Posted: 09/12/2008
NCPA: Federal Mismanagement a Major Cause of Wildfires
Reducing Federal Bureaucracy could Reduce Fire Risk
Dallas (September 11, 2008) - Federal mismanagement of U.S. forests has increased the number, size and cost of wildfires over the past decade, but the frequency and expense of wildfire damage could be substantially reduced by introducing market competition in the management of the nation's forests, according to a new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis.
"Private forest owners and managers would have the incentives to minimize wildfires and improve forest health," said NCPA Senior Fellow and an author of the report, H. Sterling Burnett. "Without bureaucratic federal rules, they would be able to take the steps that need to be taken."
The NCPA report, coauthored by NCPA Research Assistant Lani Cohan, concludes that tree density in forests is increasing, causing overcrowding which contributes to a continuing decline in forests' health and an increase in wildfire risk. One reason for the overcrowding is the dramatic decrease in logging over that past two decades.
Timber harvests in the 155 national forests have plunged 75 percent from 12 billion board feet per year in the 1980s to less than 4 billion board feet per year. The result has been dangerous overcrowding.
"Bureaucratic paralysis has led to national forests either being overused or ignored," Cohan said. "Bad laws as well as judges and politicians that are beholden to environmental lobbyists are keeping the national forests unhealthy and at-risk."
Burnett said private forest managers are better able to prevent and treat infestations that kill forests. "These private managers can promptly remove dead and dying timber and keep the number of trees at an optimal level," he said. "The U.S. government has shown it can't handle the job."
The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D.C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems.