| 来源类型 | Article |
| 规范类型 | 评论 |
| Agent Green | |
| Stephen Albert; James Dellinger | |
| 发表日期 | 2007-08-14 |
| 出版年 | 2007 |
| 语种 | 英语 |
| 摘要 | August is the peak of the wildfire season in the Western United States. Last year, over 8 million acres had burned by the end of the month, and this year you can expect the evening news to be filled with even more tragic stories about wildfires spreading across the West, devouring people and property. Who’s to blame? Fingers often point to the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which controls over 250 million acres of public lands, an eighth of the nation’s total land area. Perhaps that’s why the BLM recently announced new measures to prevent wildfires. The risk is that in calling for increased use of herbicides to control the growth of vegetation, the federal agency courts legal action by extremist environmental groups. Currently, BLM treats a mere 300,000 acres with herbicides to halt the spread of invasive vegetation—more commonly known as weeds. Weeds, particularly those that are not native to the area, are a constant threat. They degrade soil productivity and choke waterways, deprive livestock of food, crowd out native plant species and, perhaps worst of all, increase the risk of wildfires. Weeds on western public lands are estimated to be spreading at the alarming rate of over 2,300 acres per day. BLM’s job is to manage public lands, protecting them for a variety of uses, including recreation, livestock grazing, and the preservation of wildlife habitat. Invasive vegetation is a major threat to public lands, and the worst weed in the field is cheatgrass. Originally from Mediterranean Europe, it grows up to two feet high in dense patches and quickly develops a root system that chokes out native grasses. Fast-growing cheatgrass also dries out four to six weeks before native plants, becoming incredibly hazardous and providing overwhelming amounts of fuel for rampant wildfires. Moreover, when wildfires ravage forests and prairies in the western states in the summer and fall, cheatgrass is one of the first plants to reappear the following spring. But when the BLM tries to fight this particularly ruthless weed, it has found opposition from a second foe: the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an environmental activist group. The Center’s advice: let the cheatgrass grow. Do nothing—even if that leads to more forest fires. The BLM frequently uses controlled fires to manage its lands, but it has found that fire actually increases cheatgrass growth. That’s why it’s resorting to herbicides. On June 29, the agency proposed to triple the number of herbicide-treated acres to 900,000 in 17 western states. It says this will reduce the spread of invasive vegetation while cutting the risk of fires. Nothing doing, says the Tucson, Arizona-based CBD. The Center promotes an extremist ideology that would sacrifice human needs to the needs of other species, plant as well as animal. The founders of CBD are obsessed with returning Western lands to the wild. Center co-founder Robin Silver has warned urbanites, “We will have to inflict severe economic pain.” Center conservation director Peter Galvin told a reporter, “We’d like to see belly-high grass over millions of acres.” The CBD ideology of ecological preservation is directly opposed to the BLM mission, which is to manage public lands for the public good. Loggers, ranchers, city and county officials and even school districts throughout the West have felt the sting of CBD lawsuits. The group has been amazingly effective in wielding its legal weapon of choice, the Endangered Species Act, which it invokes to halt road construction, new housing, and recreational and agricultural projects on behalf of species like the Andrews dune scarab beetle, the Ash Meadows gumplant, and the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard. Using herbicides to control harmful invasive plants like cheatgrass is endorsed by responsible groups such as the Western Wildfire Impact Reduction Center, an information clearinghouse on ways to mitigate wildfires. The Center says natural and man-made firebreaks can’t work unless cheatgrass is controlled by herbicide treatment. But that doesn’t move the activists at the Center for Biological Diversity. They blame invasive vegetation on the BLM, for allowing livestock grazing and road building on public lands. They also blame the Bush Administration—for failing to stop global warming! Over the next several months, as more and more wildfires burn out of control, the news media will show tearful homeowners asking frustrated lawmakers what they can do to stop wildfires. There are solutions that work—if we let them. James Dellinger is executive director of GreenWatch and StateWatch at the Capital Research Center. Steve Albert is a fellow at the Capital Research Center. Image credit: Photo by flickr user nbonzey. |
| 主题 | Uncategorized |
| URL | https://www.aei.org/articles/agent-green/ |
| 来源智库 | American Enterprise Institute (United States) |
| 资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/244415 |
| 推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Stephen Albert,James Dellinger. Agent Green. 2007. |
| 条目包含的文件 | 条目无相关文件。 | |||||
除非特别说明，本系统中所有内容都受版权保护，并保留所有权利。
