When the smoke clears
At the expense of tremendous resources, we finally have the attention of the majority of not only the country but the world in regard to actually managing the forest and rangelands instead of the government’s hands-off approach.
A great portion of this nation is dealing with at least smoke if not the fire itself. For as long as I have been in the public eye, I have found folks from the West and shared stories about how we need to manage this resource, as in “log it and graze it,” or we would watch it burn. And now we are watching it burn, taking lives, homes and businesses with it.
The overall impact of the fires in 2020 will not be truly discovered for quite some time but immediately we know the “crown fires” are creating long term repercussions. Hank Vogler, from eastern Nevada who runs grazing sheep and cattle on federal land, has been warning us about what looms. He explained how the crown fire, which burns the forest from the top down instead of bottom up, truly has a scorched earth result.
I have been fortunate to be included on the Trump Ag Advisory committee since before the 2016 presidential election. I live in Nebraska, not exactly a great state for logging. I share that because I really have zero first-hand experience in the industry. However, in my time on the committee there has not been one single topic that more folks have reached out to me in desperation about than the mismanagement of the forest.
We have bankrupted great logging companies because people wanted to save every single tree. Another friend has traveled the country for more than 20 years now, warning folks about what will happen with these horrible policies. Bruce Vincent, a third-generation logger from Libby, Montana, has been shouting at the top of his lungs that the best way to save a tree is to use paper. By not utilizing the resources, by not managing and harvesting light fuels, we have created huge fuel loads. We must demand better management strategies for our future.
The largest landowner in the United States is the government. The concentration of the problem is on government-owned land. How did we ever get to the place where the government owns 1 of every 3 acres of land? To make matters worse, that amount is growing in ways that do not bode well for our future.
Back to Nevada. Water for the citizens and visitors to Las Vegas is scarce so the state government created an agency called the southern Nevada Water Authority. Their apparent goal is to rob all of the ranchers and landowners of groundwater and pipe it to Sin City. They have a history of bullying and intimidating ranchers into selling their property to them so they can acquire land and thus water rights. They are not good managers. They are simply water thieves.
In fact, it should be extremely troubling to all of us that any government agency is allowed to do this because it is illegal. From the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service handbook on rules of who can be issued permits, the rules are very clear:
“Grazing permits may not be issued to Federal, State and local governments or subdivisions thereof. Forest Service employees, their spouses, children and parents may only hold permits with accordance of code of conduct set forth at FSM 6174.1.”
When the smoke finally clears, it will be glaringly obvious that the real intent here is to remove ownership of property from citizens of this great country. The problem is that the same people who want to get that accomplished are yelling loudly that this devastating destruction is the result of climate change but nothing could be further from the truth. Once again, those responsible for horrible management decisions are trying to pass the buck.
There is no doubt that the climate has changed and that climate is affected in this situation by human interaction (or lack thereof) but that has nothing to do with Mother Nature. The climate change I am worried about is the storm brewing in the minds of bureaucrats and socialists sitting in cubicles in the East making decisions about resources they have absolutely no clue how to properly manage. If this isn’t evident to sound-minded people by now, it may never be. The only way this message will resonate is if we put more heat on the folks that really matter. Let’s help move the heat to where it will make things happen.
Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].
