Dr. Amy Horne of Saving the West to present at February meeting.

As part of the Alpine Biomass Committee’s program to educate agencies and the public on issues surrounding forest and watershed health we are pleased to announce that Dr. Amy Horne will be making a presentation at our February meeting.  Her presentation should be of particular interest to those that are interested in learning about how one organization is working to develop economic solutions to improve forest and watershed health.  Their moto: “Less Trees!  More Forests!”

Saving the West is a coalition consisting of the Center for the Study of Force Majeure, P’isew ‘Mangal, Sagehen Creek Field Station, National Forest Foundation, Shift Consulting and special advisor Amy Horne.  The supposedly intractable problems they are trying to solve are poor forest health, poor commercial value of the excess biomass in the forest, high greenhouse gas emissions and short lived air pollutants from wildfires, drought (although that problem appears to be solved at the moment), and the fragmented regulatory regime between local, state and federal governments and their multitude of agencies.  Their proposed solutions involve low impact, ecologically designed forest management projects, long-term job creation, support of a community-centric manufactured wood products industry based on renewable small-tree source materials, and the use of art to convey complicated climate change, conservation and resource management messages to a far-ranging audience.  More information on Saving the West is available here.

We will also be forming a Working Group to work with the Forest Service on their West Carson Project, and a discussion and short video on the Forest Climate Action Team’s (FCAT) draft report on the California Forest Carbon Plan.

The February meeting is scheduled for Tuesday February 1st  at 6:00 pm at Turtle Rock Park.

The Alpine Biomass Committee is supported by a grant from the National Forest Foundation with funds coming from Region 5 of the U.S. Forest Service.  This organization is an equal opportunity provider.