Join Eco-Integrity Alliance on a short and easy guided hike (3 miles, no hills) at Flying J Ranch Park (40 minutes from downtown Denver, 9661 County Hwy 73, Conifer, CO 80433-4008) to enjoy the splendor of ponderosa pine forest, tallgrass meadow, and 150 acres of clearcut devastation courtesy of Jefferson County Open Space, Denver Mountain Parks, and your tax dollars.
Why hike through clearcuts when there are so many beautiful intact forests left in Colorado? Because the U.S. Forest Service is spending billions of our taxes to LOG UP TO 3.5 MILLION ACRES of our Front Range public forests—on top of Jefferson County’s misguided plan to log up to 25,000 acres or 40 SQUARE MILES of parks—under the phony guise of “wildfire fuel reduction.”
While wildfire is a natural and essential part of western forest ecosystems, the large wildfires we’ve been experiencing lately threaten our communities while risking—and all too often, taking—the lives of residents and firefighters.
Scientists studying the phenomenon, including those at CU Boulder, know these big fires are the result of HOT TEMPERATURES, LOW HUMIDITY, AND DROUGHT exacerbated by climate change and coinciding with HIGH WINDS.
The good news is that making homes “Firewise”—tending an area up to 100 feet around a structure, installing metal roofs, and other simple measures—can PROTECT 95% OF HOMES FROM BURNING, according to studies from USDA’s Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Sciences Laboratory.
Not only won’t this logging (and no matter what they try to tell you, it is LOGGING, as you’ll see with your own eyes) prevent the fires that menace our communities, studies show cutting trees can actually DRY OUT FORESTS by opening stands to sunlight and wind, SPREADING FLAMES FASTER.
For instance, the Marshall Fire outside Boulder—the most destructive in Colorado history—burned almost entirely through grasslands and residential neighborhoods, with hardly a forest to be found.
The truth is, logging forests for “wildfire risk” does more harm than good while distracting us from the actions that would actually save homes and lives, plus cutting carbon-storing trees is one of the worst things we can do for climate change, the main driver behind these large fires.
Come see what the Forest Service has planned for your National Forests and Jefferson County is proposing for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE COUNTY’S 32 PARKS, and find out how to stop this before it’s too late.
After the one-and-a-half hour guided hike, we’ll gather together under the picnic shelters to write public comments for the upcoming public hearing on the unscientific Jefferson County Open Space Forest Health Plan, which has yet to be approved by County Commissioners.
Attendees can also write letters to our Congressional district—Senator Bennet, Senator Hickenlooper, and Rep. Neguse—the biggest cheerleaders in the country for this misguided logging—or write a letter to the editor to your local media outlet (none of which have chosen to write a single article alerting the public to this impending logging).
Afterwards, folks can continue hiking on their own or as a group.
The hike will be led by Josh Schlossberg, Colorado Steering Committee member of Eco-Integrity Alliance, an all-volunteer organization with the mission of uniting national environmental movement through common campaigns of mutual support (Eco-IntegrityAlliance.org).
(DISCLAIMER: Citizens who want to log our parks have a right to their opinion. However, this hike is for those who wish to preserve our public forests from destructive logging. Any attendees seeking to disrupt the hike will be asked to leave the group.)
Eco-Integrity Alliance 