The Kootenai has an average of 600 trees to the acre now. These trees are competing for water. Worse yet, when fire does race through the ecosystem these trees provide a fuel ladder that the fires climb up and access the crowns of the bigger trees. Forestry is an imperfect science that is evolving with time and knowledge like any other science. However, for 'Ish' to state that logging adds to the problem of forest fires because it allows sunshine to hit the forest floor asks the reader to ignore the similar role of tree removal by fire.
Some folks just believe that any role played by man is bad and any role played by nature is good.
Suggesting at this juncture that all logging should be stopped tells me that the writer of the missive posted to our list just doesn't like the hand of man. The writer has a right to their opinion, but to suggest that stopping logging would yield a sea of old growth from sea to shining sea asks the reader to ignore the history of natural and human caused disturbance and pine for a balanced, disneyesque ecotopia of the past that never, ever existed. After decades of listening to folks like 'Ish', the well intentioned public has been persuaded to demand natural management of the forest I live in through emotionally charged and politically correct mantra that ignores the reality of too many water pumps and a stressed, overstocked forest. We have had a normal water year and are living through an August from hell. Along with the trees, the soils in the forest are being incinerated and, come the rains of fall, we will get to watch blackened ash slide off the mountains and run into our streams.