A Bureaucracy Nightmare | American Forest Fires Clip | EarthX - video Dailymotion

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EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/    Has the United States overprotected its forests to the point of disaster? Can too much really be too much?    About American Forest Fires:  Are government policies and bureaucracy the REAL fire starters in America? Are answers to a major crisis staring us in the face? Learn what brought us to this point, and the innovative solutions which could keep disaster from setting nature ablaze.    This clip comes from Season 1, Episode 1: "Burning Down the House"    EarthX  Love Our Planet.  The Official Network of Earth Day.    About Us:      At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.     EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.      EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/    Follow Us:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthxtv/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/earthxtv  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/earthxtv    How to watch:   United States:   - Spectrum  - AT&T U-verse (1267)  - DIRECTV (267)  - Philo  - FuboTV  - Plex  - Fire TV       #EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #Eco-friendly #Conservation #EarthxTV #EarthX

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00:00Without loggers, there was no one to clear overgrown forests or to treat areas that were

00:06increasingly beginning to look like fire dangers.

00:10And even if there had been foresters available, laws like the Endangered Species Act may have

00:15prevented the work.

00:17By 1990, they were saying, listen, we don't want to do any management.

00:22And so we could see even then that we were headed on a disastrous course that was going

00:28to have impacts for hundreds of years, if not thousands of years.

00:33Along with the Endangered Species Act, environmentalists were able to add additional constraints on

00:38logging and development in the forests, like NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act.

00:45Oftentimes we hear that the Forest Service can't get anything done because NEPA is in

00:49the way and it's taking too long.

00:51That law is there for a very good reason.

00:52We do want to be sure that we have environmental protection.

00:55While this can protect forests, in cases where it is applied overzealously, doing any

01:00management of the forests, including wildfire management, becomes difficult.

01:05Starting with the onslaught of environmental legislation and protective policies, we now

01:12have millions of acres of wilderness areas.

01:15So nobody can go in there.

01:17That puts 70,000 forest products industry companies out of business.

01:22With fewer loggers in the woods, even less land area is actively managed each year.

01:28Once the loggers were gone, the fuel loads grew dramatically, and without fire to regularly

01:32clear them, the forests were reaching a breaking point.

01:37In 1987, we had 2,300 lightning strikes strike the West Coast.

01:45And they started thousands of acres of fires.

01:49And in those days, there were loggers in the woods logging, and we probably put out

01:54three quarters of the fire.

01:57Then by 1990, they were saying, listen, we don't want to do any management.

02:03We started losing a lot of those natural fire cycles that cleared out, you know, a lot of

02:08the underbrush and those kinds of things.

02:11There's data that estimate that even back in the early part of the 1900s, somewhere

02:17between 30 and 50 million acres of land would burn every year.

02:21And then as we move into World War II, and certainly past World War II, that number really

02:28falls off.

02:30Let me put this in perspective.

02:31You have the National Park Service, you have the National Wildlife Refuge Service.

02:36Forest Service is bigger than both the park system and the refuge system combined, 193

02:42million acres.

02:43It was set up to have forests managed.

02:47Pre-cutting, businesses, et cetera, were foundational elements of the management.

02:55And that's changed over time as more and more preservation, hands-off philosophies, ranging

03:04from smoking the bear, I mean, you got to put out every fire, to you can't cut a tree.

A Bureaucracy Nightmare | American Forest Fires Clip | EarthX

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