafts of air and pushed a greenish-yellow mushroom of smoke miles high into the sky. However, no rain fell out of the great smoky cloud lifted by the terrific heat. Then, with a shift of the wind it became a great menace to the Indians themselves. Like wildfire in prairie grass, it ripped and roared for weeks in the Cowlitz country. LaQuash remembered the nightmarish weeks of dense smoke blotting out the sun. There was a confusion of men, deer, bear, cougars and other living things seeking refuge in the waters of the Cowlitz River. Fortunately, there were large bottomlands of alder and maple swamp which repelled the flames and sheltered camps of the Indians, as well as the animals able to escape from the steep ridges and uplands where the timber literally exploded with crown fires. Today it is hard to conceive of a fire of such proportions. Many have seen the horrible fury on a smaller scale in the 1933 Tillamook fire and the Forks fire on the Olympic Peninsula a few weeks ago. It is probable that through thousands of years the forests in Western Washington periodically have had their mature, 500-year-old growth cycles ended by great fires of lightning origin. With the arrival of man, first the Indian, then the Caucasian, the great Douglas-fir forest undoubtedly has had its normal cycle shortened by increased exposure to flames.

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PostMon Dec 17, 2007 12:46 pm 
Here is an interesting article on the damage caused to the Skok basin by logging and damns. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0160-8347%28199609%2919%3A3%3C501%3ADEOWWI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H Downstream Effects of Water Withdrawal in a Small, High-Gradient Basin: Erosion and Deposition on the Skokomish River Delta David A. Jay; Charles A. Simenstad Estuaries, Vol. 19, No. 3. (Sep., 1996), pp. 501-517.

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PostMon Dec 17, 2007 1:30 pm 
re: above URL: JSTOR's database isn't available to the general public. do you have an alternate URL where this report can be viewed?

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PostMon Dec 17, 2007 5:32 pm 
Of the many topics touched on here, one is of immediate interest:
ski wrote:
...there exists evidence of human-caused fires at the Ahlstrom and Roose prairies at Ozette, and also at Neah Bay, Quillayute, and near Forks... Restoring Indian-Set Fires to Prairie Ecosystems on the Olympic Peninsula
That paper reviews evidence that the Ozette prairies have been maintained by fire for over 3,000 years and, as a result, are "biodiversity hotspots—containing a species-rich flora and fauna that is unique", including the threatened Makah copper butterfly (Lycaena mariposa) and its main source of nectar, the swamp gentian (Gentiana douglasiana), which requires very sunny, open conditions. Ozette prairie fire history has been studied:
Quote:
The Prairies are treeless areas, dominated by a unique association of mosses, sedges, shrubs, and herbs, in an area where the climate is extremely favorable for dense forest growth... Abundant fire-scarred trees, charcoal in mineral soils and stratigraphic peat (including distinct charcoal layers), and soil development evidence suggests that the occurrence of fire is much higher than the “natural” fire frequency on the Olympic Peninsula. - Bach, Gutchewsky, et al., Evidence for Prehistoric Landscape Modification near Ozette, Washington: The Makah Were More than Whalers, 2003 Six sites in three different bogs were cored with a Livingston corer [found] charcoal occurring to depths of 100-200 cm [3 to 6 feet]. - Gutchewsky, 2003
ONP and the Makah Tribe have had extensive discussions over this issue (the Ozette Reservation is unoccupied, and is managed in trust by the Park), and have agreed "Any burning regime would have to be quite small and controlled; the rationale for using fire would have to be scientifically well founded." Olympic National Park's Fire Management Plan (Appendix B) proposes to conduct small controlled burns (about 3 acres per year, total 17 acres) of Alhstrom's and Roose's prairie, which are parts of the Ozette prairie area. Yet Olympic Park Associates opposes this, saying "the NPS must refrain from destroying the wilderness character by creation of artificial, i.e. human-created, landscapes". This utterly ignores millenia of Native American occupation of this area, and the unique ecosystem it has preserved. That's yet another example of how their blind, reactionary, adversarial stance harms the Park. A related, ongoing project restores small native prairies in the South Fork Skokomish watershed. In contrast, this is a good example of how cooperation and consensus can accomplish something positive.

"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir "the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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