Return grazing, logging to Sierra forest
George Whitmore’s critical assessment that the Sierra National Forest will continue to be managed for commodity extraction such as logging and grazing certainly verifies his disconnect with reality!
Preventing overgrowth through logging not only provides a healthy forest but also provides jobs and lumber to build houses. No doubt Mr. Whitmore lives in a house! Cattle grazing is also a positive.
Perhaps if logging and grazing had continued to be practiced, we would not be experiencing the current blight of dead trees. Evidence also indicates the frog population thrives where cattle are grazing.
It is time we, the residents of this vast expanse of the Sierra forest, reject additional controls on our public lands being promoted primarily from the Bay area and Southern California to establish miles of our backyards as a national monument.
If the forestry service and the Bureau of Land Management were to return to their maintenance practices of approximately 50 years ago, by keeping roads open throughout the forests, selective logging and appropriate control burning, it would be a “win, win” for all.
We do not need another national monument to restrict the use of our land!
Ruth Sellers, Mariposa
This story was originally published September 14, 2016 at 3:39 PM with the headline "Return grazing, logging to Sierra forest."