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"Examining the Effects of Responsible Forest Management on Watershed Health" Technical Symposium Videos Now Available Online - May 29th The symposium, co-hosted by SAF, the American Forest Foundation, the Environmental Law Institute, the National Alliance of Forest Owners, Plum Creek, the US Forest Service, and Southern Lumber Manufacturers Association, featured keynote speaker Honorable Benjamin H. Grumbles (President, Clean Water America Alliance), and administrative, legal, and scientific panels in exploring forest connections to the Clean Water Act. Videos of each of the panels, along with the keynote address, can be found at this link.

Re-establishing Native Habitat on the Upper Gila River of Arizona for Southwestern Willow Flycatcher & Western Yellow-Billed Cuckoo.

An unprecedented 40-year experiment in a 40,000 acre valley of Yosemite National Park strongly supports the idea that managing fire, rather than suppressing it, makes wilderness areas more resilient to fire, with the added benefit of increased water availability and resistance to drought. After a three-year assessment of the Park's Illilouette Creek Basin, UC Berkeley researchers concluded that a strategy dating to 1973 of managing wildfires with minimal suppression and almost no prescribed burns has created a landscape more resistant to catastrophic fire, with more diverse vegetation, forest structure and increased water storage. "When fire is not suppressed, you get all these benefits: increased stream flow, increased downstream water availability, increased soil moisture, which improves habitat for the plants in the watershed. And it increases the drought resistance of the remaining trees and also increases the fire resilience because you have created these natural firebreaks," said Gabrielle Boisramé, graduate student at UC Berkeley's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and first author of the study. The Cohesive Wildland Fire Strategy supports management of fires where possible. Managing fires is part of the Cohesive Strategy vision: to safely and effectively suppress fires, use fire where allowable, manage our natural resources, and as a Nation, live with wildland fire. Read the full article and find the published study at: ttp://wildfireinthewest.blogspot.com/2016/10/wildfire-management-vs-suppression.html.