Kimberly Strassel has some comments on the way officials in the USFS and other natural resources and wildlife agencies have screwed up, setting fires and planting false evidence of a species presence. Some are criminal, some are just inept, as in prescribed burns that get out of control.

The root of all this is in the increasing number of environmental ideologues employed in these agencies. How much easier would it be to fight fires if the stewards of the forests would build fire breaks and roads to allow firefighters to get to where the action is more easily.

The environmentalists, of course, blame the problem on the Smokey Bear campaigns in the past which have prevented fires and lead to overgrowth of underbrush, but then they also prefer anything to timber harvest. Sustatinable harvest and silviculture can also clear underbrush, insect infestations, dead timber, etc. and can make firefighting much more effective, but an environmentalist article of faith is that Nature does everything better and that any human activity is evil. Their answer is non-management, just let nature take its course. Let dead timber stand, even when it still has some value to forest products companies.

Ecosystems can never exist with human interaction, they aver. But aren't humans part of nature too? Don't we play a part in ecosystems when we manage them? We can be a positive player by fighting insect infestations, clearing snags and allowing only sustainable harvest methods, or we can go hands-off and let valuable timber be wasted, fires rage and threaten us. I vote for wise management.