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<< Previous   of   Next >> Associated Press  (click to enlarge) Protection of matsutake mushrooms is a goal of a project to thin forests in Oregon to help prevent the spread of wildfires.   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Monday, February 9, 2009 Protecting mushrooms part of Oregon tree-thinning plan By Kate Ramsayer The (Bend) Bulletin CRESCENT, Ore. -- When the U.S. Forest Service plans projects to cut down trees and thin out vegetation, it usually has goals like reducing wildfire risks, selling timber or improving forest health. The Forest Service had an additional issue to consider for the BLT Project near Crescent -- protecting the matsutake mushrooms that grow there and draw hundreds of mushroom pickers every fall to pick and sell them. "The matsutake mushroom is culturally and economically an important thing for people," said Holly Jewkes, Crescent District ranger. During the planning process for the tree-thinning project, forest staff went to California to talk with people who come to Central Oregon to harvest mushrooms, said Joe Bowles, district silviculturist, to see where the important mushroom harvesting areas are located. The project is now in an appeal period. There's not a whole lot of information available about what the mushrooms need in terms of tree density or forest structure, he said, so the project planners tried to take a conservative approach and not log or conduct prescribed burns in some important areas. Mushroom hot spots where the Forest Service will cut trees will come with a requirement that all logging take place when there's snow on the ground, to lower the risk of damaging the fungi, Bowles said. The plan also calls for the agency to help answer the question of what makes good matsutake habitat -- the Forest Service would monitor the mushroom sites after the work is done to track any effects on the crop. "We'll look at if we went to a lower (tree) density here, and left it higher here, how the mushrooms respond," he said. The BLT Project -- BLT stands for Bunch of Little Trees -- is designed to try to help prevent catastrophic wildfires, insect outbreaks or disease from killing large swaths of the national forest, as well as to provide timber and other wood products, according to the project's record of decision. The logging part of the project would produce about 12 million board feet of commercial timber, Bowles said -- not as much as the 19 million board feet proposed for Crescent's Five Buttes project, which is the subject of a federal lawsuit. And the area encompassed by the BLT project has more smaller lodgepole pine than the Five Buttes area, he said, and does not include spotted owl habitat. "It's definitely a different environment," Bowles said. The Sierra Club is reviewing the decision for the BLT Project, said Asante Riverwind, with the group's local chapter. He's concerned about the 10 miles of new roads the agency proposes to construct, as well as the 22 miles of closed roads that would be opened to allow log trucks access, he said. And the organization will also take a look at the plan for where logging will occur, he said. Thinning out trees in lodgepole forests doesn't make sense unless it's near communities, he said, since wildfire is a natural part of these ecosystems once they get to a certain age. "It's just the way that system operates," he said. "It grows thick, gets hit by insects and burns up. There's nothing you can do to change that." READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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