By Alex Daniels
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)

WASHINGTON — The federal government is spending too much money on putting out fires, the director of The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas testified Tuesday. Instead, it should spend more on forestry techniques that minimize the risks of a blaze.

Scott Simon appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in support of the Forest Landscape Restoration Act of 2007, which would direct $400 million over 10 years to clearing forests of small trees or dead trees that can dry up and ignite huge forest fires.

Such supporters as Simon think that's money well spent, when compared with the $1 billion a year spent on fighting fires after they've already started.

He told the committee how the conservancy, a nonprofit conservation group, teamed up with local and federal agencies and private organizations to create the Oak Ecosystem Restoration Team. Years of overgrowth in the Ozark National Forest had led to uncontrolled fires and insect outbreaks.

By clearing the forest, whether through prescribed burns or by using saws, the group restored 110,000 forest acres.

"There's a significant decrease in the wildfire risk," Simon said. "It's a much healthier forest." Members of the administration and the logging industry, as well as environmental groups, testified in favor of the bill. But they warned that it wasn't perfect.

Gail Kimbell, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, cautioned in her written testimony that the term "restoration" in the bill would have to be clarified, to focus on "healthy, sustainable, productive ecosystems for the future, as opposed to a return to a historic condition." She touted stewardship contracting, in which organizations, including private industry, local governments and utilities, agree to thin forests in certain areas.

Simon questioned the success of the stewardship program. He said thinning must be done on a "landscape" scale larger than the current contracts in effect to have a real impact. And a market-based approach doesn't take into account forests where fire is the greatest hazard, he testified.

Responding to a question from Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., he said potential contractors under the current program "are not bidding" because the application process is viewed as burdensome.

Nathaniel Lawrence, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York environmental group, said there was a strong "intuitive" basis for thinning forests to reduce fires, and that he supports the forest thinning on an "experimental" basis.

But, he cautioned, the practice had not been thoroughly tested.

Increased sunlight resulting from pruned forests and the ability of wind to travel through cleared areas without being blocked can dry wood into an ignitable fuel and spread fires more quickly, he warned.

"Thinning forests can actually increase fires."

Copyright 2008 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.