Healthy Forests
of Chaffee County

Committed to real protection of
lives, property and healthy forests.

“There’s no way we can remove enough trees … to have a significant impact on wildfire.”
— Tania Schoennagel, Ph.D., University of Colorado

“While extreme wildfire conditions are inevitable, disastrous community fire destruction is not.”
— Jack Cohen, Ph.D., U.S. Forest Service Fire Sciences Lab

We oppose absolutely the removal of thousands upon thousands of trees from our forests on public and private lands in the name of wildfire mitigation.

 

We believe:

  • The massive cutting of live healthy trees in our forests is not aligned with current science and is the antithesis of sustainability and the character of our wild wooded region.
  • Creative, less destructive, science-based fire mitigation alternatives exist.
  • The untidy nature of our healthy forests provides invaluable and irreplaceable natural beauty and crucial ecosystems for wildlife habitat, soil building, heat reduction and carbon sequestration, which reduce the harmful effects of climate change.
  • Cutting trees in the name of wildfire mitigation should not qualify for a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act.

We will not support a legacy of environmental degradation and outmoded thinking that compounds 130 years of forest mismanagement and ignores science supporting far superior fire mitigation practices.

We demand that the millions of dollars being spent to cut down trees in our forests be reallocated to projects that employ methods and techniques proven to protect lives, homes, water, soil and forest health.

On the left, healthy untreated forest; on the right, “treated” forest (Rodeo Road near Mt. Princeton). 

On the left, healthy untreated forest; on the right, “treated” forest (Rodeo Road near Mt. Princeton). 

Public funding provided by Chaffee County and the U.S. Forest Service paid a private contractor to cut these trees along Rodeo Road on Frontier Ranch, a tax-exempt resort property owned by Young Life, which reported revenues of $470 million in 2021.

The Envision Forest Health Council’s Coyote Valley Road “fuel break” “masticated” live piñon and juniper trees into mulch but overlooked abundant, highly combustible fine fuels.