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others uncl</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Arial">Forest Ecology and Management 1 September
2016, Pages 84-95</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">[</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">This
issue is In Progress but contains articles that are final and fully
citable</font><font face="Arial">]<br>
<br>
Tamm Review: Are fuel treatments effective at achieving ecological and
social objectives? A systematic review<br>
Elizabeth L. Kalies, Larissa L. Yocom Kent,<br>
<br>
Highlights<br>
*Thinning and burning fuel treatments reduce fire severity compared to
untreated areas.<br>
*Treatments reduce wildfire carbon emissions but may not increase
total carbon storage.<br>
*Treatment effects on understory plants are highly variable.<br>
*Large data gaps remain in treatment effects on many ecological
variables.<br>
*Anecdotal evidence suggests treatments can improve outcomes for lives
and property.<br>
<br>
Abstract<br>
<u>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302626</u
></font><br>
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<div><font face="Arial">The prevailing paradigm in the western U.S. is
that the increase in stand-replacing wildfires in historically
frequent-fire dry forests is due to unnatural fuel loads that have
resulted from management activities including fire suppression,
logging, and grazing, combined with more severe drought conditions and
increasing temperatures. To counteract unnaturally high fuel loads,
fuel reduction treatments which are designed to reduce fire hazard and
improve overall ecosystem functioning have been increasing over the
last decade. However, until recently much of what we knew about
treatment effectiveness was based on modeling and predictive studies.
Now, there are many examples of wildfires burning through both treated
and untreated areas, and the effectiveness of treatments versus no
action can be evaluated empirically. We carried out a systematic
review to address the question: Are fuel treatments effective at
achieving ecological and social (saving human lives and property)
objectives? We found 56 studies addressing fuel treatment
effectiveness in 8 states in the western US. There was general
agreement that thin + burn treatments had positive effects
in terms of reducing fire severity, tree mortality, and crown scorch.
In contrast, burning or thinning alone had either less of an effect or
none at all, compared to untreated sites. Most studies focused on
carbon storage agreed that treatments do not necessarily store more
carbon after wildfire, but result in less post-wildfire emissions and
less carbon loss in a wildfire due to tree mortality. Understory
responses are mixed across all treatments, and the response of other
ecological attributes (e.g., soil, wildlife, water, insects) to
treatment post-wildfire represents an important data gap; we provide a
detailed agenda for future research. Overall, evidence is strong that
thin + burn treatments meet the goal of reducing fire
severity, and more research is needed to augment the few studies that
indicate treatments protect human lives and property.</font><br>
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>********************************************************************<span
></span>*********************<br>
"</b></font><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#000000">Some
people in the finance industry have a sniffy attitude towards
academics. (My favourite, probably apocryphal, exchange is as follows.
Hedge fund manager to academic: "If you're so smart, why aren't you
rich?" Academic to fund manager: "If you're so rich, why aren't
you smart?") But academics play a vital role; they are a generally
unbiased check on the pretensions of financial practitioners, with
enough technical knowledge to cut through the jargon with which Wall
Street can confuse the investing public. Academic views will change
over time; of course they will. But we should be glad they are
around.</font><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1"
color="#000000"><b>"</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1"
color="#000000"><b><br></b></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1"
color="#000000"><b
>http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2016/06/academics-and-inve<span
></span>sting<br>
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