About 50 years ago when "ecology" was first being widely taught in high schools, students as far back as then learned that it was good to keep the ground covered. The covering decomposed and enriched and developed soil; it shaded soil and its multi-thousand organisms. It reduced impact of rain drops that splashed and sealed the soil surface preventing percolation into the soil layer. It reduced evaporation and allowed rainfall to percolate into the hidden depths from which good water came. Wind rows, organic strips were planted near farm houses to reduce winds and thus maintain soil and water and reduce energy costs of living in the open land. Today people know about "mulch" and its effects on soil, water runoff, and moisture conservation. Keeping the ground covered is still a good idea for all of those reasons - wind, water, climate control, erosion control, and even food and nesting places for wildlife.
The recent movement to convert wood and grass and understory plants (biomass) into ethanol did not get the ecology messages in high school and the drumbeat becoming louder ever since. We have to keep the ground covered.
The president of the National Association of State Foresters recently said that permitting federal forest lands to supply feedstock to ethanol energy mills would provide many benefits. Somehow one benefit was "improved forest health" (denying the above functions and ignoring the nutrients and minerals in all of the materials being removed being lost to future plant growth). Another benefit claimed was reducing growth that could cause a catastrophic wildfire. Carefully managed and monitored biomass production in specific areas where transportation is energy-efficient for ethanol mills has to be a future possibility, but sweeping generalizations such as this from agency leaders has to be denied in the face of ecological knowledge as well as wildfire and prescribed-burning findings.
The same person said that the proposed Renewable Fuels Standard definition limited family-wage jobs in forest-based communities (as it should to protect forests and range lands for all of their many benefits) and then claimed it did not reduce "...the risk of wildfire that threaten as many as 64,000 communities in the U.S. each year." (There are only 25,375 communities in the USA.)
We have to tend very carefully the diverse, well-adapted natural covering of the land. Ancient societies have already demonstrated for us that destroying the cover of the land can accompany the social downfall. "If we had only known" will not work in a society with communication and education systems.
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