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Description

This is Soquel California’s Demonstration Forest. What the heck is a demonstration forest, you may ask? Showing the squirrels how it’s done? Well it’s run by Cal Fire and I think it sounds like a desperate attempt by Cal Fire to demonstrate how the counties should get their act together and not get burned to the ground through the simple problem of not properly caring for their trees. California’s got a bit of a problem there, what with the fantastic plant growing weather, mediterranean dry summers and famously large population of people who, for reasons I’ve never been able to understand, object to logging of any form. Cal Fire has fought disaster year after disaster year and the situation isn’t going to get any better unless people start thinning some brush. So Cal Fire logs their 8 demo forests, 71,000 acres worth and sells 30 million board feet of timber off it per year, which wikipedia helpfully adds is about 3,000 new construction houses worth. For reference, California builds about 60,000 new houses per year, so this is very much a drop in the bucket. But hey, it’s something. Cal Fire keeps the money and uses it for their programs & stuff. And they’ve turned the Soquel demo forest into a mountain biking extravaganza. Highly rated. They also run lots of ‘how to manage a forest’ programs to help educate people that trees need haircuts too. Trim your trees. Save your forest.

this message is brought to you by the Lord High Druid of the Urban Sustainable Gardening Society.

Description

This is Soquel California’s Demonstration Forest. What the heck is a demonstration forest, you may ask? Showing the squirrels how it’s done? Well it’s run by Cal Fire and I think it sounds like a desperate attempt by Cal Fire to demonstrate how the counties should get their act together and not get burned to the ground through the simple problem of not properly caring for their trees. California’s got a bit of a problem there, what with the fantastic plant growing weather, mediterranean dry summers and famously large population of people who, for reasons I’ve never been able to understand, object to logging of any form. Cal Fire has fought disaster year after disaster year and the situation isn’t going to get any better unless people start thinning some brush. So Cal Fire logs their 8 demo forests, 71,000 acres worth and sells 30 million board feet of timber off it per year, which wikipedia helpfully adds is about 3,000 new construction houses worth. For reference, California builds about 60,000 new houses per year, so this is very much a drop in the bucket. But hey, it’s something. Cal Fire keeps the money and uses it for their programs & stuff. And they’ve turned the Soquel demo forest into a mountain biking extravaganza. Highly rated. They also run lots of ‘how to manage a forest’ programs to help educate people that trees need haircuts too. Trim your trees. Save your forest.

this message is brought to you by the Lord High Druid of the Urban Sustainable Gardening Society.